Doctor Who Series 4 - The Poison Sky
As the ATMOS continue to choke Earth’s population and the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet looms over planet; the Doctor tries unsuccessfully to negotiate with General Staal. Even the Doctor’s incredible diplomacy fails in the face of the Sontaran’s bloody-minded attitude, so instead to uses the stand-off as a way to contact Donna who is in the TARDIS onboard the Sontaran ship and monitoring the transmission.
The Doctor has realised that the Sontaran Stratagem is to sedate the Earth’s population with the poison gas and then transform them into Sontarans. This is to replenish the Sontaran ranks which has been depleted in the endless war with the Rutans that has lasted many millenia.
UNIT Colonel Mace reveals his defence strategy to the Doctor. Armed with gas masks and steel coated bullets, Colonel Mace thinks he can level the playing field against the Sontarans. In a mocking callback to the season 1 episode ‘The Empty Child‘ the Doctor dons a gas mask and asks Colonel Mace;
“….are you my Mummy?”
The Doctor reminds Colonel Mace yet again that he can’t fight Sontarans and that any attempt to engage them will be futile; until the ‘UNIT Aircraft Carrier Valiant‘ arrives to blow the poison gas away from the ATMOS factory allowing UNIT soldiers to engage the stunned Sontarans without gas masks.
Somewhat impressed by Colonel Mace’s plan, the Doctor asks how UNIT intend gain access to the Sontaran factory which is sealed and guarded. It is revealed that the Valiant is equipped with a smaller version of the Torchwood weapon which destroyed the Sycorax ship on Christmas Day 2005. The Valiant fires this weapon at the factory and UNIT forces rush in to combat the Sontaran menace.
Meanwhile, Luke Rattigan returns to his academy to tempt his prodigy students to join him aboard the Sontaran ship and begin their new-life on Castor 36, a planet he intends to terraform using the equipment created at the academy and populate in a breeding program devised by him.
Severly unimpressed by Rattigan’s plans, his students desert him and he returns to the Sontaran Ship a broken man. Matters are made worse when he discovers that the offer to re-populate the human race on Castor 36 was a cruel lie by the Sontarans to trick Luke Rattigan and his students into manufacturing and distributing ATMOS. In reality they wanted to hunt him and his students for sport; Rattigan makes a hasty exit from the Sontaran ship.
The Doctor finds Rattigan at his academy; the boy is now a weeping, shivering, broken mess having had all his dreams shattered. The Doctor modifies Rattigan’s terraforming equipment to create an atmospheric converter.
The Doctor deploys the atmospheric converter outside the Rattigan academy and the poison gas begins to burn-off in a cascade reaction.
As the reaction engulfs the entire planet, the concentration of poison gas falls to zero. The Sontarans only remaining option under their own articles of war is to destroy the Earth as the option to clone humanity has been lost. The Doctor prepares to transmat the atmospheric converter to the Sontaran ship to destroy it, but instead of just beaming in onboard he goes with the device to offer General Staal a choice. Leave the Earth, or die.
Seeking a glorious death in battle, General Staal refuses to retreat and dares the Doctor to deploy the converter and destroy himself along with the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet. At the last possible second, Luke Rattigan transmats the Doctor back to Earth, transmats to the Sontaran ship and deploys the weapon himself which explodes in the startled face of General Staal.
This epic two-part episode was a classic example of the fantastic writing, acting, special effects and directing that makes Doctor Who so brilliant!
Blink and you would’ve missed it, but Rose Tyler appears in this episode for a brief second on a monitor inside the TARDIS.
Check out my seperate blog about this appearance (and possible others) of Rose from the parallel Earth she was seemingly marooned on at the end of season 2.
Next week’s Doctor Who is entitled “The Doctor’s Daughter“.
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