The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky [TV/2008.4.26 ~ 5.3]

★★★☆☆

  Fans of the Jon Pertwee era were certainly here for a treat, weren't they? Here we have a Doctor stranded on Earth (albeit by different circumstances), a nuts-n'-bolts alien invasion tale with an environmentalist subtext, a mad scientist (in this case a spoiled child), UNIT back in full force with a scientist character being a close friend of the Doctor's, and even a detour to the mundane in an extended segment around Donna's flat with her mum and gramps. As a love letter to the early 1970s, you really can't be making a mistake choosing this two-parter; it's Pertwee through and through, and it's great to see the modern era blow kisses to such a recognisable erain Dr. Who's history.

  I'd say my favourite aspect of The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky has to be the Sontarans and how they're written. New series redesigns of classic villains can either go really right or really wrong in my eyes, but the Sontarans here are somewhere around the middle. I love the more physically menacing potatoheads of days gone by, but these new clones make up for that by being incredibly ruthless (whenever they're given the opportunity to be ruthless, that is, which is sadly not as much as I would've liked) and absolutely fixated on the concept of war. Thanks to Christopher Ryan and Dan Starkey, the Sontarans are depicted as warlike militants who treat bloodshed and battle almost like fetishes of theirs, and it works. Luke Rattigan is the secondary villain that more or less works as well, and the addition of Martha Jones is also a nice element. She's well and truly graduated from being the Doctor's friend to a fully-fledged doctor of her own; what a shame, then, that she doesn't get much to do here. In fact, I'd say neither companion is served particularly well in this two-parter. Martha's taken over by her replica for most of the runtime, and Donna's stuck in the TARDIS until she fixes the transporter. I wouldn't call it a downside, but I would confidently say that the narrative loses a bit of steam come the second part (at the beginning ten to fifteen minutes of it, specifically) because there aren't enough cogs turning. The UNIT jokes are nice, and David Tennant does his best, but not even he has a lot of scenes against the Sontarans. For most of the time, he's stuck in UNIT headquarters slagging off the military... and you know what? That's entertaining enough. After all these years, I still had plenty of fun.