Thursday, November 7, 2013

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky





Doctor Who: 
The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky 
By Helen Raynor

“Sontar Ha!”

Series Fours first two part story gives us the return of the Sontaran’s to the rebooted show.  Despite being shrunken down in size.  It also brings back UNIT and of course former companion Martha Jones.  This time the Sontarans are tad bit smarter despite being heightly challenged.  I found this story to be very entertaining but I did have some reservations coming into this story as this was written by the same person who wrote last series Dalek Story.  You know the one it took place in New York City.  Theplot of the story sees the Sontaran’s hatching a plot to poison the Earth’s atmosphere with the ATMOS device to make it a clone factory. 


What the ATMOS device does is take the exhaust from your cars and then change it into a gas that will change Earth’s atmosphere that will be suitable for the Sontarans to use as a clone factory to help inn their war with the Rutan. They were never this ambitious before in the shows history and it is good to see the Doctor Who production crew reinvent then and made them a tad bit more intelligent and schemers.



The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky saw the return of UNIT in a proper aspect.  They were seen in the New Series in a minor role back in the Christmas Invasion but this was the first story to seem them proper and in action taking charge to fight off threats to the Earth.  Martha returns also in fact she calls The Doctor back to Earth to help with the problem. Since we last saw her she is now a proper Doctor and is also engage.  But the biggest thing is that she is now a member of UNIT.  It was good to see Martha get a proper story that gave her something to do instead of being the girl pining for The Doctor’s attention.  It was also good to see Martha and Donna interact.  Good to see a past companion and current companion not having a cat fight like the last time.  I guess The Doctor learned his lesson from School Reunion.



There was a lot that I did like about The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky.  I really do like the interaction between Donna and her grandfather Wilf.  So far those scenes that they have had together so far in Series Four has been really touching and one of the best scenes they have done in New Who.  Maybe because it reminds me of good memories I had with my grandfather and father that make me really like the relationship between those two.  What was funny was the reaction Wilf had when he saw The Doctor again and remembers him from Christmas time during The Voyage of the Damned. Even when Donna’s mom recognized him also was pretty funny. 


I did like the irritating character Rattigan.  His name was fitting as he was a rat.  You could tell he was being used and he didn’t realize it.  The way his students got up and left him was typical of someone so naïve that he had a rude awakening when the Sontaran’s told him they were only using him for their own means.  Some of the best characters in Doctor Who are supposedly villains that end up seeing the light and then rectifying the situation as Rattigan does.


What was a cool scene was when Martha was cloned.  Seeing the cloned Martha coming out of that pool of green goo was truly a chilling and freaky moment.  I don’t know how Freema Agyeman was able to do it holding her breath and all in that pool of slime.  The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky was a pretty decent story and Helen Raynor did redeem herself from her dreadful Dalek story.  It was a pretty entertaining story that was fun to watch.
Grade B +

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