A story arc in Doctor Who? It’ll never work…
And so, our intrepid heroes scarper from the Ark in Space to test out Earth for those brave, well, Ark-inhabiters, and soon come upon something fishy.
Someone is here already – a colony ship (because it turns out that while the Ark has been sleeping, much of humanity just upped sticks and buggered off somewhere else and has been living on these past 10,000 years) has been dragged off course onto Earth. Where they wander around a bit and get captured by some nasty alien.
Nasty alien turns out to be a Sontaran (Yay!) scientist who’s down here poking and prodding humanity to see what makes them tick – or rather what makes them stop ticking – prior to an oncoming Sontaran invasion. His experiments are suitably unpleasant and he’s an even nastier bit of work than the chap we met in the Time Warrior. We get to see him getting a scolding from his superiors who are apparently waiting eagerly in invade the empty earth…
Anyway, the Doctor reverse the polarity of something (although, sadly, not using those words) and manages to kill said Sontaran when he goes to re-energise from his ship. He then amusingly tells the Sontarans fleet to sod off and the planet is all nice and ready for the chaps on the Ark to pop down and move in.
Continuing directly from the previous story is a nice change of pace. I do like a story arc, though this isn’t so much an arc as a direct continuation and that’s quite enjoyable.
The setting is fantastic – Dartmoor is beautiful and makes a perfect backdrop. It laos makes some of the experiments seem even more sinister.
The scripting is great and I particularly like the Sontaran’s description of Sarah-Jane's scream:
“Why did you make that disagreeable noise?”
I’ll think of that every time I hear a child scream from now on…
I love this story. It is the very definition of “Small but perfectly formed” and is a lovely amuse-bouche before Genesis of the Daleks, a story I am quite partial towards.
9/10
And so, our intrepid heroes scarper from the Ark in Space to test out Earth for those brave, well, Ark-inhabiters, and soon come upon something fishy.
Someone is here already – a colony ship (because it turns out that while the Ark has been sleeping, much of humanity just upped sticks and buggered off somewhere else and has been living on these past 10,000 years) has been dragged off course onto Earth. Where they wander around a bit and get captured by some nasty alien.
Nasty alien turns out to be a Sontaran (Yay!) scientist who’s down here poking and prodding humanity to see what makes them tick – or rather what makes them stop ticking – prior to an oncoming Sontaran invasion. His experiments are suitably unpleasant and he’s an even nastier bit of work than the chap we met in the Time Warrior. We get to see him getting a scolding from his superiors who are apparently waiting eagerly in invade the empty earth…
Anyway, the Doctor reverse the polarity of something (although, sadly, not using those words) and manages to kill said Sontaran when he goes to re-energise from his ship. He then amusingly tells the Sontarans fleet to sod off and the planet is all nice and ready for the chaps on the Ark to pop down and move in.
Continuing directly from the previous story is a nice change of pace. I do like a story arc, though this isn’t so much an arc as a direct continuation and that’s quite enjoyable.
The setting is fantastic – Dartmoor is beautiful and makes a perfect backdrop. It laos makes some of the experiments seem even more sinister.
The scripting is great and I particularly like the Sontaran’s description of Sarah-Jane's scream:
“Why did you make that disagreeable noise?”
I’ll think of that every time I hear a child scream from now on…
I love this story. It is the very definition of “Small but perfectly formed” and is a lovely amuse-bouche before Genesis of the Daleks, a story I am quite partial towards.
9/10