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.

Episode #125 : Mawdryn Undead

"Maybe the capsule's malfunctioned. I hate those transmat things. Like travelling in a food mixer and just as dangerous. I'd be afraid of coming out puréed."

Episode 125:   Mawdryn Undead.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough.
Air Date:         1st to 9th February 1983.

The Black Guardian recruits a young man named Turlough to assassinate the Doctor. Although outwardly an ordinary pupil at a boys' private boarding school, Turlough is in fact an alien who believes that the Guardian will return him home if he succeeds. The TARDIS meanwhile has its instruments jammed by a mysterious signal and is forced to materialise on board a massive spaceship in a fixed orbit. The Doctor discovers that the signal - a beam to guide the ship's transmat capsule - is being transmitted from Earth. He travels down to the planet in the capsule, leaving Nyssa and Tegan in the TARDIS with the co-ordinates pre-set to follow. Things go wrong, however, as the Doctor arrives in 1983 but the TARDIS materialises in 1977.

Mawdryn Undead is a very well written story utilising a plot element that has been ignored for the past twenty years of the show, that of the time travellers being split up into different years and how their actions affect the events in the later time zone. In this regard Mawdryn Undead is an excellent example of the sort of stories that could come out of the show if the writers put their minds to it.

The second well conceived element of the story are the villains. Mawdryn and his followers aren't villains because they want to kill, conquer or destroy the universe. They simply want to die but can't. Now that the Doctor has arrived they feel that they can both be freed from their eternal agony and get some small revenge on the Time Lords who did this to them in the first place. A villain who isn't out to be evil for the sake of it is a nice change.

The Brigadier returns to the show with this story, now retired and working as a maths teacher in a boys school. Bit of a departure from running UNIT but I guess retirement can do that. Mawdryn Undead does introduce the biggest continuity issue of the entire show, the infamous UNIT dating controversy. You can read about that here.

The character of Turlough is introduced in this story and by the end of it he has become a companion of the Doctor. Turlough is an alien for some reason not yet explained is being forced to stay at a private boys school though he longs to return home. He is coerced into aiding the Black Guardian in his desire to kill the Doctor for revenge following the Key to Time storyline.

Episode #124 : Snakedance

"Dreams are important... never underestimate them."

Episode 124:   Snakedance.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa.
Air Date:         18th to 26th January 1983.

Tegan falls once more under the influence of the Mara and directs the TARDIS to the planet Manussa. There the Federator's son Lon and his mother Tanha are preparing for a ceremony to celebrate the banishment of the Mara five hundred years earlier. The Mara takes control of Lon and uses him and Tegan to obtain from Ambril, the Director of Historical Research, the 'great crystal' - the large blue stone that originally brought it into being by focusing energy from the minds of the planet's one-time inhabitants. The Mara now plans to use the crystal during the ceremony to bring about its return to corporeal existence.

Snakedance is a sequel to the earlier story Kinda. Sort of. It uses elements of that story such as the possession of Tegan and some of the Hinduism but seems to forget where it came from before. Snakedance is definitely better than Kinda by a big margin but it doesn't feel like it really has much of a connection to its predecessor.

The biggest flaw I find is in relation to the Mara itself. Sometimes less really is more. In Snakedance the Mara goes from being some sort of dream spirit entity to being revealed as a psionic creature made up of the darker elements of mind from the old Manussan people. I found that this revelation weakened the concept of the entity and leaves me scratching my head when I look back at how it was shown in Kinda.

Lon is played by a very young Martin Clunes, many years before he would achive fame in Men Behaving Badly.

I cannot fault Snakedance in that it is esentially what I have come to expect from the show at this time. It is average in all regards though I give bonus points for some of the creepier possession scenes involving Tegan.

Episode #123 : Arc of Infinity

"You know how it is; you put things off for a day and next thing you know, it's a hundred years later."

Episode 123:   Arc of Infinity.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa.
Air Date:         3rd to 12th January 1983.

An antimatter creature has crossed into normal space via a phenomenon known as the Arc of Infinity but needs to bond physically with a Time Lord in order to remain stable. A traitor on Gallifrey has chosen the Doctor as the victim. The High Council, headed by President Borusa, decides that the Doctor's life must be terminated in order to avoid this danger. Tegan meanwhile arrives in Amsterdam to visit her cousin, Colin Frazer, only to learn that he has disappeared. She enters a crypt in search of him and is captured by a hideous creature, the Ergon.

Another classic villain returns... Omega! Once again he is trying to leave behind the anti-matter universe and return to our own. To do this he must bond with a physical entity and the Doctor has been chosen. There is no excuse given as to how Omega survived the events of The Three Doctors but he has, and this time with a much better costume design that makes him seem more menacing.

Tegan returns to the show after being fired as an air stewardess. We don't know why she was sacked and we never find out. My guess would be that she was vanished with the Doctor for a bit longer than she expected and couldn't explain why. Nyssa seems happy to have her back, the Doctor less so.

We get another look at Time Lord society and this time they live up to the corrupt reputation that later Doctor's would subscribe to them. They seem to have forgotten everything that happened the last time Omega showed up, or what good the Doctor has done, because they seem content to simply kill him rather than let him stop the menace that is growing. It seems very shortsighted of them really. One of the Time Lords, Commander Maxil, is played by Colin Baker who would eventually replace Peter Davison in the role of the Doctor.

One small niggle that starts to grow on me around about this time is where in time is present day Gallifrey? I have always assumed that the present for there is somewhere far far away in the distant future since you can't go past Gallifreyan present in a time capsule. But they seem far too concerned with events in the past if you get my meaning since both this story and The Three Doctors is set on 20th century Earth. It is never really explained and that bugs me somewhat.

Arc of Infinity is a good sequel to The Three Doctors with a far pace and some OK story lines. It does feel though that if the story had perhaps had another draft or two it may have been even better.

Episode #122 : Time-Flight

The Doctor [about the Concorde ]: "It's amazing."

Nyssa: "What?"

The Doctor: "This thing is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside."

Episode 122:   Time-Flight.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa.
Air Date:         22nd to 30th March 1982.

The Doctor finally manages to deliver Tegan to Heathrow Airport, where he gets drawn into investigating the in-flight disappearance of a Concorde. Following the same flight path in another Concorde, with the TARDIS stowed in the hold, he discovers that it has been transported back millions of years into the past through a time corridor.

The first season of Peter Davison as the Doctor ends on a low note with this story. It's a weak story that never seems to get off the ground and simply crawls along at a slow pace. The idea is interesting, with the Master trapped in the Jurassic using a time corridor to steal Concorde and putting the passengers and crew to work as hypnotised slaves. But it has numerous plot holes and additions that seem somewhat superfluous.

At the climax of the story the BBC were slightly cheeky. The Doctor and Nyssa are forced to take flight to escape some awkward questions but they leave Tegan behind at Heathrow seemingly left behind. Has she been dropped? Not at all, and in fact comes back in the first story of the new season. A nice twist at the time but it loses something now.

The Master is once again a waste of space villain. Ainley plays him spot on as always but the writing for the character is flawed. Again he seems to have set himself up only to have his plans come crumbling around his ears. If he is so clever why do his schemes never work out? You know that the Doctor is going to defeat him but I'd like to see his schemes actually be properly thought out for a change.

There are some continuity issues I have with Time-Flight as well. When the time travellers arrive in the Jurassic it is rather cold with hints of an ice age on the way. Well, that is way wrong and the writer should have done his homework. Also, this is the time when the Silurian dominion of the Earth is at it's height not to mention the dinosaurs themselves, neither of which are even hinted at except for a warning about "maybe we'll see a brontosaurus".

Time-Flight isn't the worst story ever but it is certainly one that won't be missed if you skip it.

Episode #121 : Earthshock

Cyber Lieutenant : "A Time Lord. But they're forbidden to interfere."

Cyber Leader : "This one calls himself the Doctor - and does nothing else but interfere."

Episode 121:   Earthshock.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:          8th to 16th March 1982.

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in the 26th Century in a cave system containing numerous dinosaur fossils. The Doctor's party comes under suspicion from a military force, led by Lieutenant Scott, who are investigating the disappearance of a group of palaeontologists and geologists. They are all then attacked by androids - the true culprits - under the control of the Cybermen.

After an absence of several years the Cybermen return to the show in a rather excellent adventure. This time their plan to halt a conference where different alien empires are joining forces against them, by blowing up the planet Earth. Due to the interference of the Doctor and companions their plans are stopped but not without cost.

This is the first serial to feature the death of a major companion. In this case Adric is the unfortunate soul who fails to get out alive. Instead he is stuck on board a freighter hurtling into Earth's past, becoming the course of the dinosaur's extinction. At the time it was quite a shock ending and even today that final scene still carries some weight. There are many who dislike the character of Adric but I feel it to be very unfounded. While he was a negative or naive personality at times, he was a good foil for the Doctor who is used to companions doing what they are told.

Speaking of companions, in this story Tegan gets her game face on for a change. She becomes a little more action heroine, grabbing a cyber weapon and going a tad gung-ho on the cybermen. While it may seem a little out of character it is nice to see her getting some spotlight again.

Now, while Earthshock is certainly an excellent adventure it is not without problems in the form of plot holes. If the Cybermen can plant a bomb on Earth undetected why do they need to sneak onto the planet via a freighter? How exactly does tampering with a computer send you back in time? Lastly, the crew of the freighter don't know who the Cybermen are and yet the conference the Cybermen want to stop is to unite different empires against them. Cybermen must be known for them to be such a threat. I think the writer got caught up in his story and forgot to check himself.

Episode #120 : Black Orchid

Sir Robert: "Superb innings! Worthy of the Master."

The Doctor: [alarmed] "The Master?"

Sir Robert: "Well, the other Doctor! W.G. Grace!"

Episode 120:   Black Orchid.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:         1st to 2nd March 1982.

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in 1925 where, due to a case of mistaken identity, the Doctor ends up playing in a local cricket match. The travellers then accept an invitation to a masked fancy dress ball, but events take on a more sinister tone as a number of murders are perpetrated at the country home of their host Lord Cranleigh.

Black Orchid is just the sort of story that every time travel show needs to have. With this one we return to a purely historical story with no science fiction elements. In the past I did grumble about them but here we have one that is so well made that I can find nothing wrong with it all. Coming in at the length of a modern episode does help I think.

The black orchid of the title is a flower brought back from the Amazon. It has no role in the story itself but is the ultimate cause for the events that the time travellers have found themselves involved in.

The story is perfect for the actors as everyone gets something to do, though Adric is perhaps left out just a little. Everyone fits in well with a 1920's environment whether it be Tegan showing off her dancing skills or Nyssa having a double in the daughter of the household. Even the Doctor gets to partake in a cricket match. Speaking of the cricket match, Peter Davison is a keen cricketer and he in filming a scene where he was the bowler, actually bowled the batsman out on the first take.

Some fans find the story weak but I cannot for the life of me see why. It has a well written murder mystery, some good character dialogue and comes in at just the right length. Historical stories in Doctor Who don't get much better than this.