STORY PLACEMENT

 THIS STORY TAKES

 PLACE DIRECTLY

 BETWEEN THE TV

 STORIES "THE ARK IN

 SPACE" AND "GENESIS

 OF THE DALEKS."

 

 PRODUCTION CODE

 4B

 

 WRITTEN BY

 BOB BAKER &

 DAVE MARTIN

 

 DIRECTED BY

 RODNEY BENNETT

 

 RATINGS

 10.8 MILLION

 

 WORKING TITLE

 THE DESTRUCTORS

 

 RECOMMENDED 

 PURCHASE

 EITHER 'THE SONTARAN

 EXPERIMENT' DVD (BBC

 DVD1811) RELEASED IN

 OCTOBER 2006;

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

 OR 'BRED FOR WAR' DVD

 BOX SET (BBCDVD2617)

 RELEASED IN MAY 2008.

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

    

 BLURB

 Transmatting down

 from Nerva Beacon,

 the Doctor, Sarah

 and Harry find

 themselves on Earth

 in the far future,

 long-since abandoned

 by the human race.

 But it soon becomes

 clear that they are

 not alone: a

 shipwrecked crew of

 Galsec colonists are

 being hunted down,

 one by one. What is

 the creature that

 lives in the rocks,

 and what is the

 purpose of the lethal

 tests it is conducting?

 Can the Doctor ensure

 the safety of the

 Earth for the future 

 generations of

 Mankind?

 

 PREVIOUS                                                                                  NEXT

 

The Sontaran Experiment

22ND FEBRUARY 1975 - 1ST MARCH 1975

(2 EPISODES)

 

 

                                                       

 

   

We have been lobbying for it for a while now, and finally the BBC and 2 Entertain have come through – more Doctor Who DVD releases per year! Not only that, but it appears that “off-month, special value edition” releases such as this one will be significantly cheaper than the regular DVD releases. I think the original idea was to release these additional stories with little or indeed no bonus material, but it appears that the Restoration Team just could not help themselves. Whilst relatively speaking, “The Sontaran Experiment” is a much more spartan release than we have become used to, it still has much more in the way of bonus material than the early DVD releases (such as the preceding “Ark in Space”) did.

 

What I like most about this release is that the special features are not a haphazard collection of fiddly three-minute featurettes and blurry studio footage. The special features here are mostly consolidated in one forty-minute, top-class documentary - “Built For War – The History of the Sontarans” - which does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a very thorough job too, covering absolutely everything from the Sontarans’ initial appearance in “The Time Warrior” all the way through to “The Two Doctors” and even the infamous skit, “A Fix With Sontarans”! And on top of that, the Rutans (the sworn enemies of the Sontarans) are given a few minutes’ examination.

 

The documentary is linked together by some new footage of a Sontaran wandering across Dartmoor, which I think is quite an inspired way of presenting the programme, even if it does come across as (deliberately) laughable. For me, Terrance Dicks steals the show with his amusing Sontaran anecdotes; I particularly like the one about how Robert Holmes could only be bothered to write the first two pages of “The Time Warrior” novelisation, so he just said to Dicks “finish it!” Bob Baker is also rather interesting, though some of his stories were just plain wrong! Sontarans having sex through a hole in the neck…? Please...

 

On top of the documentary, the disc features a wonderful commentary with Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane), Philip Hinchcliffe (Producer) and Bob Baker (Co-Writer); as well as the standard (but nonetheless brilliant) production subtitles. Hinchcliffe is particularly interesting to listen to on the commentary track, especially bearing in mind that this was the first Doctor Who story that he produced, and he had to face the difficult problem of his lead man breaking his collarbone!

 

However, the serial itself is not one of my favourites. It is a competent enough affair, obviously cobbled together by the Bristol Boys at very short notice when Christopher Langley’s six part “Space Station” fell through and a two-parter was needed to supplement  the four part “Ark in Space”.

 

 

“The Sontaran Experiment” has always been famous for being the only Doctor Who story to be shot entirely on location, and in fairness the story was shot beautifully by director Rodney Bennett, giving the season a bit of visually diversity and viewers a welcome change from the overused interior of Space Station Nerva. However, in contrast with the relatively bright location, Baker and Martin’s script is very dark. The Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry beam down from Nerva to the abandoned Earth, only to find lone a Sontaran assessing the empty planet’s strategic potential. More than that though, this Sontaran – Styre - is a scientist of savage cruelty; a walking metaphor for a Nazi war criminal if I ever saw one. Styre puts the Galsec colonists through a series of concentration camp style experiments - most horrifically

I felt, he lets one of them die of thirst, just so that he can measure how long the process takes.

 

In contrast to the dour tone of the story, Tom Baker’s performance is full of energy and enthusiasm, even after the “You unspeakable abomination!” scene in which he damn near breaks his neck and has to hand over much of the action to stuntman Terry

Walsh (who pulls a double-header here, also playing the colonist Zake). The Doctor’s interaction with the colonists is particularly amusing, but it is the ending that I found truly inspired. The Doctor ridicules the bureaucracy of the Sontarans – he prevents Styre giving them his report, and so their own red tape prevents them from invading the Earth! Ingenious.

 

 

The visual feel of the story is also quite impressive. The infamous robot seems unimaginably

crusty by today’s lofty standards, but it is still a memorable prop nonetheless. I thought it was strange that the Galsec colonists should wear space suits, though. To me, they looked too much like Sontarans with those big, round necks. The Sontaran himself is once again realised superbly – in their first two serials, their realisation was absolutely superb (I do not know what the hell happened in “The Invasion of Time”!) Styre even has little hairs around

his neck and mouth - phenomenal for 1974, really. It is just a pity we had to wait right until the end of the first episode to get a proper look at him!

 

I do not know if the Restoration Team will be able to keep up this high standard of budget releases, but I certainly hope so. I honestly expected to find just the two twenty-five minute episodes and a menu! As such, “The Sontaran Experiment” DVD blew me away; hell, “Built For War” justifies the purchase price alone. Nevertheless, I think the reviewer on the official BBC website put it better than I ever could: “Not unlike a Sontaran, BBC DVD's first 'budget' release is compact but powerful,” which just about says it all really.

 

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2006

 

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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