Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions
Written By: John Dorney
RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)
Release Date: January 2014
Reviewed by: Matthew Davis for Doctor Who Online
Review Posted: 17th January 2014
Dowcra base. The third Elite Sontaran Assassination Squad closes in on its target. A dozen trained killers, but even they will be unable to bring down the invincible Strang…
Manipulated by the Time Lords, the TARDIS also arrives on Dowcra. And the Doctor is set to encounter the greatest Sontaran ever cloned...
* * *
As we begin a new Big Finish year, we start off with a brand new season of adventures for the Fourth Doctor and Leela.
After the excellent second season in which we sadly got to hear the lovely Mary Tamm as Romana one last time, Louise Jameson returns as Leela.
With an excellent script by John Dorney, The King of Sontar plunges us directly into a battle zone and does not slow down in a story full of action, humour and with a rather unexpected ending.
Since making their Big Finish debut in Heroes of Sontar, the Sontarans are quickly becoming a favourite monster in the company’s output. The casting of seasoned television Sontaran Dan Starkey as Strang is a brilliant move as his performance is a definite highlight of this release. Similar in vocal patterns to Commander Strax, Strang possesses a more fanatical personality and he is certainly no one’s comic relief. He is a superb antagonist who works very well with Tom Baker’s Doctor.
The supporting cast is headed up by the great David Collings who puts in a lovely performance as Rosato the scientist in a terrible moral dilemma which makes for some interesting exchanges with the Doctor. If The Pirate Planet taught us anything, it's that The Fourth Doctor knows how to put forward a case of moral outrage and this part of his personality comes out again throughout this story.
In fact morality is a running theme throughout The King of Sontar.
In the story there are characters that completely lack morality or have distorted and polarising views of what is right and wrong. The culmination of this occurs in the rather surprising final scene between the Doctor and Leela.
Big Finish have said that the theme of the first Fourth Doctor season was the Doctor educating Leela in an almost Pygmalion fashion. Rather than simply keeping the relationship the same as that of their television years, Big Finish have been keen to develop this relationship between the Doctor and companion and The King of Sontar is a great example of this.
The Doctor and Leela come to a crossroads bringing out some excellent performances from both Baker and Jameson. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out in the rest of the season.
Strong and defining moments such as this do not usually occur until much later in a season’s run but the fact that Big Finish has pulled this out so early is another example of how much they have done to develop the characters. It is a real standout moment from the tone of the previous Fourth Doctor releases and a great shift in direction for future stories.
The King of Sontar is a fantastic opening story for the new season which promises great developments to come.
