3.4: The Sontarans.

4 episodes: The Sontarans, The Descent, The Blind City, The Rule of War. Running Time: Approx. 120 minutes. Written by: Simon Guerrier. Directed by: Ken Bentley. Produced by: David Richardson.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor, Steven, and Sara Kingdom materialize on an asteroid with a breathable atmosphere. Sara quickly recognizes it as part of the Sulgrave Asteroid Belt, which orbits two gas giants in a Figure-8. The time travelers are taken captive by agents of the Space Security Service under the command of Capt. Papas (Jemma Churchill) - only for all of them to quickly find themselves under attack!

The attacking aliens are unknown to the Doctor, but both Steven and Sara recognize them: The Sontarans, relentless warriors who destroy anyone in their path. The Sontarans control a cannon on this asteroid. Papas's mission is to blow it up, and she's on a tight timetable. If she fails, then the Sontarans will obliterate a fleet of refugees who are fleeing the devastation of their ever-expanding war with a rival empire.

It's a mission Sara recognizes from her own history. She tells the Doctor that she knows Papas succeeds - but she can also see for herself that victory will only be possible if the Doctor breaks his own rules and intervenes...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: This story is explicitly the Doctor's first encounter with the Sontarans. Both Steven and Sara are already familiar with them, making the Doctor the only character who doesn't know anything about them... a clever contrast with their introductory story, in which the Doctor knew who they were but the audience and the other characters did not. The Doctor is particularly observant, taking the measure of the Sontarans' worldview - which enables him to negotiate with the Sontaran leader, Slite (Dan Starkey), by arguing with the Sontaran on his own terms.

Steven: His time period is earlier than Sara's, so his knowledge of the Sontarans is less than hers. Still, he has heard stories of sectors of space devasted by them. He tells the Doctor that they cannot be stopped. The only thing to do when the Sontarans decide to claim your world is to run. This story again notes Steven's attraction to Sara, something writer Simon Guerrier established in The Anachronauts and that Matt Fitton further developed in An Ordinary Life. Steven experiences a moment of jealousy when Sara bonds with one of Papas's men - which does not stop him from trying to save that man later on. When captured by the enemy, Steven can't conceal everything he knows, but he makes sure not to tell them about the Taranium Core that he, the Doctor, and Sara stole from the Daleks.

Sara Kingdom: Jean Marsh's final performance for Big Finish, and I believe this is her final acting role (her credited appearance in Disney Plus's 2022 Willow consisted of archive footage). Simon Guerrier's script gives her plenty to do. Sara takes in the comparatively primitive technology of Papas's squad and flatly states that they won't stand a chance, pushing the Doctor into an impossible decision: Help Papas and intervene in a war, or don't help and change the history that Sara knows. The Doctor and Steven observe how much she has changed since they met her. She acknowledges as much, but she also regrets the cost of that change (her brother's death). She states that even if she had the chance to return to Space Security, at this point she would not do so.

Sontarans: As is almost always the case with a Sontaran story, some humor is wrung from the way they inflexibly interpret everything in warlike terms. However, this story plays them not as comedy caricatures (like most of their New Series outings), but as a formidable foe. After the Doctor finagles an escape down a mine shaft, getting Papas's squad to the bottom while narrowly avoiding lava, the Sontarans jump down after them. They land in lava, which is initially darkly comic... but the comedy dies away as they continue to jump down. The sheer stubbornness of their pursuit is already unnerving. Then it's revealed that their armor is impervious, and the story delivers a wonderful visual moment as they rise from the pool, lava dripping from them as they advance. In that moment, they truly feel like an unstoppable force in a way that has rarely, if ever, been seen before.


THOUGHTS:

The Sontarans is a war story, which is appropriate for the Doctor's first-ever encounter with a race of genetically engineered soldiers. The main plot is clearly inspired by The Guns of Navarone, and various war movie tropes are invoked, from the enemy commander who is ruthless but honorable in his way to a village that lives under the specter of enemy occupation. There are various deceptions, interrogations, and even a call for a firing squad.

Unlike some Early Adventures writers, Simon Guerrier does not shy away from making full use of the format's narration. Much of this feels like an action movie in audio form. This is particularly true of Episode Two, which includes a daring escape down a shaft followed by a sustained action set piece. Across multiple Companion Chronicles, Guerrier showed a deftness with quick but vivid descriptions, and his prose combined with well-judged music and sound effects brings the action effectively to life.

The script also makes use of the episodic format. Each of the four parts has a different primary focus and setting. Part One introduces the Sontarans, with the regulars encountering them and Papas on the asteroid's surface and, after a hopeless battle, fleeing for their lives. Part Two takes place first in, then at the bottom, of the shaft they use to escape. Part Three centers around a visit to a native village. Part Four brings all of the characters together at the Sontaran base. Each installment advances the singular narrative, but each also has its own identity and focus.

All three regulars receive strong roles, with the Doctor and Sara helping Capt. Papas with her mission while Steven attempts to hold out under Sontaran questioning. The named members of Papas's squad all have individual personalities, with the dutiful Papas a foil for Sara, who was once like her before circumstances changed her.

Even the Sontarans receive some characterization: Slite has a strong sense of honor, something that is apparent at multiple points. He finds torturing prisoners to be distasteful, while the Sontaran who conducts Steven's interrogation in the final episode has no such aversion. Dan Starkey is excellent as every Sontaran, making them suitably similar as clones, but also showing subtle differences between one trooper and another.


OVERALL:

The Sontarans is a very good story. Its war film-inspired plot is well-told, with a couple of gripping and exciting set pieces. It's also carefully structured, with shifts in focus that keep it from becoming repetitive.

The Sontarans themselves are particularly well-written. The only time a Sontaran was more individually intimidating was in The Sontaran Experiment, and that was just a single Sontaran. This story shows them as a powerful military force - and I think it might be the only Doctor Who story to really capitalize on that.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Set immediately before: The Daleks' Master Plan, Episode 8

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1.4: An Ordinary Life.

4 episodes: An Ordinary Life, The Unalike, The Sleeping Army, The Enemy Without. Running Time: Approx. 123 minutes. Written by: Matt Fitton. Directed by: Ken Bentley. Produced by: David Richardson.


THE PLOT:

The TARDIS makes an emergency landing, materializing in 1950s London during a fierce winter storm. Steven and Sara bundle a semi-conscious Doctor out of the damaged ship, and they find refuge from the storm with the Newmans, a family of Jamaican immigrants. With the Newmans' help, they arrange to rent an upstairs apartment while the Doctor recovers from whatever mysterious force attacked him... but when they wake the next morning, they find that both the Doctor and the TARDIS have gone!

With no prospect of the Doctor returning, Steven and Sara settle into an ordinary life. Steven takes a job at the docks with Michael Newman (Damian Lynch), while Sara stays at the apartment and helps Michael's wife Audrey (Sara Powell) look after their infant daughter.

All is not well, however. There are racial tensions stoked and escalated by bigoted dock worker Billy Flint (Stephen Critchlow). Even more disturbing, Michael is not behaving like the man Audrey and Michael's uncle, Joseph (Ram John Holder) remember. He is distant and unemotional, and every so often he talks about waiting for his family. He isn't the only one, with their landlord changing from greedy to placid overnight.

Something is happening to the people, something centered around the docks. Steven takes it on himself to investigate - but finding the answers that he seeks may just lead to him becoming the next victim!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He's mostly offscreen: a small role in the first episode, absent for the middle, and then returning for the end. This works better here than in previous Early Adventures, both because of the nature of the story and because the Doctor doesn't take charge in the final episode. His biggest scene amounts to exposition... though, amusingly, he keeps finding himself sidetracked by the infant in Sara's care, waggling his fingers at the child or singing a lullaby until Sara pulls him back on track.

Steven: He's grateful to the Newmans for rescuing them from the storm, and he is incensed when Billy Flint and his ruffians harass them. When Flint snarls that Steven should stick to his "own kind," Steven responds that he's doing just that, associating with "decent human beings." He initially can't believe that the Doctor would have left him and Sara in 1952, but he adjusts fairly quickly to his new life. Writer Matt Fitton caries over Steven's unrequited attraction to Sara from Simon Guerrier's The Anachronauts, which adds a melancholy extra layer to an already strong characterization.

Sara Kingdom: Does not fit into 1950s society. She attempts to get a job at the nearby police station, her "interview" consisting of demonstrating her skills by beating up half of the constabulary! They end up letting her go, mainly because none of them wants to admit to the incident. Her cooking is disastrous, and she and Steven end up laughing about the inedible goop that results from her attempt to boil vegetables. She is highly protective of Audrey's infant, and I enjoyed late story mental images of her fending off enemies with her blaster while cradling the baby in one arm.

The Newmans: The immigrant family that helps Steven and Sara are likable, and they feel like real people. Sara Powell's Audrey is frustrated at her husband, Michael's, odd passivity, which she puts down to his physically strenuous job and culture shock. Ram John Holder's Joseph is both likable and humorous, but he loses his temper at the harassment by Flint's gang, which Sara fears will just make the harassment worse. The nature of the story gives Damian Lynch less opportunity to characterize Michael, but he does well with what he's given, notably during an exposition heavy scene in Episode Three. The portrayal of the Newmans helps this story to feel reasonably authentic, which is key to its success.


THOUGHTS:

I've griped before about The Early Adventures' tendency to sideline the Doctor. Given that this range existed in large part because of the success of the Companion Chronicles and Lost Stories, and that it is essentially using the format of the 1st and 2nd Doctor Lost Stories, I've been bewildered as to why Big Finish decided it was suddenly a problem that Peter Purves/William Russell don't sound exactly like William Hartnell when it really wasn't a problem for previous ranges.

That said, An Ordinary Life actually feels like something that should be "Doctor-lite." The focus is on Steven and Sara facing living out their lives in 1950s London, which is a better prospect for him than for her. Where previous Early Adventures felt as if they were just avoiding the Doctor, this one feels properly built around his absence.

I most enjoyed the "real world" material, with Steven and Sara interacting with the Newmans while adjusting to their new surroundings. The invasion plot is well-done, though. It builds slowly in the background, allowing the focus to remain on the historical setting for the first half, before it finally takes center stage in the second half. Episode Three features some particularly creepy scenes, memorably when Steven finally gets to directly see the nature of the threat.

Matt Fitton's script ties the invasion to the story's themes. Steven and Sara are outsiders, understanding nothing of the customs of this time and place. The Newmans are also outsiders; they understand the social mores, but as dark-skinned immigrants they are largely denied acceptance. The aliens are also outsiders, unable to comprehend social customs even as they attempt to fit in.

A nice touch is that one clue is that those controlled by the aliens are racially integrated. The differences that matter so much to Billy Flint are irrelevant to a being that isn't human at all. As is often the case with well-scripted stories, the thematic unity bridges the gap between the two strands, the one grounded in reality and the one that's pure fantasy.


OVERALL:

An Ordinary Life starts slowly, with the first episode so heavily set in the Newmans' apartment that it almost feels like a stage play. But sometimes "slow" is the right choice. This is a story where the characters and settings are critical to the overall success. Because it takes its time, the Newmans and their life in early 1950s London feel authentic and lived-in, which makes the rest of the story that much more absorbing.

Good performances, an effective realization of a particular time and place, and an excellent music score by Toby Hrycek-Robinson all combine to make this the best of the first season of Big Finish's Early Adventures.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Set Between: Episodes 7 and 8 of The Daleks' Master Plan

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