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Doctor Who 30x04: The Sontaran Strategem

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:13 pm
by Captain Seafort
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? :x

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!" :)

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:20 pm
by Reliant121
blast...missed it

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:23 pm
by Captain Seafort
Try the BBC website - it'll be available online all week for those in the UK.

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:29 pm
by Reliant121
I can see it tomorrow or later on VirginOnDemands catch up tv service

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 8:28 pm
by Sionnach Glic
Yeah, I'll have to catch it tomorrow on BBC3.

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:41 pm
by Tsukiyumi
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...

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:43 pm
by kostmayer
Dammit, I liked both Martha and Donna in this episode.

Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:01 am
by Reliant121
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!

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:54 pm
by Graham Kennedy
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.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:01 pm
by Captain Seafort
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?

Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 1:24 am
by RK_Striker_JK_5
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. ;)

Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 7:59 pm
by Blackstar the Chakat
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. :roll:

Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 8:01 pm
by Sionnach Glic
I wouldn't hold the Toclafane invasion against them. Those guys were pretty damn uber.

Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 8:51 pm
by Graham Kennedy
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.

Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 10:48 pm
by RK_Striker_JK_5
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.