Review by Daniel Mansfield

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After the success of Sontarans VS Rutans, a four-part miniseries celebrating fifty years of the Sontarans, Big Finish is releasing a follow-up entitled Rutans VS Sontarans, which tells a new story in the centuries-old conflict between the Sontarans and the Rutans.

Betrayal at the House of Sontar by John Dorney is set in the days before this conflict, when Sontar was ruled by the Kaveetch Empire, whose armed forces would later become the Sontarans we’re familiar with. The Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin) arrives on Sontar with an offer for the Kaveetch: protect her from Division, and she’ll give them the secrets of time travel.

It’s fitting that this slightly different Doctor should get to meet a slightly different set of Sontarans, and even more fitting that her relationship with them is a little more unorthodox than other Doctors. While I won’t spoil it here, there’s a fantastic twist on the Doctor/Sontaran relationship here that could only work with the Fugitive Doctor, and it’s great to have the more unpredictable side of the character explored. While the Fugitive Doctor Adventures proper don’t always live up to the promise of their enigmatic, unknowable protagonist, Betrayal at the House of Sontar certainly does, and this is its greatest strength.

It’s actually quite difficult to talk about this story without going into spoiler territory, so I’ll end this review by praising Jonathon Carley‘s performance as both the Sontarans and Division operative Drammal (he’s so good I couldn’t even tell it was the same person in both roles); Abi Harris, who brings both a haughtiness and a weight to Kaveetch Empress Annaz Zachar; and Anthony Howell, who reprises his role as Meredit Roach from 2012’s The First Sontarans (don’t worry, you don’t need to have listened to it to understand who he is).

Despite being a touch overlong, and suffering from some slightly clunky say-what-you-see dialogue, Betrayal at the House of Sontar is a strong start to Rutans VS Sontarans, showing us both the Fugitive Doctor and the Sontarans as we’ve never seen them before, and sowing some interesting seeds about what’s to come.

Betrayal at the House of Sontar is available on CD or as a download from http://www.bigfinish.com

Rutans VS Sontarans continues next month with Rendition