"Also I really wanted to ride a horse."
IN THIS ONE... The Sontarans have taken over Earth history.
REVIEW: Though every episode in Flux is part of a larger tapestry, these villains will even return, etc., I do like that they manage to give us almost stand-alone stories in the mix, alternating them with pure "arc" episodes advancing the Flux story itself. War of the Sontarans is the easiest to watch without following the rest. It might even be the best Sontaran story since The Time Warrior. Certainly, their look is much less platicky than the Davies/Moffat version, and closer to Linx in their original appearance. The footsoldiers are still comedy aliens, but the leader is smug, ruthless and dangerous. And their plan, though I can certainly nit at the picks, is an epic invasion across all of Earth's history. And they name-drop Linx and his claim on the planet. That's all pretty awesome. A REAL Invasion of Time.
Partly taking place during the Crimean War, the companions and the Doctor are quickly separated after the introduction of celebrity historical, Mary Seacole, arguably the first nurse practitioner, and a woman of color of some note (though I'd never heard of her, my knowledge of these events limited to Florence Nightingale and the Charge of the Light Brigade, which gets quoted but happened a year before). She's going to be the Doctor's substitute companion and prove invaluable to her plans. All the stuff with her makeshift hotel, etc. is right out of the history books. Her being Jamaican does mean we have to tune our ears to yet another accent, but it's less difficult to do than tuning them to the processed voices of the Priest Triangles in Yaz's part of the story. Despite some good parlaying from the Doctor, a stock "guy in charge who won't listen", the obtuse General Logan, as much a "comedy warrior" as the Sontarans, allows for a cool (if unfortunate) British-Sontaran battle, and even once he has to rely on a pair of women, he still ends up betraying their ideals. I really like that the probic vents are used as something other than a typical Who-monster weakness, and as the Sontarans choose to make a strategic withdrawal back to their staging ground in the 21st Century (not a retreat, never a retreat), Logan decides bloodshed is the warranted anyway. Jerk.
But then, it's possible flying back to the present, they would have met with their destruction anyway. Though the people in the Crimea seem to believe the Sontarans have ALWAYS been on Earth, the people of Liverpool remember them landing after the "eclipse" when the Lupari ships surrounded the planet. So if they're defeated here, they never go back in time and cause any of this. (A simplification that doesn't really fit every piece of dialog, but I'm forced to make assumptions by this freight train of an over-arcing plot). Dan comes home, his parents are folksy heroes themselves, and though he's still presented as a bit dense (hearing tempura command rather than temporal command, for example), he's very brave, infiltrating a Sontaran ship with a phone and a wok. Does well for himself, and earns an actual invitation to the TARDIS crew, even if Karvenista has to save his bacon in the end. Then, Karvenista time rams a Sontaran time ship into the others (very cool visual), causing a time wave that erases the Sontarans from Earth's history. So yeah, never mind about limiting the bloodshed.
As for Yaz, she's trapped in the bigger Flux plot, which at this point, still has a big question mark hanging over it. For one thing, I'll take the Doctor's explanation for cash, that the collision of vortex and flux energies makes the companions bounce around in time, but why does Vinder, who also finds himself at the Temple of Atropos, on the planet called Time (temporal coordinates 0)? I'll hold off commenting on this time/place until the next episode, but as space-time collapses, people seem to be sent here randomly. Yaz, Vinder, Williamson, and more willingly, Swarm, Azure, and their new partner Passenger. These "Ravagers" are non-linear beings who know all about the Doctor and her friends, but as to what they're doing here, all we know is that it's sinister. Disintegrating some of the beings "holding time together in this universe" (the Mouri) can't be a good thing. Lots of techno-babble that won't make sense 'til later, if ever. Throw in a black and white vision of a surreal old house for good measure - that'll only mean something in the back half of the series.
THEORIES: "Sontarans! Perverting the course of human history!" is a phase the Doctor has often blurted out when waking with a start. It was the first line spoken by the Fourth Doctor after regenerating, at which point it seemed to be a memory of The Time Warrior (but there weren't multiple Sontarans). The 12th Doctor said it twice, once in Listen, and then at the end of The Doctor Falls. Could each of these instances have been a prophecy rather than a memory? With the Flux in play and time itself coming apart at the seams, it would seem a good time for a temporal echo to resonate backward like that, causing a memory before the fact.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - A very good Sontaran adventure that uses them to their fullest potential, but the Flux stuff is still puzzling.
Comments
Hmm.