18 - Terminus

Composer: Roger Limb
Director: Mary Ridge

What's the score?
The last of Roger Limb's "early period" scores - after this, he takes a bit of a break from DW, returning at the end of the next season with The Caves of Androzani. There's not a lot of difference between this one and Limb's score for Arc of Infinity.

Musical notes

• Limb picks up the Black Guardian theme from Paddy Kingsland's score for Mawdryn Undead. (It's Four Notes of Villainy - how could he possibly resist?) But more than this, he positively runs with it, trying out several new variations. There's a lovely mournful version at the end of Part Four after Turlough has received an unspecified horrible punishment from the Black Guardian. Curiously, Limb also takes the sound effect for the crystal the Black Guardian gave to Turlough - presumably created by Dick Mills for Mawdryn Undead - and incorporates it into his score.
• This being Nyssa's last story, it's not surprising that Limb reprises the character theme he composed for The Keeper of Traken - again, including a lovely melancholic version in Part Four. It's more surprising to hear Limb reprise Paddy Kingsland's theme for Adric in Part One, when his old room in the TARDIS becomes Turlough's new quarters. At a time when the show relied heavily on its own continuity, it's actually not all that common for the incidental composers to tap into the show's musical continuity in the way that Limb does here.
• Beyond that, it's very much business as usual for Limb. His familiar four-note phrases pop up throughout; there's even a theme - a theme! - for the Vanir. Valgard gets the gruffest and the most frequent variation of this theme.

Vox pop
So, the good news is that this is the last time I'm going to be rude about Roger Limb. The bad news is that I'm going to be rude about Roger Limb now.
What we have here is a step up from the Arc of Infinity score, at least. (I'd describe it as the "dead cat bounce" after Arc's pavement impact, except that the next time we encounter Limb the cat will miraculously rocket back into the air, so the analogy isn't going to stick.) The character moments are lovely, but they're gems scattered in the gravelly textures of Arc's synths and Limb's familiar meandering style. New ideas are wanting here - it's notable that the stand-out moments of the score have all been built on already existing cues.
But as I've pointed out before, we've come through a two-year period in which Roger Limb was called on to score at least every third story - he's been overused. The break between Terminus and The Caves of Androzani will do Limb (and us) a power of good.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.