Doctor Who: The Sontaran Stratagem
Note: If you haven’t seen these episodes, do not clickthrough!
Do NOT clickthrough if you are watching on Sci-Fi Channel’s delayed schedule!
I am running on the BBC schedule, which means I’ve already seen up to episode 12 of the 13 for season 4.
These posts will not be duplicated on the Blogger backup blog.
Again: The screensnaps might look awful and there will be few of them because of the way I’m viewing the episodes.
Season four’s fourth episode. I hope to get one more in today.
Seeing military swarming a domestic area no longer gives me a thrill of excitement. In this post-9/11 Bush Police State Age, with our rights being violated left and right (figuratively as well as politically!), I find such scenes distasteful and threatening.
Thank God there’s Donna to act as my proxy!
Colonel Mace: A modern UNIT for a modern world.
Donna: What, and that means arresting ordinary factory workers? In the streets, in broad daylight? It’s more like Guantanamo Bay out there.
Martha: Donna. Do they know where you are? Your family. I mean that you’re travelling with the Doctor?
Donna: Not really. Although… My granddad sorta waved us off. I didn’t have time to explain.
Martha: You just left him behind?
Donna: Yeah.
Martha: I didn’t tell my family, kept it all so secret. And it almost destroyed them.
Donna: In what way?
Martha: They ended up imprisoned. They were tortured. My mom. My dad. My sister. It wasn’t the Doctor’s fault, but… you need to be careful. Cos you know the Doctor. He’s wonderful. He’s brilliant. But he’s like fire. Stand too close and people get burnt.
Nice touch.
Luke: Fifty-two deaths in the same second, man, that is just so cool!
A prime example of why I hate kids. I used to be one. I know their callousness.
The Doctor: ATMOS, you’re programmed to contradict my orders?
SAT-NAV: Confirmed.
The Doctor: Anything I say, you’d ignore it?
SAT-NAV: Confirmed.
The Doctor: Then drive into the river! I order you to drive into the river! Do it! Drive into the river!
That was a bit disappointing. Relying on a trick used twice in Star Trek (TOS: I, Mudd and The Changeling).
Wilfred: Ah! It’s you!
The Doctor: Who?
He looks up and sees Wilfred pointing at him.
The Doctor: Oh! It’s you!
Donna: What, have you met before?!
Wilfred: Yeah, Christmas Eve. He disappeared right in front of me!
A tie-in to Russell T Davies’ delightful Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned.
The Doctor: Woah! It’s a temporal pocket! I knew there was something else in there. It’s hidden just a second out of sync with real time.
All right, how many times has this trick been used? Once is clever, but just like the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation, after the first time they changed the phase of their shields, it became a tired cliche.
Wilfred: What, have you met him as well?
Sylvia: Dad! It’s the man from the wedding! When you were laid up with Spanish flu! I’m warning you, last time that man turned up it was a disaster!
A nice tie-in to the first time we met Donna in The Runaway Bride. It makes me wonder if Davies uses the Christmas specials to test possible companions for The Doctor! I also like the way Wilfred’s absence from that episode is explained.
And as I watched the video player timer move towards the end, I realized I wasn’t about to see this story concluded in one episode!
Just like episode 12, this was all set-up.
1) I haven’t yet seen any of the Martha-as-Companion episodes, so her revelation was news to me.
2) Episode 12 mentions something that I suspect is going to turn up in the conclusion of this story.
Thanks much to the hard work of the devoted Doctor Who fans whose transcripts I’ve used as the basis for lines quoted herein.
Previously here:
Reference: Doctor Who Episode Transcripts
Doctor Who: Planet Of The Ood
Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii
Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth
I Can See The Doctor Now
Doctor Who: Now I Begin To See
Doctor Who: Turn Left
Doctor Who: Midnight
Doctor Who: Forest Of The Dead
Doctor Who: Silence In The Library
Thank God It’s Not Gareth Roberts!
Doctor Who Jumps The Gay Shark
Doctor Who: The Hair Years
