YMMV / Doctor Who S20 E4 "Terminus"

• Accidental Innuendo: The Doctor says this Spit Take inducing line:
  Nyssa's skirt... There's blood on it!
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Nyssa's skirt-removal. The in-story Hand Wave for why she decided to strip down to her slip was that she was feeling feverish. This doesn't really come across on screen, so Nyssa appears to strip off her clothes for no reason.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Nyssa saying goodbye to Tegan is absolutely heartbreaking. Then in 2020, Russell T Davies wrote Farewell, Sarah-Jane, where not only were they reunited at some point, but they're now an Official Couple.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The skull-like drawing on the door that leads from the Tardis to Terminus looks an awful lot like Sans.
• Les Yay:
  • Nyssa once again demonstrates her priorities:
    Doctor: It'll be good to see the TARDIS again.
    Nyssa: And Tegan!
  • Despite knowing the Doctor longer and having spent more time with him—all those adventures while Tegan was on Earth—Nyssa is able to remain calm and collected while saying goodbye to him, asking him politely not to be upset and to let her leave in good faith, to part as friends. Then she has to say goodbye to Tegan and breaks down sobbing into her chest.
  • Tegan's horrified head-shaking in the background when Nyssa tries to tell her that she's chosen to stay on Terminus, and her desperation when she asks the Doctor not to let Nyssa stay on Terminus to die, and her growing realization that Nyssa's really not coming with them. By the time Nyssa asks them to stop trying to convince her so they can part as friends, loud angry defiant Tegan Jovanka can barely manage to whisper "...Please, Nyssa...?" And of course, their tearful goodbye.
    Tegan: She'll die here.
    Nyssa: [voice breaking] Not easily, Tegan. Like you, I'm indestructible.
• Narm:
  • The dog-headed alien with red lights for eyes. Yes, it's the Narm Garm!
  • The first episode cliffhanger should have been a tense moment with the main characters surrounded by victims of a horribly infectious plague. Instead, it ends up being reduced to hilarity by Olvir's incredibly over-the-top shout of "We're all going to DIEEEEEEEE!"
  • After Olvir fights off Valgard, he turns to where Nyssa was chained up, and cries out in despair after finding out that the Garm has taken her away. Except that the Garm hasn't actually walked off-camera yet, giving the unwittingly hilarious impression that Olvir's just too lazy to try looking around for her.
• Retroactive Recognition: In the 1990s, Kathy Burke became a recognised and well-loved actor/director in Great Britain. If you think you recognise one of the Lazar extras, it's probably her.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The general opinion is that the serial has the makings of a classic, with some fantastic ideas and imagery - working class Norse gods, a wolfman from a dead universe, A Day in the Limelight for Nyssa - undercut by production problems, dodgy costumes and Eric Saward cutting huge chunks of the script and rewriting dialogue in a pseudo-Wagnerian tone the direction didn’t support.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: The Vanir costumes were called into question, as they were clearly impractically designed for fighting. Peter Davison described them as "copulating crabs" and "like a rock tribute band". (According to the costume designer in a later interview, he had not been told that the costumes were to be worn in combat scenes until it was too late to change them.)

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