Terminus Part Two

The one where Nyssa takes her skirt off...

At the start of this episode, the Doctor tells Nyssa not to let the Lazars touch her, for fear of contracting the disease that ails them. A bit later, Olvir says the disease is airborne, and they are already breathing it in, so theoretically, they're all infected. This would include Tegan and Turlough too, but nobody except Nyssa seems to show any signs of having the disease. Curious...

Olvir, who is supposed to be trained for combat, ran away when the Lazars broke out, but there's a very human reason for his apparent cowardice: his sister died of the disease. He says that Terminus Inc offers to take sufferers away to cure them, but nobody has ever returned having been healed. So where do they take the Lazars?

It's all quite intriguing, and is shaping up to be a story reflecting on the power and influence big business has over us all, especially the pharmaceutical giants who mass produce cures and medicines all the time, but also charge a hefty fee for them. You can have your health returned to you, but you're going to have to pay handsomely. Terminus Incorporated is the GlaxoSmithKline of the universe.

Olvir and Kari are adopted as unnecessary companions, and in an effort to get off the Lazar-infested space liner and back to the safety of the TARDIS, the Doctor and Kari split off from Nyssa and Olvir to try and find the exact section of wall that marks the interface. Unfortunately, Nyssa's not feeling very well, the effects of the disease taking its toll on her pretty quickly. "I feel as if I'm going to burst," she says, nonchalantly slipping off her skirt. This is a pretty legendary moment in Doctor Who history. Quite apart from the fact it barely makes sense as presented, it's also the moment that many a heterosexual fanboy first realised what side his bread was buttered on!

But let's stay focused and sensible (ha ha!): why does Nyssa strip off her skirt to wander around in her underwear for the rest of the episode? Well, it was originally written that Nyssa's stomach felt like it was distending, which explains the line about feeling like she's going to burst. In John Lydecker's novelisation there is only a reference to Nyssa tearing at her bodice, and there's no mention of her removing her skirt until the Doctor finds it discarded later on. It's smudged over quite inexpertly, perhaps because it would be unbecoming of a Doctor Who companion to be described in prose as taking off her skirt. It was OK to do it on TV though!

Of course, the removal of Nyssa's skirt has other narrative repercussions too, because when the Doctor finds it on the floor, there's only really one reason he might think of as to how it had come about. I know this is a family show, but truthfully, the average person might wonder: has Olvir sexually assaulted Nyssa? Particularly as the garment has blood on it, the Doctor ought to be worried about what the space pirate has done to or with his innocent young friend.

Nyssa is mistaken for a Lazar and taken aboard Terminus, home and workplace of the armoured Vanir. These whey-faced fellows have long, lank hair, and have the physical appearance of the walking dead, pale and exhausted. They seem to gain spirit and strength from phials of bright green liquid called hydromel, some kind of drug which reinvigorates them, and is provided by Terminus Inc. The actors playing the Vanir ooze lethargy from every pore: there's Andrew Burt (Emmerdale Farm's first Jack Sugden), Peter Benson (Bernie Scripps in Heartbeat), and former film star Martin Potter, one of the most strikingly attractive actors ever to grace the British cinema screen, but who is made to look like death warmed up by make-up designer Joan Stribling.

The Vanir are so listless that Valgard is easily overcome by Nyssa when she employs the old "I've cut my thumb" trick and fells him with one push to the chin. Sadly, she's immediately recaptured, and told she's off to meet the Garm. Nobody has ever returned from a meeting with the Garm, we're told, so who or whatever he is must be pretty formidable.

The Garm is a big dog. It's very difficult to keep a straight face as the red-eyed mutt ambles sheepishly out of the gloom to meet Valgard, who tells him to go look for Bor, who's wandered into the Forbidden Zone, where the big dog lives. The Garm is a big tubby doggo, with red light bulbs for eyes and two blatantly obvious air holes in the top of his head for actor R J Bell to breathe through. I think the Garm is based on a Schnauzer, but is ten times the size, with a belly to match. I can't quite believe Doctor Who did this, that they made a monster out of a big dog. Lydecker's book describes the Garm as a dog-headed animal, conditioned and surgically altered so as to get "maximum compliance and obedience out of it". So the Garm is a good boy.

While all this is going on, Tegan and Turlough spend the entire episode trapped in the bowels of the space liner, a subterranean world which exists wholly on film. I'm not sure how much fun it was for Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson to shuffle around on their hands and knees, achieving a grand total of nothing, but it's definitely not very interesting to watch. What a shame to waste these two characters in this way. On the face of it, it's a nice idea to have Tegan and Turlough - who don't get on - to be forced together in a tricky situation and made to cooperate. We get the tiniest inkling of the two having a bonding moment when Turlough pants: "I'm so unfit!", and Tegan chuckles, but otherwise the two characters might as well not be in the episode at all.

Why has Steve Gallagher introduced two new characters in Olvir and Kari, when he has two of the main cast at a loose end? Why not have Turlough take Olvir's role, accompanying Nyssa and following her onto Terminus, and Tegan take Kari's role, sticking with the Doctor?

Terminus is obviously Sarah Sutton's story, or rather Nyssa's. Although I've found Nyssa slightly less annoying in Season 20, I still don't think Sutton is a great actor. I mean, just listen to the lifeless way she delivers the line "What is this horrendous place?" as the Vanir take Nyssa down in the lift. She sounds like she's reading it off a cue card! It's great to have companions given their own star vehicles every now and then (Adric had Earthshock, Tegan had Snakedance, Turlough had Mawdryn Undead), but it's a shame Sutton struggles to rise to the opportunities offered her here. Let's face it, Nyssa is in a pretty desperate place, dying from space leprosy and seemingly out of reach of anybody's help. She's going to die, maybe from Lazar's Disease, maybe at the paws of the dreaded Garm, but Sutton's performance is as icily dissociated as ever.

First broadcast: February 16th, 1983

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The model work is impressive, combining miniatures with CSO to good effect.
The Bad: The Garm is a big, cuddly dog.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Three; Part Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site.

Terminus is available as part of the Black Guardian Trilogy BBC DVD box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Guardian-Terminus-Enlightenment/dp/B002ATVDBY