Oh, is that her name?
Never let it be said that Doctor Who is afraid of tackling the big cosmological questions, like the very origin of the universe. Unfortunately, sometimes the show’s answer to that question comes in a form like Steve Gallagher’s “Terminus” (Story Production Code 6G), an overstuffed confection that aspires to great heights but, like his prior story, “Warriors’ Gate,” collapses under the weight of its unwieldy plot. Unlike most of the Fifth Doctor’s stories to date, though, “Terminus” suffers not from continuity-related meta-narratives foisted upon the tale by producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward but from the dense and tangled world building—sufficient for six or eight episodes—that Gallagher tries to cram into a mere four episodes.
With Turlough still under the influence of the Black Guardian (Valentine Dyall), his supposed freedom at the end of “Mawdryn Undead” being but a ruse, he surreptitiously removes the “space-time element” from the TARDIS console, causing a dimensional instability that allows the outer universe to permeate the theoretically inviolable time machine. This breach centers on Nyssa’s room, and she can only escape into another spaceship that the TARDIS has sought out as a protection against such a “breakup,” a newly introduced safety feature that the Doctor insists has always been there but just hasn’t ever worked before, if only because no plot has yet required its services. The connection between the TARDIS and the other ship is itself dimensionally unstable, phasing in and out of existence, a handy means of trapping the entire TARDIS team on the other ship.
The ship in question appears at first to be deserted, with the Doctor and Nyssa, after they find each other, discovering an automated control room. They soon have guests in the form of pirates, Kari (Liza Goddard) and Olivr (Dominic Guard), intent on purloining the cargo, expected to be quite valuable given that the ship hails from a wealthy sector of space. To everyone’s dismay, however, the cargo consists of individuals afflicted with the highly contagious Lazar’s Disease, the ship itself en route to a enormous sanatorium at the very center of the universe known as Terminus.
Even at the time of airing in 1983, this cavalier use of leprosy as a plot device drew condemnation, and indeed, Olvir specifically links Lazar’s Disease to leprosy in the first episode cliffhanger when, as the patients begin shambling out of their cabins, he screams out, “We’re on a leper ship. We’re all going to die!” Scenes of the Doctor and Nyssa recoiling from their touch reinforce the negative stereotypes, with Nyssa herself becoming infected after she has cut her thumb and brushes against one of the Lazars. But not to worry, though, because despite Olvir’s insistence that Terminus is where Lazars come to die, help is at hand, with a cure on offer from a very different kind of doctor…