The Sontaran Project

UNIT #5.3

Released: 29 November 2017

Listened: 4/13/23

Continuing with the anthology, this is an Andrew Smith story about Sontarans. One thing about Andrew Smith: he likes to make the monsters misunderstood rather than just baddies. In this case, there’s a Sontaran missing on Earth, and his fellows have come to rescue him, but they have to find him first. Sam is still missing, so Shindi is the first to encounter them, and after some initial distrust (and light torture), they actually work alongside UNIT, if somewhat uneasily. Meanwhile, Osgood meets an old Defense Department colleague who’s working on cloning therapies…and in this case, yes, mad scientist cloners leads directly to Sontarans. Osgood is operating on her own for most of the story, and although she’s initially too trusting of her old friend, she handles herself quite well, better than in previous boxes, certainly. However, much like the Dalek in the first story, she’s sympathetic to an alien being held prisoner and experimented on. Fortunately, this Sontaran is more Strax-like, and willing to meet her halfway. Dan Starkey plays all the Sontarans, investing each of them with a different persona. None of them are deliberately comedic, but there are some pretty good one-liners with Starkey’s patented dry delivery. We’re getting closer to the Auctioneers as well, actually capturing one of their agents, but we’re told that’ll just make the rest vanish and cover their tracks. I really can’t turn down a Sontaran story with Dan Starkey, especially ones in which the Sontarans are more honorable than aggressive.