by Iseult Murphy

Created on: April 28, 2008

Two past acquaintances of the Doctor return in the fourth episode of series four namely former companion Martha Jones and the tiny potato head warrior aliens, the Sontarans.

After receiving a phone call from Martha, the Doctor and Donna return to Earth. Martha, who journeyed with the Doctor in series three and had a massive crush on our favorite time lord, is now a qualified doctor, engaged and working for the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. She has called the Doctor in to consult on her investigation into ATMOS, a satellite navigation device that reduces car CO2 emissions to zero and that can also take control of your car with lethal consequences. While helping Martha, the Doctor meets up with his old enemy the Sontarans who join the long line of aliens trying to take over Earth. On a side note, Donna returns home to tell her family where she has been for the past few days.

I know the Doctor is a time traveler, but I am still puzzled by how Martha was able to become a fully qualified doctor (despite UNIT rushing her through) and get engaged in the short time since she stopped traveling with the Doctor. Despite this quibble, The Sontaran Stratagem' is a perfectly serviceable first episode of a two parter. It suffers from a lot of the faults of a two part episode where the story is really only strong enough for one episode in that a lot of the scenes are padded out to fill the two forty minute time slots. Saying that, there are some creepy scenes involving a vat of green goop in the basement of the ATMOS factory and it is nice to see Freema Agyeman with a role that involves more than following the Doctor around and making doe eyes at him. I also particularly liked the special effects in this episode, which shows that often the best effects are produced with a man in a suit rather than through CGI.

Whether The Sontaran Stratagem' succeeds or fails relies very much on how the concluding episode, The Poison Sky', wraps up the story line. However, taken as a stand alone story it is an entertaining yet unchallenging episode and is the first low of the fourth series.

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