The Sontaran Experiment - Episode 2

Despite lacking a Sontaran or anything approaching an experiment, there was cause to be more optimistic within the first five minutes that things would change. Another thing that changes in this episode is the role of the humans. In the previous episode, I commented that they were rather dull and that I didn’t care about them very much but thankfully due to the introduction of the Sontaran it means that the humans are basically bit part players and that’s a good thing. I still don’t find the robot to be very menacing. Apart from pulling people along it’s a rather poor thing and should really have been left behind in the opening episode.

It’s implied that the Sontaran that we saw at the end of this episode is not Linx as seen in ‘The Time Warrior’ but is in fact called Styre and this is the first time really that we understand that Sontarans look the same. For the first time we see more than one Sontaran when we see The Marshal (both played by Kevin Lindsay. It’s a different headpiece that Lindsay wears compared to ‘The Time Warrior’. I don’t think that this headpiece is as good as the previous one and think that it looked rather poor in comparison. That said I still think that the Sontaran was a good creation and Kevin Lindsay was a very good Sontaran though he died shortly afterwards it’s quite good that he was able to leave such a mark on what is a rather inferior alien compared to others in the show. It would be until Dan Starkey in the new era that an actor would have some a good run with the character.

I really like the bit where Sarah is scared many times by Styre. The performance from Elisabeth Sladen is brilliant and makes up for the rather downturn in how strong the character has been written for in recent episodes. This episode sees a good fight sequence between Styre and the Doctor. However Tom Baker famously got injured during recording and so many of the shots during this fight are filmed far away to hide the fact that Terry Walsh doubles for Tom Baker. To be fair to Baker, he gives a good speech just before the fight happens and he acts like nothing has happened after it becomes clear that he holding himself in a particularly way. I think that Ian Marter does suffer in this episode and I didn’t really miss him when he wasn’t on screen.

This is definelty a more interesting episode than the first. I like how the way to defeat Styre is quite a simple way and one that benefits the two episode running time. I think that despite this story serving no other purpose than to bridge the gap between ‘The Ark in Space’ and ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. It’s clear that this would not have stretched to a four part and this is probably one of the better Sontaran stories and I think that it complements the series rather well.