DOCTOR WHO:  THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT

commentary by Judy Harris

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	#3: THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT (2 Parts)	ORIGINALLY AIRED: 2/22/75 to 3/1/75
	WRITTEN BY: Bob Baker and Dave Martin	DIRECTED BY: Rodney Bennett
	PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe	SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes

THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT is the first DOCTOR WHO story to be made entirely on location. Again, as with ROBOT, the outdoor sequences were done on tape instead of the telltale film of most of the other BBC productions.

It was also the first story with Philip Hinchcliffe as producer.  In his autobiography, WHO ON EARTH IS TOM BAKER?, Tom writes:  "When Philip Hinchcliffe took over as producer we became very friendly and laughed a lot.  He, Bob Holmes and I often met and discussed scripts.  Philip pushed ahead with the Sword-and-Sorcery style of scripts, as he called those inspired by fairytale and King Arthur, and they were very successful.  He and I were always at ease together and he certainly developed and consolidated the programme during his time in charge."

Although this show was taped before THE ARK IN SPACE, it was meant to follow that story, and continuity is established immediately with the Doctor, Sarah and Harry materializing on Earth after having entered the transmat chambers on Space Station Nerva at the end of THE ARK IN SPACE.

The Doctor determines the transmat's focus has "gone a bit fuzzy." It seems it is "not only oscillating; it's ellipsing as well." He sets to with his sonic screwdriver while Sarah and Harry go off exploring.

The Doctor hears a shout and goes to investigate, accidentally leaving the sonic screwdriver behind. He finds a dead man in a space suit, one of 9 survivors of a GalSec colony ship, lured to Earth by a distress signal and stranded when their ship blew up.

The Doctor is blamed for the death of the colonist by two of his crewmates, who show up and shoot him. This makes two stories in a row the Doctor has been shot--in THE ARK IN SPACE, Noah shoots him in midsentence and, when he revives, he finishes what he was saying before he realizes what happened to him. This time when he revives, he tells the colonists he's a traveling horologist and chronomotrist, but they don't believe he's been to space station Nerva, because it's considered a lost colony--a legend.

Sarah returns to the transmat reception point and finds the Doctor's sonic screwdriver but no Doctor. She tracks him down and helps him escape from the colonists, returning the sonic screwdriver when he confesses he feels "lost without it." He goes off to rescue Harry, who's fallen down a subsidence. Sarah is captured by a "collecting" robot, a fragile but creditable construct.

The robot drags Sarah and one of the other colonists to its master, a Sontaran named Styre, whom Sarah mistakes for Linx, a Sontaran she met in the 13th century on her first adventure with the Doctor. Sontarans are a clone race, so they all look alike.

Earth has assumed some importance in the Sontarans' endless war with the Rutans. Styre is a Field Marshall conducting a G3 military survey program, ordered by the Sontaran Grand Strategic Council to assess human physical limitations. In short, he's torturing people. He puts Sarah in a forcefield and forces her mind to play tricks on her, so she imagines she's being attacked by a snake, the rocks surrounding her and the very ground she's sitting on, which seems to swallow her up.

The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to knock out the forcefield. He usually is quite friendly to even the most evil of opponents, but is so appalled by what has been done to Sarah he calls Styre "you unspeakable abomination."

The Doctor is shot again, this time by Styre, but is saved by a piece of the synestic locking mechanism from Nerva's rocket (in another nice continuity link with THE ARK IN SPACE which, of course, had not yet been filmed). When Harry tells him he's lucky, the Doctor tells him it wasn't luck but foresight: "Never throw anything away, Harry," he says, tossing the synestic lock away. While searching his pockets for his 500-year diary to check some notes on Sontarans, the Doctor further lectures: "It's a mistake to clutter one's pockets, Harry."

The Doctor approaches Styre's collecting robot with a friendly hello and puts it out of commission with his sonic screwdriver. He then gives the screwdriver to Harry, telling him to enter Styre's geospherical space craft and remove a certain piece of equipment. When Styre tires after engaging the Doctor in single combat, he goes to his craft for a quick feed on pure energy; but without this tellurian diode bypass transformer, the energy feeds on him. Styre's whole head collapses inward in a most satisfactory manner and his ship blows up.

The Doctor contacts the Sontaran Marshall and, in a classic example of brinkmanship, bluffs him out of invading Earth.

The Sontaran is another favorite DOCTOR WHO monster. For a man in a suit with a humanoid shape, it is remarkably effective, aided by the oversized head with its enormous, darting tongue and blunt, 3-fingered hands. The leather costume is also very appropriate. Sontarans first show up in Sarah's debut story, THE TIME WARRIOR; and appear later in another Tom Baker story THE INVASION OF TIME and a Colin Baker story, THE TWO DOCTORS.

During a fight sequence on Dartmoor, Tom Baker broke his collarbone. He had his shoulder strapped and continued with filming the next day (his costume covering his neck brace), but his stunt double, Terry Walsh, did a good portion of the climbing, jumping and fighting in this rather physical outing.

In her posthumously-published autobiography (Aurum 2011), Elisabeth Sladen wrote, "I enjoyed a spot of fun with [my costume of yellow waterproof jacket, Wellingtons, hood, etc.] at Tom's expense.  I was trying---and failing---to get the Doctor's attention while he was inspecting the transmat system.  Tom naturally turned into an irascible grump for the scene---as you would in a relationship when one of you is concentrating and the other is messing around.  I responded by taking Sarah Jane to an even more childish level. One minute I'm trying to talk to him, the next I've pulled my hat down over my eyes.  Pure, ridiculous attention-seeking---boy, it felt good!

In that little scene, I think we cracked the relationship between the two.  It was so much more than master and pupil.  Tom's Doctor allowed me to have fun, but there were plausible parameters, just as there would be in real life between two companions.  He could be playful or stern, and I would respond accordingly.  It was so warm, not artificial in the least; instinctive as well.  We found a way to read every script that just made perfect sense."

"Tom hit his stride far quicker than I did.  He walked into the Doctor's role, and I think even he was surprised at how well it fitted him.  He never had to reach for it, it's the part he was born to play." 

Kevin Lindsay, who plays the dual roles of Styre and Marshall, played the Sontaran Linx in THE TIME WARRIOR; and Cho-Je, a Time Lord reincarnated as a Tibetan monk in PLANET OF THE SPIDERS, both Pertwee stories.

Peter Walshe, who plays Efrak, plays a Pikeman in a future Tom Baker story, THE MASK OF MANDRAGORA.

Terry Walsh, who plays Zake, has had many small background and stunt roles on the show, starting with the 28th Hartnell story THE SMUGGLERS. He is Tom Baker's stunt double.