I don’t know how to phrase this without feeling like I sound dumb, but thanks to Dyslexia, I don’t usually sit and read books daily or back-to-back. Unless there is an audiobook worth listening to, once I’m done with one I stop and do other things for about a month or two. This week, I feel like I’ve just aged 50-years in a matter of minutes. I’ve been reading several of the Doctor Who books I mentioned at the beginning of last week’s review. I have also been reading some of the E-book versions in the Target and History Collections.

With all that said, Tennant and Eccleston had a crap T.A.R.D.I.S. Yes, it was nice and open but although Eccleston’s was darker and shot to look tighter, there was just nothing to it. Smith’s first T.A.R.D.I.S is nice as you can have energy in that one. It is fun and playful, though his second was a bit drab. Capaldi’s T.A.R.D.I.S, was drab once again; however, in series 10 there are some bookshelves and bits to fill out the gantry around the upper layer. That’s a good T.A.R.D.I.S. That’s the type of place you could just get a big comfy chair, plonk it by the chalkboard things between two of the shelves, and you’d lose me in there for days.

There’s also the 7th/8th Doctor’s T.A.R.D.I.S from the film, the one that looks like the living room you gran would design. It was a very dark room with ornate furnishings with probably a Jelly Baby dispenser in the table lamp. It had lots and lots of candles in tall sticks and scones on the walls, and was surrounded by books. I’d probably rip out the massive metal supports for the time rotor and suspend them from the ceiling to brighten it up a touch, and maybe pull it into the 21st century and project space above like Paul Hanley’s artwork. So yes, I think I’ve aged far too much since last week; you can thank Paul Cornell’s “Human Nature.”

Anyway, now on to overgrown potatoes. Though these potatoes are still small enough that they can’t ride the big rides at the state fair. “The Sontaran Stratagem” & “The Poison Sky” has always been a strange duo for me. On the one hand I love it and on the other, I’m just a bit deflated on it. It is all the B-movie Who that I love and all the bits I hate. There are the classic Whovian lines that make me feel warm inside, then there is 2007 talking about the internet. It is all over the place, and for once it isn’t about Donna. Though there might only be four companions in the story, she’s not my least favorite thing connected to a companion.

I’ll explain that in a minute, but first: Watching it back, I thought Eleanor Matsuura playing a rather minor part in Who was the same actor from two other shows. It turns out I was wrong. I was getting Matsuura and Amy Pemberton mixed up somehow. I think somewhere I crossed wires thinking Yumiko from The Walking Dead Season 9-onward was the same voice as Gideon from DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Turns out, not all women with a slightly upper-middle-class English accent are the same; now isn’t there egg on my face? Well, kind of, as Amy Pemberton played Sally Morgan in the Big Finish series, which is much later than what I’ve been listening to.

See, this is just one of those episodes where I like a bit of a ramble because… there is just something about the episode’s grand nature that has literally put me to sleep before. Several times I’ve attempted to watch this episode through the years in one sitting. Every time I’ve fallen asleep from boredom. Yes, I loved Helen Raynor’s last two-parter, “Daleks In Manhattan” & “Evolution of the Daleks,” for its charm and frivolity. Was it perfect or great? Not from her standpoint, but that’s when the actors get to show they are worth their salt.

As brilliant as Tate, Tennant, Agyeman, Cribbins, and the standout performances from Christopher Ryan and Dan Starkey are, others are just a bit crap. Can we honestly stop using English actors to play Americans? Ryan Sampson might be great playing to the back of a room in theatre or less overtly villainous roles. However, for the camera there is no subtlety to the performance of Luke Rattigan. The billionaire child-genius, something something, might as well signpost that he’s really a scared idiot playing second-fiddle to the returning Sontarans.

There is a missing charm to anything in the episode. There’s no charm in Rattigan’s child-like behavior, Staal and Skorr’s cartoonish warmongering, or the reveal that everyone knew of the Doctor before Donna knew of their knowledge. I love referencing back to “Voyage of the Damned” and less so for “The Runaway Bride,” but Wilf and Sylvia’s reconnection with the Doctor doesn’t come off as heartwarming. It doesn’t come off that way as much as I’d like it to at least. Martha’s reunion is nice, but it is quick. There is a lot to get to and very little time to talk about all the companions. I guess that’s why the T.A.R.D.I.S only flashed up a blonde for a second.

Instead, the entire story is the beginning of what makes me dislike Donna so much. It starts with the heavy-handed suggestion that Wilfred will fight the last of the Time Lords if his granddaughter is hurt in the slightest. Yes, it might only be 6 episodes of Donna so far, but you are expected to have grown attached to someone that you didn’t mind being eaten by a spider after what was meant to be her wedding. It was only in the first of these two parts that she showed why she’s useful. She used to be a temp and can bring that human element. Neither Martha or the Doctor could figure out to check the factory’s sick day file, which was empty. Because of that knowledge, she showed her worth.

If you are only showing why I should want to keep the character 5-6 episodes into them being a lead, they aren’t really there to be the lead. I said it before, Donna was the comedy character that just didn’t fit in the T.A.R.D.I.S. She wasn’t doing anything the Doctor wasn’t already capable of. Again, Rosa brought a human element, Martha was smart but human and Amy is a bit of a damsel in distress (Wendy Darling) but still had a human element. Clara is horrible domestic villainy, Bill was a mix of Amy and Rose, and the current three are useless together. The current three have the same problem: none of them bring out something in the Doctor or add something to the show. Why are they and Donna here at all?

Is it so that we can have a sad ending when they disappear? I was cheering when Clara finally died, and as much as I liked Bill, I’m not losing sleep over any of it. At this point I might as well spoil it for my editor and anyone reading that hasn’t seen the show. Donna’s character is just there to anchor a sad point into the Doctor’s current form. I mean, it is not bad enough that he lost his previous face (which was Fantastic!) fighting his oldest enemy. He also lost his new blonde best-friend that he’s still sad about, his smart friend was smart enough to walk away, and next is Donna.

Yes, kick the character, or as it is called in scriptwriting circles “kill your darlings/children.” However, at some point there has to be less of that before it is boring. This is why I’m not the biggest fan of Tennant. Yes, America, he might have been the Doctor as you were getting into the show before it became popular, but he’s not the best. The same can be said of bleeding heart nostalgics, “oh he’s like a classic Doctor!” Oh, so he’s only good in books and Big Finish productions?

I’m being unnecessarily harsh because of this granular analysis if you can call it that, but I do like him. The problem I have is just how jumpy everything is; he never has a companion for too long, he never sits around a tone for too long, and something deep down makes me dislike him. Eccleston was around for one series and defined the role. Tennant popularized it, Smith made it fun, Capaldi made it depressing (thanks Moffat), and Jodie gave the Doctor etheric dream locators. Okay, that’s a bad joke, I get it. Admittedly, Jodie is yet to break out on her own with Chibnall’s awful writing.

To drag myself back from the edge before I’m hunted down by the internet’s lonely assassins, the point is that Donna adds nothing to him other than more sadness. I’m a bit fed up with feeling sad and this year has been a bit of a mess already. I don’t need Who telling me to feel sad. I want adventure, I want fun, and I want to see the far reaches of the galaxy and beyond. That’s the biggest issue I have with New-era Who. It’s just so domestic and sad all the time.

I don’t hate the episodes of the story, though they don’t pull me in and make me want to watch them over “Planet of the Dead,” which I watched at the weekend. I’m sure I’ve said it before but this whole series isn’t one I’d watch again unless I want to go through the era in order. If I want a good bit of sadness, I’ll go back and watch “Vincent and the Doctor” or “The Angels Take Manhattan” to cry at the endings. By the end of “The Poison Sky,” I’m left waiting for other episodes such as the next one, “Turn Left,” “The Stolen Earth,” “Journey’s End,” and both parts of “The End of Time.”

The villainous plot, including mind-control and mass genocide is all a bit clunky and old-hat. The same old thing you’d find in just about any other sci-fi show. While I do like the Sontarans and that the story reintroduced classic villains, nothing made them special other than their blinkered view to go head-first into battle. The writing (while improving quality) lacked something to grip onto and hold tight. As most two-parters are, some of it felt long and plodding. I’m not going to complain about Martha returning because I love her. Additionally, her interaction with Donna is less catty than Sarah Jane and Rose’s in “School Reunion.”

Next time, I’m going to talk about David Tennant marrying his daughter. There’s also the possible fact that her kids are the gran-kids of the 5th Doctor Peter Davison. I’ll also likely talk about more things to suggest crude ideas about Georgia Moffett and David Tennant’s relationship intersecting with Doctor Who. Yes, next time I get to moan about “The Doctor’s Daughter.”

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Doctor Who "The Sontaran Stratagem" & "The Poison Sky"

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Snapping and humorous writing.
• Deliciously bad puns.
• Got to love an episode with a Sontaran.

Cons

• At times plods along.
• Mindless use of mind-control.