Review by Daniel Mansfield

Check out our review of the previous instalment in Rutans VS Sontarans here

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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.

Rendition by Tim Foley takes us to the Lockhart, a medical ship where a group of injured Rutans is trying a strange new strategy to save their commander. The Second Doctor (Michael Troughton), Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) arrive, and must work to prepare the Rutans for an incoming Sontaran invasion.

Foley’s script plays to the strengths of this particular TARDIS team well, showing off the Doctor and Zoe’s more pragmatic, scientific approach to events, while also giving focus to Jamie’s more human, empathetic reactions. The trio of Michael Troughton, Fraser Hines and Wendy Padbury continue to recapture the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe’s dynamic perfectly, leaving me thrilled that, as recently announced, the Second Doctor Adventures are moving to two boxsets a year, rather than one!

In the tradition of some of the Second Doctor’s most iconic TV stories, this episode follows the base-under-siege template, with a group of desperate survivors staving off a relentless enemy. While base-under-siege stories usually feature a bunch of plucky humans fighting for their lives, the sympathetic underdog role is taken up by the Rutans, both putting a novel twist on a familiar genre, and giving us a rare glimpse at how the Rutans feel about their endless war with the Sontarans. Rutans reciting war poetry isn’t something I ever thought I’d hear, but it proves surprisingly moving, lending a species usually portrayed as monsters a real sense of culture and humanity.

Tom Alexander is excellent in his role as all the Rutans, bringing both melancholy and gravitas, while Jonathon Carley once again impresses as a selection of Sontarans. On the more human side of things, Lucy Scott brings matronly authority to the Mary Poppins-esque Nurse Marva, a character who will keep you guessing as to her true intentions right to the very end.

As the cover gives away, Paul McGann‘s Eighth Doctor appears here too and, while saying any more would spoil things, his presence teases some of what we can expect in the next two instalments of this series. After the success of both Rendition and Betrayal at the House of Sontar, and Foley’s foreshadowing here, I’m all ears.

Rendition is available on CD or as a download from http://www.bigfinish.com

Rutans VS Sontarans continues next month with Grave Moon