Doctor Who 30x04: The Sontaran Strategem

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:13 pm

Cool ep - a few references to the classic series, a subtle (or not so subtle) dig at JNT, and the Sontarans know about the Time War. Overall pretty solid.

Irritants: why didn't those idiots report unauthorised personnel before confronting them. Also, Unified Intelligence Taskforce?

Hopes: that the producers have persuaded Nicholas Courtney to turn up in part 2. Or, at the very least the order to open fire will be "Five rounds, rapid!"

Reliant121 · Post by **Reliant121** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:20 pm

blast...missed it

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:23 pm

Try the BBC website - it'll be available online all week for those in the UK.

Reliant121 · Post by **Reliant121** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:29 pm

I can see it tomorrow or later on VirginOnDemands catch up tv service

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 8:28 pm

Yeah, I'll have to catch it tomorrow on BBC3.

Post by **Tsukiyumi** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:41 pm

They're showing the more recent stuff over here on PBS tonight. I think I'll check it out, as I haven't caught any since the mid-eighties...

kostmayer · Post by **kostmayer** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:43 pm

Dammit, I liked both Martha and Donna in this episode.

Reliant121 · Post by **Reliant121** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:01 am

What I like about Donna is she's a peoples person. Martha may not have been too affluent but she was a Doctor....Where as Donna was a filing Clerk. She's just an ordinary girl from an ordinary suburb.
Plus she's got attitude like hell!

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:54 pm

I love the Sontarans, but making them all a bunch of shorties just makes me giggle whenever I see the little fellas. This ep needed a scene of one showing his strength to make them a more credible threat.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:01 pm

I see it more as a continuation of DW's habit of making the mundane, or even comical, seem threatening. After all, who in 1962 would have considered a pepperpot with a plunger and a whisk scary?

RK_Striker_JK_5 · Post by **RK_Striker_JK_5** » Tue May 20, 2008 1:24 am

Captain Seafort wrote:I see it more as a continuation of DW's habit of making the mundane, or even comical, seem threatening. After all, who in 1962 would have considered a pepperpot with a plunger and a whisk scary?

And I still don't.

Blackstar the Chakat · Tue May 20, 2008 7:59 pm

So this UNIT group, I think it was called, was also the same group who controlled the Valient? So this is two alien invasions that they failed to stop on their own? Boy they're on top of things.

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Tue May 20, 2008 8:01 pm

I wouldn't hold the Toclafane invasion against them. Those guys were pretty damn uber.

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Tue May 20, 2008 8:51 pm

Captain Seafort wrote:I see it more as a continuation of DW's habit of making the mundane, or even comical, seem threatening. After all, who in 1962 would have considered a pepperpot with a plunger and a whisk scary?

Well yeah, but they never really made the Sontarans that scary. Good writing presents something that looks silly or unthreatening, and then counterpoints it by having it do damage. Hence the Dalek in "Dalek" pointed it's plunger at a guy only to have him laugh it off... and then the plunger crushed his face.

This ep needed something like that. The soldier challenged the Sontaran's physique... the writer should have had him respond by showing how much stronger he was.

In fact for the "best soldiers in the Galaxy" the Sontarans did horribly in this episode. They had their copper gizmo field, yes. But the second that was gone, the UNIT troops wiped the floor with them.

RK_Striker_JK_5 · Post by **RK_Striker_JK_5** » Tue May 20, 2008 10:48 pm

For the Daleks... substance over style with them, it seems. *Shrugs* Hearign about them, they're incredible villians.

Seeing them... and no matter what, I laugh. I can't help it. Hell, six years old, seeing 'Genesis of the Daleks', and never once found them to be scary.