I love the playfulness between the show's main trio. This is playtime for adults. Whilst the characters are top notch and there is still plenty of momentum in this new series, this was a pretty average story and did feel like filler.

The Sontarans are excellent fun but I don't think they have quite had their stand out story yet. I'm hoping their fourth appearance will provide that. Whilst they are visually striking in The Sontaran Experiment it is notable that they actually look worse than in The Time Warrior. I wish they had the original detail around the eyes in particular. None of this is a huge shame as the final product is fine. The torture scenes were quite ingenious and not nearly as gruesome as they sound. I liked the idea of the Sontaran testing human's capabilities.

It was quite strange to see a story completely based on location, there is a lot of potential in this - but as it was set exclusively in a field this was a visually weak couple of episodes. One or two sets it would have added some variety alongside the grassy knolls. I don't imagine the visitors to Earth were just sleeping on the ground, they must have been staying somewhere off screen.

I complained about Sarah Jane being patronised in The Ark in Space and we get a little more of the same here, but in fairness to Robert Holmes I am finding she typically ends up being presented as being correct when her counterparts are wrongly dismissive.

There is some more brilliant dialogue, but given how exceptional these characters are it does feel like an odd placeholder story which wastes our casts great abilities. Its certainly not a bad one though!