"And if I'm ever in the need of advice from a psychotic potato dwarf, you'll certainly be the first to know."
--Eleventh Doctor ("The Snowmen")
With over sixty years of content and upgrades in special effects, much has changed about Doctor Who. What once was cardboard backgrounds (see "Keys of Marinus" where you can clearly tell Ian and Barbara are walking in place) is now CGI and cinematic quality. Even the villains have changed drastically (see Silurians and Cybermen). Besides the Daleks (who think they're perfect already), one of the few who hasn't changed much is the Sontarans.
What are Sontarans?
These walking potatoes are a clone race built solely for battle. They're prideful and would rather die honorable in battle than to surrender. Their planet, Sontar, is dense with strong gravitational pull, resulting in their stocky troll-like build. They breathe through a probic vent in the back of their neck (if you can call that a neck). That vent is their big weakness, as a quick whack to it can temporarily incapacitate the baked potato.
A recurring gag ever since their conception in the 1970s is their inability to perceive differences in gender; notable examples are when Sarah Jane meets them in "The Time Warrior" and when multiple versions of Clara interact with Strax in the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor eras. The Doctor brashly chalked this up to being a clone race and "Two genders is a bit further than he can count."
They're described as the finest soldiers of the galaxy, which makes sense since that's what they're bred to do. Their mortal enemy is Rutan Host, but they've been at war so long (50 000+ years) that no one even knows why they're fighting anymore.
The Doctor and the Sontarans
On-screen the Doctor's first encounter with the Sontarans was when the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane ended up in the Middle Ages and thwarted the plans of Commander Lynx. The Doctor would later meet the Sontarans sporadically through the almost fifty years of television, encountering seven other incarnations of the Doctor, and Sarah Jane would even meet a lone Sontaran after her time in the TARDIS during The Sarah Jane Adventures.
One notable recurring Sontaran is fan-favorite Strax (TJ and I love him at least). Indebted to the Doctor and later companion of Vastra and Jenny, Strax assisted the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors on occasion. While I don't know if you could say Strax was a "good guy" he's probably the most civil Sontaran to have existed--though he did like to go to Scotland get in fights, while living in Victorian England. His temperamental and violent nature still shined through his butler facade frequently, which made for plenty of comical moments. Vastra, Jenny, the Doctor, and Clara tended to keep him in line, but how much can you really reform a Sontaran?
It's been a few regenerations since we last saw Strax, but I think it would be worth having him and his friends back again. It's only been a couple years since we last saw other Sontarans, but Strax and his grenades will always have a special place in my heart. As such, I'll leave you with another great Strax-related quote.
"I'm the clever one, you're the potato one."
--Eleventh Doctor ("The Snowmen")
