The First Sontarans

"Do you intend the genocide of the Sontaran race?"

Writer: Andrew Smith

Format: Audio

Released: July 2012

Series: Lost Stories 3.06

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis 

1872. After finding a strange signalling device on the moon, the Doctor and Peri travel to the depths of the English countryside to track down the source if its transmissions. But they're not the first aliens to arrive on the scene. 

Old enemies of the Doctor are drawing their battle lines in the forest and the local humans will be lucky to escape the conflagration unscathed.  

For hidden within this village is a deadly secret - a secret that could destroy the entire Sontaran race.. and reveal the terrible mystery of their creation. 

Verdict 

Wow! The First Sontarans was a mightily impressive Lost Story audio adventure. This was wonderful from starr to finish and with each episode the brilliance and scale of the story just escalated. I've always massively adored the TARDIS pairing of the Sixth Doctor and Peri and here they were at their very best. The scenes at the start with the Doctor showing Peri a wonder of the universe on the moon in the 19th century were just pleasantry. I really admired the banter and how Peri jokingly almost persuaded the Doctor to have them create footsteps where the Apollo would land a century later. The transmission device found on the moon particularly intrigued me with it being 1872. Judging by the title of the story, I presumed it was the Sontarans' doing. But with a message of 'we are here' I wasn't so sure. With an extremely bold title, you'd expect the Sontarans to be the highlight of this audio - it is their origin story after all! - but in actual fact it was the Kaveetch. Roath and Leandra were undoubtedly the stars, a divorced couple still on extremely good terms but the revelation of their history had my jaw dropped. When it was revealed that the Kaveetch's home planet was Sontar I was very shocked as I couldn't envisage the Sontarans co-existing with any species. But then the major bombshell was dropped. The Kaveetch were there first! Sontar was there world and the Sontarans took it from them. I loved the approach of an origin story here, I was expecting something similar to Genesis of the Daleks with the Doctor actually there at the Sontarans' creation. Instead, we had a full adventure dealing with the aftermath of their creation and the huge impact on its creator. I was mightily stunned to discover how the Sontaran-Rutan war had began. There were mentions of it in Lords of the Storm and The Infinity Doctors but nothing was definitive. Here, it was announced that the Rutan attacked Sontar, before the Sontarans were created, and Roach needed to be victorious. So he made a prototype cloned species absolutely bread for war and nothing else. That's the Sontarans. That's how they were created and that's how the war began with the Rutan. The Sontarans literally took the place of the Kaveetch in all matters of the term. The planet, the war opposition and expunged their very existence! A quite staggering origin story. The story was full of references and I liked the ones towards The Chase and The Time Warrior. The Sontaran cellular collapse gun was very impressive and it was obvious the Rutan would want something of the sort! The appearance of the Rutan Host was an unexpected delight as I've not done anything performed featuring them since watching Horror of Fang Rock quite some time ago. The character of the Gentleman was very fearsome and frightful. A terrific bonus. The relationship between Roach and Leandra was wonderful to see and using it allowed the wrath of the Sontarans to be escalated beautifully. Thanks to the Sontarans, the Kaveetch had nearly been wiped out and the children of the divorced couple were killed. How could Leandra ever forgive her husband for leaving them behind? But as the destruction in the adventure continued and the love between the pair was shown, the climax was very heartwarming. Leandra was on the brink of death but using the zero room of the TARDIS the Doctor saved her. It was lovely seeing the softer side of the Sixth Doctor, and along with Peri, Colin Baker is definitely my favourite audio Doctor! Overall, just magnificent. A sublime story, some memorable moments and revelations and outstanding emotion. Perfect.

Rating: 10/10