Moderator's Note: This is Mike's original Sontaran summary:

The Sontarans always looked the way they acted--thick. Not a lot of brain power in that flat head. I guess when you can clone an entire batallion in a day, you don't need to breed for cleverness.



Still, it should have occurred to one of them by now that the probic vent was not a good idea.

Maybe that's the one thing Sontarans have to cloned with, otherwise the clone doesn't work?

Do you mean it is the Sontaron's navel, Chris?

Reminds me of a FOX TV space opera series (which didn't last very long), where much of the soldiers where clones. You can tell because they had this thing on the back of the neck.

That would be 'Space: Above And Beyond".

Thanks, for the life of me I can never remember that title.

The show wasn't exactly memorable.

The Sontaran ships were rather unusual, shown as spinning silver spheres in 'The Two Doctors'. It makes me wonder how large they were, and what kind of environment/artificial grvaity system they employed. They spun vertically, while the alien ships from UFO spun horizonatally, which still seemed like they were spinning the occupants at extremely high speeds. Not your typical Klingon-type battlecruisers, for sure.

I'm impressed, CBC...it never occurred to me to wonder about the artificial gravity system of spaceships - as long as they don't wobble across the sky on a piece of string (a la Dalek Invasion of Earth) then they're fine by me.

About the probic vent - I got the impression, I'm not quite sure why, that the Sontarans kept this vulnerability deliberately, as a way of saying that they never turn their back on the enemy and run away. But you'd think after however many millions of years giving up everything else to fight the Rutans, they'd have given up that kind of macho posturing as well. I realise they need to plug in for their energy supply, but couldn't they have a lid over the vent to stop it being so vulnerable?

Did Dolly the Sheep have a probic vent? Cloning does not necessitate such a thing. To clone something is to copy it, and to modify something - genetically - to house a vent, probic or otherwise, would overcomplicate matters. I don't think that this is it's prime purpose, (although we could fall back on the 'it's how aliens may clone' argument). No, I see it as a power source. This was proved in 'The Sontaran Experiment'.

As for the lid thing, I once had a Game Boy. It had a little plastic cover that would clip into the two-player link-up socket. To keep the dust out, you see. And I lost it. And I regard myself as a fairly conscientous guy. Imagine how a warmongering warrior race must be with their little probic sheathes! Terrible. That's how they'd be.

And besides which, if the Sontarans are primarily at war with the Rutans, it isn't probably of immediate concern. I mean, how would they reach? They could barely get higher than a Sontaran knee-cap should a one-on-one situation occur. Which it probably wouldn't anyhoo, since much of the war is fought in spaceships et cetera. So a probic vent really is not so much a problem anyways. Now, if Sontarans had a probic heel, as per Achilles, then they'd make sure they wore thick boots.

Couldn't the Rutans change their shape into something that would allow them to reach the probic vent?

Exactly - in Infinity Doctors the Rutan and Sontaran leaders are locked up together and I was expecting the Rutan to be mincemeat, when it whips out a tentacle and kills the Sontaran through the probic vent.

PJW, I'm convinced that Sontarans could come up with better technology than your gameboy, but if not, why don't they just have the vent in a less conspicuous place?

As "The Infinity Doctors" also shows, the Sontarans seldom get into personal combat. Most of their wars are between their fleet of spaceships and someone else's fleet of spaceships. So they would seldom be in a position where someone could get close enough to poke them in the vent.

Also, they can clone replacements at an incredibly fast rate. The advantage of feeding the soldiers through a probic vent may offset the slight risk of death by PVS (probic-vent stabbing).

If Sontarans spend almost all their time in spaceships, why bother making them so big and tough? They ought to be breeding for the small, brainy, fast-reflexed type.

The Doctor also mentioned once that they could breed at something like a million soldiers a minute; if that's true, what's the use if they're just there to fight in warships? They could never build enough to house all these soldiers. Sontarans and Rutan must, therefore, engage in hand-to-hand combat and/or conventional land-based war.

I'm gonna refer to "The Infinity Doctors" here, only because the explanation makes sense. Sontarans originated on a high-gravity world, so the pre-clone Sontarans would have a stronger bond and muscle structure. The clones are all based on the Sontaran form, specifically General Sontar. I assume they kept their high-gravity attributes out of some sense of patriotism, plus that it would be helpful if they ever had to fight hand to hand.

I wasn't saying that hand to hand combat never happened; I meant that, for a space-faring race, MOST combat would be between large fleets of spaceships.

CBC, perhaps the ratio can be explained. There must be a vast, vast number of Sontaran drones in a massive production line, chucking out the ships. This could also help explain their need for strength. Perhaps all the resources to make a purely robot factory, they feel, is better spent on weaponry. In the same way metal was brutally harvested during WWII for 'the effort'.

Mike, do you remember in Infinity Doctors when Sontar wept after deciding to 'improve' his race by removing sex organs, fingernails, etc? Do you really think he'd draw the line at making them lighter, just because of patriotism?

PJW, maybe there should be two types of cloned Sontarans - heavy ones to build ships, and light ones to man them?

I forgot to mention another assumption, that all the cloning probably takes place on Sontar, the home world. Since Sontar is a high-gravity planet, the clones would have to be able to withstand high-gravity as well.

I think "TID" does suggest that there are "classes" of Sontarans, just like "War of the Daleks" says there are classes of Daleks.

I thought of that, but Sontarans must have plenty of other planets under their control. If you're breeding a million a minute, you need a lot more than one world to breed on...it'll only take a hundred hours – four days! - for them to reach Earth’s current population. Even if Sontara is a much larger planet it'll soon run out of space.

Just thought about something; names! Here you are, a Sontaran technician in charge of releasing the clones, and it's your job to say; "Welcome to the Sontaran Empire! Your name is Styre...Welcome to the Sontaran Empire! Your name is...uh...heck. I've run out of real names, so I'll just call you, 'Stynikoomoovus' Welcome to the Sontaran Empire! Your name is...um..Blahblahblah! Next!" You'd think they'd run out of names, eventually, but that's the kind of thing you're not supoosed to think about, like when anybody on tv has to go to the bathroom. I remember a few years ago Doctor Who Magazine had a comic story about the 'real' Sontarans, who looked alot less bulky, and more human-looking. As a so-called clone species, I'm all for a Sontaran race that breeds various individuals with certain attributes so they can perform special tasks. If this is true, they might not be able to block out the prejudice, which might lead to certain types of Sontarans feeling superior to others. After all, how superior a Field Marshall must feel to the poor shlep that's on some backward factory complex making Sontaran boots and undies all day!

Of course, who would really want to follow the hero every time he/she needs to use the can?

Emily: Linx in The Time Warrior (episode 3, I believe) says that the probic vent is "A strength because we must always face our enemy!"

Thanks - I was beginning to think I'd imagined it. Of course, the implication of Linx's words is that without the probic vent, the Sontarans would always turn tail and flee in terror from the enemy.

Come on, we all know it's just military propaganda.

Mike, about those 'classes' of Sontarans...you're right, Burning Heart mentions an experiment involving the breeding of Sontarans equipped for a degree of diversification. But it also mentions that they displayed too much individuality and got kicked out.

Did anyone ever see Shakedown with the Sontarans? Was it any good?

I haven't seen it, but I thought that the section
of the NA Shakedown that was based on the
video was the best part of the book. Not that
that's saying much.

low-ranking Sontarans may not have names at all, we've only really met Sontarans who have rank on the show, the soldiers in 'Invasion of Time' aren't given names and may not even have them.

Yes, that's probably true. After all, we do meet a Cyberman with a name once (can't remember where) but they certainly don't make a habit of it.

The Cybermen in 'The Tenth Planet' had names. There were also Cybermen with names in some of the 'Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly/Magazine' comic strips.

Kroton, the cyberman with a soul.

So where do Cybernames come from? Do the Cyberparents have long discussions about what to name their Cyberchildren? Are they named after Cybergrandparents? Do the names come from Old Cyberish? Why do they even have names?

In other words, how can the naming process be objective and not subjective?

Maybe the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet - who looked a bit more human than the later models - just carried over the names they had previously as humans and used them as designations.

Linx is not just the best Sontaran, but he's also the best individual from a stock monster race. Tarpok, Sauvix, Ssorg, Krang... only Linx truly conveys the menace and anxiety and frustration of an alien character stuck in a situation. You wonder why they even bother giving alien beings names when they display no individual characteristics, which was why they saw fit to drop Cybermen names, but Linx was just the tops.

Easy for you to say. He didn't call YOU 'secondary' and advocate your abolition.

Having said that...I suppose you're right. At least, no individual monster springs to mind to refute you.

(Who's Tarpok, btw?)

'Who's Tarpok, btw?' - exactly

He was supposedly one of the Silurians in 'Warriors of the Deep' along with Scibus and the other one that starts with 'I'.

Icthar. This memorable chap also featured in the original Silurian story, so not only is he a bland bugger, but he's a bland bugger who's managed to be part of a whopping 11 episodes of Doctor Who and still remain pretty faceless.

There's really no evidence to say Icthar was in 'Silurians' (though everyone often says so). It's quite possible he knows the Doctor from another adventure we never saw.

Perhaps The Doctor met Ichtar in another life
Such as his fourth
this might have been in the Eocene era
And not the Silurian
Or the Doctor met these creatures long before

He bumped into the Silurians and Sea Devils (and cross-breeds) again in Scales of Injustice, a Third Doctor and Liz Missing Adventure. Can't remember if Ichtar featured though.

Moderator's Note: moved from the Pandorica Opens section:

ANDREW: what's wrong with the Sontarans?

EMILY: Their blue plastic-looking uniforms. They just look as if they're DESIGNED to be made into little plastic merchandise. (If not to the extent of the new Daleks. Obviously.)

ANDREW: Ah. But not the makeup, I'm assuming? I haven't seen many old-series Sontarans, but those I have seen, it looked pretty close. Yes?

Ah yes, their FACES are fine. Their interaction with the Doctor is more adorable than Old Who ever managed. But their UNIFORM...I HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!! (And it's not as if I'm usually so shallow as to judge people on their appearances. In fact, my visual incompetence is such that I don't usually NOTICE appearances. That tank in robot is JUST FINE, in my opinion...)

I like their uniforms. They make sense when Staal starts running down UNIT's toy soldiers with their "flimsy fabrics."

Well, you're the military expert. But all those stupid plasticy blue curves on it just look...stupid. If a Sontaran has muscles so large that the armour needs to take account of it like that, why not just clone someone with less silly bulging muscles next time?

Bulging muscles intimidate the enemy, just ask Rambo. Or Superman or Batman.

If intimidating the enemy is the aim, the Sontarans might like to breed for a bit more height. UNIT were pointing and laughing, and even the Doctor was making sizest remarks about 'belittling'.

So how the HELL did the Doc manage to blackmail that poor Sontaran into becoming a NURSE to restore the honour of his clone-batch?

The last time a Sontaran wanted to restore the honour of his clone-batch he did the SENSIBLE thing and tried to wipe out Earth. (SJA: The Last Sontaran.)

I don't think the doc blackmailed him into being a nurse I think he was just assigned there by Sontran high command with no hope of regaining his honour but when he heard the doc he thought aye ooop here's a chance for some honour.

It's GOT to have been the Doc. It's not the kind of thing Sontaran High Command would think of in a million years. Plus that expression on the Sontaran's face when he said 'guess Who'...

A Sontaran's deepest fear is 'defeat'? WHY? Surely it's something they've had to get used to after all those millennia of regularly being defeated by Rutans, not to mention the Doctor? Either they'll be killed (which they seem to positively look forward to) or they'll escape and fight gloriously to avenge said defeat.

Invasion of Time:

'Victory over whom?' 'Victory over all' 'Victory over time?' - what about the Rutans, people?!

Are Sontaran ears super-sensitive? They're far worse affected by a bit of noise than the Doctor and co. And how did Borusa know they would be, anyway?

Is it just me or does every Sontaran mention of a 'unit group' actually refer to ONE SONTARAN?

When peering into a Sontaran helmet, the skin around their eyes doesn't look as black as it is when they've got their helmets off.

They're REALLY not very good at spotting DOZENS (I exaggerate, but only slightly) of people hiding in the TARDIS sickbay, are they.

'You'll destroy this entire galaxy.' 'Yes, and all of the Time Lords with it.' 'And your battlefield.' 'Yes, Doctor. But it is a small price to pay. If we cannot control the power of the Time Lords then we will destroy it.' - Sorry, please explain. Though they obviously (understandably) don't get the significance of the Demat Gun, the Sontarans have decided their invasion of Gallifrey has been defeated because, um, the Doc's evaded capture for a whole hour and a couple of Sontarans have been killed (still leaving a couple alive, which, let's face it, is all they need to subdue the whole of Gallifrey). So they decide to blow up THE ENTIRE GALAXY. The one which, presumably, contains Sontar. Frankly if they take defeat THIS seriously, why was the galaxy still standing in the first place?

I'm telling you - THIS bunch would NEVER produce magnificent quantities of lactic fluid.

ROBERT in New Adventures: Timewyrm: Exodus section: A million year war only makes sense if both sides are highly competent

Ah, but WAS it a million-year war? Or just a 50,000-year one?

Um, though I suppose the point about competence still stands, either way.

If they were both incompetent, by now one or the other would have metaphorically tripped over their own shoelaces and fallen on their own side

But once you've spread out over thousands of planets, how much damage could one big disaster DO?

Though the Fifth Doctor audio Heroes of Sontar had lots of interesting things to say about the drastic effects of one batch of leadership clones being contaminated.

and if only one of them were competent they'd have won already.

Possibly not, IF they kept bumping into the Doctor at crucial moments. And of course they WOULD - the Doctor seems to consider that this perpetual war is less of an evil than Sontarans or Rutans triumphant, or than him simply wiping out both sides. (•••• that inconvenient conscience of his - where's Colin Baker when you need him?) Just look what happened when Rutan scientists developed two doomsday weapons that'd kill everything in the universe with Sontaran DNA - Sexy 'accidentally' bumped into their ship in the Vortex (Gunpower Plot computer game)...

But once you've spread out over thousands of planets, how much damage could one big disaster DO?

Knock over the first domino. The two forces are precisely balanced, but then one slips up and gives away a planet to the other, giving the second a marginal advantage, which they can exploit to gain a second planet, then a third, and so on.

Possibly not, IF they kept bumping into the Doctor at crucial moments. And of course they WOULD

Only if he interferes with actual Sontaran-Rutan battles, and we've never once seen him do that. He's not stopping either of them from defeating the other, only from harming humans.

Knock over the first domino. The two forces are precisely balanced, but then one slips up and gives away a planet to the other, giving the second a marginal advantage, which they can exploit to gain a second planet, then a third, and so on.

Yeah, but that must have happened loads of times in the past and never led to any permanent victory. No doubt the winning side always gets overconfident and overreaches.

Only if he interferes with actual Sontaran-Rutan battles, and we've never once seen him do that. He's not stopping either of them from defeating the other, only from harming humans.

Yeah (well, give or take Heroes of Sontar), but as the Doc obviously wants the perpetual war to continue, Sexy would land him slap bang in the middle of the greatest space battle in Sontaran/Rutan history, if it looked like ending the war. And of course the Doctor MIGHT decide not to interfere, and head STRAIGHT back to the TARDIS once he realises what's going on, but it's an utter impossibility that he should actually REACH said TARDIS and dematerialise, leaving events to take their course...

Yeah, but that must have happened loads of times in the past .... No doubt the winning side always gets overconfident and overreaches.

That still requires them to be pretty evenly matched though. If they're both highly incompetent, sooner or later, one of them would have a run of bad luck, big enough to tip the balance. Wait long enough, and this becomes a statistical certainty.

the Doc obviously wants the perpetual war to continue

Does he? He doesn't like wars much, so he ought to prefer it if both sides give up and go home. If that's not an option, he'd probably be quite happy to see the Sontarans take on the Daleks.

I don't think the Sontarans would last very long against the Daleks.

If they're both highly incompetent, sooner or later, one of them would have a run of bad luck, big enough to tip the balance. Wait long enough, and this becomes a statistical certainty.

In OUR universe, no doubt, but statistical certainties just aren't as...certain in the Whoniverse. Statistically speaking every Companion ought to go splat like Adric during their first few weeks on the job.

the Doc obviously wants the perpetual war to continue

Does he? He doesn't like wars much, so he ought to prefer it if both sides give up and go home.

Ah yes, sorry, I was ignoring that particular option as impossible. I doubt the Sontarans and Rutans could re-engineer their societies for peace even if they WANTED to.

I don't think the Sontarans would last very long against the Daleks.

Well, maybe they'd stand a chance against the fat new Daleks. We haven't actually seen them manage to kill ANYONE except for a fellow Dalek who just stood there and took it.

DWM 427:

'The very fact that the Sontarans seem to hark back to fairytale and folklore is a fundamental part of their appeal: there's something about that leering hobgoblin visage which taps into our memories of sinister creatures from Teutonic mythology and the tales of the Brothers Grimm' - well not in those blue plastic uniforms there isn't.

And in case anyone's wondered about the pronunciation:

'The director...said, "Kevin, I think it's pronounced 'SON-taran.'" Already fully made-up in his Linx clobber, Lindsay put his hand on his hip and fired back, "Listen, ducky, I come from the bloody planet - I think I know how to pronounce my own name!"'

Name of the Doctor:

'This planet is the property of the Sontaran Empire. Surrender your women and intellectuals!' - FANTASTIC line - but what would Sontarans want women and intellectuals FOR? They either found women slightly incomprehensible (Strax, Time Warrior) or utterly inferior (Sontaran Stratagem/Poison Sky). And 'intellectuals' would include artists as well as scientists, who MIGHT actually be useful.

'Unhand me, ridiculous reptile' - isn't this UTTERLY out of keeping with Strax's previous utter obedience and respect towards Vastra?

Sontaran Stratagem/Poison Sky:

'Observe their troops. Thin fabrics, exposed skin, feeble weapons, these are toy soldiers, the playthings of children' - what do SONTARANS know about CHILDREN?

Skorr the Blood-Bringer is perfectly adequate but gives no hint of the glorious hilarious genius the actor - sorry, CLONE - will be capable of, with Strax...

STILL not getting that 'Weren't allowed to be part of the Time War' thing. The Daleks have allied with inferior species before (the Master, humans, Ogrons); the Time Lords have allied with Sontarans before (The Faction Paradox Protocols). Either would have leapt at the chance of alliance - they couldn't afford to be fussy with the Nightmare Child and the Could-Have-Been King and his army of Never-Weres about the place.

Why did they bother giving Martha a smock to wear? Especially given the Sontaran fixation with the human thorax...

'For the billionth time, YOU CAN'T FIGHT SONTARANS!' - a pretty surprising statement coming from a man who's ALWAYS fighting Sontarans (this being before Strax's time, where he's more inclined to noogie 'em during combat prep).

'Sontarans are never defeated' - in which case, why would your commander bother giving himself the title 'The Undefeated'?

what do SONTARANS know about CHILDREN?

They have invaded, occupied and studied enough "inferior" civilizations to have some idea of what children are.

STILL not getting that 'Weren't allowed to be part of the Time War' thing.

Neither Timelords nor Daleks were not about to give access to time travel technology to a species who would have been happy to use it (or at least attemp to use it) to wipe them out. The Time war was complicated enough as it was.

They have invaded, occupied and studied enough "inferior" civilizations to have some idea of what children are.

Well, they don't seem to have invaded, occupied and studied enough "inferior" civilizations to have some idea of what WOMEN are...

Neither Timelords nor Daleks were not about to give access to time travel technology to a species who would have been happy to use it (or at least attemp to use it) to wipe them out. The Time war was complicated enough as it was.

The Daleks resurrected DAVROS. The Time Lords resurrected THE MASTER. Neither side was REMOTELY sane enough to draw the line at some psychotic potato dwarfs.

Well, they don't seem to have invaded, occupied and studied enough "inferior" civilizations to have some idea of what WOMEN are...

How many of the aliens we've seen have women, as we humans know them? The Time Lords do, of course, but did we ever see a female Zygon or Ogron?

It's quite possible that the majority of aliens don't have anything resembling human genders. Instead, they may have extreme sexual dimorphism, if they have sexes at all.

The Daleks resurrected DAVROS.

They need Davros to provide the creativity he had so unwisely deprived them of. They know how to keep him under control.

The Time Lords resurrected THE MASTER.

That's a little harder to explain. It was not unprecedented, they had turned to him previously (The Five Doctors), but that disaster should have taught them not to try it again. I can only imagine that they were already quite desperate at that point.

Francois - They need Davros to provide the creativity he had so unwisely deprived them of. They know how to keep him under control.
errr... wouldn't that same creativity allow him to figure out a way around their control? It certainly works for the Doctor.

How many of the aliens we've seen have women, as we humans know them? The Time Lords do, of course, but did we ever see a female Zygon or Ogron?

Oh.

THAT'S a bloody good point.

I just...assumed...all these species we've seen DID have women. Chained to the kitchen sink somewhere off-camera.

And I was PROBABLY right. I mean, we didn't see a female Time Lord for the LONGEST time, but they did eventually emerge from hiding. We frequently don't even SEE people's homeplanets, just military teams of Zygons or Morestrans that could easily be from sexist societies. And I don't know how races with such a large apparent male:female ratio as the Sevateem or the Thals survived, but there's no evidence anywhere in the universe that any intelligent race other than the Alpha Centurians are hermaphrodites.

They know how to keep him under control.

They THINK they do. They exterminated him in Genesis to keep him under control, and he survived. He turned 'em into suicide bombers in Destiny. He infected them with plague in Resurrection. They triumphantly bore him off as their prisoner in Revelation, only to make him their emperor by Remembrance. They DID have him securely stuck in the basement as a pet in Stolen Earth...yet he somehow talked 'em into the INSANELY unDalek act of ensuring they NEVER got to CON-QUER AND DES-TROY! anything...ever again.

I can only imagine that they were already quite desperate at that point.

So why not desperate enough to accept a few billion Sontaran volunteers for some REALLY nasty suicide missions?

"Well, they don't seem to have invaded, occupied and studied enough "inferior" civilizations to have some idea of what WOMEN are..."

Erm, don't Linx's very first words to Sarah in 'The Time Warrior' indicate that he is well aware of what women are?

Well, Linx has heard that some species have a secondary reproductory system (who are you calling secondary!!) but he doesn't seem to have encountered 'em before. (Which I suppose backs up Robert's tons-of-species-don't-have-women argument.) As opposed to Staal the Undefeated, who was a total chauvinist pig (I don't know whether this makes it more or less likely that he'd actually ENCOUNTERED women before), or Strax, who couldn't tell the difference between the sexes if his life depended on it.

Still, they ALL seemed pretty pig-ignorant of women compared to, say, copper bullets.

This is actually quite funny :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nZxShriR0Y

Girl, those Sontarans in the Xmas Special were Too Dumb to Live.

TARDIS Eruditorum on The Time Warrior: '[Holmes] does not create the Sontarans here. Rather, he creates a...specifically designed counterpart to the Doctor...Linx is built up in a way that we've never really seen prior to this story - he talks sneeringly of the Time Lords as if they're a lesser race...Linx is basically Holmes going back to the actual original idea of the Master and doing that again. More properly, what he returns to is the idea of an evil version of the Doctor. Linx is an alien, stranded on Earth, serving as the "scientific advisor" to a military figure, but mostly just trying to get off the planet' - blimey. It never OCCURRED to me to see Linx - or any other Sontaran bar, of course, darling Strax - as anything other than another bloody Sontaran.

DANIEL in New Series: Season Ten: General Discussion: Though since then the Sontarans have been portrayed as comic relief and it has kind of wrecked them.

TOTALLY worth it for Strax.

Strax is, let's face it, the best thing about the entire Moffat Era. (I'm not saying his Doctors aren't great too - of course they are, except for the Hurt thing - but the thought of them just doesn't make me grin all over my face the way the thought of Strax does.)

And how great WERE the now-'ruined' Sontarans, anyway? Time Warrior is always a bit disappointing, Sontaran Experiment is boring as hell, their appearance in Invasion of Time is pure padding, Two Doctors is pretty awful, and the New Who ones just got an ultra-trad adventure in which they look plastic.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Enemy of the Bane:

Did Mrs Wormwood just mention a bout of Sontaran quicksand wrestling? Strax needs to give us a demonstration! NOW!

'No Sontaran would serve a woman' - given that Sontarans have terrible problems telling the sexes apart, that's a fairly stupid attitude. Plus, darling Strax has many problems adapting to the life of a Victorian butler but serving women isn't one of them.

'No one comes between a Sontaran warrior and his prize of vengeance!' - unless Thomas Thomas turns up of course, in which case you'll spare the horse...

Bring in a full Sontaran Rutan battlefield.

In theory, long overdue, but in practice...do we REALLY need to see a bunch of darling Straxes fight a bunch of pathetic green globes?

The green globes do need a chance at CGI redemption though. I'll take the giant rat over their sole appearance.

And I'd be all for this NOW, but I'm very relieved Moffat didn't give us a full-blown Sontaran story. I think they all would have been comical. Strax is great, but if every Sontaran we see acted the same way, it would have made him considerably less unique.

(Not that Sontarans didn't usually have some humour, telling us to change our reproductive method, allying themselves with quickly-foiled foil and nearly tripping over lawn chairs.)

I wonder if Chibbers has any plans for the Sontarans?

Catherine Tate: 'I thought the Sontarans were moved by electricity. I genuinely didn't know there were people inside' - to be fair, that's a lot less stupid than what she said about the Ood...

I genuinely didn't know there were people inside

Weird, that's a comment I would expect one to make about the Daleks, not the Sontarans.

She definitely means Sontarans...

Yeah, well, you know actors don't exactly have reputations for being geniuses.

War of the Sontarans:

'He takes his rest in a regular rhythm. Seven and a half minutes every 27 hours' - since WHEN!

'They cannot cope with Earth's atmosphere over an extended period. That's why they wear the protective armoured suits. The suits filter out harmful Earth gases and substitute them with chemicals and nutrients from their home planet' - since WHEN!

'Vanquisher and sworn enemy of the Sontarans' - DOCTOR! You don't MEAN it! What about darling Strax!

SVILD: I request mercy.
SKAAK: Request granted. The mercy of immediate execution be upon you for unanswerable shame upon Sontar. Sontar-ho. - Whatever happened to serving a penance to restore the honour of your clone-batch...

SKAAK: You have information regarding the treacherous vermin known as the Doctor. - The Sontarans suddenly seem to regard ANYONE who opposes them as traitors, as if they owe some allegiance to Sontar...(And why don't they have their own cool nickname for Our Hero, like Bringer of Darkness, the Oncoming Storm, Nice Guy If You're A Biped...)
DOCTOR: You're talking to her.
SKAAK: WHAT?! - Blimey, they all just ASSUMED Our Hero wasn't the Doctor owing to her GENDER? Since when has any Sontaran had a grasp on such things? (Alright, since Linx, maybe darling Strax is just an aberration...)

'Our Psychic Command foresaw it' - blimey, that's a new one...

How can the Sontarans possibly be STUPID enough to concentrate on massacring the humans while THE DOCTOR is escorted away?

'This is an Imperial Sontaran Time Carrier' - IMPERIAL? Since when have Sontarans messed around with Emperors?

Why would Sontarans need a waste chute from their ships?

Skaak makes it into the "hidden clues to 50 shows" puzzle in the festive Radio Times, but unfortunately positioned so it looks like he's about to get shot in the probic vent by the big creepy doll from Squid Game.

Oh-kay, Ninth Doctor audio Salvation Nine claims that 'to make the cloning process self-reproducing, you combine the male and female functions and mash the chromosomes together' - does that make sense for our Sontaran chums...?

Oh, and as they age Sontarans turn from male to female, it's just considered a hideous mutation because they almost never DO get that old...

Since when has 'unskin' meant 'remove your helmet'?

Sontarans: Then and Now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_qAW4In9Y4&fbclid=IwAR00_pv8ZtHhh270CSE34UDZaU_Wk9nUjwOOAEKqa56AP5TX6UONNx6srXI

Sorry, had to give up pretty fast as the last thing I EVER want to watch is the sodding Sontaran Experiment.

Blimey, they all just ASSUMED Our Hero wasn't the Doctor owing to her GENDER? Since when has any Sontaran had a grasp on such things? (Alright, since Linx, maybe darling Strax is just an aberration...)

Nah, Sontaran General Ignatius Antias Salutio (yeah, he thought he was a Roman legionary for, um, some reason) also kept referring to Charley as 'boy' despite being repeatedly informed that she wasn't.