The Sontaran Experiment

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The Sontaran Experiment is the third serial of the

The serial is set on Earth more than 10,000 years in the future, immediately after the events of The Ark in Space. In the serial, the Sontaran Field Major Styre (Kevin Lindsay) performs experiments on humans he trapped there as part of the Sontarans' invasion stratagem.

Plot

Following on from The Ark in Space, the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry Sullivan teleport down from the Nerva space station to Earth, ostensibly uninhabited. However, the system is not functioning well, and the Doctor begins repairing it. The other two explore the surrounding area, but Harry falls down a crevasse and Sarah goes to seek the Doctor's help. He is nowhere in sight.

Roth, an astronaut, finds Sarah. He is obviously distressed, and explains that he has been tortured by an alien that lives in the rocks, together with its patrolling robot. He takes Sarah towards the astronauts' campsite, but refuses to approach it, suspecting the astronaut Vural of collusion with the alien.

Three of the astronauts have captured the Doctor. They believe Nerva to be a legend, and tell him in turn that they had picked up a distress signal from Earth. They came to investigate, but their ship was vapourised when they emerged, leaving nine of them stranded. Then they began to vanish one by one. They blame the Doctor for this. Roth appears and the astronauts chase him, while Sarah frees the Doctor. Roth loses the others and meets up with Sarah and the Doctor. The Doctor also falls down a crevasse, and the robot returns, capturing Roth and Sarah and bringing them to the alien's spacecraft. The alien is Field Major Styre of the Sontaran G3 Military Assessment Survey, who has been experimenting on, and killing, the astronauts. Roth tries to escape but is shot dead by Styre.

Styre reports back to his Marshal via a video link. The Marshal is impatient for the intelligence report (without which an invasion of Earth cannot take place), but Styre admits that he has been delayed in his experiments.

Styre subjects Sarah to a series of terrifying hallucinations. The Doctor, free from the hole, has reached her and rips off a

The robot, having captured the three remaining spacemen, brings them to Styre's ship, where it is revealed that Vural had tried to make a deal with Styre in exchange for his own life. However, Styre intends to experiment on Vural anyway. The Doctor recovers, disables the robot, and meets Sarah and Harry. He confronts Styre, goading him into a hand-to-hand combat. While they fight, Sarah and Harry free the astronauts, and then Harry climbs towards Styre's ship to sabotage it. Styre almost wins the fight, but Vural attacks him, saving the Doctor at the cost of his own life. Styre, now low on energy, heads back towards his ship to recharge, but the sabotage causes it to kill him.

The Doctor informs the Marshal that not only has Styre's mission failed, but that the invasion plans are in human hands. This is enough to ward off the invasion, and the three can return to Nerva, or so they think.

Production

Working titles for this story included The Destructors.^[1] These two episodes were initially part of a six-episode arc, but Philip Hinchcliffe made the decision to split the arc into the four-part Ark in Space and this two-part story, sharing the same director and budget. To save money, Hinchcliffe decided that Ark would be entirely recorded in the studio and this story would be entirely recorded on location. He also settled on the Sontarans because they could re-use the Sontaran costume from The Time Warrior and therefore save the expense of designing a new alien. This was the first two-part serial to be broadcast since 1965's The Rescue and the last until 1982's Black Orchid.

Although the serial was the third to feature Baker, it was actually the second shot, hence the out-of-sequence production code. This was only the second serial in the history of Doctor Who (the first being 1970's

Cast notes

Glyn Jones, who played the astronaut Krans, wrote the First Doctor serial The Space Museum (1965); he was the only person both to act and write for Doctor Who during its original 1963-89 run.^[6] The Sontaran Experiment contains the last major role played by Kevin Lindsay before his death in 1975 of a heart condition.^[4] He found the heavy Sontaran costume so difficult to manage that he could not leave the Hound Tor location for breaks, and also could not perform the fight scene – a stand-in, Stuart Fell, was used instead. Terry Walsh not only played a minor role as an astronaut, but doubled for Tom Baker in parts of episode two, after Baker broke a collarbone during filming. This meant that the climactic fight was performed by two stand-ins rather than the original actors. Most of the actors playing the GalSec astronauts were South African. This was specified in the casting, as the writers, Bob Baker and Dave Martin, were interested in language change and reasoned that the multi-linguistic influences on South African English might resemble future developments of the English language.^[7]

Broadcast and reception

Episode	Title	Run time	Original air date	UK viewers (millions) [8]
1	"Part One"	24:27	22 February 1975 (1975-02-22)	11
2	"Part Two"	25:00	1 March 1975 (1975-03-01)	10.5

The two episodes were combined into a single 50 minute omnibus broadcast on BBC1 at 6:25 pm on 9 July 1976

National Viewers' and Listeners' Association) for its depiction of "helpless adults in a state of terror".^{[citation needed}

]

Stephen James Walker said that the premise of a Sontaran surveying humans before conquering the Earth was "silly", but they praised the "atmosphere and imagery" achieved with tension, location filming, and direction.^[12] In 2010, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times described The Sontaran Experiment as "short, taut and sadistic" and wrote that "impetus and panache prevail over problems with plot logic".^[13] DVD Talk's Stuart Galbraith gave the serial three and half out of five stars, writing that its "best assets are its appropriately confined telling".^[14]

Commercial releases

In print

Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment

ISBN		0-426-20049-7

A novelisation of this serial was written by Ian Marter, who appeared in the serial as the Doctor's companion Harry.^[15] It was published by Target Books in November 1978. The novelisation differs from the TV version by having the travellers arrive in the TARDIS. The Sontaran plan here does not involve war with the Rutans but a planned conquest in alliance with another clone species.

Home media

The Sontaran Experiment was released on VHS in October 1991 as a double video with Genesis of the Daleks. In October 2006, it was released on DVD on its own or part of the Bred for War box set, along with The Time Warrior, The Invasion of Time and The Two Doctors.

References

1. ^ Hearn, Marcus. "Silver Machine". The Essential Doctor Who.
2. ^ "The Sontaran Experiment". Purpleville.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk. 12 August 2006. Archived from the original on 1 June 2012. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
3. ^ Watkins, Jack (4 November 2013). "Tom Baker: how I made Doctor Who". the Guardian.
4. ^ ^{a b} "BBC – Doctor Who Classic Episode Guide – The Sontaran Experiment – Details". www.bbc.co.uk.
5. ^ "BBC One - Doctor Who, Season 12, the Sontaran Experiment, the Sontaran Experiment: On Location - Dartmoor Days".
6. 2 entertain
   . Event occurs at episode 1, 12:06–13:06. Retrieved 29 March 2007.
7. 2 entertain
   . Event occurs at episode 1, 12:06–13:06. Retrieved 28 March 2007.
8. ^ "Ratings Guide". Doctor Who News. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
9. ^ "Dr Who: The Sontaran Experiment". The Radio Times (2747): 45. 1 July 1976 – via BBC Genome.
10. ^ doctorwhonews.net. "Doctor Who Guide: broadcasting for The Sontaran Experiment".
11. ISBN 0-426-20442-5
    .
12. ISBN 978-0-563-40588-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
13. ^ Mulkern, Patrick (7 June 2010). "Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment". Radio Times. Retrieved 24 March 2013.
14. ^ Galbraith, Stuart (16 June 2007). "Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment". DVD Talk. Retrieved 24 March 2013.
15. ^ "BBC One - Doctor Who, Season 12, the Sontaran Experiment, the Sontaran Experiment: On Location - Ian Marter played companion Harry Sullivan".

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Fourth Doctor.

• The Sontaran Experiment at BBC Online

Target novelisation

• Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database