War of the Sontarans (TV story)

War of the Sontarans

Talk

War of the Sontarans
Doctor:	Thirteenth Doctor
Companion(s):	Yaz, Dan
Featuring:	Mary, Vinder, Karvanista, Williamson
Main enemy:	Commander Skaak, Swarm, Azure
Main setting:	Sebastopol, alternate 1855 Liverpool, 2 November 2021 Temple of Atropos, Time
Key crew
Writer:	Chris Chibnall
Director:	Jamie Magnus Stone
Producer:	Nikki Wilson
Release details
Story number:	297b
Premiere broadcast:	7 November 2021
Premiere networks:	BBC One, BBC America
Format:	1x59 minute episode; Part 2 of 6
Official trailer
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Behind the scenes video
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Doctor Who television stories
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Next →	Once, Upon Time
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Next →	Village of the Angels

War of the Sontarans, prefixed with Chapter Two in the title sequence, was the second episode of series 13 of Doctor Who. It formed the second chapter of the six-part serial Doctor Who: Flux.

This chapter introduced the Temple of Atropos on the planet Time. The end of the episode saw Dan Lewis officially invited into the TARDIS by the Doctor, following his introduction in the preceding episode. This marked an end to Yasmin Khan's largely unwritten solo travels with the Thirteenth Doctor.

Synopsis

Thrown back into the Crimean War, the Doctor finds the Light Division are about to enter senseless battle with... an army of Sontarans?

Yaz and Dan are pulled away from her, and each find their task will be restoring Time. The Sontarans are ready for eternal conquest, and in the Temple of Atropos, the enemy has arrived to take it all.

Plot

The Thirteenth Doctor wakes, alone, on a barren wasteland, looking up at a giant, dilapidated house. She is then shaken back to reality; a field of marsh, surrounded by dead soldiers and spent artillery. Yaz and Dan then reappear, having also blacked out when the Flux cloud hit the TARDIS. The Doctor deduces they are on Earth just as a woman approaches them from the fog, calling them thieves. She confirms herself as Mary Seacole and the Doctor deduces that they are near Sevastopol in 1855, in the middle of the Crimean War. Seacole hears enemy soldiers returning and the four of them hide. When the Doctor asks how many Russians the British are fighting, Seacole disclaims her as a Sontaran commander, riding a horse, emerges with his troop.

Elsewhere, deep inside a large stone temple, Vinder wakes up from his encounter with the Flux and is quickly met by a floating diamond-shaped talking object called a Priest Triangle, who desperately asks him if he can repair something and leads him further in. In the inner chamber, Vinder is taken aback by the six plinths, on which humanoid figures appear when he walks close by, two of them flickering. The triangle explains how "the Mouri must never be compromised."

Seacole leads the Doctor's group to the safety of an army camp and introduces them to her British Hotel. As Yaz wonders if history is somehow being rewritten, Dan starts glowing blue and he quickly vanishes, followed by Yaz. The Doctor promises to get them back and considers their disappearances a side-effect of the collision of the Flux and vortex energy. She runs back to the TARDIS, hearing the Cloister Bell ring, but despite her panicked efforts, cannot find the door on any of its four sides. Upon hearing the Sontarans return, she runs back to the British Hotel.

Meanwhile, Dan rematerialises to find himself on Granger Street, Liverpool in 2021, just outside where his house should be. As he apologises to his neighbours for the disturbance, they shoot him worried glances, and he looks down the street to see a Sontaran flagship, followed by two Sontarans hunting him down for breaching their curfew. Dan narrowly escapes down an alleyway only for his mother, Eileen, and father, Neville, to appear and knock them out. They are both surprised to see each other.

Yaz awakens inside the same temple that Vinder appeared in and quickly meets up with Joseph Williamson, who is equally confused on how he could have appeared there from 1820. He explains that the building keeps shifting and leaves to retrace his steps. Suddenly, another Priest Triangle appears before Yaz, also asking if she can repair. Glancing down at the letters "WWTDD" on her hand, she agrees to help.

The Doctor enters the British Hotel and is welcomed by Seacole again, alongside a British soldier, Lieutenant General Logan of the Light Division, who is busy planning his advance against the Sontarans. He ignores her cries to avoid conflict at all costs and insists that the Sontarans have always been on Earth; the Doctor reconfirms this by finding Sontar on a nearby map in the place of Russia and China. However, Seacole and Logan vaguely recognise the name 'Russia' and the Doctor concludes that the changes to time must have been relatively recent. However, Logan continues to dismiss her help and Seacole leads her away on her nursing rounds.

As Seacole discusses her calling of tending to the victims of war, she leads the Doctor behind a curtain to see one of her patients - a Sontaran foot soldier named Svild. Despite his strong yells, he is captured after being hit by a cannonball, which the Doctor taunts him for. He asserts his right to silence under the Shadow Proclamation but changes his mind upon being told that the Doctor is nearby. She frees him under the promise that he will relay this information to his commander, allowing her to meet up with him on her signal, and he leaves under a shower of threats.

The Doctor and Seacole follow Svild across the battlefield as the sun sets and they watch him seemingly disappear. The Doctor uncovers the Sontaran camp's camouflage shield and on the other side of it, at the top of a rock face, a whole fleet of ships is being protected by hundreds of Sontarans. The Doctor tasks Seacole with keeping watch of the camp overnight and note any weaknesses.

Meanwhile, Svild passes on the Doctor's message to his commander, Skaak. Despite Skaak being impressed with the receipt of this information, he considers Svild a disgrace to the Sontaran effort and grants him "the mercy of immediate execution", disintegrating him.

As Dan hides in a car with his parents, they explain that the Sontarans arrived just after he disappeared two days previously, following the Three Minute Eclipse that was caused by the Lupari ships' shield. According to Eileen and Neville, millions of Sontaran ships have appeared worldwide, but they arrived six hours early in Liverpool, allowing the residents to learn their key weaknesses. As Dan's parents lead him to Liverpool Docks, where the fleet first appeared, Dan chooses to invade their ranks alone, armed with the wok that Neville used to knock a Sontaran out earlier.

In the temple, Yaz and Vinder meet each other and discuss their similar situations, learning they are in the Temple of Atropos, which Vinder does not believe. A triangle explains they are on the planet of Time and the Mouri, the people found in the centre of the room, harness and control all of time in the universe, but two of them have been broken. The triangle insists that time is evil, and it must be prevented from escaping by the Mouri.

In Liverpool Docks, Dan sneaks his way towards the base of the ships but is forced to hide behind some shipping crates as Commander Ritskaw leads three innocent people in front of a firing squad due to spying against Sontar. They are executed and exclaim that their Temporal Offensive is nearly ready, deeply worrying Dan, who continues to evade capture.

In Sebastopol the next morning, the Doctor uses her sonic screwdriver, to alert Skaak that it is time to parlay. The two meet on either side of a wide, empty battlefield, separated by the morning mist, and the Doctor reveals that she is who he has been searching for. Skaak admits that their Flux strategy did not foresee her, revealing that although they did not create the Flux, they did take advantage of the Lupari shield to slip onto Earth undetected. The Doctor gives Skaak the chance to leave alive if they do not fight the British, but Logan appears and points a gun at her head, telling a soldier to escort her away before the battle. As several hundred members of each army charge and fire at each other, the humans are massacred. The Doctor uses Venusian aikido on the soldier to knock him out for six hours and she makes her escape. Meanwhile, in Liverpool, Dan begins to film the situation on his phone as he climbs up a crane to find a way onto one of the ships.

The Temple of Atropos gains more visitors in the form of Swarm, Azure, and a tall and silent black-clad figure called a Passenger form. They are met by another Priest Triangle, who Azure promptly destroys with a touch of her hand, calling her power stronger than before.

With Logan continuing to advance his men despite the overwhelming odds, the Doctor meets up with Seacole, still watching the Sontaran camp. She explains that it is deserted, and the two decide to enter one of the ships. The Doctor quickly uses a pocketed catapult to knock out a guard in one hit and looks at a computer bank. As she does, she sees Dan, who is doing the exact same thing in 2021 Liverpool. The two share progress updates, allowing the Doctor to realise that the Sontarans are building in 2021 to plan an attack across time, starting with the Crimean War. As the Doctor tells Dan to do whatever he can to stop the timeship fleet from taking off, they are interrupted by Ritskaw and hang up, leaving Dan feeling lost. He quickly distracts and defeats a Sontaran but finds himself cornered by four more.

Inside the temple, Yaz and Vinder are interrupted by Swarm, Azure, and the Passenger, and Swarm taunts Yaz by his knowledge of her, including the letters on her hand, standing for "what would the Doctor do?", as well as Vinder. He tries shooting Swarm and Azure, but they simply teleport around the room before they can get hit. They force Yaz and Vinder to activate the proximity of the Mouri, and as the second Priest Triangle protests their presence, Azure destroys it as well. Swarm immediately kills a third Mouri, causing the rest to scream in pain. Elsewhere, as Dan prepares to face execution at the hands of Ritskaw and his troops, they are defeated by the sudden appearance of Karvanista who arrives to reluctantly rescue Dan.

Back at the British Hotel, the Doctor and Seacole comment on the hundreds of dead soldiers before Logan arrives in distress, having played dead to avoid capture. That night, the Doctor details an action plan. Realising from Seacole that the Sontarans need to rest for 7.5 minutes every 27 hours so they can refill their suits' protective gases in their ships, and that the next refill will be happening in 38 minutes, the trio leaves with some surviving soldiers to help drain the ships' supplies. As they get to work, but Skaak in the Crimea and Ritskaw in Liverpool are furious.

Karvanista explains to Dan how he interrupted his and the Doctor's transmissions to learn their plan and quickly launches the Sontaran ship. Meanwhile, back on the battlefield, the Doctor meets up with Skaak again and forces him to "make a strategic withdrawal". Karvanista's plan is to ram the remaining ships, creating a temporal explosion that will destroy the rest. Despite being cornered by yet more Sontarans, they escape down a waste tube to land in the docklands just seconds before the ship crashes, destroying all the others in a giant blue time implosion resulting in all evidence of the Sontaran invasion being erased.

In the Crimea, the Sontarans begin to evacuate, but Logan has other plans and lights a fuse leading to the ships. The group run for their lives as the ships explode, infuriating the Doctor as they were already leaving. However, she hears the TARDIS in the distance, and leaves in disgust to find her friends. The door finally materialises on one of its sides. She lands in Liverpool in front of a wet Dan and Karvanista, leading Dan to choose to travel with her. Karvanista promises that the Lupari will protect Earth but warns that the universe is in a bad state. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor is shocked by the sudden appearance of strange cobweb-like structures sprouting out of the walls, but she does not have much time to investigate before they are hijacked.

The TARDIS lands in the Temple of Atropos and Swarm leads them to find Yaz. As he clicks his fingers, the Mouri reappear, with Yaz and Vinder taking the place of two of them, visibly distressed. Swarm warns that they will be killed if the Doctor tries to rescue them, and Azure counts down from five before Swarm claims that "the full force of time will blast through them" when he clicks again. As the Doctor begs him to stop and explain what he wants, he refuses, and clicks his fingers in Yaz's face.

Cast

• The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
• Yasmin Khan - Mandip Gill
• Dan Lewis - John Bishop
• Skaak/Sontaran Commander Riskaw - Jonathan Watson
• Mary Seacole - Sara Powell
• Vinder - Jacob Anderson
• Eileen - Sue Jenkins
• Neville - Paul Broughton
• Joseph Williamson - Steve Oram
• General Logan - Gerald Kyd
• Svild - Dan Starkey
• Swarm - Sam Spruell
• Azure - Rochenda Sandall
• Karvanista - Craig Els
• Passenger - Jonny Mathers
• Priest Triangle - Nigel Lambert

Uncredited cast

• Horse - Zaleno
• Mouri - Chloe Williams, Antonia Shanice, Annette Sandles, Maty Carpenter, TBA, TBA

Crew

Executive Producers   Matt Strevens and Chris Chibnall

Co-executive producer   Nikki Wilson

Written by Chris Chibnall	Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone	Director of Photography Robin Whenary	Production Designer Dafydd Shurmer	Visual Effects DNEG
Make-up Designer Claire Pritchard-Jones	Casting Director Andy Pryor CDG	Music Segun Akinola	Costume Design & Creature Design Ray Holman	Edited by Joel Skinner	Special Effects Real SFX
Original theme music by Ron Grainer  •  Title sequence by Ben Pickles  Music orchestrated & conducted by Alec Roberts  •  Recorded by Olga FitzRoy  •  Mixed by Goetz Botzenhardt   Sontarans created by Robert Holmes

General production staff Head of Production - Jacquie Glanville Executive Producer for the BBC - Ben Irving Production Executive - Tracie Simpson Line Producer - Steffan Morris Associate Producer - Sheena Bucktowonsing Production Manager - Delmi Thomas Supervising Location Manager - Iwan Roberts Location Manager - Gareth Roberts Unit Manager - Jac Jones Production Co-ordinator - Sandra Cosfeld Assistant Production Co-ordinator - Jade Stephenson Production Secretary - Nikhil Theva Raj Executive Assistant - Caroline Cook Production Office Runner - Ellie Hilton Unit Drivers - Paul Watkins, Jolyon Davey, Steve Darwent Unit Medics - Glyn Evans, Andy Jones Business Affairs - Elaine Evans, Kyle Parsons, Steve Robson Production Accountant - Rhys Evans Assistant Accountants - Kate Barber-Williams, Kim Dyer Cast Payroll Accountant - Helen Searle Contracts Booker - Leanne Bowcott Crew Payroll Accountant - Bethan Wray Covid Coordinator - Ellie Simmons Covid Assistants - Kyle Yates, Jonny Tarr Covid Office Assistant - Etty Stanley Script department Script Editors - Caroline Buckley, Rebecca Roughan Camera and lighting department 1st Assistant Director - Christopher J Thomas 2nd Assistant Director - Lauren Pate Assistant Directors - Jac Lewis, Laura Thompson Script Supervisor - Vicky Cole Camera Operator - Mark McQuoid ACO Camera Trainee - Evangeline Davies Focus Puller - Jonathan Vidgen Key Grip - John Robinson Assistant Grip - Matt Clark Camera Assistant - Dan Patounas Gaffer - Mark Hutchings Rigging Gaffer - Andy Gardiner Best Boy - Gareth Sheldon Electricians - Gawain Nash, Stuart Gale, Matthew Hutchings, Rhodri Moses	Art department Supervising Art Director - Rebecca Brown Construction Art Director - Julia Jones Art Department Assistant - Laura Honeybun Art Department Co-ordinator - Hannah Miller Production Buyer - Billie Blue Williams Petty Cash Buyer - Sally Sharp Set Decorator - Vicki Male Action Props Buyer - Milannah Faith Summers Concept Artist - Louis Knight Graphic Designer - Stephen Fielding Trainee Graphic Designer - Lois Drage Standby Props - Matthew Ireland, Melissa Sheppard, Lewis Reece Standby Carpenter - Colm Garrett Prop Hands - Dewi Thomas, John Thomas, Liv Cheung, Tom Major, Christopher Ahearne Standby Art Director - Cerys Lewis Rigging - Shadow Scaffolding Standby Rigger - Alex Herbert Scenic Painters - Alison Drane, Rachel Willsher HOD Painter - Scenic Steve Painters - Lloyd Reece, Mark Reece Storeman - Lucy Hookings Prop Master - Paul Aitken Props Driver - Paul Carmichael Construction Manager - Tom Berrow Construction Assistant - Marcus Scholl Workshop Manager - Mark Hill Workshop Assistant - Chris Slocombe Construction Chargehands - Dan Berrow, Jonathan Tylke Construction Driver - Darren Bousie CNC Programmer - Kristian Tucker Plasterers - David Williams, Jason Tylke Practical Electricians - Rob Hearne, Matthew Dunford Draughtspersons - Lauren Harper, Alex Roberts Trainee Draughtsperson - Rachel Ellis Carpenters - Sam Burridge, Campbell Fraser, Matt Gronow, Rhys Andrews, Dean Tucker, David Hobbs, Ben McDonald, Ashley Bullock, Mike Venables, Julian Tucker Costume department Costume Supervisor - Ian Fowler Assistant Costume Designer - Simon Marks Costume Cutter/Maker - Brighde Penn Creature Costume Maker - Robert Allsopp & Associates Costume Assistants - Andie Mear, Nadia Cucinella Costume Trainee - Yiwen Lin	Make-up and prosthetics Make-up Supervisor - Emma Cowen Make-up Artists - Amy Riley, Angharad Walsh Junior Make-up Artist - India Jones Prosthetics Trainees - Tara Kemp, Nyle Pritchard-Trew Prosthetics Designer - Danny Marie Elias Prosthetics Artist - Amy Paul Junior Prosthetics Artists - Elly Suggit, Ashley Lovett Prosthetics Office Assistant - Gwenno Hughes Movement Stunt Co-ordinator - Crispin Layfield Stunt Performers - Belinda McGinley, Christina Low, Ellie Keighley, Rob Jarman, Joseph Paxton, Annabel Canaven, Matt Hermiston Casting Casting Associate - Ri McDaid-Wren Casting Assistant - Ray Böhm General post-production staff Post-production Producer - Ceres Doyle Post-production Supervisor - Liv Duffin Assistant Editors - Hayley Williams, Brooke Taylor Michael On-line Editor - Christine Kelly Assistant On-line Editor - Luke Stanbury Special and visual effects Additional VFX - BBC Wales Graphics, Zodiak VFX, Ben Pickles VFX Editor - Emily Lawrence Assistant VFX Editor - Alastair Gray Colourist - Gareth Spensley Head Model Maker - Lee Radford Model Makers - Penny Howarth, Lee Price Sound Sound Recordist - Deian Llyr Humphreys AMPS Dubbing Mixers - Natasha Haycocks, Howard Bargroff Sound Maintenance Engineers - Christopher Goding, Joe Malone Sound Designer - Harry Barnes Dialogue Editor - Darran Clement ADR Editor - Matthew Cox Foley - Bang Post Production

Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources.

Worldbuilding

• The Doctor mumbles about the Flux being "the end of the universe".
• Dan and Yaz are thrown into time windows caused by the Flux and Vortex energy having collided.
• Svild invokes the Shadow Proclamation.
• Dan and Karvanista escape from the Sontaran ship through a waste tube.

History

• The Crimean War originally saw the British Empire fighting the Russians. Time has been altered so that the Empire has been fighting the Sontarans instead.
• The Doctor mentions that the Ottoman Empire is weakening.

Locations

• In her own mind, the Doctor finds herself in a forest having found a floating house.
• Team TARDIS have landed in Sebastopol, Crimea, 1855.
• Vinder remembers crashing in his escape pod towards a planet, then wakes up in a hallway.
• Mary Seacole invites Team TARDIS inside her British Hotel.
• Dan is thrown back to his now-lost house on Granger Street in Anfield, Liverpool, 2 November, 2021 via a time window.
• A few locations appear on the map:
  • Asia, Baltic Sea, Barbary, Bay of Biscay, Black Sea, The British Isles, Europe, France, Germany, Hindustan, Iceland, Italy, North Sea, Persia, Sontar and Spain are labeled on the eastern hemisphere of the map.
  • Cape Verd Isles, Cuba, Gulf of Mexico, Jamaica, Mexico or New Spain, South America, United States, Venezuela and the Western or Atlantic Ocean are labeled on the western hemisphere of the map.
  • Russia and China are gone from the map.
• Dan and his dad makes fun of Birkenhead.
• The Priest Triangle explains the Temple of Atropos on the planet Time.
• When caught, Dan feigns ignorance and says he's "looking for the Pier Head".
• The Doctor says the spatial-temporal readings are at zero on Time.

Individuals

• Team TARDIS meets Mary Seacole.
• Mary mistakes the Doctor, Yaz and Dan for "Vultures".
• Mary says that "Doctor" is a man's term, and calls herself "Doctress".
• Mary says that all of the Sentry patrol are dead.
• Mary mentions a "Mrs Nightingale".
• Dan thinks Mary Seacole is an army nurse.
• Dan attempts to talk to his neighbor, Jim, then to his front door neighbor.
• Dan tries to call Diane.
• Joseph Williamson appears at the temple and believes it to be "the year of our Lord, 1820".
• Her Majesty's Army is led by Lieutenant General Logan of the Light Division.
• Logan says he has all the help he needs from "Queen and Country".
• Svild was hit by a cannonball in the back.
• The Doctor mentions having been President of Gallifrey.
• All Sontaran strategic base construction troops were ordered to report to Commander Strevs and security patrol was ordered to execute intruders.
• Commander Skaak executes Svild for bringing shame to Sontar.

• A "fella in Birkenhead" figured out to hit Sontarans on the probic vent.
• Neville says he used to be Wallasey's Junior Boxing Champion in 1966.
• Vinder calls himself "Serving Commander Inston-Vee Vinder of Kasto-Winfer-Foxfell".
• Yaz calls herself "Serving Officer Khan, Hallamshire Police, Earth Division".
• Skaak says that the Sontaran Psychic Command foresaw the Flux and timed their attack before the Lupari Shield took effect.
• Skaak reclaims Earth as an outpost for the Sontaran Empire in the name of Commander Linx.
• The Doctor uses Venusian aikido on a soldier.
• Swarm, Azure arrives with a third party they call Passenger, inside the Temple.
• The Doctor calls her plan against the Sontarans "Project Crimean Eviction".
• The Doctor rewards Mary Seacole with a gold star and a sticker for being right.
• Karvanista takes off in the Time Carrier and uses it as a battering ram against the others, creating a temporal implosion.
• General Logan uses sets off a match to fire up a pile of gunpowder barrel, exploding the Time Carriers.
• Dan sarcastically calls Karvanista "Scooby Doo".

Species

• The Sontarans have invaded Earth during the Crimean War and 21st century.
• Priest Triangles are guarding a temple, inhabited by a group of women called the Mouri.
• Svild invokes section Cyan K-Z Nine Slothback of the Shadow Proclamation, his right to silence.
• The Triangle says that Time is evil.
• The Sontaran Temporal Command are planning a Temporal Offensive.
• One of the reasons Skaak chose to invade the Crimea, was because he wanted to ride a horse.
• The Mouri are proximity activated/quantum-locked against Swarm and Azure.
• Karvanista reminds Dan they are species-bonded.

Food and beverages

• General Logan has taken the rum for himself.
• Mary Seacole says that rice pudding and hard liquor build morale., as well as pay for medicines.
• Dan mistakes the Sontarans' temporal plans for Japanese food, specifically Tempura.
• Dan, Neville and Eileen use a wok to defend themselves. Dan mistakes it for a frying pan at first.

TARDIS

• The Cloister Bell is still ringing.
• The TARDIS is malfunctioning hard and removed the doors.
• The TARDIS is still malfunctioning and has grown crystals out of the floor and cobwebs on the sides and black substances.

Technology

• Yaz says she needs a "universal GPS".
• The event where the Lupari ships shielded the Earth is referred to as the Three Minute Eclipse.
• The Sontarans use a basic camouflage shield to hide their base camp.
• Vinder tells Yaz he saw the Flux from his outpost.
• Yaz says she had hoped the Priest Triangles meant they needed repairing for something like a washing machine.
• The Sontarans are building Imperial Sontaran Time Carriers along the Mersey.
• The Doctor likens Sontaran health to cars filling their petrol tanks.

Story notes

The Charge of the Light Brigade

• When the Doctor tells Mary Seacole "half a league onward" as she's about to enter the Imperial Sontaran Time Carrier, she is referencing "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Lord Alfred Tennyson. This poem brought the Crimean War into the popular consciousness, dramatising an actual event in which the Light Brigade marched forward into certain death, surrounded by enemies. In the real world, this happened due to miscommunication, not recklessness. As in the real event, it's implied that they are being commanded by titled gentry, a General with no prior military expertise (Lord Cardigan in the one case, and Logan here).
  • The audio story The Charge of the Night Brigade, which previously introduced Mary Seacole to the Twelfth Doctor, was also heavily inspired by "The Charge of the Night Brigade".
  • Though the connection has not been made in-universe, the works of Alfred Tennyson, who wrote the piece, have been discussed by Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones in AUDIO: Lost Souls, and by the Fifth Doctor in AUDIO: Tartarus.

Production

"Masked Ravager Guards" from the original cut

• The original episode had creatures of the Ravager race known as "Masked Ravager Guards" appear in the Temple of Atropos scenes, but they were cut in the final edit.
• The opening sequence of the episode (inside the Doctor's mind) is in black and white. The last episode to have a black/white sequence was the "Previously" sequence of Twice Upon a Time with William Hartnell as the First Doctor.

Marketing

• Though the title sequence gives this episode as Chapter Two: War of the Sontarans, other sources have differed on the prefix, naming this episode Flux: War of the Sontarans instead.
• For the endboard, the old BBC Studios logo was used instead of the new one which was used in the previous episode The Halloween Apocalypse.

Connections

• As Sontar-ha is established by the Sontarans as a war chant or when something is positive, this episode introduces a negative in the form of "Sontar-ho", as when Skaak executed Svild for dishonour to the name of their species.
• The Sontaran flag symbol resembles the yellow diamond symbol seen on the door of Styre's ship in TV: The Sontaran Experiment.
• The cancelled graphic novel Doctor Who 2021 event, featuring Jack Harkness, was originally supposed to tie into this episode. The story would see Jack transported back to 19th century Cardiff to uncover hidden Victorian Torchwood activities.

Ratings

• Overnights: 3.96 million
• Consolidated: 5.10 million

Filming locations

to be added

Myths

to be added

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

• The subtitles provided by BBC One and BBC America erroneously spell Linx's name as "Lynx".
• The end credits, as well as the 52 minute mark of the subtitles, and the officially listed iPlayer website credits, misspell Ritskaw's name as "Riskaw".

Continuity

• The TARDIS has escaped the Flux, picking up from the events of TV: The Halloween Apocalypse ^[+]Loading...["The Halloween Apocalypse (TV story)"].
• As borne out by the Doctor initially recognising her surroundings until the Sontaran presence throws her off, this is not the first time the Doctor has been depicted in the Crimean War:
  • The Second Doctor had previously stated that he had been to the Crimean War before, in TV: The Evil of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (TV story)"]. Soldiers from the war were also among those abducted for the titular War Games of TV: The War Games ^[+]Loading...["The War Games (TV story)"].
  • The Seventh Doctor also landed during the siege of Sevastopol in AUDIO: The Angel of Scutari ^[+]Loading...["The Angel of Scutari (audio story)"], with the TARDIS also being damaged — that time by a British cannonball separating the interior from the exterior. On this occasion, the Doctor and Ace became prisoners of the Russian Empire, whilst Hex met his childhood hero, Florence Nightingale.
  • The Twelfth Doctor helped Mary Seacole deal with an alien infection in AUDIO: The Charge of the Night Brigade ^[+]Loading...["The Charge of the Night Brigade (audio story)"].
• The Thirteenth Doctor once again finds herself subjected to minor sexism due to her female body, a beat previously employed on television in TV: The Witchfinders ^[+]Loading...["The Witchfinders (TV story)"], TV: Spyfall ^[+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"] and TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati ^[+]Loading...["The Haunting of Villa Diodati (TV story)"].
• Yaz and the Doctor are once again separated, with Yaz making the Doctor promise to find her, hearkening back to when they were separated during the Doctor's imprisonment in the Judoon at the end of TV: The Timeless Children ^[+]Loading...["The Timeless Children (TV story)"]. They would be separated a third time when the Doctor is recalled to Division at the end of TV: Village of the Angels ^[+]Loading...["Village of the Angels (TV story)"].
• Yaz asks herself "What would the Doctor do?", which Swarm mocks. The Saxon Master once mockingly quoted the same refrain to Martha Jones in TV: Last of the Time Lords ^[+]Loading...["Last of the Time Lords (TV story)"].
• The Doctor mentions having been President of Gallifrey — a development spurred by TV: The Deadly Assassin ^[+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"], elaborated upon in TV: The Invasion of Time ^[+]Loading...["The Invasion of Time (TV story)"], and repeated by the events of TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"] and TV: Hell Bent ^[+]Loading...["Hell Bent (TV story)"].
• Svild remarks about his shame at having been injured in battle and the need to face execution to atone for his sins in battle. This echoes Commander Brak's sentiments in AUDIO: Old Soldiers ^[+]Loading...["Old Soldiers (BBV audio story)"] and Commander Kaagh's in TV: The Last Sontaran ^[+]Loading...["The Last Sontaran (TV story)"].
• Yaz states that she is "Serving Officer Khan, Hallamshire Police, Earth Division", referencing her original job as a police officer at the time of her introduction in TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Woman Who Fell to Earth (TV story)"], which she was still technically signed up for in TV: Spyfall ^[+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"], but revealed in TV: he Halloween Apocalypse ^[+]Loading...["he Halloween Apocalypse (TV story)"] that she had since resigned from.
• Dan's parents ask Dan about his disappearance, and also ask what had happened to his house — alluding to the events of TV: The Halloween Apocalypse ^[+]Loading...["The Halloween Apocalypse (TV story)"].
• The Doctor asks if the Sontarans are the power behind the Flux, only for them to deny responsibility and instead admit to taking advantage of the already present crisis. This tension-building beat is similar to that employed in the closing minutes of TV: Army of Ghosts ^[+]Loading...["Army of Ghosts (TV story)"], with the Cyber-Leader revealing that the Sphere was not of their design and they are thus merely taking advantage of another, even greater threat.
• Skaak mentions the Lupari shielding the Earth from the Flux, as occurred at the end of TV: The Halloween Apocalypse ^[+]Loading...["The Halloween Apocalypse (TV story)"].
• Skaak mentions Commander Linx's claim on Earth for the Sontaran Empire, a reference to the Sontarans' introduction story, TV: The Time Warrior ^[+]Loading...["The Time Warrior (TV story)"].
• The Doctor once again disables someone with her pinky finger using Venusian aikido; this Thirteen-specific spin on the favoured trick of the Third Doctor had previously been seen in TV: The Ghost Monument ^[+]Loading...["The Ghost Monument (TV story)"] and TV: Kerblam! ^[+]Loading...["Kerblam! (TV story)"].
• Azure remembers being at the Temple of Atropos, and the Younger Swarm calls it the place "where it all began". TV: Once, Upon Time ^[+]Loading...["Once, Upon Time (TV story)"] would later reveal more about the Temple's origins, showing it to have been integral to the binding of Time by the Division on behalf of the Time Lords, and also depicting the arrest of Azure and of Swarm's previous regeneration by the Fugitive Doctor at the conclusion of the Founding Conflict.
• Much like the Tenth Doctor with Harriet Jones regarding the Sycorax in TV: The Christmas Invasion ^[+]Loading...["The Christmas Invasion (TV story)"], the Thirteenth Doctor shows moral outrage when the retreating Sontarans are massacred by Logan. The Third Doctor was likewise outraged when the Silurians were destroyed by the Brigadier, despite them no longer being a threat, at the conclusion of TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)"].
• The Gateway, which bridges E-Space and N-Space, was previously noted in TV: Warrior's Gate ^[+]Loading...["Warrior's Gate (TV story)"] to have space-time coordinates of zero, as the Doctor here notes of the Temple of Atropos.
• The Doctor shushes Mary Seacole leaving her dumbfounded in a similar bit of visual comedy to the Eleventh Doctor shushing Craig, Stormageddon, and his co-workers at the shop in TV: Closing Time ^[+]Loading...["Closing Time (TV story)"].
• The Crimean War, and the presence of a Sontaran base in Liverpool, were referenced as parts of the Thirteenth Doctor's past in GAME: Flux Fixers ^[+]Loading...["Flux Fixers (game)"].

Home video releases

DVD and Blu-ray release

• War of the Sontarans was released, together with the five other episodes of Doctor Who: Flux, on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1/A on 15 February 2022, in region 2/B on 24 January 2022 and in region 4/B on 16 March 2022.

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  Series 13 - DVD cover

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  Series 13 - Blu-ray cover

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  Series 13 - Steelbook cover

Digital releases

• In the United Kingdom, this story is available on BBC iPlayer.

External links

• Official War of the Sontarans page on the Doctor Who website
• Chapter 2: War of the Sontarans at Chrissie's Transcripts Site