Day 303 — October 30th 2021
Terminus Parts Three and Four
Terminus — Part Three
I don’t know if the shine has come off a little today or if my expectations have changed, but I’ve found this episode less impressive than the previous two, and it’s certainly not entertained me half as much. I feel like it’s a case of my goodwill running out a little, because things I said weren’t bad yesterday have shown me up today by being a bit rubbish.
I’m talking specifically of the Garm. I’ll say that I actually don’t think the head looks that bad. It’s supposed to look like an old dog and it does look like an old dog, but sadly the costume has the effect of having been in storage for years and years. If you told me this is how it looked on display in a Doctor Who museum now I think I’d believe you — it looks a bit worn. I think it also suffers a bit today because the creature is asked to speak more, and the mouth isn’t the strongest part of the mask; it looks a bit like a puppet in those moments.
We also get clearer views of the creature from further away, which reveal him to be a pretty rotund sort of monster. I can’t decide if it’s a conscious decision to make him look cute and cuddly or just the result of the way the costume sits, but it feels at odds with the slightly starved look everyone else in the story has, and it was more distracting than anything else.
There’s some nice ideas in this episode but none of them feel like they get developed very far. I’m thinking specifically of the idea that the Vanir think Doctor Who could be a spy sent by the company which runs Terminus. I’d love there to be a bit more about this (especially as we know they’ll be rebelling against said company before the story is through) but it doesn’t feel like it’s developed very much beyond a few fleeting mentions.
Instead, the story throws in a whole different storyline in which it’s revealed that Terminus was responsible for the creation of the entire universe — the jettisoning of unstable fuel being the spark which ignited the Big Bang. That’s a great idea, and I love Doctor Who slowly working it all out, but again it feels like there’s no room in which to really develop it. It doesn’t tie in with the Lazars storyline, and the idea that Terminus itself is capable of time travel is something thrown in with a single line from Doctor Who. I feel like the story doesn’t know which narrative strand it’s more interested in following, so goes with both of them leaving no room for expansion.
5/10
Terminus — Part Four
In the end, Terminus hasn’t quite stuck the landing for me. There’s bits to enjoy in this final episode, but the biggest issue for me is that the two storylines — the plague ship and the threat of another Big Bang — never really marry up, so it’s hard to care about either of them. And having the whole second storyline in here really means that there’s not enough space for the plague ship stuff to resonate. The revolution comes in this episode because Nyssa basically says ‘the company doesn’t have to control the drug which keep you alive, it’s possible to make it right here’, which seems a bit… simple?
The thing is, I can see a version of this story in which that revelation might work. Feed in the idea that the Vanier don’t know how the company brings the new supplies to them, it just arrives from time to time, and then have the reveal be that it’s a by-product of the process in the forbidden zone, and one of the staff is bringing it out every week to maintain the status quo in which they have power. Heck, even better, have it revealed that there is no company, it’s that one bloke in control. I just want something a bit more, and there’s lots of moments in here which feel like they’re going to be interesting and important and just sort of go nowhere.
That’s the most frustrating thing for me — I think this could have been really good if it’d been stripped back and given the space it needs. And there’s things in here which do work. I really like Nyssa choosing to stay behind and help out because she feels as though she can do some real good. Her departure is given more time than any of the ones we’ve had in ages; since right back with Sarah Jane, really. She gets a nice moment with both Doctor Who and Tegan, separately, which feels very real and — surprisingly for a Trankenite — human.
Overall, though, it’s another 5/10 for this one.
