War Of The Sontarons: Ranking - 216

  War Of The Sontarons

(Series 13, Dr 13 with Yaz and Dan, 7/11/2021, showrunner: Chris Chibnall, writer: Chris Chibnall, director: James Magnus Stone)

'I shall fight for the glorious Sontaron empire and will not stop until we have become victorious!...Wait I've fallen off my horse again. I really need something smaller, like that shire pony over there. That's better....Whoops, no even this one's too big. Is there a Doctor in the horse? Oh typical, never here when you need him/her...' 

Ranking: 216

 

 Or ‘Charge of the slight brigade’. I always hoped that one day DW would do a story on the Crimean War, but I confess I never quite imagined it looking like this. Parallel worlds! Sontarons! On horseback!!! Equally I always longed to see an episode set in or around my adopted home of Liverpool, but never quite imagined that one looking quite like this either: Scouse comedian John Bishop and his parents running round Liverpool docks and clouting potato-headed aliens on the back of the neck with a frying pan. I certainly didn’t imagine the two strands ever coming together, but then that’s the ‘Flux’ series for you: why give you one sensible vaguely comprehensible thing when eighteen stuffed in the same episode will surely do? Just because you never imagined something turning out quite the way you see it, though, doesn’t make it bad. This is definitely one of the more enjoyable 13^th Dr episodes. Yaz and Dan get more to do and feel like proper characters at last rather than feeds for the Doctor’s psychobabble. The dialogue is often surprisingly biting and clever (‘Who found out?’ asks a shocked Dan about how to knock out a Sontaron. ‘Drunken bloke in Birkenhead with a mallet’ his dad replies ‘Figures’ he replies.). The plot is decidedly weird but functional, with less of Flux’s annoying habit of cutting away just as things are getting interesting. The Sontarons, often the comedy whipping boys of post-comeback Who, are scary again, well briefly and it’s very in character for them to hijack someone else’s invasion (although I’m still annoyed we haven’t seen them fight the Rutans yet – this would have been a perfect opportunity). Above all, it feels like a DW episode again, one where something exciting could be around any corner and you actually care enough about the people in it for what that something that might be. It isn’t perfect mind. The Crimean War parts are the weakest, more something we get told about than see (most of that aspect takes part with the 13^th Dr in a big hospital and never quite connects to the main storyline, while once again she stands around listening to baddies pontificate while her companions have all the fun). The parts with Vinder seem like they belong in a completely different episode and are dropped in for no reason with nothing interesting enough to make us interested (they could easily have been condensed and stuck together a pre-credits sequence for the finale and it would have made no difference). There’s decidedly less of the ‘War Games’ style ‘all of time is happening at one’ vibe that we got from the trailers and previews too, as present day Liverpool and past Crimea seem to stand in for all the universe this week. Mary Seacole is one of DW’s more irritating history figures, a stiff upper lip no nonsense matron who lacks the compassion and courage survivors of the Crimean War often spoke about (odd too that this era of DW of all eras should miss a chance to point out just how influential and pioneering a woman of colour really was in this era, so if you don’t know your history you just don’t get what a heroine she was just from the script). There’s frustrating little Sontaron war action given the title too. Still, in the context of other episodes, at least it feels as if the plot strands are tied together with more than string and sticking tape and you’re certainly never bored watching it. Not to mention the fact that it gives us something new we’ve never seen before: namely a Sontaron on a horse, Planet Of The Apes style. Not bad finding new twists for a race celebrating their 48^th  anniversary! Had all the 13^th Dr stories been as strong as this one I’d have been happy; even as a hint of how good this era might have been, however, I’m still happy. I wouldn’t say this story restored my flagging faith in a dying series single-handedly but along with ‘Village Of The Angels’ it gave me hope again – and hope, as DW fans say, is worth a cartload of certainties. Especially when a Sontaron is riding the horse.      

+ The idea that the Merseyside tunnels are (until the timelines are restored a few episodes later at least) gateways to different timezones, each with their different doors, is such a strong DW concept and fits in with all the many ghost stories of the area from real life too (check out the excellent ‘Haunted Liverpool’ series for more).

- It’ a problem in all of Flux but particularly here in an otherwise strong episode: the story slows to a crawl whenever The Swarm are on screen. They’re the blandest thing here by a country mile who don’t do much except stand around talking, so it feels wrong that they’re supposedly the masterminds in charge of everything and more powerful than other DW races we know are pretty strong. Sadly the big finale is full of moments like the weakest elements of this episode.