A highwayman helps Team TARDIS defeat pandemic-plotting dinosaurs and their disco robot
Three wasted pincers, not how levers work, and Splinter King-Kongs Nyssa before she inexplicably exits the show
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When professional arse-hat, Turlough, sabotages the TARDIS, The Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan — and Turlough — materialise aboard a plague ship bound for Terminus, a mysterious space station at the centre of the known universe. What a coinky-dink, you might say, but we’re not done yet because a couple of pirate raiders have boarded the ship in search of treasure at just this time, found nothing of value, and have inexplicably been marooned there by their comrades.
Very slow fade to Terminus, where it transpires dumping the fuel cells would cause the universe to be destroyed and, wouldn’t you know it, bloody Turlough’s just gone ahead and prepared a nice, steaming dump. So while Tegan and Turlough learn what a TV dinner feels like, and Nyssa strips down to her underwear, the resident guards and an unexplained rodent slave nurse act out some petty, pointless charades.
(Listener Minis will be added shortly, as will the Vindex icon of that fabulous robot! Check back soon!)
This opens well. Tegan clashing with Turlough is nicely written and performed and that skull design is very scary. Also, we get a cool little robot. Actually, is it cool? Or terrible? I’m honestly not sure. But space pirates sound cool so let’s meet them! Oh. They are shit. Olvir in particular is woeful but at least Kari has good chemistry with the Doc. To be fair Davison has good chemistry with practically everyone – a perfect leading man.
The 4 actors playing the Vanir all bring something different to their roles but it’s such a shame their costumes are so noisy – you can hear those dudes rattling away from a miles away. Not sure what to say about the massive dog bear thing!
We say goodbye to Nyssa and she goes out with a striptease that is still to this day completely bizarre. But thanks! Shame it’s not a great story to go out on. She’ll be missed.
I always struggle to enjoy Terminus. Too grey and joyless.
Rating – 1.9