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| Parlay on a battlefield: The Doctor and the Sontaran commander, Skaak (Jonathan Watson). |
THE PLOT:
The TARDIS crew survive the Flux... somehow. Thrown clear of the TARDIS, they are on Earth. Specifically, they are Sevastapol during the Crimean War. They are found by Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole (Sara Powell), who takes them back to her "British Hotel." On the way, they have to hide to evade the enemy. Not the Russians, as the Doctor naturally assumes, but a very different foe - The Sontarans!
Under the command of Skaak (Jonathan Watson), the Sontarans have used the time instability caused by the Flux to claim the Earth. From the perspective of Seacole and the British general, Logan (Gerald Kyd), the Sontarans aren't alien invaders. They have always been here, within the borders of "Sontar" - an Empire that occupies the territory that should belong to Russia and China. The Doctor realizes that time itself has gone very wrong.
She has barely gotten a grasp on the situation before Dan and Yaz are snatched away, each taken to a different part of time and space. Dan finds himself back in present day Liverpool, which is also overrun by Sontarans. Meanwhile, Yaz appears in The Temple of Atropos - a mysterious structure on a planet called Time...
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: When Dan and Yaz are snatched out of time, she runs straight for the TARDIS, for a scene that's the exact opposite of the one that ended The Ghost Monument. There, she greeted the TARDIS like a lost lover, all but weeping in gratitude and relief at being reunited. Here, she's frantic and horrified when she is unable to gain entry, barred not only from rescuing her friends but from the only home she's ever known. Jodie Whittaker is particularly good in this scene, and in her confrontation with Skaak, sneering at him for his attack on Earth amounting to little more than a cowardly sneak attack. She strives to find a way to end the attack without bloodshed, and is enraged when Skaak and the human general, Logan, continue to thwart her attempts.
Dan: Shades of Jamie from the Troughton Era. Dan is obviously confused by all the strangeness surrounding him, but he remains game for whatever might be thrown at him. Whisked back to his present only to find it under Sontaran domination, he resolves to fight back. Thanks to a timely intervention by his parents (Sue Jenkins and Paul Broughton, both wonderful), he is armed with critical information and a weapon: a steel Wok. John Bishop's comedy background shows in his interactions with his parents and his attempts to bluff the Sontarans, but he stays just the right side of serious for us to also feel a sense of danger.
Yaz: Draws the "spare" card this week, transported to The Temple of Setting Up the Next Episode. We see more evidence of her hero worship of the Doctor, in the form of some letters she's inked into her hand: WWTDD. She glances at this reminder to herself - "What Would the Doctor Do?" - and then acts on it, confidently telling a mysterious probe that she's here to "repair" and letting it escort her to fellow time refugee Vinder (Jacob Anderson), an astronaut we saw fleeing from The Flux in the previous episode.
Mary Seacole: The Historical Celebrity of the Week. The script downplays some of Seacole's more colorful attributes, though it does nod to at least two things: Her strained relationship with Florence Nightingale, whom she dismisses as being unwilling to actually come near the front lines, and her willingness to use her position to turn a profit, as she freely admits that sales of alcohol in her "hotel" help to pay for medical supplies. Like the real Seacole, she does not restrict her treatment to only the British... though instead of a wounded Russian, she is seen tending to an injured and apoplectic Sontaran.
Sontarans: Chris Chibnall's script nods to The Time Warrior as Skaak insists that his race has a right to Earth because of the claim Linx placed way back in that classic serial. It's an appropriate reference, given that this is almost certainly the best Sontaran story since then. The potato-headed clone warriors remain comical, notably when Skaak declares that he chose the Crimean War as his point of assault for a very important reason: "I wanted to ride a horse." At the same time, the aliens are a force to be reckoned with. When they engage a large force of disciplined English soldiers, they defeat them with ease. Seacole later observes with horror that all of the casualties on the field were English, with not a single fallen Sontaran among them.
Swarm, Azure, and Passenger: The season villains are only briefly seen, but they remain effective. Azure (Rochenda Sandall) is Swarm's sister, and she might just be scarier than he is. She seems to take pleasure in killing, with Swarm almost having to hold her back. Passenger (Jonny Mathers) is the third of this group, and the one we know we know nothing about right now, as he seems to be a silent onlooker. In this episode, we learn that not only does Swarm know the Doctor - He also knows who Yaz is, and knows what she has written on her hand. He is amused at her shock, dismissing her as limited in her perception of time.
THOUGHTS:
In my review of The Halloween Apocalypse, I wondered if that episode couldn't have done with an extra ten minutes to better unify its many moving parts. War of the Sontarans makes me even more certain of this; it runs almost exactly that extra ten minutes, falling just short of an even hour, and manages the same sense of momentum without ever threatening to lose control of its narrative. I was just as caught up in events as in the previous episode, but I never the lost the sense that all the characters and strands were connected.
It opens with mysteries: Why are the Sontarans effectively taking the place of the Russians in the Crimean War? What happened to Dan and Yaz? What is happening to the TARDIS? All of these questions are addressed as the episode progresses. We get a firm answer to the first, linking the Sontarans' invasion in this episode to the events that concluded the last one. We also follow Dan and Yaz through their threads, so we know where/when they went, even if we don't yet know why. The question of the TARDIS is the least addressed, though its damage and ongoing odd behavior receives a prominent mention in the scene with Swarm that closes the episode.
The episode looks terrific. One area in which the Chibnall Era has improved upon its predecessors is in production values, and War of the Sontarans is particularly cinematic. The Doctor parlays with Skaak on a mist-covered field, the two looking like miniature soldiers as they face each other in wide shots. Dan discovers the Sontaran fleet, docked in Liverpool, and the camera rises to really showcase the power of the alien ships. British and Sontaran armies face each other in battle, in spectacular (if definitely CGI) large-scale shots. If there were ever a big budget Doctor Who movie, this is about what it would look like. If we were lucky.
A few things keep me from awarding full marks. The Yaz/Flux scenes, though well-presented and effectively intercut with the Sontaran story, are the weakest in the episode. General Logan, commander of the British forces, makes MASH's Frank Burns look reasonable and thoughtful by comparison. An effort is made to draw a parallel between him and Skaak... but it doesn't go anywhere interesting, and the final exchange between him and the Doctor recalls the very worst moments of the Tennant era.
That aside, this is a terrific hour of television. The regulars are in good form, with Whittaker particularly strong and John Bishop continuing to prove himself an excellent addition to the show. The show has never looked better visually. It's well-paced, with energy and humor. As for the Sontarans themselves? Well, after a very long time of being relegated to silly comedy relief, this represents a major return to form.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
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