The Sontaran Stratagem

196a – "The Sontaran Stratagem"
Doctor Who episode
File:Sontaranstratagem.jpg A Sontaran identifies himself as General Staal, "the undefeated" to the Doctor.
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Catherine Tate (Donna Noble)
Others Christopher Ryan – General Staal Rupert Holliday Evans – Colonel Mace Dan Starkey – Commander Skorr Bernard Cribbins – Wilfred Mott Jacqueline King – Sylvia Noble Eleanor Matsuura – Jo Nakashima Ryan Sampson - Luke Rattigan Christian Cooke - Ross Jenkins Clive Standen - Private Harris Wesley Theobald - Private Gray Ruari Mears - Clone
Production
Directed by	Douglas Mackinnon
Written by	Helen Raynor
Produced by	Susie Liggat
Executive producer(s)	Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner Phil Collinson
Production code	4.4
Series	Series 4
Running time	45 mins
First broadcast	April 26 2008
Chronology
← Preceded by "Planet of the Ood" Followed by → "The Poison Sky"

"The Sontaran Stratagem" is the fourth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 26 April 2008. The episode features the return of former companion Martha Jones, as well as the return of the alien Sontarans to the series. It is the first of a two part story, followed by "The Poison Sky". This is the Sontarans' first appearance since the 1985 Colin Baker story The Two Doctors.

Plot

Synopsis

Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) calls the Doctor (David Tennant) to ask for assistance during an investigation by UNIT. Minutes after the TARDIS materialises in contemporary Britain, Martha authorises the raid of an ATMOS (Atmospheric Omission System) factory. The Doctor introduces his companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) to Martha and UNIT; Donna instantly befriends Martha, but is concerned about UNIT's ethics and asks the Doctor why he is associated with them; the Doctor ambiguously replies he used to work for them in the late twentieth century.

ATMOS is marketing a satellite navigation system developed by child prodigy Luke Rattigan (Ryan Sampson). The system also reduces carbon dioxide emissions to zero; UNIT requested the Doctor's help because the technology is not contemporary and potentially alien. UNIT are also concerned about fifty-two deaths occurring spontaneously and contemporaneously several days before the narrative. The Doctor travels to Rattigan's private school to investigate the system, and discovers that the episode's events are being influenced by the Sontarans.

The Sontarans depicted in the episode are part of a battlegroup led by General Staal, "the undefeated" (Christopher Ryan). Instead of an instant invasion, they are tactically approaching an invasion with a combination of human clones, mind control, and ATMOS; Martha is captured by two of the controlled humans and cloned to provide a tactical advantage against UNIT.

A subplot depicts Donna returning to her home to warn her mother Sylvia (Jacqueline King) and grandfather Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins) about the Doctor. Concerned about the implications of telling the truth, Donna reneges from warning her mother. At the end of the episode, the Doctor investigates the ATMOS device attached to Donna's car and discovers a secondary function: the device can emit a poisonous gas. Wilfred attempts to take the car off the road, but is trapped when the Staal begins the invasion. The episode's cliffhanger depicts Donna shouting for help while the Doctor stares helplessly at a street full of cars emitting the gas.

Continuity

• The Doctor says he worked with UNIT sometime in the 1970s "or was it the '80s?", referring to inconsistencies in dating UNIT stories.
• Wilfred Mott recalls how he met the Doctor on Christmas Eve, when the Doctor disappeared before his eyes in "Voyage of the Damned". Donna's mother also remembers him, from Donna's wedding reception in "The Runaway Bride", and mentions that Wilfred was in bed with Spanish flu on that day, explaining the character's absence from the episode.
• The Doctor tells Donna of the "fifteenth broken moon" of the Medusa Cascade. The Medusa Cascade was previously mentioned in "Last of the Time Lords", "Partners in Crime", and in "The Fires of Pompeii".
• The Doctor tells the Martha clone that UNIT has information "in the file - Code Red, Sontarans". While UNIT never dealt with the Sontarans directly, they were indirectly involved with them in The Time Warrior.
• General Staal refers to the legend of the Doctor leading the battle in the "last Great Time War" and to the fact Sontarans "weren't allowed" to participate in the war.
• The Doctor uses the phrase "How did he get in? In-tru-da window?" when he teleports into the Sontaran ship, the same phrase used by Henry Van Statten in "Dalek".

Production

The episode features the return of the Sontarans, who last appeared in the 1985 serial The Two Doctors, a centric appearance by UNIT, and Martha Jones, who had last appeared in "Last of the Time Lords" and made special guest appearances in the Torchwood episodes "Reset", "Dead Man Walking", and "A Day in the Death"; the brief executive producer Russell T Davies gave to writer Helen Raynor included the terms "Sontarans", "military", and "Martha's back".

Martha's departure allowed Davies to change the character's personality. In her reappearance, she is more mature and equal to the Doctor in comparison to falling in love in the third series. Several aspects of her character were debated: in particular, her status and reaction to Donna. Raynor elected to emphasise Martha's medical career over her military career, and avoided a "handbags at dawn" scenario because she felt it would rehash Rose Tyler's (Billie Piper) initial opinion of Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) from the second series episode "School Reunion".

The episode is the first centric appearance of UNIT since the show's revival. Their name has changed from United Nations Intelligence Taskforce to Unified Intelligence Taskforce at the request of the United Nations, who cited the political climate and potential "brand confusion" as reasons for disassociation. The new acronym was coined by Davies after several meetings among the scriptwriters. The UNIT privates Gray and Wilson were specifically written as "cannon fodder".

The Sontarans were the fourth major villain from the classic series to return, after the Daleks, Cybermen, and the Master; Davies commented that the Sontarans were "always on his list" of villains to resurrect. The time and location of the episode was deliberately chosen because every Sontaran story except for The Invasion of Time was set on Earth.

Raynor initally envisioned the poisonous gas would be emitted by factories, but changed it in later drafts to cars for several reasons: the episode would provide social commentary and the idea of an "evil satnav system" was "much more engageable" and "irresistible"; Davies thought the concept was "so very Doctor Who". Because the series was produced out of order, the "ATMOS" subplot was seeded in the episode "Partners in Crime". In the episode, a system installed in a UNIT jeep undramatically explodes; originally, Raynor wanted it to be a large explosion, but reduced the explosion to several sparks to reduce costs and to lampoon an action movie cliché. The opening scene, which depicts the system driving its occupant into a canal, was filmed at Cardiff's docks. The scene was the first time a car-cannon had been used since 2005, and was required to be completed in one shot. The car fired into the canal was removed immediately afterwards to clear the shipping route.

The episode, like "Aliens of London" and "The Lazarus Experiment", properly introduces the lead companion's family. Unlike the Tyler or Jones families, both Sylvia Noble and Wilfred Mott had met the Doctor before (in "The Runaway Bride" and "Voyage of the Damned", respectively), providing Raynor with an additional subplot. Wilfred's positive opinion of the Doctor is different to Sylvia, who "joined a long line of mothers that don't get the Doctor"; Davies had wanted a family member who trusted the Doctor since the show's revival.

Despite the Sontaran's clone culture being asserted in the classic series, "The Sontaran Strategem" is the first episode to depict cloning. Originally, all of the factory workers were to be clones, but Raynor reduced it to only Martha to solve continuity problems with the second part. The template clone was portrayed by Ruari Mears, who wore a prosthetic mask which took longer to apply than any mask he had worn. The scenes involving the cloning tank were filmed in a Welsh shampoo factory and reused a prop from "The Fires of Pompeii" as the tank which contained the clone. Davies and Agyeman enjoyed scenes set in the cloning room; Agyeman enjoyed playing an "evil companion", who she and Davies felt made the real Martha "warmer", and Davies thought Privates Gray and Harris discovering the tank in a darkened room was "classic Doctor Who".

Broadcast

Unofficial figures show that "The Sontaran Stratagem" was watched by 6.4 million viewers, giving it a 35.5% share of the total television audience.

The programme was the second most watched of the day, being beaten by ITV1's Britain's Got Talent, which was 3 million viewers ahead of any opposition with 9.4 million viewers. Doctor Who won the time slot, beating Animals Do the Funniest Things, which got 3.3 million viewers, and it was the highest rated programme on BBC1 for the day.

External links

• The Sontaran Stratagem on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
• "The Sontaran Stratagem" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
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