The Poison Sky (TV story)

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We will ravage this planet!Staal


Synopsis

The Valiant clears the ATMOS gas as the Sontarans activate their master plan to turn Earth into their cloning planet. UNIT is left defenceless, with a traitor in their ranks. And as interplanetary war edges closer, the Doctor has to fight to keep both Martha and Donna alive - but will he have to make the ultimate sacrifice?

Plot

Following from the previous episode, Sylvia Noble manages to free Wilfred Mott from the car by smashing the window. The Doctor sends Donna Noble back to the TARDIS while he sets off to figure out what the Sontarans are up to. After studying the gas, UNIT determines that it will need to reach 80% density to become poisonous. Elsewhere, Martha helps the Sontarans to seize the TARDIS. Realising that he is trapped, the Doctor attempts to goad the Sontarans into revealing their plan: the Sontarans are smart enough not to fall prey to this ploy, but the Doctor does trick them into manoeuvring the TARDIS out of the main war room, placing Donna in a position to help.

Against the Doctor's advice, UNIT decides to use nuclear weapons against the Sontarans; however, Martha's clone has covertly copied the launch codes, and stops every attempt they make to fire the weapons. This in itself shows a hidden agenda: nukes would not have harmed them in the first place, which combined with the unidentifiable elements in the gas, suggest that the Sontarans have an interest in keeping anything from disrupting the atmospheric conversion. At the same time, the Sontarans mobilize a contingent of troops to retrieve and protect the clone. With the Sontarans' ability to jam most conventional firearms by expanding the copper-lined bullets, the UNIT troops are quickly slaughtered and the factory is secured.

Rattigan leaves the Sontaran mothership to gather his students. He plans to take them to another planet and begin the human race anew. The students merely laugh him off, even when he brandishes a gun. When he returns to report his failure, the Sontarans likewise ridicule his efforts, having never planned to take him or his students anywhere. Rattigan teleports back to his mansion before they can kill him, and the Sontarans lock the teleport pods behind him.

Meanwhile, the Doctor instructs Donna on how to reopen the teleport pods. As she makes her way through the ship, UNIT begins a counterattack, loading their weapons with non-copper bullets and using the aircraft carrier Valiant to clear the gas. The counterattack is a success, and the UNIT troops are able to put the Sontarans on the defensive. The distraction allows the Doctor to make his way to the cloning room where Martha is being held. Having figured out long before that the clone wasn't the genuine article, he severs its connection to Martha, leaving it to die. Martha convinces the clone to betray the Sontarans in its last moments, and the clone reveals that the poison gas is actually "food" for Sontaran clones: they are converting the planet into a giant breeding world. With Donna's help, the Doctor is able to reactivate the teleport pods, allowing him to rescue Donna, steal back the TARDIS, and teleport into Rattigan's mansion.

With the equipment Rattigan's students built, the Doctor builds his own atmospheric converter, igniting the atmosphere to clear out the poison gas as shown in the picture. However, he knows the Sontarans won't accept defeat so easily, and teleports to their ship with the converter, planning to give them the choice between retreat or death. The Sontarans choose the latter, but at the last moment, Rattigan teleports himself to the Sontaran ship and brings the Doctor back to Earth, sacrificing himself to destroy the Sontarans.

With the day saved, the Doctor and Donna say their goodbyes to Martha, only to have the TARDIS spring to life and begin piloting itself to places unknown before she can leave.

Cast

Production crew

To be added

References

  • The Doctor mentions the Rutans and their war with the Sontarans.
  • The Brigadier is said to be stranded in Peru. He has obviously been knighted as Colonel Mace refers to him as "Sir Alistair".
  • The Doctor asks "Are you my mummy?" while wearing a gas mask like the Empty Child from (DW: The Empty Child)
  • The Doctor addresses the Sontarans "under jurisdiction two of the intergalactic rules of engagement" which is very similar to the Shadow Proclamation.
  • The Doctor watches Tommy Zoom while waiting for the Sontarans to stop chanting. This is similar to when The Master watches other shows such as Teletubbies and The Clangers.
  • UNIT uses the Valiant to blow away ATMOS' gases. When the Doctor admires the ship and Colonel Mace asks if he has a taste for it, the Doctor is quick to reply "Not at all. Not me." This can be interpreted as masked reluctance from the Doctor to acknoledge any similarities between himself and The Master, who was very keen on the Valiant.
  • The Valiant's laser is similar to that of Torchwood 1's one used against the Sycorax, which in turn was very similar to the Death Star's laser from the Star Wars movies. (DW:The Christmas Invasion)
  • During the pollution crisis the American newsreader mentions that it is the "end of days" which was also said after Owen opens the rift and caused shockwaves around the world. (TW:End of Days)
  • Luke Rattigan believed the Sontarans would take him and his followers to Castor 36, a planet orbiting Alpha Geminorum.
  • The close-up of the news reader's eyes and mouth reminisce the Doctor's message during Blink.

Story notes

  • Helen Raynor wrote this episode. Her Series 3 episodes Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks both occupied fourth and fifth episode in the series. This two part episode also occupies episode four and five.
  • This the second part of a story which began with The Sontaran Strategem.
  • This story and The Sontaran Stratagem are Douglas Mackinnon's first stories as director.
  • When the Doctor cuts off Staal's speech on the video screen in mid flow, a clip from CBeebies cartoon Tommy Zoom is featured. The original plan to use a clip from Shaun the Sheep fell through.
  • Billie Piper appears (very briefly) as Rose Tyler on the TARDIS's screen in this episode.
  • According to Russell T. Davies in an interview in DWM 396, the cameo by Rose was not in the original edit of the episode, but was added just before broadcast when Davies learned how successful her unbilled cameo in Partners in Crime was. The cameo was created by using footage from "an untransmitted scene" (likely from Season 2's The Idiot's Lantern) and inserting it into this scene (the same scene was used for the Rose cameo in the later Midnight. Davies said that, like Partners in Crime, advance review copies of this episode did not include the cameo.
  • The music that plays when the Valiant appears is strikingly similar to "The Master Tape", one of the Murray Gold themes for The Master. Of course, since The Master helped build the Valiant, this isn't too surprising...
  • When Martha Jones wears the Doctor's jacket at the end of the episode, she says she feels like "a kid in my Dad's clothes." The following episode features an actual daughter of the Doctor.
  • This is the first episode to feature Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman, and Catherine Tate all together.
  • The Doctor says to the clone Martha: "Avanti" which is "Let's go" in Italian. This is probably to confirm his suspicion of her clone nature. The real Martha would know that the Doctor usually says "Allons-y" which is "Let's go" in French.
  • The brief shot of Rose was actually not in the script, and only added after the success of her appearance in Partners in Crime. It is taken from an unused scene in Turn Left

Ratings

  • 6.5 million viewers

Filming locations

To be added

Continuity

  • The Valiant last appeared in DW: Last of the Time Lords.
  • At the end of the episode, when the TARDIS flies off, the Doctor says his "What, what, what?!" line from Donna's first appearance in DW: The Runaway Bride.And also from The Voyage of the Damned when the Titanic smashed through the TARDIS.
  • Rose Tyler appears on the TARDIS scanner screen for a split second, she appears to be shouting 'Doctor!' and was last seen in DW: Partners in Crime. This is not the first time Rose has attempted to communicate with the Doctor though a television screen, as she also attempted this in DW: The Idiot's Lantern.
  • The Valiant's laser appears to be the same that Torchwood used in DW: The Christmas Invasion (Similar, not the same - this one's much smaller)
  • The Doctor thanks Donna and Martha just before he sacrifices his life. He last said this to Donna in The Sontaran Stratagem' when she was supposedly leaving him.
  • In the New York scene a building with the name Butler Institute can be seen on one of the buildings Cat's Cradle: Warhead
  • Gas was released over London previously in PDA: Amorality Tale.
  • In The Sontaran Stratagem Luke Rattigan was annoyed when The Doctor said ATMOS System and mentioned that is is a tautology because he is saying 'Atmospheric Emission System System'. Luke Rattigan is also annoyed when General Staal says ATMOS System.
  • The Doctor gave clues to Donna about what action to take via a visual link, but the Sontarans didn't know it was happening. The Doctor did a similar thing in The Age of Steel, when he gave clues to Mickey about how to stop the Cybermen.
  • In the episode Turn Left, the Sontaran invasion was stopped by Torchwood 3. The atmosphere was reverted to its previous state and the Sontaran flagship exploded by Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones. Jack Harkness was stranded on Sontar.

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • Commander Skorr is killed by Colonel Mace with a pistol, but minutes later he can be seen open skinned next to General Staal in the Sontaran ship. The second Skorr, however, could simply be an identical-looking clone.
  • The world wide nuclear grid includes minor nuclear powers such as India, Pakistan and North Korea, yet Russia and Israel, and undeclared nuclear states, are conspicuously absent. They may not have agreed to become part of the grid
  • After The Doctor told Colonel Mace about the Sontaran's cordelane signal, how did Mace manage to produce new firing stock so quickly? U.N.I.T. probably had various types of ammunition at their disposal.
  • If Sontarans are a race bred for war and wear armour, how come they die so easily? This is why the Rutans are winning the war. Or maybe the armour is designed to withstand lasers not bullets also the doctor mentioned sontarans face bullets with dignity
  • Before sleeping, Martha saw her clone but when she woke up she was surprised to see it as though she never even saw it. Not alot of people can remember the moment before falling asleep. Maybe she was shocked because the clone was dying and it was like watching herself die
  • Why aren't there any Sontarans guarding the clone room when it is imperative that the original Martha is kept alive so that the clone could live? Because they couldn't resist a battle.
  • We can see the Sontaran teleport discs are on the TARDIS doors but when we see it in the background of Skorrs message one is on the front and one on the side. You can quite clearly see when the TARDIS is teleported to the Sontaran ship, there are discs on the side.
  • The thermal energy being released by igniting the entire planet's atmosphere should've had some negative effect as opposed to dissipating instantly; As in-story proof (not even counting real-world physics), when the effect was repeated on the Sontaran ship, it exploded violently.
  • When General Staal watches from the Sontaran spaceship, the ignition seems to start from the dark side of the Earth, although London is in clear daylight.
  • Let's also note that since the poison gas was even on ground level rather than just

those high in the atmosphere, igniting the atmosphere could have also meant burning all the gas on ground level.

  • As confirmed in World War Three nuclear release codes are held by the United Nations and needs an official agreement to be able to release them so how is it that UNIT can get them so easily? they may by the Unified Intelligence Taskforce but they still need to go through the UN to get the codes.
  • How is it that the clone Martha can download enough control onto a handheld device so quickly and with no-one noticing?

Behind the Scenes

  • Billie Piper receives screen credit, and is fourth-billed, for a performance that lasts less than one second.

DVD and other releases

  • It will be released on the Series 4 boxset DVD in November 2008.
  • It will be released as part of Series 4 Volume 2 on 7th July, alongside The Sontaran Stratagem, The Doctor's Daughter and The Unicorn and the Wasp.

External Links

v • e
Sontaran stories
For the purposes of this list, a "Sontaran story" is one in which one living, authentic Sontaran plays a part within the confines of the story, outside of flashbacks to previous stories and cliffhangers that lead into the following story. For this reason, stories such as The Halloween Apocalypse and Survivors of the Flux are not counted due to the Sontarans' appearance being defined by their importance to following stories. Stories like The End of Time and The Time of the Doctor are also not included due to the Sontarans' appearance being no consequence to the plot of the story. Stories featuring Strax of the Paternoster Gang are only included on the Paternoster Gang story template.
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