Doctor Who review: Wicked Sisters: The Moonrakers

Separated across time, the Fifth Doctor and his friends face the Sontarans in the second episode of the Doctor Who/Graceless crossover Wicked Sisters.

The Moonrakers begins directly where The Garden of Storms – the opening episode of Doctor Who: Wicked Sisters – left off. The team has been split across two different time zones – the Fifth Doctor and Zara in one zone, Leela and Abby in the other. They plan to be reunited, but how? And what happens when the Sontarans become involved?

Simon Guerrier writes another extremely clever story with this one. Not clever in that it’s convoluted, but more in how naturally and smoothly it unfolds while exploring both interesting themes and characters. The Garden of Storms introduced a morally complex situation. The Moonrakers continues that complexity, to some extent. But it also presents a very different take on the Sontarans.

When it comes to Sontarans, they can either be a very dangerous threat (as depicted in The Sontaran Experiment) or purely comedic (as regularly seen with the character of Strax). Sometimes, though, there’s a nice mixture of the two – in fact, in their debut appearance, while Linx was undoubtedly dangerous in The Time Warrior, he also shared a lot of great comedic scenes with the warrior Irongron. So a mixture of comedy and danger can work really well for the Sontarans. And Guerrier achieves that combination in this episode.

Dan Starkey has been playing the Sontarans on audio for a long time now – including the Fourth Doctor Adventure The King of Sontar, which also featured Leela.

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

Dan Starkey

As ever, Dan Starkey does a fantastic job playing the Sontarans. While he was great in the TV series, it’s at Big Finish that he truly gets to shine, especially when playing the potato-headed warriors. Along with portraying the rather interesting Commander Stent – a Sontaran who’s had to adapt to rather unusual circumstances – we also get to hear him play several other members of the clone race. Just like Nicholas Briggs voicing several Daleks in one story, it’s extremely impressive.

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As for the four regular characters, their interactions really help to drive this story forward. In The Key 2 Time trilogy, it was always Abby that was paired with the Doctor, not Zara, so it’s nice to see that changed up in this episode. We get to find out how quickly Zara adapts to desperate circumstances, and how far the Doctor will go to save everyone. Leela and Abby have a little less focus character-wise, but their role in the story is no less crucial.

Especially with where it leads to. There are a couple of really great surprises in this episode, surprises that are extremely well built up thanks to Guerrier’s strong storytelling. The ending is particularly satisfying, as we get to find out exactly how connected all three stories are in this box set. Naturally, it ends on a cliffhanger that will leave you eager to listen to the final episode, while working extremely well as a great story in its own right.

Are you a fan of the Sontarans? Should the Fifth Doctor have met them on television? What do you think of Dan Starkey’s performance as the classic monsters? Let us know in the comments below.