The First Sontarans (audio story)

The First Sontarans
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Peri Brown
Main enemy:	The Sontarans The Rutan Host
Main setting:	Mare Nectaris, the Moon, 1872 Sussex, England, 1872
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Andrew Smith
Director:	Ken Bentley
Music:	Jamie Robertson
Sound:	Jamie Robertson
Cover by:	Alex Mallinson
Release details
Release number:	3.06
Release date:	July 2012
Format:	4 Episodes on 2 CDs
The Lost Stories
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Next →	The Masters of Luxor

The First Sontarans was the sixth release in the third series of The Lost Stories. It provided the Sontarans with an origin story, something which, unlike many of the Doctor's other recurring enemies, had not been provided before. This was only the third full cast audio story to feature the Rutans, the first being the Bernice Summerfield audio story The Bellotron Incident, released in 2003 followed by Castle of Fear in 2009.

Publisher's summary

1872. After finding a strange signalling device on the moon, the Doctor and Peri travel to the depths of the English countryside to track down the source of its transmissions. But they're not the first aliens to arrive on the scene.

Old enemies of the Doctor are drawing their battle lines in the forest and the local humans will be lucky to escape the conflagration unscathed.

For hidden within this village is a deadly secret - a secret that could destroy the entire Sontaran race... and reveal the terrible mystery of their creation.

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Peri - Nicola Bryant
• Fleet Marshal Jaka / Barclay - Dan Starkey
• Jacob Gilley - Anthony Howell
• Jane Ross - Lizzie Roper
• The Gentleman / Commander Lork - John Banks
• Major Thessinger / Commander Strek - Cameron Stewart

Credits

• Recording by - Toby Hrycek-Robinson
• Sound Design, Music, and CD Mastering by - Jamie Robertson
• CD Extras Interviews by - David Richardson
• CD Extras Edited by - Jamie Griffiths
• Series Theme by - Ron Grainer
• Arranged by - Peter Howell
• Theme Remastered by - David Darlington
• BFP Administration - Miles Haigh-Ellery, Catrin Hubbarde, and Alison Taylor
• Producer's Assistants - Paul Spragg and Frances Welsh
• Cover Illustration & Booklet Design - Alex Mallinson
• Web Editor - Paul Wilson
• Director - Ken Bentley
• Script Editor - John Dorney
• Producer - David Richardson
• Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery

References

Cultural references from the real world

• Peri refers to the fictional detective Nancy Drew.
• The Doctor refers to Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 moon landing on 20 July 1969.

Individuals

• When he erroneously believes that Peri has been killed by the Sontarans, the Doctor describes her as "the bravest of souls."
• Major Thessiger's father fought in the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Furthermore, Thessiger claims that he himself fought in the Battle of Inkerman on 5 November 1854 during the Crimean War.

Timeline

• Meredid and Leandra Roath have been on Earth since the early 1860s.

Species

• The Doctor refers to the Sontarans' sworn arch-enemies the Rutan Host. The two species have been at war for millennia.
• A Sontaran patrol numbers seven.
• The Kaveetch were natives of Sontar. Thousands of years earlier, after the war with the Rutan Host had reached a stalemate, Meredith Roath proposed the creation of a clone army, namely the Sontarans. Within weeks, the clones were not only fighting on the front lines but had turned the tide of the war firmly in the Kaveetch's favour. However, the Sontarans turned on their creators due to their supposedly inferior nature and unique knowledge of Sontaran physiology. The surviving Kaveetch, who numbered only in the hundreds, employed their rudimentary time travel and arrived in various locations throughout Mutter's Spiral in the early 1860s.

TARDIS

• The Doctor is able to preserve Leandra's life using the Zero Room.

Notes

• This is the first Big Finish audio drama to feature both the Sontarans and the Rutan Host.
• Dan Starkey (Fleet Marshal Jaka) previously played numerous other Sontarans in the revived series, namely Commander Skorr and Lieutenant Skree in TV: The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky, Commander Jask in TV: The End of Time and Commander Strax in TV: A Good Man Goes to War.
• Anthony Howell (Jacob Gilley / Meredid Roath) previously played Edward Perkins in AUDIO: The Valley of Death and Christopher Manners in AUDIO: The Renaissance Man.
• Lizzie Roper (Jane Ross / Leandra Roath) previously played Hoss in AUDIO: Kiss of Death and Dr. Nadia Červenka in AUDIO: Artificial Intelligence.
• Cameron Stewart (Major Thessinger) previously played Sir Francis Drake in NOTDWU: A Storm of Angels.

Continuity

• The Doctor and Peri would return to the Moon when they visited the Gogglebox in the far future. (AUDIO: The Reaping)
• The Doctor refers to the disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste in 1872. The Doctor refers to the Daleks' involvement in the incident. The First Doctor and his companions Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki Pallister were indirectly involved in the crew's disappearance. (TV: The Chase) The Doctor had discovered his own involvement with the crew's disappearance by the time of his second incarnation. (AUDIO: The Rosemariners) The Fifth Doctor had told Alan Fitzgerald, a student summer intern at the Gogglebox, that he was "sort of" responsible. (AUDIO: The Gathering)
• The Doctor and Peri previously encountered the Sontarans in Seville, Spain in 1985. (TV: The Two Doctors)
• The Doctor tells Roath and Fleet Marshal Jaka that he is aware that the Sontarans possess rudimentary time travel technology as he once witnessed it in operation. (TV: The Time Warrior)

External links

• Official The First Sontarans page at bigfinish.com
• DisContinuity for The First Sontarans at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide