The Sontarans

Early Adventures #3.4

Released: 14 December 2016

Listened: 2/23/20

This is the most recent release featuring Sara, and with Jean Marsh's passing in 2025, there won't be more. It’s a shame that she doesn’t have more to do in this story, as Peter Purves does all the narration, and the story clearly leads into the second part of “The Daleks’ Master Plan.” It features the Doctor’s first encounter with Sontarans, and I’m a bit surprised the BBC let Big Finish do something definitive like that, but maybe they don’t care. In a twist, both Steven and Sara know about Sontarans, but haven’t encountered them. New-series Sontarans have been treated as lightweight, often comic relief, thanks to Strax, so making them a credible threat in an early story like this is tricky, especially when you’ve got Dan Starkey playing most of them. These Sontarans seem to be scary and military, but they’ve also got an overdeveloped sense of honor and fair play, to the point of foolishness, which the Doctor uses against them. The Doctor seems a little out of character too, letting people take terrible risks, even fatal ones, to his benefit. Add in some very dodgy geophysics and mountaineering, and I can’t rate this one very highly. It’s a nice expansion into a full-cast story, but not as strong as its predecessor.