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The Sontarans (pronounced 'Son-Tahh-r'ns') featured in the BBC's longest running sci-fi series ever, Doctor Who. This ran from 1963 to 1989. Although they weren't quite as popular as the Daleks and the Cybermen, the Sontarans remain a masterful creation for the series.

What are They?

Sontarans are a ruthless race of warriors believed to be from the planet Sontar, a planet with a gravity greater than that of Earth. The Sontarans are bulbous, toad-like humanoids with strong, compact bodies, and usually with three fingers per hand (though there are some exceptions, such as Field Major Styre, who has five¹). They require energy at regular periods to replenish their great strength, which is obtained through the probic vent at the back of their neck. This vent is a vulnerable spot: if a Sontaran is hit across the vent then it is knocked unconscious or, in extreme cases, killed.

For thousands of years, the Sontarans were involved in a perpetual war with their sworn enemies, the Rutans. The Sontarans live for war and see the death of an individual warrior as being for the greater glory of the Sontaran Empire. Their distinctive ships look like giant golf-balls and fly by rotating through the air, while among their armoury of hand weapons can usually be found a slender, rod-like gun.

Story Guide

'The Time Warrior' (1974)

The Sontarans required planets to use as suitable bridgeheads in their war against the Rutans. Earth briefly became one such planet when a lone Sontaran warrior called Linx crash-landed on the planet in medieval times and gave a local robber baron futuristic weapons (well, futuristic for them - in reality they were just a batch of anachronistic rifles) for his attacks on a neighbouring castle. Linx was killed when an arrow penetrated his probic vent, defeated by the Third Doctor.

This story introduces the race, though it is suggested that the Doctor has encountered them before.

'The Sontaran Experiment' (1975)

Thousands of years in Earth's future, when the planet had been temporarily abandoned by the human race, a Sontaran Field Major called Styre used a fake mayday call to attract the attention of some human GalSec colonists, with the aim of brutally and often fatally experimenting with them to assess human vulnerability to a possible Sontaran invasion. Styre was killed when, exhausted from a fight with the Doctor, his energy was drained from him. With the energy source inside his ship depleted, Style collapsed and died. Posing as a 'Superior class' of human, the Doctor was able to frighten off Styre's Sontaran fleet and avert the invasion.

'The Invasion of Time' (1978)

The Sontarans have limited time travel capabilities, but want a much greater control over time travel technology. In their quest to gain this mastery over time travel, they invaded Gallifrey (the home planet of the Doctor's race, the Time Lords) with the help of a race called the Vardans. The Sontarans, led by Commander Stor, attempted to steal the secret of time travel by obtaining a Gallifreyan artefact called the Key of Rassilon and attempting to use it to gain access to the Matrix, the repository of all Time Lord knowledge. The Fourth Doctor used a 'DeMat' Gun to destroy the Sontaran invaders and the threat was vanquished.

Although this is a Sontaran story, the beings themselves don't actually appear for the first four of this six-part story, arriving as a shock twist after their allies the Vardans have been defeated. Of note is the accent of the lead Sontaran, which sounds less 'Sontar' and more 'Bow Bells' (the actor Derek Deadman having a strong Cockney accent).

'The Two Doctors' (1985)

The Sontarans allied themselves with a human scientist named Dastari, who had been biologically experimenting with the vicious carnivorous Androgums and turned one of them, Chessene, into near super-genius level. Encouraged by Chessene (who had her own hidden agenda), Dastari had managed to procure a near-complete time machine courtesy of fellow scientists Kartz and Reimer - who the Sontaran warriors Stike and Varl promptly killed.

Kartz and Reimer's time experiments had been noted, however, and the Time Lords despatched the Doctor (in his second incarnation) to put an end to their work, only for the Doctor to instead become the prisoner of the Sontarans. The Kartz-Reimer module (as Dastari's time machine was called) was missing a vital element. Aware that Time Lords have a special 'symbiotic' relationship with their time machines, Dastari planned to extract this symbiotic link (also known as the Rassilon Imprimature) from the Doctor and add it to the Kartz-Reimer module. By coincidence however, the sixth Doctor stumbled across his predecessor's predicament and put an end to the diabolical schemes of Dastari, Chessene and the Sontarans (who all perished).

This story featured both the highest-ranking Sontaran ever, in the form of Group Marshal Stike, and also the tallest Sontarans the series ever saw (usually no taller than 5'7, the two seen in this story were well over 6 feel tall). It was also revealed that Sontarans are fatally allergic to a substance known as coronic acid, a weakness that Chessene exploited.

'A Fix with Sontarans'

The Sixth Doctor received some help in defeating a pair of Sontarans from Gareth Jenkins, a schoolboy from the planet Earth. The Sontarans revealed that the boy would grown up to become the leader of a force that would defeat the Sontarans in a war in the future.

Not an official episode as such, 'A Fix with Sontarans' was in fact a segment of the 'dreams come true' children's TV show, Jim'll Fix It after viewer Gareth Jenkins wrote to the show's presenter, veteran broadcaster Jimmy Saville, asking if he could appear in an episode of Doctor Who. The segment, which was specially written by series script editor Eric Saward and which starred the then-current Doctor Colin Baker and former companion Janet Fielding, was appeared in 2003 as an extra on The Two Doctors DVD.

Shakedown

To date, the final appearance for the Sontarans came in a straight-to-video production called Shakedown. In this one-off film made by an independent production company and starring actors from both Doctor Who and Blake's 7, the Sontarans looked a little different, with ridges across their domed heads and coppery-coloured uniforms instead of the usual black leather. The film also featured the only occurrence of Sontarans and their enemies, the Rutans, actually being in the same room together.

Extra Information

The Sontarans were created by popular Doctor Who writer Robert Holmes for 'The Time Warrior', the opening story of the series' 11th season. This came about when series producer Barry Letts thought of a comical conversation between two warriors, Officers Hol Mes and Terran Cedicks (Terrance Dicks - at the time the series' script editor). Holmes then thought of a race of warriors who were dedicated to their on-going war with another race (named the Rutans, who themselves popped up in the series three years later as the featured villains in 'The Horror of Fang Rock'). He named this race of warriors 'Sontarans'.

John Friedlander, the man responsible for a number of memorable monster masks for the series, identified in the script a suggestion that the Sontaran resembled a frog. Friedlander then thought that these warriors sculpted the now familiar egg-like reptilian heads and bloated features of the Sontaran.

Though the next two Sontaran stories - 'The Sontaran Experiment' and 'The Invasion of Time' were written by other writers (Bob Baker & Dave Martin, and David Agnew² respectively), Holmes returned to his creations for their last television appearance, 'The Two Doctors'. Holmes was also responsible for creating the Krotons, the Autons, the Drashigs and the Wirrn and was behind some of the most popular Doctor Who stories ever. He died in 1986 while putting the finishing touches to what would be his last script for the series, part 13 of 'The Trial of a Time Lord', in which the Sontarans are mentioned in passing.

TV Episode Checklist

• 'The Time Warrior' (1973/74). 4 episodes, written by Robert Holmes. Linx played by Kevin Lindsay.

• 'The Sontaran Experiment' (1975). 2 episodes, written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin. Field Major Styre/Sontaran Marshal played by Kevin Lindsay.

• 'The Invasion of Time' (1978). 6 episodes, written by David Agnew (Graham Williams and Anthony Read). Commander Stor played by Derek Deadman, unnamed Sontaran played by stuntman Stuart Fell.

• 'The Two Doctors' (1985). 3 (double-length) episodes, written by Robert Holmes. Marshal Stike played by Clinton Greyn, Major Varl played by Tim Raynham.

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¹ This might be a future evolution for the race, as Styre was encountered many centuries after the other Sontarans in the series.
² A pseudonym for producer Graeme Williams and script editor Anthony Read.