Terror of the Sontarans (2015)

Terror of the Sontrarans is the final story of the series and this story has dual writing credits from John Dorney and Dan Starkey who is more use to playing a Sontaran opposite Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi’s Doctors. I remember reading the DWM magazine and reading that bother writers had a different perspective on the Sontaran character which does show because there are moments where they are the stern serious race that we know them to be and then at other times there are moments which make them seem a bit humorous.

As the title suggests, the Sontarans are the ones that are being terrorised and when the Sontarans are being terrorised then you know that the threat must be great. In reality I don’t think that was explored as well as it could have been. The idea of a Sontaran being other than stoic and brave is an interesting one but its never explored in any great detail and that is a little bit disappointing.

The thing about this story is that I just didn’t think it quite worked. I listened to it and thought that I had missed something and so I took the decision to listen to it again and I liked it but I can’t say that it was the best story of the year. I think that if it had just been the Sontarans then this story would have had a different effect on me but at the end of the day it was what it was and it’s a rather disappointing end to the Mel series. Its been good having Mel back and it confirms how good the character could have been had she been given the chance to be less screamy on TV.

The central performances were quite good. Throughout the three stories both Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford have performed well and its refreshing to see Sylvester McCoy in a series of adventures with someone other Sophie Aldred. Bonnie Langford hasn’t been a hindrance and her characters abilities have been utilised and hopefully we will hear more from her in the coming years. Some of the supporting characters were interesting enough. Dan Starkey was good as Field Major Kayste, Skegg and Stodd he delivers a solid performance as a Sontaran. I quite liked Andree Bernard’s performance as Tethenka (amongst other things). She was a passive character at first and it seemed obvious that she was going to change at some point during the story. That’s not to say that it wasn’t well done but if I can spot this sort of thing out then it shows how obvious it was.