Doctor Who The Monster Collection The Sontarans   Starring: Jon Petwee and David Tennant Distributor: BBC DVD RRP: £10.20 BBCDVD3812 Certificate: PG Release Date: 30 September 2013

The idea of releasing discs which concentrate on a single villain is not a new one, we have already had collections for both the Daleks and the Cybermen, this new outing takes a slightly new tack by combining old Who with new.

The Monster Collection: The Sontarans comes on a single DVD with two stories. The Sontarans were never the greatest villain, if villain at all. They never bothered the Doctor, being locked in an endless war with another race. Originally, the Doctor only crossed paths with them accidentally; this would change with the new show.

They are a cloned warrior race who had taken all the design flaws from the Deathstar and incorporated them into their bodies. Tough, unafraid of death they nonetheless failed to reason that having a small hole in the back of their necks which when hit would disable or kill them, just might be a disadvantage in a fight.

The Time Warrior (1973 - Colour - 4 episodes) sees Jon Pertwee’s Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, travel to medieval Britain where a Sontaran warrior has kidnapped scientists so that they can repair his crashed ship. It’s a really stupid plan compared to travelling a bit further into the future, popping down to a local electrical shop, buying the part and flying off. Being an alien you would think that Linx would try to remain hidden, but no, he spends his time fermenting war between competing warlords. Given his military acumen, the Doctor, rather than chasing him across the countryside, could have just as well waited till Linx ran round and round in circles, for no obvious reason and fell off a cliff.

If the Daleks haven’t changed much in the last fifty years, the same cannot be said of the Sontarans, compared to the modern version Linx looks like a burns victim. That said, its well-acted and a nice period piece, it even has Dot Cotton and with all the feuding and arguments is very much like Eastenders, with less explosions.

The Sontaran Stratagem & The Poisoned Sky (2008 - Colour) and UNIT is back, this time the Sontarans have returned and it’s personal, or something like that. We’re back with David Tennant’s Doctor with a double dip of companions Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman).

Rather than poor time control and a desire to rile up the locals, this time the Sontarans have a great plan: to use, brilliant, but snotty kids, to poison the whole planet so they can use it as a cloning facility, regardless of the fact that they are sitting in orbit in a warship that could just destroy Earth. It’s little wonder that they turned out to be better nurses than warriors.

What this story does have is better production values and a better interpretation of the Sontarans, and we get our first introduction to our current favourite Sontaran nurse.

The collection is ok, but it suffers from the fact that the Sontarans were never the greatest of villains.

5

Charles Packer