(595) Terminus - Part 4

Todays episode is the final episode of 2014 and also the final episode for Sarah Sutton. The thing that strikes me about this episode is how long it takes to get going. There seems to be an awful lot of not much happening. It takes about ten minutes before the episode seems to have a purpose and it also coincides with the first appearance of Nyssa. This is done when Nyssa comes to the realisation that there is no real system in place for treating people. In the course of a couple of minutes she discovers her purpose in life. She’s done more in a couple of minutes in this episode than she did in the previous three. Nyssa is about to create the green stuff that Valgard and his guys need and with that able to create a cure for Lazars disease. It feels like at this point that she has started to say her goodbyes.

It seems that Valgard has undergone a character transformation in such a short amount of time. He went from being a rather brash individual to someone who was quite willing to work with other people. It’s a shame that it came so late in the episode but it was still fun to see. The thing I liked about how this episode ended is that it didn’t end with Lazars being cured but the idea that things were going to be better and after all the grimness that there had been for the last few episodes, it was nice that a bit of optimism was allowed into the episode.

The goodbye between the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan is quite emotional. It’s made sad because Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton really do make it feel genuine. Peter Davison’s reaction is funny because the Doctor doesn’t want to lose Nyssa and is perhaps still gutted that he had to take Tegan back.

The episode ends with a strange cliffhanger. Its strange because we don’t normally get proper cliffhanger and yet this episode ends with the Black Guardian ordering Turlough to kill the Doctor. What a great way to end 2014. At least it does attempt to try and bring the purpose of the story arc back to the centre of people’s mind. I do think that the idea of Turlough trying to kill the Doctor is falling apart and it is something that is going to get in the way of the next story.

The past 365 episodes have been a wide selection and it’s weird to think that by this time next year the marathon will be over. The first episode of 2014 was the final part of ‘The Krotons’ which I think we can all agree is a bit of a rubbish episode and at least the year ended on a high note. It’s sad to say goodbye to Nyssa because I have really liked the character and she has been one of the best companions in Doctor Who. It has been frustrating sometimes with the way that the character has been treated because she has been put to one side because she is smarter than other people. Thankfully such problems don’t occur in the Big Finish plays that she does but that’s it for Nyssa and the TARDIS crew is back to just being a trio.

(594) Terminus - Part 3

Penultimate episode of the year and of Sarah Sutton’s time on the show. After being surprised about how much I have not hated this story, I was worried that it was going to go all badly wrong but that didn’t happen. The cliffhanger from the previous episode wasn’t great and to be honest it wasn’t dealt with in a good way. Kari saves the day but she does it in a rather over the top way. She fires at something that bounces it and it hits Valgard. There is a bit of fun which probably in other stories that I would have really been annoyed with but it works in this story and its that the Doctor and Kari are thought to be from the company that hired Valgard and his group. They are not being treated properly and try to find out what they know. There is also a power struggle between Valgard and Eirak with Valgard saying that if Eirak finds them then he will be leader.Olvr seems to have matured quite quickly after being a scaredy cat in the first episode and not being much better in the last episode its great to see him finally man up.

Nyssa’s bad luck continues. She continues to be with the lazars and then at one point is chained up to be picked up by the robotic wolf. Considering that this is her final story, it would have been nice if Nyssa had been more active in this adventure instead of being as sidelined as she seems to have been. When she is allowed to do something she still does it quite well. She shows the caring side which is something that has been at the core of the character and Sarah Sutton has done this well from the very beginning.

Tegan and Turlough finally make it out of the tunnel. It’s been quite an odd time for them because they have managed to bond yet not change the dynamic of their relationship that much. There is a brief moment with the Black Guardian although we only hear him but it does seem like an add on. Out of the four regulars it seems that despite being on screen for a long time, the Doctor doesn’t actually feel like much of a presence.

The purpose of the ship is explained some more and it implies that the ship caused the Big Bang. This is quite a impressive idea and follows the equally impressive yet but not as well told idea for Mawdryn Undead. As the episode ended, it did feel like the final episode was about something and this episode did a good job of building up to it. The cliffhanger was much better in todays episode because it actually had some sense to it and importance to it. As 2014 comes to an end, its good that it ends with a surprisingly good story. As I mentioned at the start of the episode one, I have ever really held this story high regard and whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to say this was story of the season but I still think that this story has highly improved upon watching.

(593) Terminus - Part 2

Nyssa’s final story is still one that is lacking any humour. After the announcement that they are on a ship with people contracting a deadly disease things get decidedly worse. Nyssa manages to shed her skirt meaning that its not technically a costume that she’s wearing. She has become infected and so it seems like she’s going to meet a grim ending. The only positive for Nyssa is that she finished the episode with more clothing than when she started and she has the healthiest complexion of anyone in that room. Tegan and Turlough are side-lined for most of the episode as they use tunnels to try and escape the lazars.

The episode sees other people introduced into the story and they don’t seem any better off than Kari and Olivr that we saw in the previous episode. I did like Olivr a bit more in this episode as there seemed to be a bit more effort put into why he was perhaps not as brave as he should be in his position. I still think that Liza Goddard is the better of the two. Of the new characters, its difficult to actually tell them all apart because they are all quite glum and they all look the same. The costumes that they have to wear aren’t the greatest because they keep clunking together everytime they move and it becomes distracting after a while. The masks they wear are quite impressive and suit the part very much.

What is also introduced is a big wolf thing with red eyes that doesn’t quite work. It doesn’t move or act right which might be a weird thing to mention but its true. It is perhaps the best thing that it didn’t speak because a silent massive wolf is perhaps the best thing that could be done to introduced what is going to be used more than once in this story.

The episode ends with the Doctor being strangled which is an odd cliffhanger because it does seem to have been building up from anything. Kari and the Doctor are looking around and Valgard spots them before starting to strangle Kari and then the Doctor. It’s perhaps the only thing that lets down an otherwise perfectly fine episode. I’m not disliking this episode as much as I thought I would. This story is one of those that seems to benefit from being watched an episode a day. I would say that I am struggling to figure out what the plot is except that there is a lot of Lazars and that’s clearly a bad thing. The previous story seemed to improve in the second half. I’m not saying that this story is bad but it just feels like its lacking the meat of the story and this story should go up even more in my estimation.

(592) Terminus - Part 1

Terminus is the final story for Sarah Sutton and also is the middle story in the Black Guardian trilogy. It’s not a story that I have ever really enjoyed but I think that after watching this episode the reasons will become evident (if at all) in the latter stages of this story. This story features yet another costume for Nyssa which makes four in four stories and at risk of sounding like a fashion blog, this is one of the worst ever. I don’t think that its in keeping with the character and just shows that it was perhaps the perfect time for Sarah Sutton to leave the show. After what started off as a promising start for the character, she quickly got sidelined for being the one companion that actually had some brains.

The episode starts off quite well because there is a great scene with Turlough and Tegan. Due to the fact that Tegan doesn’t trust him there is a nice little discussion about which approach to things is better, Tegan’s bull in a china shop approach or Turlough’s more subtle approach. It doesn’t really get resolved because Turlough plans of sabotage through the story into gear as the TARDIS becomes connected to what would become a ship that has the cure for lazar disease. The sets used for the ship are quite grim and dank which is in contrast to most ships used in Doctor Who.

The story has a nice pace to it and Mary Ridge has done a good job of keeping the pace going and Steve Gallagher has written a story that sets things up quite well. We are introduced to two characters who don’t get introduced in the best way. Kari (Liza Goddard) and Olvir (Dominic Guard) are introduced wearing the sort of helmets that wouldn’t look out of place in a Buck Rogers episode. Once they get those silly things off then they become much more believable as characters and Kari is quite a good character played as a strong lead by Goddard whereas Olvir is a bit of a wuss and unfortunately Guard has been given a rather dud role but is playing it as best as he can.

As this is her last story, Nyssa gets perhaps the better part of the story as she spends it with the Doctor. Sarah Sutton has always played the role perfectly and in this episode she continues that. At the beginning of the episode she is back to being scientist Nyssa which is one of the things that I liked about the character and then after that she sort of resorts to what she has become. Tegan and Turlough are stuck together but do have good chemistry and there will be plenty of time to enjoy that in future episodes.

On a related note, this story was directed by Mary Ridge becoming the fourth woman to direct a Doctor Who. Out of 47 directors only 8% of them have been female and out of 52 writers there have been 0. Given that there has been a lot of talk about women writers and directors in new who, its interesting to see how things work out in the classic era. It’s worrying that there have been 126 stories in Doctor Who and not one of those have been written by a woman.

As a opening story there seems to be some promise and with the rating that I have given it (7.52) at the moment it makes Terminus the highest rated story of the season. This wont last of course but its an interesting thought that Terminus is the best story of the season.

(545) Warriors Gate - Episode 4

Today is an episode of mixed emotions because on the one hand Lalla Ward is leaving the show after 46 episodes although technically the character of Romana has been in the show for 66 episodes which would work out as the fifth longest serving companion on the show. It’s crazy to think that this is Tom Baker’s 164^th episode and there are just eight episodes left. Anyway back to today’s episode and I was kind of hoping that something would jump out at me but I have to say that this is the case. The first several minutes of the episode are taken up with a lot of talking and a lot of technical scientific terms which quite frankly I didn’t understand. This confusion does carry on for most of the episode and then with about six or seven minutes left of the episode the whole thing bursts into life and there is suddenly a lot of panic and action.

The only thing that made any sense was that Biroc says that they are basically to blame for being in the situation. Apart from that there is very little in the way of a story from this side of the episode and this episode will be remembered for Romana’s departure. Sadly Romana’s exit is a bit rushed but I liked the Doctor’s line about her being “the noblest Romana of them all”. Part of me wishes that the Doctor would have tried a bit harder in persuading Romana to stay. Lalla Ward wasn’t exactly happy with her exit One advantage of Romana departing is that Adric moves up the rankings because he was treated rather badly in this episode. It was 17 minutes before he first appeared and once he, the Doctor and Romana were in the TARDIS he was ordered to stay by Romana. At the end of the episode where its just the Doctor and Adric in the TARDIS, I think that it’s a weird combination.

As a companion, Romana has been really strong in both incarnations. I think that Lalla Ward is slightly better than Mary Tamm but I think had Tamm been in the show for slightly longer then my decision might be different. Ward gave Romana a slightly more fun sense of arrogance compared to Tamm. As an episode this story is no worse or better than the previous three but as a story I don’t think that it will be one of the classics. The next story is the penultimate one for Tom Baker and the next step in the regeneration of the show is about to take place. Sadly the final part of the E-Space trilogy isn’t quite the story that it needed to be and its perhaps the most disappointing story of the season so far.

(544) Warriors Gate - Episode 3

After wondering what was going to happen to Romana at the end of the previous episode, it must have been somewhat disappointing to see the hand wander down to the cuffs to release Romana. Or at least attempt to release her because the thing that is revealed about the Tharils in this episode is that they aren’t quite as good as we have been led to believe. This comes after Boric leads the Doctor through some sort of Alice in Wonderland setting and comes across the same banquet hall as before but this time its alive with the sound of people and music. Here humans are the slaves and the Tharils are the rulers and don’t treat the humans with a great deal of respect.

I have to say that I don’t think that this story gets the credit that it deserves in terms of special effects. People are so quick to mock the show because of ‘crappy special effects’ and other stuff but when you look at this episode and in particular the CSO used with the Doctor and Biroc in the Alice in Wonderland setting, it shows how much the show pushed the boundaries of what was possibly. Even by 2014 standards, its hard not to be impressed with what I have seen on screen. There is very little in this story that doesn’t rely on special effects of some kind and its this stuff that I find most interesting. The problem with the story is still that it’s a triumph of style over substance because narratively the story is lacking anything and I feel like Paul Joyce is doing all the work really. Ultimately when Biroc starts talking about time winds then I start to lose interest because it feels like the real science is starting to get into the story and if I want real science then I’ll watch something on BBC 4.

Adric has a slightly more productive episode than the previous one and he feels slightly more part of the team. That said I think that this is largely Romana’s episode because she seems to be everywhere and that’s not a critiscm but just an observation. It’s good to see Tom Baker being more productive than he was in the previous episode. To be honest he’s just more mobile rather than actually progressive in narrative terms.

The episode only really gets going in the final few minutes when the truth of the Tharils is revealed and I think that this is an interesting development. Frustratingly though this happens too late and the episode ends with a visually impressive cliffhanger. I say visually impressive because the shot goes from nice banquet hall to cobweb banquet hall and yet it flows really well. The episode is another one where there are good things to enjoy about this story but its still not working on me and its definelty the weakest story of the season.

(543) Warriors Gate - Episode 2

I am going to get this out of the way from the very beginning and say that I don’t think I will like this story by the end of episode four. I base this on the fact that even after all the stuff that happened in this episode I still cant find anything to be wowed by. It’s definelty a stronger episode that yesterdays but I cant say that much has really improved overall after two episodes. This really is a story of two halves because the first half is with the Doctor and he spends most of his time in the banquet hall which whilst a very nice looking set does mean that the Doctor is restricted in what he does and spends most of it interacting with the robot guards and whilst he does well it does seem like a bit of a waste of his talents. There were glimpses of the old comedic aspect of the Doctor which I know I haven’t been a huge fan of in the past but in small doses, its very much enjoyed on my part.

Romana drives the narrative in this episode in my opinion because she is very much the leader between herself and Adric in the early stages of the episode and once she leaves the TARDIS, she becomes even more involved in the episode and she does become part of the cliffhanger because it ends with a close up of her face screaming in terror at a Tharil about to lay its hand on her face. Romana doesn’t scream very much in this show (in either incarnation) and so she must feel some danger to scream. Adric still feels like the spare part of the team and that’s a shame considering how well he was used in the previous story. He does get one great moment in the episode when he tells K9 that he is more useless than usual. Considering that Adric hasn’t had as much interaction with K9 as we have, its good that he has come to this conclusion so quickly.

There is a slight problem with the character of Rorvik because I can see that they are trying to make a sinister villain out of him but when you consider the villains that there has been in just this season alone then Rorvik doesn’t quite work and I just think that its someone trying to be more of a menace than he actually is and that is part of the problem because if you don’t believe in the threat in the story then there is no desire to be bothered about the Doctor coming in and saving the day. This was another episode which had some good moments but as I mentioned earlier, I still have bought what Stephen Gallagher is trying to sell and I don’t think that its terrible compared to stories like ‘Meglos’ and ‘The Horns of Nimon’ but out of the three stories that form this trilogy, this is definelty the weakest of the three. Note I say weakest and not worst because there is too much going on in this story and still to happen for me to consider this adventure as a rubbish contribution.

(542) Warriors Gate - Episode 1

I’ve never been a fan of this story and out of the three stories of the trilogy, I felt that this was the one that let the side down and on the evidence of the first episode there isn’t anything that would make me change my mind. This is the final story to feature Romana and K9 and whilst I am disappointed about the former, the latter is good news. To be fair to the story, the opening shot is quite good because it’s atmospheric and looks really fab. This is the second time in this season that the episode starts off with a long (ish) panning shot, the first being ‘The Leisure Hive’ but unlike that panning shot, this one isn’t as long and visually is better.

I think that one of the things that works in this stories favour is the special effects because there are many throughout the four episodes and there are a few that take place in this episode. One in particular is when Biroc is running and there is a ghost trail behind him. It might be the sort of thing that would feature in a 1980’s music video. Credit should go to Paul Joyce for doing a job and pushing the boundaries of what should be possible for 1980’s TV. Apparently his directing methods caused some problem but they don’t show on TV. It’s fair to say that this story isn’t like anything that the show has seen before.

It seems like Romana’s exit has been prepared for because there is a little scene where Romana talks about her and the Doctor going their separate ways. It wasn’t with the Doctor but it seems like they are actually taking the time to prepare for a companions exit which they haven’t done for quite sometime. It feels odd that this is the ninth episode for Adric and it’s the first time that he has a scene as a companion and gets a proper TARDIS scene with the Doctor and Romana. That said he does seem to be a bit of an outsider because the Doctor and Romana are talking to each other and Adric is standing to one side like a spare part.

The cliffhanger is quite a good one because it looks like the Doctor is about to get his head knocked off. I had trouble trying to get interested in this story. It’s wasn’t terrible by any means but I think that it’s a bit dry and I worry that the next three episodes is going to be a triumph of style over substance. Only time will tell I suppose but the omens aren’t good.