Maria has momentous news that she’s afraid to share with Sarah, but it doesn’t concern an alien invasion: Maria’s dad has gotten a job that could send him – and her – to America. But before she has a chance to dwell on the news, there’s a UFO sighting to investigate at a radio telescope. When Sarah and her friends go to investigate, they find the daughter of the lead researcher, dazed and disoriented, and unsure of where her father is, having last seen him the night before in the nearby woods during the sighting of unknown lights in the sky. Clyde and Luke take a look in the woods, against Sarah’s wishes, and find something very solid, very large and very invisible. Sarah uses her sonic lipstick to uncloak it, discovering a Sontaran space pod – and its occupant, Commander Kaagh, the sole survivor of the Sontaran attempt to take over Earth with the ATMOS device. Kaagh plans to get revenge for the failed attack by using the radio telescope to order every satellite in the sky to deorbit and crash into populated areas of the Earth, and he’s not about to let Sarah and her “half-forms” stop him.
Season 2 Regular Cast: Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Yasmin Paige (Maria Jackson), Tommy Knight (Luke), Daniel Anthony (Clyde), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra)
written by Phil Ford
directed by Joss Agnew
music by Sam Watts / title music by Murray GoldGuest Cast: Joseph Millson (Alan Jackson), Juliet Cowan (Chrissie Jackson), Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith), Ronan Vibert (Professor Nicholas Skinner), Clare Thomas (Lucy Skinner), Anthony O’Donnell (Kaagh)
Notes: The failed Sontaran invasion via ATMOS was seen in the Doctor Who episodes The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky; Kaagh’s “flashbacks” are new scenes interspersed with scenes from those episodes, neither of which featured him. Sarah has known the Sontarans for as long as she’s known the Doctor: her first trip in the TARDIS put her in the clutches of Sontaran warrior Linx in 1974’s The Time Warrior (also notable for being the Sontarans’ first appearance in Doctor Who), while her disgust at the thought of Clyde being subjected to Kaagh’s experiments no doubt comes from her own horrifying experiences as a Sontaran’s guinea pig in 1975’s The Sontaran Experiment. Kaagh’s helmet “slices” open into retracting segments, something that no Sontaran’s helmet has ever been seen to do before (not even in their recent Doctor Who appearance); it’s possible that Kaagh’s suit of armor is a special survival suit with that capability, despite looking identical to any other suit of Sontaran armor.
LogBook entry by Earl Green