Potato Head

I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to judge the Sontaran Stratagem, tonight’s Doctor Who episode, before having seen its conclusion next week. But hell, let’s do it anyway, starting with the titular villains. Not having seen the Sontarans before, I learned to like them very quickly. I think a lot of that was down to the voice – General Staal (or however we’re supposed to spell his name) in particular sounded like a grumpy 19th-century Duke stuck in a cramped space whilst trying to maintain his dignity and authority, and it worked perfectly. Thinking about it, such a sound should have undermined him and his race as threatening villains but I thought they pulled that particular aspect off very well. The scene in which the UNIT grunt got the height jokes out of the way was brilliantly played, both for the comedy and for the reaction of the Sontaran.

I do feel obliged to say that I liked Donna more this week. Her introduction to Colonel Mace was great – Tate delivered “I’ll ‘ave a salute, thanks” to much more laughter than any of her sketches have ever gotten out of me. She and her screen grandfather Wilfred have an excellent chemistry and that made her family scenes a great improvement on Martha’s frankly dull family last season. (The mum was a bit annoying though, you can see where Donna gets it from.)

Speaking of Martha, I was really interested early on in finding out how and why she’d become more of a soldier, and I was disappointed that more wasn’t made of it. For me, the scene in which she and the Doctor discussed it came too early to feel satisfying – there really needed to be more detail in between her intro and that resolutionary scene, so that we could see how exactly Martha works inside the organisation, what’s she like on giving orders and maybe actually fighting (though we might see that next episode, I suppose).

The cliffhanger felt very, very similar to those from the first parts of the seasons one and two finales, in which first the Daleks and then the Cybermen as well amassed their armies and started the invasion of Earth. “The army is coming!” is a powerful dramatic device but it’s starting to get a little worn – however different your enemies are they at least need to do it at different points in the episode rather than just the end of part one each time. Hopefully the fact that they’ve done this now rather than in the finale means that we’ll see something more original and small-scale at the end of the season, though considering how many companions we’re rumoured to be seeing again then I’m guessing that’s unlikely.

All in all, a flawed episode but a fun enough set up for part two, meaning that this is the first season so far since the relaunch of the show that I haven’t felt there was a real gem in the first four episodes. Shame, but RTD and the team have done enough over previous years to convince me to stick by them. After all, slightly disappointing by Who’s standards is pretty damn good by most others’.