Doctor Who: The Sontaran Strategem
(S04E05) Yet another classic Doctor Who villain gets an update. This time it’s the Sontarans in their first television appearance in 23 years.
For a revision, it’s actually pretty accurate to the original series. The only difference with the Sontarans now is that they’re all short. This is actually an improvement on the original series since they’ve always been from a heavy gravity world yet appeared at normal size (which always struck me as a little odd, unless the Sontarans we’ve seen historically were the professional wrestler versions).
The Doctor returns to Earth after being summoned by his former traveling companion Doctor Martha Jones, who now works for U.N.I.T., the Unified Intelligence Taskforce (known as the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce in the original series). Also lurking in the background is misunderstood child genius Luke Rattigan (an anagram of “Giant Rat,” which may also be a callback since I know of at least one Tom Baker episode of Doctor Who which involved giant rats) who runs his own genius school called the Rattigan Academy.
Once again, Russell T. Davies (along with episode writer Helen Raynor, who brought us last year’s rather disappointing Dalek two-parter) shows us the evils of commercialism by having “everybody” own an ATMOS system in their car, which eliminates carbon dioxide emissions.
I liked that the first meeting between Martha and Donna didn’t involve any nastiness or snark, since Donna doesn’t have those types of feelings for the Doctor and Martha has obviously moved on. I also enjoyed it when the Doctor ran into Donna’s family again and the reactions of everyone involved. Such coincidences are the nature of the Whoniverse.
It’s amazing how the new series is acknowledging the previous one. Even particularly amazing is that they’re even acknowledging the strange dating system used in the previous one (it’s tough to keep continuity with the original series when even that series contradicted itself).
The Sontaran leader, General Staal, was played by Christopher Ryan, a diminutive actor who is best known for roles in The Young Ones and Absolutely Fabulous. Since the Sontarans are a cloned race, why don’t they just have him play every Sontaran (like they do with the Cylon models on Battlestar Galactica)? Instead, we got the subordinate officer Commander Skoor.
So the Sontarans weren’t “allowed to participate” in The Last Great Time War, eh? Since their first appearance in the episode “The Time Warrior” with John Pertwee’s Doctor, they’ve had time travel capabilities. I think the only reason the series had to go to another dimension to bring back the Cybermen is that the Time War wiped out the ones in this universe. I blame the Rutans. Everything wrong for the Sontarans always seems to be their fault.
Sontaran battleships always looked like giant golf balls in the original series. The revised Sontaran ships are nice variations of this theme.
Wasn’t the Sontaran Dance cute? Sontar-HA!
David Tennant gave his usual brilliant, ebullient performance. He almost seemed relieved when he learned he was fighting a familiar foe and easily displaced Staal TheCoolPerson using a racquetball and a weakness learned from their first appearance 34 years ago.
Donna continues winning my “favorite companion” award. The scenes between Donna and her grandfather were touching. The scene where the Doctor thinks she’s leaving him so he pours his heart out to her and she responds by calling him a dumbo…that was brilliance. Donna’s flashback scenes were kind of pointless at this stage but maybe they needed to fill time.
Overall, it was an enjoyable episode and a step up from Helen Raynor’s last attempt. Poison gas from a car does seem sort of an indirect method of killing off a populace, but we’ll learn more about the true motives of the attack next week. Tune in for part two. Cue end music.
Christian Slater coming to NBC
NBC is reportedly moments away from ordering a series starring Christian Slater, according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter. The series is described as “The Bourne Identity meets Jekyll & Hyde”– where Slater’s suburban house dad discovers he has a super-spy alter ego. It would be the first television series for Slater, who has been on television’s hot list for years but never made it to primetime.
The spy series is created by Jason Smilovic, who also created critically adored-but-ultimately-canceled series Kidnapped and Karen Sisco.
If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard of this untitled series before, it’s because the pilot hasn’t even been shot. NBC is picking it up purely on the script and series pitch, forgoing the expense of shooting the pilot. It’s NBC’s new tactic to save money by skipping expensive pilots by just ordering an entire series. It’s the fifth series that NBC has picked up in this fashion. Risky, but it’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out this fall.
Cloverfield Television Advertisement
The first television commercial for Cloverfield has begun to air. So far I have only been able to find the ad online in low quality (video camera shot). It includes a bunch of new shots and is probably worth checking out regardless of quality. Plus I’m sure it will bring back memories of watching the original teaser trailer bootlegged on YouTube.
Cloverfield hits theaters on 1-18-08.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer TV Trailer
“Everywhere this thing goes, eight days later the planet dies.”
“How do you fight something that can eat planets?”
“Leave that to me!”
The first television spot for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is now available for your viewing pleasure.
For the most part the fiilm looks cheesier than the first (if that’s possible). But even I can admit that the Torch/Surfer chase sequence looks to be worth the ticket price alone.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer hits theaters on June 15th 2007.