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Terminus
daveyboy7472
Posts: 16,420 Forum Member
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As with all three Seasons that featured Davison, the best story of the Season was immediately followed by the worst. In the case of Terminus it is also the worst story of the entire Davison Era for me, yes, even worse than Time-Flight! :eek::D
The very simple reason I dislike this story so much is that it just bores me to tears. The pace is agonisingly slow, the incidental music is just awful. Tegan and Turlough spend most of the story stuck under the grilling and just the whole look of the story is really dull, drab and bleak, which I guess it had to be given the nature of the story but it really didn’t help.
The story starts of okay in the TARDIS Scenes as Turlough indulges in a spot of sabotage at The Black Guardian’s bidding. What annoys me straight away is that we have no explanation of Turlough's reconnection with the BG. the only indication we have of past events is the white cube, which has repaired itself after the damage at the end of the previous story. After these early exchanges the Trilogy Central plot takes a back seat throughout the story which is disappointing after the effectiveness of it in Mawdryn Undead.
Tegan then nearly catches him as the distrust between the two is setup and taken on further than in Mawdryn Undead.
Nyssa gets trapped in her room as the TARDIS joins up with Terminus and after nearly five minutes The Doctor belatedly appears on the scene. It’s the point where they all go aboard Terminus that the story really starts to go downhill and from then on, it just becomes one big snorefest. The only highlight(or lowlight if you please) is Nyssa mysteriously dropping her skirt.
Kari and Olvir are not exactly the most exciting characters in the world but it’s interesting to note again in this era that Davison is given a companion for the story other than the three he already has. Unlike Dr Todd and Richard Mace, Kari is not one guest companion I would like to have seen more of despite Lisa Goddard's performance. Olvir is even worse with painful delivery of his dialogue and some dodgy 80's hair.
The Vanir are not much better though the battle between Eirak and Valgrad is one of the better aspects of the story. Valgard does at least have a small streak of black humour. His persistent attempts to try and attack The Doctor do become boring after a while though.
The best character of the story for me is Bor, who gives the story some much needed light relief, though not in a comic sense. The only other character of note is the Garm, who is a bit too cute and cuddly to be scary.
Off course, this is Nyssa’s last story and despite the skirt dropping Sarah Sutton turns in a decent performance. I would have liked a better exit for her but there’s no doubt her goodbye was quite a sad one. Indeed the last five minutes were more interesting than the last four episodes put together as aside from Nyssa’s farewell, there was an unexpected ending as The Black Guardian issues a final warning to Turlough to kill The Doctor.
But I’m afraid I can’t find anything else positive to say about Terminus. It’s as bad a story as Mawdryn Undead was good. At least with Time-Flight, it was an interesting watch despite being a bad story. This story isn’t even that. By some considerable margin the worst Davison story for me but at least even in the worst of stories Davison never puts less than 100% into his performance, with only Four To Doomsday being the only one where he was under par, naturally enough as it was his first recorded story.
The very simple reason I dislike this story so much is that it just bores me to tears. The pace is agonisingly slow, the incidental music is just awful. Tegan and Turlough spend most of the story stuck under the grilling and just the whole look of the story is really dull, drab and bleak, which I guess it had to be given the nature of the story but it really didn’t help.
The story starts of okay in the TARDIS Scenes as Turlough indulges in a spot of sabotage at The Black Guardian’s bidding. What annoys me straight away is that we have no explanation of Turlough's reconnection with the BG. the only indication we have of past events is the white cube, which has repaired itself after the damage at the end of the previous story. After these early exchanges the Trilogy Central plot takes a back seat throughout the story which is disappointing after the effectiveness of it in Mawdryn Undead.
Tegan then nearly catches him as the distrust between the two is setup and taken on further than in Mawdryn Undead.
Nyssa gets trapped in her room as the TARDIS joins up with Terminus and after nearly five minutes The Doctor belatedly appears on the scene. It’s the point where they all go aboard Terminus that the story really starts to go downhill and from then on, it just becomes one big snorefest. The only highlight(or lowlight if you please) is Nyssa mysteriously dropping her skirt.
Kari and Olvir are not exactly the most exciting characters in the world but it’s interesting to note again in this era that Davison is given a companion for the story other than the three he already has. Unlike Dr Todd and Richard Mace, Kari is not one guest companion I would like to have seen more of despite Lisa Goddard's performance. Olvir is even worse with painful delivery of his dialogue and some dodgy 80's hair.
The Vanir are not much better though the battle between Eirak and Valgrad is one of the better aspects of the story. Valgard does at least have a small streak of black humour. His persistent attempts to try and attack The Doctor do become boring after a while though.
The best character of the story for me is Bor, who gives the story some much needed light relief, though not in a comic sense. The only other character of note is the Garm, who is a bit too cute and cuddly to be scary.
Off course, this is Nyssa’s last story and despite the skirt dropping Sarah Sutton turns in a decent performance. I would have liked a better exit for her but there’s no doubt her goodbye was quite a sad one. Indeed the last five minutes were more interesting than the last four episodes put together as aside from Nyssa’s farewell, there was an unexpected ending as The Black Guardian issues a final warning to Turlough to kill The Doctor.
But I’m afraid I can’t find anything else positive to say about Terminus. It’s as bad a story as Mawdryn Undead was good. At least with Time-Flight, it was an interesting watch despite being a bad story. This story isn’t even that. By some considerable margin the worst Davison story for me but at least even in the worst of stories Davison never puts less than 100% into his performance, with only Four To Doomsday being the only one where he was under par, naturally enough as it was his first recorded story.
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It was a welcome change of pace after the absurdly busy and convoluted plotting of Mawdryn, and the basic ideas behind Terminus intrigued me. It plays out like a genuine SF story, the likes of which we've not seen since Warriors' Gate, also written by Steve Gallagher. Nearly all the characters also have convincing and believable backstories - another big plus for me.
Yes it's a little slow, and Tegan and Turlough are shunted aside and replaced by Kari and Olvir, who then fulfill pretty much the same roles as T&T should have, but Fielding and Strickson actually come over rather well whilst stuck under the floor. Their relationship seems quite natural and well played. Also well realised are the Vanir (great design on their costumes too). I could well believe that they were all exhausted and hugely fed up with their lot. Used and cast aside by Big Business, a nicely cynical 80s concern. Bor is played brilliantly by Peter Benson (who around the same time also played Henry Tudor in the first episode of The Black Adder, in almost exactly the same befuddled manner). His disappointment at thinking he was dead is wonderful 'Is this the other side? I was expecting something better...'
We could perhaps have done without the Big Bang subplot, which simply adds a Big Problem To Solve to a story that doesn't really need one. The Doctor doesn't need to save the whole Universe from destruction every four weeks. Just sorting out the Lazar cure would have been enough for this story and would have allowed the story to remain focussed on the human angle.
There are problems, and Terminus is one of the weakest stories this season - the pacing is off, it's lumbered with some dreadful music, the Garm (never properly explained, although I don't mind his cuddly appearance), the lighting is mixed (the Vanir areas are fine, but the clinical white of the rest of the ship is too unforgiving - ok it makes sense from the sterlising, hospital ship point of view, but in televisual terms it's way too harsh), and Kari and Olvir are two of the wettest space raiders ever seen on TV, plus their acting is horridly stagey. However, Olvir's dispairing cry at the end of part one, 'we're on a leper ship' makes for a very effective, and really quite chilling, cliffhanger as the terrible realisation hits home.
Sarah Sutton gives an ok performance in her last story - pretty though she was (and still is actually) she'd never convinced me as Nyssa, always sounding rather wooden and unengaged. Here she really needs to be enraged by the injustice of the Company's treatment of the lazars, and fired up by the knowledge that she can really make a difference. But her lines to that effect are delivered so flatly that it's hard to feel involved with her story. Skirt dropping? Storywise it makes little sense, but I was 15 at the time so a logical reason wasn't uppermost in my mind...
But overall I don't dislike Terminus, and would rate it higher than Four To Doomsday, Time Flight, Arc Of Infinity, Warriors Of The Deep, Kings Demons and Planet Of Fire.
Episode one is actually extremely good...there are some issues with what came afterwards. You did sort of want to throw the Garm a stick!
It's maybe a bit dark for some - and I think the one problem I do have with the story is that awful juxtaposition of the grimy, grittiness of Terminus itself and the glam-rock pirates. They just don't work at all. Again, not the writer's fault.
The reason for Nyssa's impromptu striptease is explained in, what is for me, one of the best Doctor Who DVD commentaries in the entire range, so my advice for anyone who can't quite bear to sit through Terminus again is to stick team Davison on and listen to some cracking - and informative - banter.
Might buy the DVD and watch it with the commentary on - as team PD are always very amusing to listen to.
'A burden shared is a ... something or other.'
if any story during the Davison era highlighted that 3 companions simply didn't work it's Terminus you really are left with the impresion that the production team had given up triing to shoe horn all 3 companions into the plot. Very dull and boring story .
'Right, what do we do with Turlough and Tegan then?'
'Eh, stick 'em under the floor and we'll think of something later!'
All that springs to mind is studio-based, lots of obligatory corridors, Tegan and Turlough spending an eternity underneath all the "action", and a semi-naked Nyssa kissing goodbye to everyone.
Not one of the good ones in my eyes
Despite?!?!!? I thought you liked the Doctor who ladies Daveyboy?
Other than that, we probably agree on a story for the first time (it had to happen eventually
Actually, this one had a potentially nice idea with the prison ship, and the plague uniform armour is very eye catching. Now, if you had given this concept to Robert Holmes it could really have shone. Imagine his cynical, grizzled slave labour pilots. Add that to a tight plot and it could have been fantastic. Okay, in fairness, you could say most Doctor Who stories would have been improved by being written by Robert Holmes, but there you go
Yes, what makes it worse is that all three companions are then replaced by Kari, which I think is a tad insulting. Thankfully this was the last time we were to see the three companion setup.
:eek::eek:
Sop The Presses everyone! There's breaking news! Tom Tit in agreement with daveyboy shocker! :eek::eek::D
You know, when I read your comments on Mawdryn Undead I groaned, I so thought you would love Terminus as I don't like it but it's very pleasing to agree on at least one story!
With Sarah Sutton, I liked Nyssa but I have to admit I never found her very sexy as a companion and that isn't helped by the costumes she was given to wear in the show so even though I lurrrrvvvveee several Doctor Who ladies, Nyssa was never really near the top of the list for me.
Yes, you can do lots of running around corridors and still have an interesting story as the following adventure proved. It's all down to the execution on screen and that's where terminus fails. I too think it could have been a lot better, it certainly has potential but it's not the only story in Davison's Era to be like that, there's a couple of later ones further on which have the same problem.
And Robert Holmes would definitely have improved this story, I can well imagine Kari and Olvir being very much in the mould of Jago and Litefoot or Glitz and Dibber!
Anyway, all this agreeing with you is making me dizzy. I'm off for a lie down!
Well, it probably won't happen again for a while as I know the 5th Doctor is your favourite era and my least favourite :rolleyes: Actually, i'm refraining from commenting on most of these threads as (it may shock some people) I don't like making negative posts all the time and there's not many stories from this period I care for. I'm only commenting on the Black Guardian stories as I recently rewatched them so they're fresh in my memory (and Earthshock I just couldn't resist
Just as an adendum to the topic of how boring Terminus is I would note that the first time I watched it I didn't even notice nyssa take off her skirt. That's how much it was struggling to keep my interest. Nyssa isn't really one of my favourites either, so i don't find the scene terribly sexy but I do think it was cool that it was apparently Sarah Sutton's idea.
I don't know about downloading, but I watched it online on a certain website. Type "Terminus Part 1" into Google and it's the first link.
DISCLAIMER: I now own the DVD of Terminus along with the rest of the Black Guardian Trilogy and you should do the same for obvious reasons (I can't be seen to promote piracy etc.)
It's definitely the weakest of the trilogy, but I quite like it. It has a certain gritty sci-fi feel to it. At times it can be quite dull, but there are some good moments and good ideas.
The commentary on the DVD is well worth a listen, as it's clear from Stephen Gallagher that his original vision for the story was - as is so often the case with classic Who - never realised.
His explanation for the Nyssa-skirt-dropping scene makes perfect sense, and whilst I'll never be a massive fan of Terminus, I now hate it slightly less than I did upon first seeing in in 1983.
The exploring of Tegan and Turlough's edgy relationship is well acted and the guest cast are generally good...especially Peter Benson as Bor. Nyssa's given a good, brave, in character farewell which always makes my eyes water a bit and, well, Sir Peter's in it and is always eminently watchable.
Why on earth would you wish to offend the BBC, and its global merchandising, by downloading any episode of Doctor Who for free, rather than pay a commercial rate at (say) £20 for Blue Ray for one of the most economical stories ever?
Turlough generally being shifty, mainly in the first episode and near the end.
Turlough's line to Tegan about using her Sledgehammer tactics.
Kari is a decent enough character played by Liza Goddard, she spends a fair bit of the story in the Doctor's company and they get on quite well as a duo.
Nyssa's farewell is decent enough also, I like Nyssa as a companion and is a good send off and well acted by all I think. Leaving a threesome of the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough which on the balance of things left a good balance and was the right decision all round for Nyssa to leave at this point of the program.
There is not much else I can recommend really. Terminus is a very dull, poorly executed and written serial. I can't help thinking back to Steve Gallagher's previous story Warriors Gate, which I find wonderful nonsense this is just dour nonsense with flawed plot, story, production values and lacking any dramatic tension. Some of the ideas behind the script are decent ones to use and flesh out such as the Lazar's disease, the greedy uncaring corporation running it, the slave labourers but it just doesn't come through via the finished piece.
The scenes with the Black Guardian feel as if they are just included for the sake of it and add nothing to the loose Black Guardian Trilogy arc.
The weakest story in Season 20 by a huge margin and a low ranking Davison story I think,