So I’ve rambled about the Sontarans, and how essentially uninteresting they are as they have been portrayed and used: yet another proud warrior race, which, aside from being familiar and trite, means they’re rational and focused and therefore no particular threat unless you’re distinctly in their way — and even if you are, you just may be able to talk your way out of harm. Furthermore, they have usually only appeared one or two at a time, leaving them to waddle around in the place of any other generic monster. Not too effective!
Leaving aside the cosmetic update, which is half brilliant (the prosthetics) and half ridiculous (the suit), the new series team has done two things with the Sontarans, at least one of which should have happened thirty-some years ago. First, they’ve finally taken narrative and thematic advantage of the Sontarans’ nature as clones — which has, to date, mostly been background detail. This is a wealthy area to explore, and I’m really curious where they’ll go with it next week, up through episode thirteen. Second, and more immediately significant, is the adaptation of their “proud warrior code” into a relatable emotional threat.
It’s subtle; they’re not playing it up too much. Yet the Sontarans have been rejigged from their status as basically ineffectual boogiemen to fit alongside the Slitheen and the Daleks as somewhat ridiculous, somewhat imposing, altogether unreasonable adult figures. Where the Daleks represent wrath and the Slitheen, hypocrisy, the Sontarans are now spun as manipulative “tough love” paternal figures, full of their own unpleasant martial codes through which they measure everything and everyone. If you can adapt and get into their graces, which generally involves behaving in ways that don’t feel very comfortable, you’re all right. You get a certain amount of praise and appreciation. If you can’t do that or you can’t maintain it, though, you get stomped all over — and they try to tell you that it’s your own fault, for having failed them. For being weak. For somehow just not being good enough.
The point is driven home by the irritating “teen genius” in this week’s episode, who serves basically as the smug over-achieving suck-up that everyone hates, and everyone is measured against. “Why can’t you be more like Luke? Luke never fails me.” What Luke doesn’t realize in his smugness, of course, is that he’s just a tool for someone else’s ego and sense of righteousness. And the moment he stops serving his purpose, whether through his own doing or otherwise, he’s in for a huge fall.
It’s not as visceral a threat as some of the other adversaries, yet it is poignant. Combine it with the clone theme, and the Sontarans are suddenly a rather complex and nuanced device.