Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who 146 Heroes Of Sontar

The first time that Big Finish has been able to use the Sontarans in an audio drama (and the first time the Fifth Doctor has tangled with the monsters). This drama is a comedy-horror story that takes the TARDIS crew to the monastery planet of Samur, not too long after the Sontarans have razed it. Soon, Nyssa contracts a mysterious infection, and the Sontarans land on the planet, their usual trigger-happy selves.

And something else is on the planet, something eager to kill...

Tropes

• The Alleged Ship: The Gravity Sphere the Doctor hopes to make orbit with.
  The Doctor: Fuel: Inadequate. Oxygen: Limited. Hull integrity: Compromised. Jolly good. Right then, Doctor, after three...
• Big Damn Heroes: Just as it seems that Turlough, Tegan, Nyssa and the rest are going to become the Witch Guard’s latest victims, the Doctor comes out of the sky in his alleged gravity sphere and squashes the creature flat. It gets better.
• Bothering by the Book: The Doctor uses this to talk his and Tegan’s way out of summary execution by the Sontarans.
  The Doctor: Sontarans have two weaknesses, Tegan: one is the Probic Vent on the backs of their necks, see? And the other is their love of military protocol. I’m guessing the rules covering surrendered prisoners are rather more involved than those covering fugitive combatants.
  Tegan: I got you!
  The Doctor: I don’t doubt we won’t be executed, so let’s see if we if we can tie them in knots for a while first.
• Chekhov’s Suicide Pill: Trooper Vend was encouraged to swallow a suicide capsule that is fatal to Sontaran clones early in Part 4 for uttering defeatist sentiments. He spat it out. He later does swallow it, just before allowing himself to be absorbed by the Witch Guard, knowing that it will affect their now part-Sontaran physiology.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The Doctor suspects the Sontarans hold a grudge about what happened on Gallifrey. Field Marshall Stabb retorts that he intends to torture the Doctor according to Styre's manual on human tolerances.
    Doctor: Styre? I hadn't realised he'd published.
    Stabb: Posthumously.
  • Nyssa tells Tegan about her family on Terminus, and that for timey-wimey reasons the Doctor can't know about them yet.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Tegan's plan to launch the ship out of the canyon is ultimately successful, but is not without risk.
  Turlough: Ladies and gentlemen, you're flying Certain Death Airways! Very shortly, we'll be catapulted into the air by a vast explosion, prior to reaching our destination in a million tiny pieces. But, look on the bright side! At least we'll scatter your ashes for you!
  Tegan: You're not funny...
  Turlough: I wasn't trying to be!
• Deadpan Snarker: Usually goes without saying, but Tegan is really on fine form in this story, especially to the Sontarans. She can't seem to help herself.
  Vend: I... do not take orders from humanoidlings.
  Tegan: And I don't take backchat from trolls. Go.
• Enemy Mine: The Sontaran squad and the TARDIS crew end up having to work together to survive. Still, only the TARDIS crew does, though thanks to a Heroic Sacrifice by the Sontarans.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Tegan has one when she realizes why these seven specific Sontarans were sent on their mission.
• Evil Is Hammy: Fleet Marshall Stabb is a large, evil, ham.
• Flanderization: Actually averted. At first, it's easy to assume that the Sontarans have been subjected to this, being particularly stupid and easily manipulated. Instead, the soldiers were deliberately assembled by Fleet Marshall Stabb because they were the most incompetent bunch of rejects in the Sontaran Empire.
  Tegan: Are they always this stupid?
  Doctor: Actually, no...
• General Ripper: Fleet Marshal Stabb, and Field Major Thurr, both of whom have committed acts of genocide needlessly.
• Heel–Face Turn: Most of the seven Sontarans, once they figure out they've been had. Most obviously Trooper Vend who sacrifices his own life to save the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa, Turlogh and pretty much the galaxy.
• Just Following Orders: Field Major Thurr is prepared to execute Tegan as a spy for opening a sealed canister. The canister is supposed to hold orders, but since Fleet Marshal Stabb just wanted Thurr to die, the canister was empty. No matter, since she broke the seal, she is considered a spy even though she found nothing more secret than air from a Sontaran Battlecruiser.
• Kirk Summation: Subverted – Tegan starts out looking like she’s going to make one, but then stops herself and points out she was only asking a rhetorical question.
• Let's You and Him Fight: The Doctor tries this, hoping he can call a Rutan fleet down to engage the Sontarans, and have him and the TARDIS crew escape in the confusion. It doesn't work, since the Rutans have enough reason to want the Doctor dead as well.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Turlough describes the Doctor and Nyssa as this as they both geek out and finish one another's sentences.
• Loads and Loads of Rules: The Sontarans are often quoting their regulations to justify everything.
• Lovable Coward: Turlough bonds with Vend over their both being this.
• Meaningful Name: Stabb. As in “back...”?
• The Plan: Fleet Marshal Stabb’s plans in tricking the Witch Guard. He was hoping to pull a Literal Genie on the Guard, who demanded “seven of Sontar’s finest sons” as a sacrifice for the destruction of the Witch Guard. He assembled the most pathetic, error-prone or undistinguished clone from each of the lines of the seven greatest Sontaran warriors and sent them to be killed to lift the curse placed on the Empire’s war efforts.
  • The Witch Guard had an even better one for their Evil Plan. They didn’t care who was sent. They just wanted the clone DNA, which would have the prowess of the originals still within it. Then they were going to infiltrate the Sontaran fleet in the guise of the seven, and gain access to the cloning vats to replicate themselves a millionfold and conquer the known universe.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Witch Guard/Sontaran hybrids have no remaining illusions as to why they were sent here, and point out the negative traits that led Fleet Marshal Stabb to assign them to this duty to their still-living brethren.
• Redemption Equals Death: Trooper Vend, most assuredly.
• Rules Lawyer: To satisfy Trooper Vend’s refusal to cooperate with other races, Turlough ‘agrees’ to consider himself Vend’s prisoner who has to obey his orders.
• Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: The Doctor talks about this planet being a handy stop-off point for supplies for a war taking place in the next galaxy over. This is like running out of milk in your fridge and going to the nearby convenience store on Pluto. This is somewhat justified, as the Sontaran war once spread to the planet, before they began "consolidating their forces" (read: retreating).
• Secret-Keeper: Nyssa tells Tegan about her family back on Terminus. They aren't a terrible secret by themselves, but since Nyssa had first told The Doctor about them in her past and his future, it's vital that she and Tegan keep them a secret from him.
• Shout-Out: To Dad's Army: The names of the Sontaran troopers were inspired by names of the main actors in the show. For instance, Field Major Thurr was named after Arthur Lowe, and Corporal Clunn from Clive Dunn.
  • Tegan calling Field Major Thurr 'Napoleon Bonaparte' recalls ARP Warden Hodges using the same insult for Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army.
  • Sergeant Mezz (after John Le Mesurier) even has Sergeant Wilson's Catchphrase of "Do you think that's wise, sir?" and Turlough calls Trooper Vend (after Ian Lavender) "stupid boy".
  • Tegan has one to the old Men at Work song "Down Under" when she mentions "riding in a fried-out Combi" from Brisbane to Perth.
  • The Doctor calls dulce et decorum est pro patria mori "the old lie", referencing Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce et Decorum Est".
  • When the Doctor is in his makeshift spaceship just above the planet, he mentions that he's "floating in a most peculiar way", referencing the David Bowie song, Space Oddity.
• Sophisticated as Hell: When Tegan begins one of her seemingly endless "as my Aunt Vanessa used to say" quotes, Turlough exasperatedly assumes she's going to say "where there's life there's hope". The actual quote was "bog off".
• Stealth Insult: Tegan lets loose with quite a few of these against the Sontarans, once it’s pointed out to her that insulting the Sontarans openly is considered an act of war against the Sontaran Empire.
  • Napoléon Bonaparte: Tegan calls Field Major Thurr “Napoleon” to insult his short stature and megalomania, but to keep her from being killed, the Doctor quickly twists it, without lying, so that Thurr thinks she’s complimenting him on his military prowess.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Sontarans reference various elaborate methods of killing the Doctor, including torturing him, extracting his brain, and then cutting up the rest of his body.
• Unwanted Assistance: You can almost hear the Doctor wanting to scream that Tegan stop trying to be helpful by volunteering info he doesn't want volunteered, because she thinks it'll impress the Sontarans enough to let them go. It only makes them want to kill the Doctor more.
  Tegan: He’s saying we’re time and space travelers, Shorty.
  The Doctor: Yes, thank you, Tegan.
  Tegan: And if the Doctor says we’re exempt from your jurisdiction, we’re exempt from your jurisdiction!
  The Doctor: I said, ”Thank you, Tegan!”

• Worthy Opponent: The Witch Guard believe this of Tegan. Of course, this means they see her as worthy of being absorbed, so it's something of a dubious honour.
• You Have Failed Me: The real reason that the seven were assembled is that each was the greatest screwup among his particular clone line.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Invoked when the Doctor observes that he’s probably doing something wrong if a Sontaran calls him ‘heroic’ for attempting a suicide mission.

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