"In the 70's....or was it the 80's?"

History has told us that the first 2-part story of a new series of Doctor Who usually breaks the run of pretty good episodes that precede it. Take the first series, we had the "Oh my god it's back!" break-neck excitement of Rose, then the grand spectacle of The End of the world and the beautifully written Victorian adventure The Unquiet Dead. New- is great! Surely they can do no wrong? Then we got Slitheen in Downing Street, fart gags and an overwhelming sense that perhaps this 21st century incarnation wasn't quite as invincible as we first imagined. The trend was repeated with Series 2's disappointing return for the classic Cybermen, rebooting them completely. And Series 3 gave us a rather disappointing adventure with the Daleks. So it was with a sense of trepidation that I sat down to watch Helen Raynor's (The writer of said Dalek story) The Sontaran Stratagem.

Thankfully my concerns were pretty much unfounded. Although it's hard to determine exactly how good a 2-parter is until its conclusion, the opening episode, although slower than the fast paced episodes that preceded it, it builds the suspense nicely for an exciting conclusion. Anyhoo,
let's talk about the episode. It was great to have Freema back, and her scenes with the Doctor and Donna were wonderfully written and acted. As a fan of the classic series UNIT, the military organisation that Martha Jones now works for, I'm not keen on the rather negative portrayal of an organisation that gave us, in my opinion one of the greatest periods of Who-History. Still, young Private Ross Jenkins and his partnership with the Doctor was one of the best things in the episode, just wanna hear a mention of the Brigadier!

Once again the show went out at 6:20, and we had some more unsettling scenes, not quite as gruesome as the Ood-transformation last week, but the clone must have scared the piss out of some kiddies watching.

This is still going out at 6:20 right?

Donna's return home was a little....distracting, from the main plotline. Though it did give us an excuse to see more Bernard Cribbins, who was placed in mortal danger at the climax! Crikey! The relationship between Donna and her grandad is by far the best family relationship of the new series.

The Sontarans were also back, another fine creation from the late, great Bob Holmes. Raynor captured their love of war really well, and I look forward to seeing much more of them in the second part. Not sure about their All Blacks routine at the climax.

Bringing me to the bad things about this weeks episode.

First of all, Freema seemed to be let down once again. Her appearance in Torchwood reduced her to being constantly put in danger, and this was, sadly, repeated in The Sontaran Stratagem by having her captured and...cloned. So we have an evil double of Martha going about, much like a sub-par Only Fools and Horses Christmas special. If there's a "I'm the real Martha, kill her!" moment next week I may put my boot through the telly.

Also, the cliffhanger...the Sontaran ships flying down to Earth, the Doctor running out on to the street as they filled with gas and going "It's the whole world..." That's as maybe, but it does only seem to be taking place in a supermarket car park and a street in Chissick.

The Geeky: Nice reference to UNIT dating (Are the Pertwee years set in the 70s or 80s?) as the Doctor himself couldn't remember exactly what decade he worked for UNIT.

An argument over how to pronounce Sontaran, echoing a discussion between Terrence Dicks and original Sontaran Kevin Lindsay.

Looking forward to next week as we seem to have bucked the trend of dodgy first 2-parters. That said, evil Martha, whilst being pretty sexy does give me cause for concern.