The King of Sontar

"An entire platoon was condensed into one..."

Writer: John Dorney

Format: Audio

Released: January 2014

Series: FDA 3.01

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Leela 

Synopsis 

Dowcra base. The third Elite Sontaran Assassination Squad closes in on its target. A dozen trained killers, but even they will be unable to bring down the invincible Strang...

Manipulated by the Time Lords, the TARDIS also arrives on Dowcra. And the Doctor is set to encounter the greatest Sontaran ever cloned...

Verdict 

The King of Sontar was an excellent audio adventure to kick off the third series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures series! I have been after this story for quite a while now due to my love of the format of this audio range, the brilliance of the Fourth Doctor and Leela together and because I am a huge fan of the Sontarans! It had all the ingredients for a fantastic story and it certainly did not disappoint. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting but that didn't matter at all! All that counted was that it was superb. I bought this as a treat with my birthday money and it arrived last week so I got around to listening to it very quick by my standards! I have novels I've bought years ago and still not read them, but I will get there eventually that is for sure. Ever since The Face of Evil, the pairing of the Fourth Doctor and Leela hasn't failed me and I am glad to say that they were once again wonderful together. Throw in the Sontarans and we have a great adventure! This was obviously set prior to The Invasion of the Time in which the pair would meet the Sontarans again but they were very different here from that meeting. I loved the inclusion of Leela understanding the Sontaran warrior way and how they should be allowed and not robbed of dying with honour. Dying was an irrelevance as long as it was done with honour. Her relationship with Vilhol throughout was a real highlight of the story in my opinion. I can't envisage any other companion respecting the moral code of the Sontarans which made Leela absolutely the perfect companion. Reaver was a very good character too and I also liked Rosato and the role he played with the Sontarans. The idea of a King of Sontar wasn't really explored, which was what I thought the story was going to be. It didn't disappoint me as the idea we got was a metaphorical King instead and it worked tremendously well. Strang was played superbly by Dan Starkey and he really did seem like a blend of Sontaran both Classic and post revival which was really good. I really liked the Sontarans on audio in The First Sontarans and they just improved here. The idea of Strang being the result of the Sontaran cloning process going wrong was an intriguing theory and it worked very well thanks to some marvellous explanation. Instead of the cloning pod producing an entire batch of Sontarans, it malfunctioned and the entire batch was put into one Sontaran. This provided great problems for the Doctor! The probic vent weakness was eradicated and at the cliffhanger it almost cost the Doctor his life. I thought the references to Frontier in Space and Genesis of the Daleks were very good and I loved the disgust the Doctor felt when he realised that the Time Lords had sent him on another little mission. The use of the portal was interesting and the threat it provided was more than reason for the Time Lords to send the Doctor scurrying where he didn't want to go. I was quite surprised that the Doctor wasn't too happy to hear that Strang's plan was to obliterate Sontar and wipe out his entire race. The reasoning was excellent though! Without the Sontarans, the Rutan Host would rage riot on the universe with no endless war to occupy them. Leela taking matters into her own hands at the climax of the story was sensational I thought! I really loved how she decided she just couldn't risk the Doctor changing the cloning process. With Strang blown up in the portal, the rest of the cloning equipment simply had to go. I thought the Doctor would have been more angry but I liked how he realised that he may be teaching her incorrectly. He didn't order her to leave but did take her home to at least think about things. I'm now intrigued by the direction of this series so I look forward to seeing how things pan out! Overall though, a fantastic audio. 

Rating: 9/10