July 15: The Sontaran Experiment Parts One & Two

The Sontaran Experiment picks up right where The Ark in Space left off, with the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry transmatting down to Earth.  This story is entirely on location and once again is shot on video -- although this time there's no obvious reason why.  But even though the Earth is supposedly deserted, there is in fact a small group of space-travelling humans from Galsec, investigating a distress signal.  And somewhere is an alien who's been torturing people -- not that anyone knows who this alien is, and we only get brief glimpses of a hand until the cliffhanger.  Except this story is called The Sontaran Experiment, so it's not exactly a big mystery who the alien is.  But no, the big reveal is left until the end, like this is a Dalek story or something.

But we can while away the time until said cliffhanger by looking at the pretty location footage of a desolate and uninhabited Earth, with scared humans wandering around (and look, one of them (Krans) is played by Glyn Jones, author of The Space Museum) and a rather nifty-looking robot roaming the countryside, capturing those hapless enough to get in its way.  And the Doctor continues his verbal abuse of Harry, as he looks down a hole that Harry has fallen into and subsequently disappeared from: "You know, it's absolutely typical of Harry!  How anyone in his proper mind could fall down a whacking great subsidence like–" before realizing that, as it's a subsidence, Harry must have found an exit.

But all too soon it's time for the cliffhanger and its reveal of a somewhat redesigned Sontaran head, which Sarah nevertheless identifies as Linx, the Sontaran from The Time Warrior.  Part two then crams in all the Sontaran action, as this new Sontaran, Styre, goes around running sadistic experiments on people, including Sarah.  Styre is evaluating humanity on behalf of the Sontarans, who are contemplating an invasion.  So while the Wirrn were trying to turn the Nerva humans into a food source for their larvae, Styre was down on Earth torturing Galsec humans.  Busy day for a supposedly uninhabited sector of space.

Harry hides from Styre. (The Sontaran Experiment Part Two) ©BBC

But all too soon it's time for a climactic fight between the Doctor and Styre, which means that we get a couple decent looks of Terry Walsh doubling for Tom Baker (Baker having broken his collarbone earlier) as he wrestles with Stuart Fell doubling in the Sontaran costume for Kevin Lindsay.  And while the Doctor is distracting Styre, Harry is performing some sabotage on Styre's ship, so that when Styre goes to recharge after the fight, he ends up being killed (with a nice little deflating effect) and his ship explodes.  Earth is safe for humanity to return to, and the Doctor and company transmat back up to Nerva.

It's surprising at this point in time to get such a short Doctor Who story (the last two-part story was 1965's The Rescue), but it's nicely economical with its storytelling.  Still, the whole thing primarily consists of people scrambling around on various rocks avoiding/chasing each other, and thus it's a bit uninvolving.  But there's nothing that it does wrong, and it doesn't overstay its welcome.  The Sontaran Experiment is thus one of those pleasantly average stories that Doctor Who turns out from time to time.  It won't really stick in the mind, but it's entertaining while it's on.