Terror of the Sontarans

 

Terror of the Sontarans by John Dorney and Dan Starkey

For the first two episodes, and most of the third, Terror of the Sontarans understands absolutely exactly what it's trying to be. It's a gothic horror Hinchcliffe tale that happens to feature the Sontarans in a supporting role to engross the main point of the story. Which is smart. And it nails it. Terror of the Sontarans is a story that I like almost in spite of the Sontarans rather than because of them, which is an interesting thing to begin with. The Sontarans are actively the least interesting thing about it, when they're actually alive, that is. Dead Sontarans are quite interesting. It has an astonishingly good hook, of The Doctor and Mel showing up on an empty mining place filled with dead Sontarans that have quite evidently gone mad, and it goes on to explore this concept in a really rather excellent manner. It's really so amazingly, absolutely blisteringly good, I almost can't put it into words - it's a magnificent shock and everything that Season 24 would never do - you can't put "paintings made of Sontaran blood" on the Telly. From then on it's very effective work with the chief question of "oh my god, what could possibly do this to the Sontarans?" And it's a very good question, seeing Sontaran art, or a Sontaran making a quilt out of their uniform is a bit like the scene in Dark Eyes where the Daleks decide to move onto flower tending. The story is smart enough to keep us in the Dark about what causes this for as long as possible - because the story knows the unknown is much more scary and it doesn't have anything up it's sleeves to really impress us with the answer later on when the question is so much more interesting. Which is of course, smart, but it is a bit of a letdown when so much of the story is predicated on a good question with the unsatisfying answer of "oh, it was a big vine thing within the rocks." Part Four is mostly action flick - it feels almost to me like our duo of excellent writers somehow forgot to write a Seventh Doctor story with a companion other than Ace and simply added as many explosions as possible. The Sontarans are at their least interesting when they are shooty shooty blam blam, or when they are budget Klingons. Which once again brings the fact up that this story is excellent almost entirely in spite of the Sontarans, interesting because we're seeing the Sontarans as everything they're usually not. It's an interesting dilemma to note. Luckily McCoy and Langford sink their teeth into this gothic material really well and keep it dark and brooding but not to the extent that you want to scream and gouge your eyes out. Like any good Doctor Companion duo they keep it fun and enjoyable. Terror of the Sontarans I feel would be a story that would be much better without a resolution. In stories like Midnight the threat is so powerful because of the unknown, and for so much of this story, the story is really good and an excellent horror piece because of the unknown. If some weird eldritch abomination thing fucked with some Sontarans, made them go mad, and dance all over the place and paint on the walls with their blood, then go with that. Don't have it be an understandable alien threat, let the Doctor and Mel just not know in part four what's hunting them, have them barely escape with their lives. It'd be a small change to a story that is mostly already flawless. Even regardless of the ending, Starkey and Dorney have made a fever pitch of a horror story right here, and it's absolutely elegant in what works. Starkey has always been an excellent writer when I've done his rare yet lovely stories, and It's not Dorney's finest work, but it's still really great. There are plenty of problems with it, but what works hits so damn hard that I can't consider giving it a different score, Terror of the Sontarans is great, and This trilogy was so damn good: 9/10