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“BLIND TERROR – A SONTARAN STANDOFF”

Blind Terror takes a stripped-back approach to one of Doctor Who’s longest-running background conflicts—the endless Sontaran-Rutan war. Here, the battlefield is a much smaller, more intimate one: Earth. As two Sontaran warriors track a Rutan agent to our planet, the story sets up a tense game of suspicion and survival. But the twist isn’t where you might expect.

The Rutan, that long-standing but rarely-seen nemesis of the Sontarans, has shape-shifted to evade detection. Its power, however, comes with a flaw: it can only take forms that exhibit some kind of imperfection or defect. When a blind girl becomes the prime suspect, the story leans into its paranoia—but the real surprise is that the impostor is much closer to home. One of the Sontarans is, in fact, the Rutan in disguise.

A TWIST OF HONOUR

It’s a fairly simple twist, but it plays nicely into Sontaran psychology. The injured Sontaran refuses treatment, proudly wearing his wound as a badge of honour. It’s a small but effective beat that says more about the cloned warrior race than a thousand gun battles. It also tips the hand just enough for the audience to begin piecing things together.

The script shows a good understanding of modern Sontaran characterisation. These are clearly cousins to the Strax generation—more grounded in the updated New Who portrayals rather than the emotionless killing machines of Classic Who. There's honour, pride, and just a dash of deadpan humour, even if this particular tale doesn't lean heavily into comedy.

THE ENEMY WITHIN

As a standalone piece, Blind Terror functions as a modest tension-builder. The Rutan itself doesn’t make much of an impression—it remains more a lurking threat than a vivid presence—but that suits the claustrophobic, suspicion-driven tone of the story. This is less a war epic and more a chamber mystery, with identity and deception at the forefront.

While the twist is slightly predictable, and the narrative a little sparse, it does what it sets out to do. The limited setting and tight character focus make this feel like a brief but effective skirmish in the wider Rutan-Sontaran war.

📝THE BOTTOM LINE: 7/10

A compact, character-focused thriller that understands Sontaran honour culture better than many full-length stories, Blind Terror is a solid if unremarkable tale. The Rutan doesn’t shine, but the moral ambiguity and identity games make for a decent slice of paranoia-driven sci-fi.