Trivia / Doctor Who S12 E3 "The Sontaran Experiment"

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• Acting for Two: Kevin Lindsay plays both Styre and the Marshal. Helpfully, the Sontarans are a clone race.
• Creator Backlash: Bob Baker and Dave Martin were unhappy with the title, as it spoiled the identity of the villain.
• Descended Creator: Glyn Jones, who played Krans, had previously scripted the Hartnell-era story "The Space Museum".
• Doubling for London: Hound Tor on Dartmoor doubled for post-apocalyptic London.
• On-Set Injury: While filming on Dartmoor, Tom Baker slipped on some wet grass and broke his collarbone. The scarf came in handy for covering up his neckbrace.
• Prop Recycling: The Sontaran costume and spaceship were reused from "The Time Warrior"; the head of the Sontaran costume, meanwhile, was redone from scratch to accommodate for Kevin Lindsay's heart problems.
• Shoot the Money: Robert Holmes commissioned a Sontaran story for Season 12 because the Sontaran costume created for the previous season was so expensive that the producer wanted to reuse it. Ironically, a new, lighter Sontaran head was created for it, due to the old head causing issues for Kevin Lindsay (specifically exacerbating his already poor cardiovascular health), defeating the story's original purpose. Even more ironically — and tragically — the new head did nothing to alleviate Lindsay's health issues; he died a few months after filming.
• Stunt Double: Tom Baker's regular stunt double Terry Walsh ended up playing the Doctor in many scenes as Baker broke his collarbone while recording. The cinematography of the serial is therefore rather weird, especially by Doctor Who standards, showing the Doctor mostly in head-and-shoulders closeup or in extremely long shots.
• Troubled Production: Filming on Dartmoor was hampered by nonstop rain and the crew had to drag heavy cameras around. On top of that, Tom Baker, in the second story he actually filmed, broke his collarbone, which required him to be doubled for the Doctor's fight with Styre. On that note, the heavy Sontaran costume exacerbated Kevin Lindsay's heart condition, requiring him to be doubled for the fight as well (he died shortly afterwards).
• What Could Have Been: Bob Baker and Dave Martin wanted to incorporate some relics of human civilisation which would imply that the story was actually set where London had once stood — for instance, by having the top of Nelson's column poking up out of the ground in homage to Planet Of The Apes. Much of the action of their scripts was set in the ruins of an old priory, and so many of Styre's torture devices were medieval in nature. Robert Holmes rewrote Episode Two extensively, in the process removing a subplot in which it would have been revealed that Styre was controlling Vural's mind.
• Working Title: The Destructors.
• Written-In Infirmity: Tom Baker broke his collarbone while filming the second episode, and several shots feature him quite obviously with his arm at an unnatural angle due to being in a sling, covered by his scarf.
• You Look Familiar: Kevin Lindsay, who previously played the Sontaran warrior Linx in "The Time Warrior" and Cho-je in "Planet of the Spiders", plays two completely different Sontarans here.

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