Episode #126 : Terminus

"If we don't do something quickly, the whole universe is going to be destroyed!"

Episode 126:   Terminus.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough.
Air Date:         15th to 23rd February 1983.

The TARDIS attaches itself to a space liner after Turlough, still under the Black Guardian's influence, damages its controls. The Doctor and Nyssa meet two space pirates, Kari and Olvir, who have come on board the liner in search of plunder, while Tegan and Turlough get lost in the infrastructure. The liner docks with what appears to be a hulk floating in space. This is Terminus, which claims to offer a cure for lazar disease. It is crewed by a group of armoured slave workers, the Vanir, while the cure is administered by a huge dog-like creature known as the Garm. Nyssa, who has contracted the disease from sufferers transported aboard the liner, discovers that the cure - involving exposure to radiation - does actually work. The Doctor and Kari meanwhile learn that the ship, once capable of time travel, was responsible for the creation of the universe when an ejection of fuel from one of its engines caused the 'big bang'. Aided by Kari and the Garm, the Doctor is able to disconnect a still active but damaged engine that is on the point of exploding - something that could result in the universe's destruction.

I rather enjoy this story even though in all honesty nothing really happens in it. The Black Guardian is up to his old tricks again although he seems rather impotent in this one. If he is so all powerful why does he need a weak willed scapegoat like Turlough to do his dirty work? The plot is solved rather too quickly though we do have some suspense as the ship nearly recreates the Big Bang!

Nyssa elects to remain behind on Terminus as her skills could help with the cure for the disease and so we lose her as a companion. She was a good companion to start with but as time as gone on, she has lost that spark that made her so good when she first joined the Doctor. It's a weak fair well right at the end of the episode and then she is gone.

The Doctor still doesn't seem to notice that Turlough is up to something even though Tegan seems to have him figured out already. You would have thought that he would listen to a long term companion when she raises concerns. Turlough is very much a coward not in keeping with the Doctor's usual companions.

Terminus gives us the main explanation for the Big Bang in the Whoniverse though it still has plot holes left unanswered, such as what existed before the explosion since we know there was a universe before hand? Was Terminus once part of that universe and then pushed forward into ours? These and other questions are just left hanging for those of us who pay attention to the minutiae.