The Sontaran Experiment
To aid with Nerva's mission to repopulate the Earth, the Doctor, Sarah and Harry use the transmat beam to go down to the planet and scout ahead for the arrival of Vira and her newly awakened people. Earth has been swept clean of all traces of the civilization it once held, but a party of military officers from Galsec have been marooned there and are being picked off one by one by a Sontaran field officer named Styre. The Sontaran empire's war with the Rutans has finally spread into Earth's galaxy, and in order to conquer they must see how strong the humans are, and what it takes to kill them. Sarah becomes part of the experiments herself and the Doctor takes on Styre in single combat in an attempt to stop his plans and free his prisoners from torture...
As with Robot, The Sontaran Experiment has the distinction of having all its location shots done on Betacam, but for the first time ever the entire story is set on location with no studio element at all. Usually this kind of clarity makes for really cheap looking values but when everything is just a moor-like terrain it can't really be criticized. There's the authentic wind sounds as Sarah looks for the Doctor on the empty fields, real rocks for a change as Harry tries to escape from a pit he fell down, and rain - real rain on location!
Jay and I continued our viewing after escaping from the plight of Gerard and Pape, and he was impressed to see that the Sontaran mask was actually made so the mouth moved with the actor's own. Previously in The Time Warrior it did not, which made for some discomfort to the actor inside, Kevin Lindsay, and this time the mouth was made wider. The costume also had more fingers added to the hand, making for some variation amongst Sontarans that would eventually be explained in Lords of the Storm, a novel placed several years later in the series. And it will be reviewed, have no fear.
The Sontaran Experiment is a mere 2 episodes in length, the third of its kind, and it works very well in that format. Only problem is with its neighbouring episodes either already on DVD or scheduled/rumoured for release in 2006, it will be left on its own and might be chunked into some compilation release with other 2 parters down the road. The VHS release saw it paired on two tapes with the next adventure, but the DVD releases do not seem to be hot to merge the adventures like that (aside from next year's In The Beginning box set). I would like to think that with the right extras package and a reduced price it would make a good standalone... so I could get the UK release and watch it in film-like quality on my mulitregion DVD player. Yes I know it's always about me. Except for when I have a guest viewer like the loyal Jay.
NEXT EPISODE : GENESIS OF THE DALEKS
As with Robot, The Sontaran Experiment has the distinction of having all its location shots done on Betacam, but for the first time ever the entire story is set on location with no studio element at all. Usually this kind of clarity makes for really cheap looking values but when everything is just a moor-like terrain it can't really be criticized. There's the authentic wind sounds as Sarah looks for the Doctor on the empty fields, real rocks for a change as Harry tries to escape from a pit he fell down, and rain - real rain on location!
Jay and I continued our viewing after escaping from the plight of Gerard and Pape, and he was impressed to see that the Sontaran mask was actually made so the mouth moved with the actor's own. Previously in The Time Warrior it did not, which made for some discomfort to the actor inside, Kevin Lindsay, and this time the mouth was made wider. The costume also had more fingers added to the hand, making for some variation amongst Sontarans that would eventually be explained in Lords of the Storm, a novel placed several years later in the series. And it will be reviewed, have no fear.
The Sontaran Experiment is a mere 2 episodes in length, the third of its kind, and it works very well in that format. Only problem is with its neighbouring episodes either already on DVD or scheduled/rumoured for release in 2006, it will be left on its own and might be chunked into some compilation release with other 2 parters down the road. The VHS release saw it paired on two tapes with the next adventure, but the DVD releases do not seem to be hot to merge the adventures like that (aside from next year's In The Beginning box set). I would like to think that with the right extras package and a reduced price it would make a good standalone... so I could get the UK release and watch it in film-like quality on my mulitregion DVD player. Yes I know it's always about me. Except for when I have a guest viewer like the loyal Jay.
NEXT EPISODE : GENESIS OF THE DALEKS
Labels: Harry Sullivan, Sarah Jane Smith, Sontarans, The 4th Doctor
posted by Sean Hoover @ 9:02 PM
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