Editing Sontaran (section)

==Appearances==
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===Television===
During rehearsals for their first appearance, [[Kevin Lindsay]], who portrayed the original Sontaran, Linx, pronounced the race's name as "''son-TAR-an''." Alan Bromly, the director, tried to correct him by saying it should be pronounced with the stress on the first syllable. Lindsay declared "Well, I think it's ''"son-TAR-an"'', and since I'm from the place, I should know." His preferred pronunciation was retained.

The Sontarans made their first appearance in 1973 in the serial ''[[The Time Warrior]]'' by Robert Holmes, where Linx is stranded in the Middle Ages. Linx uses a projector to bring back human scientists from the future to fix his spacecraft.

Another Sontaran named Styre appears in ''[[The Sontaran Experiment]]'' (1975), experimenting on captured astronauts on a far future Earth. Their third appearance is in ''[[The Invasion of Time]]'', where they successfully invade [[Gallifrey]], but are driven out again after less than a day. They appeared for the final time in the original series in ''[[The Two Doctors]]''. The Sontarans also appeared in a skit for the BBC children's programme ''[[Jim'll Fix It]]'' titled "[[A Fix with Sontarans]]", along with [[Colin Baker]] as the [[Sixth Doctor]] and [[Janet Fielding]] as [[Tegan Jovanka]]. References are made in Sontaran episodes to the [[Rutan (Doctor Who)|Rutan Host]], an equally militaristic race with whom the Sontarans have been at war for thousands of years; a Rutan is seen in ''[[Horror of Fang Rock]]'' (1977), which does not feature the Sontarans, but have not featured in the television series again.

Sporting an updated design,<ref>{{cite news |title= Martha's Monster Mash |date= 4 November 2007 |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2007/11/04/50453.shtml |access-date= 2007-11-04 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071104153533/http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2007/11/04/50453.shtml |archive-date= 4 November 2007}}</ref> Sontarans returned to the revived series in the [[Doctor Who (series 4)|Series 4]] episodes "[[The Sontaran Strategem]]" and "[[The Poison Sky]]" (2008).<ref name="dwm390">{{cite news
| date=13 December 2007
| title=Production notes
| periodical=[[Doctor Who Magazine]]
| issue=390
| pages=4
}}</ref> The Sontarans plan to terraform the Earth into a new clone world, but their plans are averted by the [[Tenth Doctor]] ([[David Tennant]]). It is also revealed that the race was excluded from the [[Time War (Doctor Who)|Last Great Time War]] of the revived series' backstory. In "[[Turn Left (Doctor Who)|Turn Left]]" (2008), the same events are depicted in a parallel universe, where [[Rose Tyler]] ([[Billie Piper]]) describes their plan as foiled by [[Torchwood Institute|Torchwood]] (characters from the [[Torchwood|spin-off show of that name]]), at the cost of their lives, with Torchwood leader [[Jack Harkness|Captain Jack Harkness]] ([[John Barrowman]]) being captured by the Sontarans. In "[[The Stolen Earth]]" (2008), UNIT is revealed to have developed a teleportation device based on Sontaran technology. A lone survivor from the events of "The Poison Sky", Commander Kaagh ([[Anthony O'Donnell (actor)|Anthony O'Donnell]]), next appears in ''[[The Last Sontaran]]'' (2008), from spin-off series ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]''. Kaagh appears again in ''[[Enemy of the Bane]]'' (2008). In ''Doctor Who''{{'}}s "[[The End of Time (Doctor Who)|The End of Time, Part Two]]" (2010), a Sontaran sniper ([[Dan Starkey (actor)|Dan Starkey]]) briefly appears pursuing the Doctor's former companions [[Mickey Smith]] ([[Noel Clarke]]) and his wife [[Martha Jones]] ([[Freema Agyeman]]), but is defeated by the Doctor before he can assassinate them. Alongside the [[Eleventh Doctor]] ([[Matt Smith]]), Sontaran battle fleets are seen in [[Doctor Who (series 5)|Series 5]] finale episode, "[[The Pandorica Opens]]" (2010), as part of an alliance of the Doctor's enemies. [[Doctor Who (series 6)|Series 6]] episode "[[A Good Man Goes to War]]" (2011) introduces [[Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax|Commander Strax]] (Starkey), a Sontaran nurse who has been assigned this role as a means of making penance. He fights on the side of the Doctor and his allies, which include the [[Silurian (Doctor Who)|Silurian]] warrior [[Madame Vastra]] ([[Neve McIntosh]]) and her wife, [[Jenny Flint]] ([[Catrin Stewart]]). Strax then appears alongside Vastra and Jenny in "[[The Snowmen]]" (2012), "[[The Crimson Horror]]", "[[The Name of the Doctor]]" (both 2013), and "[[Deep Breath (Doctor Who)|Deep Breath]]" (2014). A troop of Sontarans is also shown among Trenzalore's invaders in the 2013 Christmas special "[[The Time of the Doctor]]". A Sontaran appears briefly in the 2015 episode "[[Face the Raven]]" as a refugee.

The appearance of the Sontarans was redesigned for the Thirteenth Doctor's final season, '[[Doctor Who Flux|Flux]]', where they reappeared in their first major antagonistic role since 2008. First appearing in the season premiere, 'Chapter 1: The Halloween Apocalypse', the Sontarans plan to exploit the Flux crisis to take over Earth in its various time periods. They sent a group back in time to [[Crimean War]]-era [[Sevastopol]] in 'Chapter 2: The War of the Sontarans' as a trial run, only to be defeated by the Doctor while [[Dan Lewis (Doctor Who)|Dan]] and [[Karvanista]] take out the main fleet. The Sontarans reappear in the cliffhanger for '[[Survivors of the Flux|Chapter Five: Survivors of the Flux]]', where they invade and take over earth during the flux crisis thanks to the intervention of their ally the Grand Serpent. In '[[The Vanquishers|Chapter Six: The Vanquishers]]', the Doctor and her allies learn the Sontarans plan to trick the [[Cyberman|Cybermen]] and [[Dalek|Daleks]] into being consumed by the flux while staying safe themselves by hijacking the Lupari ships, however the Doctor hijacks the ships herself and uses the flux event to destroy the Sontaran army as well.

===Games===
[[File:Destiny of the Doctors Sontaran.jpg|thumb|left|The Sontarans feature in ''[[Destiny of the Doctors]]'', a ''Doctor Who'' video game released by BBC Multimedia.]]
The origins of the Sontarans have not been revealed in the television series. The ''Doctor Who'' role-playing game published by FASA claimed that they were all descended from the genetic stock of General Sontar (or Sontaris), who used newly developed bioengineering techniques to clone millions of duplicates of himself and annihilated the non-clone population. He renamed the race after himself and turned the Sontarans into an expansionist and warlike society set on universal conquest. However, this origin has no basis in anything seen in the television series.

The Sontarans have also appeared as a character in the PC game ''[[Destiny of the Doctors]]'' released on 5 December 1997, by BBC Multimedia. They can be defeated by firing the occupants of an angry beehive at them.<ref>[http://www.thelogbook.com/pf/dw.htm/ TheLogBook] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080413105129/http://www.thelogbook.com/pf/dw.htm |date=13 April 2008}} Destiny of the Doctors review. Retrieved 2008-04-23.</ref>

The Sontarans appear in the ''[[Doctor Who: The Adventure Games]]'' episode, "The Gunpowder Plot".

===Other appearances===
[[Big Finish Productions]] first used the Sontarans for their audio drama ''[[Heroes of Sontar]]'', a 2011 [[Fifth Doctor]] ([[Peter Davison]]) story, depicting the Doctor and his companions being forced to aid a Sontaran attack squad against a dangerous enemy that has threatened the Sontaran race by compromising their strategic methods. They next featured in [[The Five Companions]] and were stuck in an alternative version of the Death Zone with the Fifth Doctor and various companions. In 2012, ''[[The First Sontarans]]'' was released. A Sixth Doctor Lost Story from the mid-1980s, written by Andrew Smith,<ref group="note">The writer of the 1980 story [[Full Circle (Doctor Who)|''Full Circle'']]</ref> it features the Sontarans and the Rutans on nineteenth century Earth, tracking down a scientist named Jacob, who escaped through time and space. It is revealed that Jacob is from Sontar, and was responsible for genetically creating the Sontarans as a defence against a Rutan invasion. They were first developed on Sontar's gravity-heavy moon and quickly proved themselves to be at least on par with the unstoppable Rutan horde. However, believing themselves to be superior, the Sontarans turned on their creators to prevent their knowledge of Sontaran weaknesses being discovered and exploited by their enemies, conquering the planet Sontar and changing it to suit their biology. The audio ends with the Doctor and Peri helping Jacob and his wife fake their deaths so that they can go into hiding on a primitive, isolated planet to get away from their need for revenge on the Sontarans. The Sontarans also feature in the Early Adventures audio ''The Sontarans'', which depicts the [[First Doctor]] ([[William Hartnell]]), [[Steven Taylor (Doctor Who)|Steven Taylor]] and [[Sara Kingdom]] encountering the Sontarans during an invasion of an asteroid colony at some point before Sara's time, prompting Sara to observe that she is aware of how this confrontation will end from her own histories; this audio serves as the Doctor's chronologically earliest encounter with the Sontarans. The audio ''[[Terror of the Sontarans]]'' saw the [[Seventh Doctor]] ([[Sylvester McCoy]]) and [[Mel Bush]] ([[Bonnie Langford]]) meet the Sontarans on an old mining colony that had been used as a Sontaran outpost, until a complex chain of events unintentionally created a new life form that was psychically tortured by the pain of the Sontarans' victims, forcing the Doctor to destroy the colony in the hope that the non-corporeal entity will reform into something more benevolent. They also appear in the 2014 story ''The Sontaran Ordeal'' as part of the Classic Doctors New Monsters range. In this story, the [[Eighth Doctor]] ([[Paul McGann]]) comes against a group of Sontarans led by General Stenk ([[Christopher Ryan]]) who try to get into the greatest of all wars: the [[Time War (Doctor Who)|Time War]].

Other appearances by the Sontarans include the [[Doctor Who spin-offs|spin-off]] videos ''[[Mindgame (Doctor Who)|Mindgame]]'', ''[[Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans]]'' and ''Do You Have A License To Save This Planet?''; three audio plays by [[Bill & Ben Video|BBV]]: ''Silent Warrior'', ''Old Soldiers'' and ''Conduct Unbecoming''; the [[Faction Paradox]] audio ''The Shadow Play''; and a cameo appearance in ''Infidel's Comet''. ''Shakedown'' marks the only occasion in which the Sontarans and their Rutan foes appear on screen together, and was adapted into a [[Virgin New Adventures]] novel where the Seventh Doctor must prevent the Sontarans gained a clear advantage in the conflict.

They have also appeared in several spin-off novels, including ''[[Lords of the Storm]]'' by [[David A. McIntee]], where the Fifth Doctor and Turlough have to stop a Sontaran scheme to take control of a colony world where Tzun technology has been hidden. In ''The Infinity Doctors'' by [[Lance Parkin]], an apparently alternate version of [[the Doctor]] negotiated a peace between the Sontarans and the Rutan Host when two of them were left trapped in a TARDIS for several hours and got to talking due to their inability to kill each other. General Sontar also made an appearance in that novel. In ''[[The Crystal Bucephalus]]'' by [[Craig Hinton]], the name of their planet was given as Sontara. The Sontarans also briefly appear in ''[[The Eight Doctors]]'', sent to the Eye of Orion by an agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency to kill the [[Fifth Doctor|Fifth]] and [[Eighth Doctor]]s. The novel ''[[Warmonger (novel)|Warmonger]]'' sees the Sontarans join an alliance of alien races assembled by the Fifth Doctor to defeat the mercenary army of renegade Time Lord Morbius, although the Sontarans are unaware that they follow the Doctor as he adopts the alias of 'Supreme Coordinator', which is shortened to 'Supremo' by his [[Ogron]] bodyguards.

In 1982, [[Jean Airey]]'s novella ''The Doctor and the Enterprise'' featured a crossover between the universes of ''Doctor Who'' and ''[[Star Trek]]'', in which the [[Fourth Doctor]] ([[Tom Baker]]) finds himself on the USS ''[[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)|Enterprise]]''. The ''Enterprise'' is attacked by a Sontaran fleet (which is unrecognizable to Captain [[James T. Kirk|Kirk]] and crew), prompting the Doctor to urgently warn the crew to flee the area.

They appear in 2009, in the novella ''[[The Sontaran Games]]'' by [[Jacqueline Rayner]], featuring the [[Tenth Doctor]] and appeared in the [[New Series Adventures (Doctor Who)]] book ''[[The Taking of Chelsea 426]]'' by [[David Llewellyn (author)|David Llewellyn]], featuring the [[Tenth Doctor]], fighting both times against the [[Rutan Host]].

In 2008, as part of Character options first series 4 2008 wave of action figures, they released some Sontaran action figures. These include General Staal, Commander Skorr and several Sontaran soldiers.

The Sontarans are mentioned in the audio book [[Wraith World]], when [[Clyde Langer]] ([[Daniel Anthony (actor)|Daniel Anthony]]) remarks he cannot understand why [[Luke Smith (The Sarah Jane Adventures)|Luke Smith]] ([[Tommy Knight]]) and [[Rani Chandra (The Sarah Jane Adventures)|Rani Chandra]] ([[Anjli Mohindra]]) would want to read about made up adventures, when they have faced Sontarans.

===Comic books===
The Sontarans have also appeared several times in the ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' comic strip, both as adversaries of the Doctor and in strips not involving the Doctor. In ''The Outsider'' (DWM #25-26), by [[Steve Moore (comics)|Steve Moore]] and [[David Lloyd (comics)|David Lloyd]], a Sontaran named Skrant invaded the world of Brahtilis with the unwitting help of Demimon, a local [[astrology|astrologer]]. The [[Fourth Doctor]] faced the Sontarans in ''Dragon's Claw'' (DWM #39-#45), by Steve Moore and [[Dave Gibbons]], where a crew of Sontarans menaced [[China]] in 1522 AD.

In [[Steven Moffat]]'s short story "What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow" (the basis for the [[Tenth Doctor]] episode "[[Blink (Doctor Who)|Blink]]"), the [[Ninth Doctor]] has a rooftop sword fight with two Sontarans in 21st century [[Istanbul]], defeating them with the help of spy Sally Sparrow, apparently before the events of "[[Rose (Doctor Who episode)|Rose]]" in his personal timeline.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/blink_annual.shtml|title = BBC - Doctor Who - Episodes - Blink}}</ref>

The Sontaran homeworld was destroyed in the future during the events of the [[Seventh Doctor]] strip ''Pureblood'' (DWM #193-196) but the Sontaran race pool survived, allowing for further cloning; the strip introduced the concept of "pureblood" Sontarans not born of cloning. The Sontarans also feature in the [[Kroton (Cyberman)|Kroton]] solo strip ''Unnatural Born Killers'' (DWM #277) and the [[Tenth Doctor]]'s comic strip debut ''The Betrothal of Sontar'' (DWM #365-#368), by [[John Tomlinson (comics)|John Tomlinson]] and [[Nick Abadzis]], where a Sontaran mining rig on the ice planet Serac comes under attack by a mysterious force.

=== Summary of appearances ===
This list does not include [[Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax#Strax|Strax]] who has [[Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax#Appearances|his own list]].
====''Doctor Who''====
* ''[[The Time Warrior]]'' (1973)
* ''[[The Sontaran Experiment]]'' (1975)
* ''[[The Invasion of Time]]'' (1978)
* ''[[The Two Doctors]]'' (1985)
* "[[The Sontaran Stratagem]]" / "[[The Poison Sky]]" (2008)
* ''[[Doctor Who (series 13)|Flux]]'' (2021)
**"[[The Halloween Apocalypse]]" (2021)
**"[[War of the Sontarans]]" (2021)
**"[[Survivors of the Flux]]" (2021)
**"[[The Vanquishers]]" (2021)

=====Cameos=====
* "[[The End of Time (Doctor Who)|The End of Time]]" (2010)
* "[[The Pandorica Opens]]" (2010)
* "[[A Good Man Goes to War]]" (2011)
* "[[The Time of the Doctor]]" (2013)
* "[[Face the Raven]]" (2015)

====''The Sarah Jane Adventures''====
* ''[[The Last Sontaran]]'' (2008)
* ''[[Enemy of the Bane]]'' (2008)