Even for those who’ve been around, shall we say, a long time, in our Doctor Who appreciations, given the sheer weight of 50 years of stories, Doctors, companions, and production regimes, there simply have to be some stories which make virtually no impression whatsoever. Death to the Daleks? A near complete blank. Even The Sensorites, which was capped just recently, barely registers. With a couple hundred stories told so far, they can’t all be memorable, and Terminus, this weeks cap addition, certainly isn’t.
The middle leg of the ‘Black Guardian trilogy’ from Season 20 had all sorts of things working against it as it was neither the beginning or end of a larger story, and the struggle against Lazar’s Disease, even with a little ‘end of the universe’ thrown in for good measure, hardly makes things distinctive.
When poor Nyssa, rather inexplicably, removes her skirt as she becomes stricken, is the most memorable thing about Terminus you know it’s a story that, while no means bad let alone offensive, has little going for it. The new caps, as always it must be said, are quite nice.
Classic Capitology, undeterred, stays on the case though. They fancy a walk along the beach. Do you?