The King of Sontar

Fourth Doctor Adventures #3.1

Released: 15 January 2014

Listened: 3/4/22

This next season with Leela looks like it’s trying to take some more chances with the Doctor and Leela’s relationship, as their philosophies on the necessity of killing come into conflict. They’re dropped into a conflict between a rogue Sontaran superman and, well, every other Sontaran. Super-Sontaran was a genetic anomaly, and in the way of such entities, he’s judged himself superior to the rest of his race, and therefore needs to wipe them out and take over. Rather than just getting some popcorn, the Doctor thinks that would be bad for the timelines, and sets about stopping him. Leela gets separated early on, and ends up leading a slave rebellion, because that’s what happens when you leave a Companion alone with some slaves for more than 10 minutes. Leela does quite well on her own, because battle is something she knows, possibly even more so than on TV. Unfortunately, she’s also becoming quite skilled with a variety of weapons that were far outside her experience before, and that’s what’s got the Doctor worried. John Banks and Dan Starkey provide the Sontaran voices, because of course they do. Starkey is still recognizable, but he puts enough of a spin on Strang that there’s no danger of mistaking him for Strax. And John Dorney accomplishes the goal of making the Sontarans believable and scary, which isn’t always easy in the modern era.