The Poison Sky

"The Doctor's infamous vessel in Sontaran hands..."

Writer: Helen Raynor 

Format: TV

Broadcast: 3rd May 2008

Series: 4.05

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Donna, Martha 

Synopsis 

As the Sontarans choke the Earth, the Doctor battles to keep both Martha and Donna alive. As the truth behind the Sontaran's plan is revealed, the Doctor faces impossible odds to save the planet and humanity from falling into the hands of his old enemies...

Verdict 

The Poison Sky was a superb episode and continued the story already started in The Sontaran Stratagem in excellent style. It really was a brilliant second episode and the story has a whole was mightily impressive I must say. The Sontarans were well and truly back and with the modern revamp, I think they were absolutely improved and that was seen particularly in this second episode. I thought the action was very good and I liked how well equipped the Sontarans were in their battle against the UNIT soldiers at the ATMOS base. As Skorr commented, to the Sontarans it was merely sport rather than war. They were killing UNIT soldiers left, right and centre with barely a casualty. That was partly due to the bullets not working though and the Doctor was quick to challenge the honour of the Sontarans on that. He called them cowards for sitting above the planet and watching it choke rather than be on the field of battle. I thought the resolution to the cliffhanger with Sylvia smashing the windscreen in was good and I loved Donna's reaction to learning that her mother owned an axe. Wilf's continued encouragement of Donna's involvement with the Doctor was fantastic and I liked how emotional she got when ringing her mother and grandad from inside the TARDIS after it had been taken on board the Sontaran ship. Her continued inability to pronounce Sontaran correctly was good but I did love the scenes where the Doctor was guiding her through to fix the teleport. The three finger moment was particularly good. I loved how the Doctor caught on almost immediately that Martha was actually a clone and his later explanation regarding it was terrific. Once he found the real Martha I thought it was excellent how he had no sympathy for the clone. Martha was keeping it alive but he sure got information out of it by using Martha's personality within it. He discovered that they were trying to convert Earth into a clone world and that the poison from ATMOS was actually clone feed. The war with the Rutans was mentioned and it seemed that it wasn't going very well for the Sontarans if they needed to convert a planet for breeding on this kind of scale. The Sontarans not fearing death is an amiable quality and when Skorr died I thought it was fantastic that he referred to his own death as wonderful. Staal was a great general once again and despite claiming not to fear death, his reaction to Luke taking the Doctor's place at the end of the episode really did speak a thousand words. The emergence of the Valiant was good and I liked the reference to Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords that was pretty much inevitable. The best reference in the story, and possibly in modern Doctor Who, was that of the Doctor recalling The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances when commenting "are you my mummy?" when putting on a gas mask. That is one of my few memories from watching a Tenth Doctor story on broadcast and I remember howling with laughter when that line was blurted out. It really was sublime. The ending was very good and I liked how the Doctor used the Rattigan Academy to find the resolution. His vision had been but a Sontaran trick and when prompted to do something clever, he had the last laugh by igniting himself and the Sontarans with him. Earth's atmosphere had been terraformed back to normal and then we had a good little lead into The Doctor's Daughter with Martha remaining on board for a TARDIS trip. Overall, an excellent end to an incredible story!

Rating: 10/10