Doctor Who review: The King of Sontar is filled with strong characters and performances

We continue our look back at David Collings’s appearances in Big Finish audios with Doctor Who: The King of Sontar, a Fourth Doctor adventure that features a very unusual Sontaran…

The third season of Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Adventures began with The King of Sontar by John Dorney. As you can guess from the title, the Sontarans play a key role in this audio from Big Finish, but in a rather different way – one that has echoes of other Sontaran stories from the same period while still being a strong story in its own right.

John Dorney captures the tone of this era very well. The story is set between the dark horror of the Philip Hinchcliffe era and the lighter seasons of Graham Williams’s run as the show’s producer. In terms of tone, The King of Sontar is at least more serious than the latter era and reminds us of how nasty the Sontarans can truly be.

This is especially true of Strang, one of the most dangerous Sontarans ever created. Smarter and more powerful than the rest of his species, Strang believes himself to be the very best of his race. At the very least, he quickly proves himself to be just as ruthless as the worst of them, making him a force to be reckoned with.

Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor has to fight a rather dangerous Sontaran in this story.

Image Courtesy BBC Studios, BritBox

More from Winter is Coming

• For All Mankind finally gives us information in Episode 405, “Goldilocks”
• Watch a stunning VFX breakdown of The Wheel of Time season 2
• Of course Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon) thinks Eve Best (Rhaenys Targaryen) should rule Westeros
• Confirmed: The Last of Us season 2 will air in 2025
• Final season of Star Trek: Discovery will have “a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun”

Strong performances

Dan Starkey is excellent as Strang in this story. While on television, he’s often played more comedic roles – particularly the character Strax from the Paternoster Gang – Starkey gets to show off how well he can play a great villain, too. He helps to make Strang as threatening and scary as John Dorney writes him to be, giving us a fantastic performance in the process.

Speaking of great performances, David Collings is unsurprisingly excellent as misguided scientist Rosato. He’s not your typical “mad scientist” like Taren Capel in The Robots of Death – he genuinely believes he’s doing a good thing by working with Strang. His reasons are understandable, but it becomes clear that he’s also deluding himself. Collings plays all sides to this interesting character extremely well.

One more interesting character I should mention is the disgraced Sontaran soldier Vilhol. For reasons that become clear in this story, Vilhol has been branded a coward by Strang. This could have lead to him becoming a more comedic Sontaran like Strax, but we actually get something a lot more interesting and complex than that. Vilhol is in some ways seeking redemption, at least by Sontaran standards. He forms a strong bond with Leela, and that bond is sold well by John Banks and Louise Jameson.

The story eventually ends on a melancholy note, as the Doctor and Leela have a huge clash over a major moral issue. It’s an incredibly satisfying ending, as you can definitely see both points of view, and it feels like it adds to both the leading characters and their relationship. It’s a great way of rounding off an extremely strong story like The King of Sontar.

Have you listened to The King of Sontar? Do you think it’s a strong story for the potato-headed monsters? What’s your favorite Sontaran story? Let us know in the comments below.