 This two part story features the return of former companion Martha Jones, the alien Sontarans and the organisation UNIT to the show.
This is the Sontarans' first appearance since the 1985 Sixth Doctor story "The Two Doctors" and the fifth story to feature the clone warriors. As well as "The Two Doctors" they have previously appeared in "The Time Warrior" (1973-4), "The Sontaran Experiment" (1975) and "The Invasion of Time" (1978).
General Staal refers to the legend of The Doctor leading a major battle in the "Last Great Time War" and to the fact the Sontarans "weren't allowed" to participate in it.
Christopher Ryan, who plays General Staal, previously played Lord Kiv in episodes 5-8 of the 1986 Sixth Doctor The Trial of the Time Lord season. Chris is probably best known for his comedic roles, including Dave Hedgehog in Bottom and Mike in The Young Ones.
Martha says that she is engaged to Thomas Milligan, who previously appeared as a medical doctor in "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords".
Donna Noble’s grandfather, Wilfred Mott, recalls how he met The Doctor in "Voyage of the Damned", where The Doctor disappeared before his eyes on Christmas Eve. Donna's mother also recalls how he attended Donna's wedding reception in "The Runaway Bride".
The Doctor's reference to working for UNIT "Back in the 70s - or was it the 80s" refers to inconsistencies in the dates for the previous UNIT stories. It was generally believed that the UNIT stories were set slightly ahead of the day they were first broadcast. This is confirmed by Sarah Jane Smith's claim she was from 1980 in the1975's Tom Baker story "Pyramids of Mars". However, the 1983 Fifth Doctor story "Mawdryn Undead" confused things somewhat, by featuring a retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (aka The Brigadier - the former head of UNIT's UK operation) in 1977!
UNIT first appeared in the 1968 Second Doctor story "The Invasion", in which the military organisation fought the Cybermen. In this story UNIT has been rebranded as the "Unified Intelligence Taskforce", having previously been known as the "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce". This followed a request by the United Nations shortly after the show returned to our televisions in 2005.
When communicating with each other, UNIT use call signs that are mostly based around greyhound racing. Personnel are usually designated a Greyhound call sign, whereas a base of operations is known as a Trap.
The Doctor tells Donna of the "fifteenth broken moon" of the Medusa Cascade. The Medusa Cascade was previously mentioned in "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords" and in "The Fires of Pompeii".
During the second episode, just as Donna moves towards the TARDIS screen while The Doctor contacts the Sontarans, Rose Tyler can be seen on the screen, silently calling out. This follows a similar silent cameo appearance in "Partners in Crime".
The idea of "ATMOS" has been around since the start of Season Twenty Eight - reference to it first appeared on the windscreen of the taxi that arrived to pick up the doomed Tracey in "Partners in Crime".
In 1974 Third Doctor story "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", another group of humans believed they were going to start a new life on a new planet. Sadly the truth was that evil politicians and scientists planned to roll back time on Earth, deleting all of Human history.
When The Doctor cut's off Staal's speech on the video screen in mid flow, a clip from CBeebies eco adventure cartoon Tommy Zoom is featured. The original plan was to use a clip from Shaun the Sheep.
Mention is made of the Sontarans' ongoing war with the Rutans - green jellyfish like creatures from Ruta 3 – who have the ability to shape-shift and impersonate creatures they have killed. The only story to actually feature a Rutan was the 1977's Fourth Doctor story "Horror of Fang Rock".
As in many previous stories of the revived show, supposed BBC News 24 footage is used featuring reports of unfolding events. However, as with the more recent appearances of such footage in Doctor Who, the channel is simply captioned on screen as News 24 devoid of the BBC logo. Since this story was produced, the BBC News 24 channel was rebranded in real life as BBC News, thus rendering its fictional counterpart as an even more distorted depiction of the channel. As well as UK supposedly news coverage foreign news was shown. For this story Lachelle Carl reprises her recurring role as the US Newsreader seen previously in the stories"Aliens of London/World War Three", "The Christmas Invasion" and "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords" and in Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures story (which featured Sarah Jane Smith and the Slitheen) "Revenge of the Slitheen".
Unlike previous double episode stories in Season Twenty Eight (New Series 2) and Season Twenty Nine (New Series 3), the first episode of this story does not include the usual title card reading "To be continued...". Instead there is just, after the credits, a trailer for episode two. The ending of the second episode of this story includes a trailer for the next story - This being "The Doctor's Daughter".
Before the title sequence in episode two there is a brief recap of the main events that took place in the first episode.
Following on immediately after each episode of this story, on BBC3, were the fourth and fifth chapters of the fourth series of Doctor Who Confidential. These being "Send in the Clones" and "Sontar-Ha!". Both were presented by Anthony Head.
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The Firsts:
The first appearance of The Sontarans in the revived television series and the first for 23 years - since the 1985 Sixth Doctor story "The Two Doctors".
The first story for companion Martha Jones (played by Freema Agyeman) since she left the show at the end of "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords".
The first appearance of UNIT in the revived television series and the first for 19 years - since the 1989 Seventh Doctor story "Battlefield".
Nikki Smith's first involvement in the show as Script Editor.
The first Doctor Who story to be directed by Douglas Mackinnon.
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(Position = 7 out of 11)
(Position = 91 out of 200)
