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circular_timeMore Terminus thoughts.
Nyssa’s heartbreaking “parting in good faith” scene with Tegan and Five tends to make us forget the rest of Terminus, which, flawed as it was in directing, FX and pacing, told one of the more controversial and gritty stories in the history of Who up to that time.
So I want to expand a bit in the earlier Terminus meta I wrote. Because I’ve gotten a PMs challenging me to show Nyssa isn’t just a bland and forgettable character, and dammit, HERE IS AN EXAMPLE.
General Nyssa-is-awesome stuff: Less said about the damsel-in-distress, Nyssa’s Very Bad Day nightmare leading up to it the better, but as soon as she is cured and no longer sick with fever, she snaps back into Nyssa-mode and…
- …spouts a passionate speech about how the treatment could work, but the radiation therapy is probably introducing new cancers, so patients need longterm care and follow-up, so…. SCIENCE. Olvir can barely drag her out of the recovery room, because she’s so busy telling him how to make Terminus into an effective hospital. Okay, yes, that’s kind of boring, in the way that being an adult and competent and professional and saving thousands of lives WITH SCIENCE AND COMPASSION can be boring.
- She then intervenes to keep the Doctor from being shot (with Olvir’s help) and immediately starts her “how to Make Terminus Work” speech on the big scary dude in armor she punched out earlier (!), demanding the Garm be freed from his slavery so that he can help.
- When she finds out the dudes in armor are prisoners of the system too, she examines the drug that the company is using to keep them alive and keep them in thrall, announces it’s a crude compound and she could probably improve it (oh, you cocky scientist), and starts giving them orders: “Then help.”
- Here’s the thing I’d forgotten… the dudes in armor say that if they go along with her plan, the Terminus Corporation will send soldiers to stop her, and she basically says “Terminus has such an awful reputation they won’t come.” But she clearly just doesn’t give a damn; an armywill not stop her from helping these people.
It takes about ten minutes for Nyssa to get out of that cell and win the entire station over to her plans. The Doctor just tags along quietly at her elbow as an escort to keep anyone from stopping her before she’s finished fast-talking. “What do you think? You’re the expert,” he says to her, and off she goes.
Which is sweet, and it almost makes up for the first three fourths of the story in which Nyssa is uncharacteristically helpless (although one could justify a lot of that by pointing to all the horrible scary things that happened to her while terribly ill but anyway).
The other, far more serious and important thing is that this episode is so clearly a commentary on the AIDS epidemic and the way AIDS patients were being treated at the time. I had to go look up the exact timing, because it’s been so long. I just remember the hysteria and fear.
Early History of AIDs | US Timeline of AIDs
So. Terminus was broadcast in February 1983, presumably written and filmed at the end of 1982.
For context:
- AIDs started in the 70s, but it didn’t reach public consciousness for a while. Then, around 1981, when the medical community started to recognize it and news media began to report it, it was called “the gay plague” with much hate-filled homophobic moralizing about gays and divine retribution. Even the goddamn Lancet, the premiere medical journal, called it “gay compromise syndrome.”
- 1982 was the year AIDS hysteria began. We didn’t know what it was. There wasn’t even a name for it yet; the acronym “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome” was decided at a conference in July 1982. It was hard to identify, because its chief characteristic was that it made victims vulnerable to other diseases, so different sufferers would exhibit the symptoms of whatever else was getting through their weakened immune systems. And then they died. And then more people died; the death rate was snowballing.
- In early 1983, the cause of AIDs was unknown. Landlords were evicting tenants with AIDS. People were scared of catching AIDS from AIDS victims on public transportation, in schools, in the workplace. AIDS victims were treated as pariahs, like lepers; the widespread fear was that contact with them would transmit the virus. Their caregivers were likewise shunned. AIDS patients were suffering and wasting away and dying, and oftentimes their own relatives wouldn’t go near them for fear of catching it. The reviled queer community was trying to take care of the victims that society was scared of and wanted to quarantine or possibly send to some other planet.
- In mid-1983, not too long after Terminus aired, scientists published the first papers tentatively identifying the virus that might be causing AIDS. It took more research to be sure. Imagine a nearly 100% fatal plague for which you don’t even know what is CAUSING it. This was reality, when this episode was broadcast.
- In 1987, Princess Diana was notable as the first “high profile celebrity figure” to be photographed touching, hugging, or holding hands with AIDS patients. I remember those pictures; I remember being impressed and thinking she was brave to do it. This was a huge deal. Whatever else you can say about her, she was an important advocate the battle to fight prejudice against AIDS victims, helping to combat the social stigma and prove to the general public that one couldn’t catch the disease from non-sexual physical contact.
Now look back at Terminus in 1983 as a parable for AIDS.
- It was a big deal that chaste, angelic Nyssa caught the disease. She was a victim. It could happen to someone like her.
- It was a terrifying story because it dramatized the fear of AIDS that was then running rampant in the real world. Nowadays Olvir’s hysterical “THIS IS A LEPER SHIP! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” cliffhanger seems completely over-the-top, but back then he was voicing an irrational fear that was being broadcast far and wide by the media and discussed around water coolers, conference rooms and dinner tables.
- Nyssa was staying behind to become a caregiver to
AIDSLazars’ patients, at a time when the real-world fear was that one could catch the disease from patients. - So think about her exchange with Tegan: “She’ll die here,” says Tegan, Nyssa doesn’t say, “Don’t worry, I’ve been cured (I think), so hopefully I’m now immune to it.” She says, “Not easily; like you, I’m indestructible,” which is of course a preposterous lie if you take her words literally. In fact, she’s whistling in the dark, saying, “I know I might, but I’ll try not to die,” much like a soldier going off to battle and promising her loved ones that she’ll survive.
This episode did not address homophobia at all. Nyssa came down with an immaculate case of Lazars, so much so that 30 years later we’re still trying to figure out how the hell she caught it when her friends didn’t. There was no sex involved apart from her wearing sexy underthings. But it would’ve caused a huge outcry if there had even a hint of talking about gay people on a kids show.
For many children, this was the first TV episode we ever saw that introduced us by proxy to the thing that the adults around us were getting scared about. And the message was: ”(1) AIDSLazars victims are people just like us, and anyone can catch it (2) we shouldn’t be banishing them from the community to protect ourselves (3) we should be HELPING THEM.”
Nyssa, who was introduced to us as a fairy princess and aristocrat’s daughter, becomes an icon of compassion and an outspoken advocate for a diseased, underserved population whose suffering is being compounded by the prejudice, hysteria, erasure and abuse of the larger population. (Like Di would a few years later, in an extremely obscure example of life imitating art.)
Which, honestly, is a pretty powerful way for a classic Who companion to leave the show.
Re: Huzzah more geeking!
Date: 2015-11-12 01:05 am (UTC)On the other hand, I'm afraid Leela really did fall in love, rushed and contrived as it was. The transcript doesn't really get across Louise Jameson's acting. When she reaches back and takes his hand, it reminds me of Eowyn and Faramir, except that Leela's the more assertive of the two. Much as I would have enjoyed Rodan/Leela, Andred really was important to her, as becomes clear in the Gallfirey spinoff series. Leela's determined to avenge his death, although in later years she's too busy being Romana's bodyguard. Mind you, there's some great shippy moments between President Romana and Leela... Spirit is amazing. :)
As far as I can tell, that WMG about Tegan and Nyssa and Lasarti and Adric Traken is contradicted by the actual audios. Rather disrespectfully, too! Some of the scenes with Lasarti and Adric Traken are heartbreaking and important; why would one want to dismiss them as holograms?
I'm also not really comfortable with contradicting the widely-held convention that's been around since the 80s, that Nyssa was Sarah Sutton's age when she started. I believe i've seen that in actual books of the period? I will have to keep an eye out for it; all my Doctor Who sourcebooks are pre-internet.
At the risk of sounding like a stalker fan, I've been hooked on Nyssa since I was 10 and Sarah Sutton was 19. In the past few years since I got hooked on Big Finish, I've listened or watched every single thing she's ever performed in that's still available, including non-Doctor-Who like Jarillion Mercy and Dark Shadows. I've posted long and short-form reviews of every one of her Nyssa audios as part of #trakenfest, which I threw on Tumblr last year to celebrate the character's final adventure. I have literally written the book, or at least a book, on her character, with about ten pages of footnotes detailing her biography from existing canonical references scattered across audios and TV. Last year, I made a 5000 mile journey to England to my very first Doctor Who convention (in my forties) to meet Sarah Sutton and give her a copy of the book. She's been kind enough to reply to a couple fan letters, although she is an immensely private person.
Anyway, that's why I'm a little... pedantic when it comes to the character of Nyssa. I'm trying to keep reminding myself that everyone's headcanon is equally valid, but oh, it's hard for me not to feel possessive about the character I've been writing and researching and discussing for years. But I also don't want to argue with a fellow fan. ;) We both love her, even if we see her differently.
The reason I say I want Nyssa and Romana to meet is because Nyssa remained behind in e-space. I don't want to spoil the epic e-space arc that concluded last March and left a die-hard trio of Nyssa fans drinking and watching the sunset in her honor ;). but alas, the chances are quite slim. It would be almost impossible for Romana to escape after that story concluded. I wish Romana could have met Nyssa before she died, and told the Doctor what happened to her. Let's just say that she was given nothing less than a heroic ride into the sunset in keeping with the rest of her tragic but noble-hearted life.
Nyssa may well have saved as many lives as the Master destroyed in Logopolis. Not least, of course, the Doctor's.
I don't get into the details of naming conventions too much; current, 21st-century Earth has all kinds of naming customs including parts of the world where only one name or many more are common, and it's absolutely par for the course in Doctor Who and other SF to have single names or multiple names or alien names or human-sounding names all mixed together. In a franchise that's been going on as long as DW has, it's inevitable.
Re: Huzzah more geeking!
Date: 2015-11-12 03:16 pm (UTC)2: Maybe it's a threesomey relationship or something like that. Leela grew up in a culture that may easily be polyromantic. (And even a savage would fall in love with someone she just met. Leela was'nt the brightest in the block, after all.)
3: It was propably someone like me, a Troper turned Classic Whovian who had never seen the audios or even the actual TV show.
4: I've read on a TARDIS Wikia answer page about who the youngest companion was, that Matthew Waterhouse played Adric as being 15, and when Adric and Nyssa were both companions (as in, while filming Keeper and Logopolis) Matthew and Sarah played them as being 16. Adric would have turned 16 anywhere from Warrior's Gate and Castrovalva (possibly earlier?). Adric is also slightly younger than Nyssa (biologically AND chronologically) but not by much. Less than 6 months and propably even less than a month. Or at least that's what I remember. Something like that. Adric is the youngest companion so he could'nt have been 17 or older since some companions are 16.
AND remind you we're talking about a show that started with a 28 years old played by a 40 years old, a 23 years old played by a 35 years old, and a Time Lady-passing-for 15 played by a 23 years old, as companions.
In the new series it started with a 19 years old played by a 23 years old as a companion, too.
5: Oh, I've been changing fave companions often. Polly&Ben, Dodo, Zoe, Nyssa, Peri, Charley, Vicki, Ace, Steven&HiFi, Ian&Babs... safe to say almost everyone has been a fave companion of mine at one point or another.
6: Maybe someday you will publish the book officially? ;) Or will that remain a fanfiction?
7: Wait, your name is "Ellen"? Can we be on first-name basis?
Also, Sarah seems to write like I think Nyssa would. Same for the other companion actresses who autographed your stuff, which makes me think, perhaps quite a few of the companions have about the personalities of their actors just like the Doctors.
8: I'll propably never met Sarah Sutton (or you, or any Companion\Doctor actor) in real life, as I live in Italy. But nothing says I could'nt move to England or even become a DW actress. Maybe, if my Whovianism persists enough...
But yes, you look like you could be a slightly shorter, larger, younger sister of Sarah's\Nyssa's. :) Even if you two act nothing alike.
9: My approach to most DW characters would be much different than normal since I got there from TVtropes.
10: Nyssa could return to N-Space, through. Heck, she could appear in the New Series, if Capaldi and Moffat both like her enough.
So yeah, Nyssa and Romana could met in N-Space, E-Space, Gallifrey, Traken, Earth, a TARDIS, a spaceship, a Multi-Doctor story, a "let's meet the Pre-timewar companions" story arc, an audio, a novel, a comic, a Classic Who remake, a 60th anniversary story, whatever. With Time Travel, anything is possible!
And even if Nyssa died in E-Space according to Big Finish, nothing says she cannot still be in N-Space in the New Series. Heck, it's quite possible that the Doctor will bump up into Romana and Nyssa together!
11: Nyssa saves a lot of lives, but well, she's a Trakenite, on her planet everyone is good and all lives are saved. (I also think she did'nt have a biological mother and Tremas made her through an asexual process in which he put biodatas and stuff into the Keeper so he could have an heir. AKA Nyssa's "mom" is a Keeper Statue and only the low class of Traken reproduces sexually. I put that on the Classic WHo WMG page, too.)
12: Yeah, not only artists only using one name, but a lot of countries that never used actual surnames, and others who only use patronymics. In the future, Earth colonized a lot of planets and stuff. So I bet most humans in the 41-to-51 centuries don't actually use English but a sort-of "space language", which the Terminus spaceship would use, while the families left on Earth are actually speaking English, if a "futuristic" one. (Which is what Vicki, Steven, and Sara K would have had as a first language.)
So yeah, Star Wars and Star Trek both have many species with many different name customs.
Also Vanilla and Fang from Final Fantasy, their surname (Oerba) is actually their hometown's name. Their middle names are clan names.
Heck, for all we know, aliens with completely different customs to ours will invade tomorrow, causing a war that will end in Earth becoming an alien colony, and many humans will adopt the alien's customs, and nobody would have an Anglophone name or accent by the time they film the Classic Who 100th Anniversary in 2063!