Trivia / Doctor Who S30 E4 "The Sontaran Stratagem"

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• Completely Different Title: The French title is "ATMOS Part 1".
• Development Gag: Donna mistakenly calls the Sontarans "Sonterans" (with an emphasis on the -rans instead of the -tar) before being corrected by the Doctor. This is a subtle reference to how Robert Holmes, writer of the original 1973 story "The Time Warrior", intended for the name to be pronounced how Donna says it. However, Kevin Lindsay, the Australian actor who played Linx, the Sontaran, in that story, pronounced it the way we're accustomed to today, insisting that he was correct because if anyone would know, it'd be him since he "was one."
• Fake American: English Ryan Sampson plays the American Luke Rattigan. American viewers were unconvinced.
• Prop Recycling:
  • The cloning vat is the fountain from "The Fires of Pompeii", redressed.
  • The table that is used to hold the real Martha is used in the Torchwood episode "Cyberwoman". And the metal headware that Martha has on at the same time looks like the mind probe used in "Sleeper".
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The exploding ATMOS jeep was supposed to be a more impressive faire, but it would've been too expensive to blow up the Rover (and the Army wouldn't like it, either), so it was rewritten to have the ATMOS controller give off a few sparks. It also fulfils the Rule of Funny.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Cloning was going to have a larger presence in the story with the ATMOS factory workers all being clones. Russell T Davies decided to just have the clone of Martha to not have the concept overstay it’s welcome.
  • Originally, Geoff Noble was in this episode. Following Howard Attfield's death, his role was given to Wilf. The original script mentioned that Geoff was unwell.
  • Instead of cars, there was going to be a new kind of chimney attached to every home which purported to cleanse the atmosphere.
• You Look Familiar: Christopher Ryan (Staal) previously played Kiv in "Mindwarp".

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