The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Gift

Part One

“I was about to thank you. A break from the dog is most appreciated.”

“Bit annoying, is he?”

“I couldn’t possibly comment…”

I love the way we start this episode at what would be the end of a normal story, with our heroes on the verge of foiling a Slitheen plot, only for our expectations to be thwarted by the arrival of the Blathereen. Sadly, it’s one of very few cool things about this unfortunate episode. It’s a nice plot, but The Claws of Axos did it better.

There are a lot of old foes in SJA, aren’t there? It’s not long since the Trickster was back, and now it’s the Slitheen again. At least this is a new twist on them from new writer Rupert Laight (who he?). And there’s a nice early bit of education for the kids as we’re old how diamond is just compressed carbon and that. But this is very slow and talky- surely the kids must have been bored. I know I was. At least we get a nice bit of fanwank, though. Apparently Raxacoricofallapatorius, Clom, Clix and Raxacoricovarconpatorius (gotta love subtitles) are part of something called the Raxas Alliance. Well I never.

Things get worse, though. Clyde using K-9 to cheat in a school test is both silly and out of character. And how did he manage to lip a massive robot dog into the classroom, anyway?



Part Two

“How dare you! We’re nothing like the Slitheen. We’re much, much worse!”

Come to think of it, it looks as though this entire clumsy and out-of-character plot strand of Clyde using K-9 to cheat in a test is there mainly to ensure K-9 is able to save Clyde and Rani from the exploding Rakweed. Sigh.

The conclusion seems to go through the motions. The school bell destroying the Rakweed is too much of a coincidence. In an episode which I otherwise like I could be forgiving (The Seeds of Death uses water in a similar way), but this is one piece of clumsiness too many. And the Blathereen want to use Earth as a farm for growing Rakweed, which seems to be narcotic, in a cack-handed attempt to draw parallels with the hard drugs trade. Sigh again.

It’s an unfortunate ending (1/5) to what was otherwise an excellent series. The only surprise for me was that the whole “Chandra family do The X-Files” angle from Prisoner of the Judoon wasn’t followed up. Perhaps next season?

Phew! First Torchwood, now I’ve got to the end of The Sarah Jane Adventures. If we, er, ignore the entire season which has aired since the Marathon officially ended, that is! Just sixteen episodes of Doctor Who to go for me. Then I just have to catch up on the post-Marathon stuff and I’m up-to-date…

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Mad Woman in the Attic

Part One

“…Inquisitive?”

“I remember being that.”

Unusual beginning for SJA; we don’t usually get this sort of mildly complex timey-wimey plots, presumably because of worries about whether the young audience would be able to follow it. Personally I don’t see the problem; when I was a very young kid I never really understood the plot of anything but I enjoyed watching television drama anyway. So it’s good to see something like this being attempted, even though it wouldn’t pass as being in any way complex for the other two shows. Interesting how Joseph Lidster, both in SJA and in Torchwood, seems to be getting himself a reputation for framing his narratives with interesting devices. Personally, I like it.

Initially, what with the early scenes being weighted heavily in favour of the older Rani and the future Luke-a-like, it seems this might be a sort of everyone-lite story. But it turns out it isn’t, and it’s a nicely Rani-centric tale of a kind we haven’t really seen before. Most importantly, though, we get more information on the legendary Zodin! “It’s stripy and… they’re odd”, apparently.

Things get very creepy very quickly, though. Abandoned fairgrounds, fixed smiles and forced jollity are genuinely terrifying to me! This may be a cheap episode, but that doesn’t stop it being the most terrifying episode yet. Perhaps it’s just me and my idiosyncratic fears but… isn’t this even a bit too scary for the kids?

Nice episode, with just enough plot revealed to keep us guessing.



Part Two

“Playtime is over.”

Ooh, loads of clips! And some from Doctor Who! In the Seventies! Hope they flog a few DVDs from this. Doesn’t she look young? There’s also some of Sarah Jane’s future… and the TARDIS! Ooh…!

More good stuff happens here. The ghost train is nice and scary, and Rani’s outburst at the others is an interesting first. And the resolution is satisfying; Eve is just a child, the Ship is trying to look after her, and Harry is just a red herring after all. In fact, there are no baddies in the story at all. And K-9 is back. Yay! I look forward to seeing more of this slightly amusing rivalry between him and Mr Smith.

Yes, it’s a little trite and predictable that Sarah Jane should forgive Rani for blabbing everything to Sam, just as she forgave Clyde for blabbing to his dad. And the framing device is resolved a little too easily, perhaps. But this is a very successful attempt at a quieter type of story, and I think it works. 4/5.

Doctor Who: Midnight

“Sorry, I’m a Doctor. I’m very clever.”

Ahem. Been a while, hasn’t it? Well, I’m back.

Some nice CGI, to start with. And that’s all that we’ll be getting of this sort of thing, as I believe this is what those Trekkie people call a “bottle episode”. And if this is what “bottle” episodes are like then let’s have more of them. This may be a filmed stage play with very little of the visual, but it’s a bloody good one, and the best thing RTD has written since The Second Coming.

We briefly see Donna at the start, which reminds us how bloody useful she would have been to the Doctor in what is to follow. It’s a very nice touch that the “Donna-lite” story is one in which her absence is really felt; for once the Doctor needs her to stop others, not himself. This story features the most terrifying foe the Doctor has yet faced: the slavering, vicious, unreasoning mob; the sort of mindless conformity which at its worst extreme… sorry, came very close to invoking Godwin’s Law just then. And we learn more of RTD’s views of society here than in anything we’ve so far seen.

The early scenes in the shuttle show us once again what a master at the nuts and bolts of economical storytelling is our showrunner. In a few brief scenes he nicely sketches out the characters whilst amusingly taking the proverbial out of the petty irritations of air travel which are so familiar to us all. But the early humorous touches (I liked “I must warn you that some products may contain nuts” a lot) very quickly turn into misdirection; when the Doctor states jokingly that “We’ll have to talk to each other instead”, he’s already started to misjudge the situation, the people he’s with, and his own status. These early scenes are full of subtle touches that, oblivious though he may be, for once he isn’t the alpha male.

There’s quite a cast here: Lesley Sharp is of course superb, so is David Troughton. And I’d forgotten that Merlin was in this. But these aren’t the quirky, loveable types we’re used to seeing in RTD Who scripts; in their own ways they’re all self-absorbed, narrow-minded and entirely lacking in the qualities we’re used to seeing in a programme based partly on the Doctor’s making others into better people. There are no suitable candidates here. And yet, arguably only Biff is truly nasty. Well, with a name like that.

The initial scenes of suspense as the craft stops and the banging starts are very well done. I was reminded of The Edge of Destruction, in a good way. And even at this early stage the sight of everyone panicking is almost as scary as the external threat. Mobs and groupthink are far scarier than alien possession.

Oh, and it seems the mysterious alien force knocks three times. How interesting. Don’t know why I mention it. We get Rose on the screen again, too…

Then the two pilots are the first to die, Sky starts repeating people’s words, and RTD cranks up the tension quite majestically. Credit also has to go to the performances, the claustrophobic setting, and the more than usually noticeable soundtrack for modern Who; almost musique concrete at times, a bit Tristram Cary. Almost modern enough to have appeared in this very programme back in ’63…

The mood of the mob shifts decisively once the subject of throwing Sky comes up, and even the apparently nice Dee Dee is implicated. From this point onward things are very, very dark, much darker than anything previously seen in the marathon so far. They all start to turn against the Doctor (Disturbingly, he’s described as being “Like an immigrant!” It’s a mob of Daily Mail readers. The horror.). He’s accused of “loving” the danger of the situation- there’s a germ of truth there, as has often been pointed out- and he finally alienates everyone with his fantastically misjudged “Because I’m clever!” In the land of the mob, no one likes a smartarse. Smartarses don’t conform. They’re too intellectual. They read things into things. They’re weird. Let’s just throw them out. Chilling stuff.

Things then proceed to get better than this, as Sky speaks first, the Doctor is apparently possessed, and the Doctor is left repeating everyone’s words as they set about throwing him out. The expressions on Tennant’s face here are incredible.

There’s one potential seed of redemption for humanity, though; the stewardess, who’s hardly been saintly so far, finally realised what’s happened and sacrifices her life to save everyone. No one even remembers her name. And the Doctor then has to spend twenty long minutes in the company of the mob which had attempted to kill him although, of course, everything goes unsaid. How very English. Unusually, it’s made clear at the end that the Doctor is deeply upset by what has happened.

Superlative: a stage play with a camera plonked in front of it, perhaps, but a triumphant example, and one that makes me want to go to the theatre more often. By which I mean, these days, at all. 5/5 and straight into my top ten at number six.

Doctor Who: The Doctor's Daughter

“Hello, Dad!”

Wow. I was expecting this to be average-to-good going by my memories, which are fairly recent, after all. Stephen Greenhorn’s last effort was a bit meh, too. And yet this has just blown me away. It’s superb.

Martha’s back, which means some great character stuff for all the regulars (back to that in a bit), but also a larger TARDIS crew, which allows for what feels like an uber-traditional episode of Doctor Who. In fact the first five minutes see our heroes split up and separated from the TARDIS, and Martha’s experiences and those of the Doctor and Donna mirror each other for the early part of the episode. The Hartnell vibes couldn’t be much more blatant. And the whole thing feels very “trad Who”.

The pre-titles teaser is fab, of course, and so’s Georgia Moffat. And the Doctor’s reaction to the fact that he has a daughter leads to some superbly played scenes with Tennant and Tate. Donna as a character is fantastic here, able to take the proverbial out of the Doctor as no one else can. I still love her. Oh, and she’s the one who works out the mystery at the end. She’s great, but by now it’s becoming clear that her arc is building up to something. She can’t carry on having this much fun and being this fab without being brought down to Earth with a bump- her final comment to Martha about wanting to travel in the TARDIS forever makes it clear that something’s coming. Such is how the RTD universe works. That’s what happened with Rose back in Season 28- again, RTD repeating his own tropes, and again, not a problem at this point but it’s clear that RTD’s song will end soon.

Martha gets an interesting character arc here; initially reluctant to travel in the TARDIS because she’s aware there’s always a cost, she’s soon enjoying herself anyway (“I love this bit!”). And she proves to be brilliant, even more so than before, as symbolised by her insistence on using her medical skills to help with the dislocated shoulder of one of the Hath who’s captured her. Shades of The Smugglers there. She’s also brilliant in the way she takes the alternative route over ground to the mysterious “Source”. Shades of The Five Doctors there. And yet… only one non-redshirt dies in the whole story, and it happens on Martha’s watch as the Hath dies saving her. Martha is heartbroken; symbolically, she suffers this but Donna doesn’t, having fun down below. This is innocence versus experience; the dark side of time travel will catch up with Donna one day. It’s a good proper farewell for Martha, though. Fittingly, both of them finally address each other as “Doctor” as they part.

Jenny is an extremely cool character. Her personality is a bit superficial, perhaps, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s underwritten. She’s cool; a kind of Doctor-in-training who can dance through laser beams and gets a great ending. Plus, she’s a proper Time Lady. She’s got two hearts and, er, she was loomed. Sorry.

There’s some good stuff for the Doctor, too- Tennant is particularly good here- with some interesting revelations about his having fathered children, plural. And yet… there’s something not quite right about the extreme pacifism he displays here, especially at the end. I know I keep banging on about this, but this Marathon has shown that the Doctor may feel guns cramp his style, but he’s happy to use them when absolutely necessary, or even if not, if he’s in Frontier in Space. Plus there’s the blowing stuff up, and the Venusian Aikido. All this stuff about the Doctor being an uber-pacifist only came along very late, if at all.

And yet… could that be what we’re supposed to think? The exchanges with Jenny about war, which he doesn’t entirely win, suggest it might be. Could it be that this Doctor retains some of the war-weariness from the Time War, and that this is causing him to exaggerate his pacifistic streak?

Lots of food for thought here with the development of the characters. Plus, the plot is great, proper hard sci-fi, with a good twist at the end as it’s revealed how long the war’s been going on for. There’s not a lot wrong with this one. 5/5.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Eye of the Gorgon

Part One
“It’s so sad. Everything she must have seen… and now everyone thinks she’s just crazy.”

This is Phil Ford’s first script for any of the three shows, and it’s actually quite surprising looking back that he’s only been involved since such a relatively late stage. His debut script is a cracker; a great story based on Greek myth (nicely educational there), but particularly impressive on characterisation- the whole thing with Maria and her family is brilliantly written. There’s also a very sensitive treatment of Alzheimer's for a child audience, many of whom will have grandparents in this situation.

The Sontaran reference from Bea is quite effective, making it clear that she herself had adventures with aliens once upon a time- rather nicely, we’re left to imagine the details but given the impression that this sort of thing has always been happening to people. Of course, this in no way implies they might be making an appearance in the parent programme soon…



Part Two

“No one listens to you when you’re old.”

Great cliffhanger, and once again some great characterisation for Maria; her initial reaction is believable, but importantly this doesn’t last, and the show doesn’t go too far, avoiding the implication that the children are living too dangerous a lifestyle with Sarah Jane which would portray her in a bad light- an ever-present risk which the series is going to have to be careful to avoid while still providing the required levels of excitement.

This episode is as great as the last- there’s a priest hole, a whole garden of petrified statues, and a wonderful scene with Chrissie pouring her hearts out to what she thinks is a statue of Alan. I love Chrissie- Juliet Cowan gives a great comic performance with what could easily have been a very annoying character. And I love Bea’s exasperated reaction when Maria doesn’t immediately spot what the mirror is for!

Pleasingly, we avoid a resolution which wishes away Bea’s Alzheimer’s with a magic wand- that would be insensitive and potentially upsetting for many viewers- but still ends on a positive note. Brilliant- 5/5.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Revenge of the Slitheen

Part One

“Clyde, new too. Probably hang around with you until I meet cooler people.”

I’m going to try and keep these SJA reviews a bit shorter, partly so I can catch up a bit, partly because I’m a little bit older than the target audience and partly as I don’t expect there to be quite as much subtext to talk about. Except where there is, obviously.

Anyway, we get a bit of a mini-reboot here in the first episode of a full series. Some things have changed- Kelsey has gone- but essentially this feels very much the same, right down to the baddies’ association with James Whale Frankenstein imagery. We also get an introduction for Clyde, who seems very promising indeed as a character, and a reintroduction of the Slitheen. It’s quite interesting how by this point they no longer seem to fit the tone of the parent show.

Oh, and the Slitheen child is great…



Part Two

“I did it! I exploded the headmaster!”

Interesting to hear the Slitheen speak of Earth as a “level five” planet- by now it seems as though the Whoniverse has a consistent system of “levels” which is a nice touch. We also get mentions of Judoon, other Raxacoricofallapatorian families, as well as a council and a senate, and even some of the planet’s animals, naturally with very long name. And if that wasn’t enough, even Clom gets a mention. And then Trinity Wells appears. It’s a virtual fanwank explosion.

It’s a good conclusion, firmly introducing Clyde as a member of the gang and giving each character some nice moments. A strong 3/5.

Torchwood: Out of Time

“Of course, bananas are far more interesting.”

Another new writer, then: Catherine Tregenna. A new type of story, too- ten episodes in and we’re still getting an extraordinary diversity of genres and storytelling styles, a pleasantly surprising legacy from the parent show.

For the first time, there’s no physical threat; the whole thing is entirely a character piece. It’s an extraordinary departure, but it works brilliantly. Our three refugees from 1953 are paired off with three of the regulars: Diane with Owen; Emma with Gwen; and John with Jack. All three regulars get a nice bit of development, although once again Tosh and Ianto are neglected, a problem which seems to be intensifying.

The first few minutes are filled with nicely humorous culture clash moments; the bananas line, “I made it myself,” and Diane’s confused reaction to seeing “smoking kills” written on a cigarette packet. But soon we get to see the very different reactions of our three time travellers. Emma eventually adapts, John is unable to cope, and Diane, brilliantly, is rather bored with her new surroundings and embarks on a ridiculously dangerous, thrill-seeking flight through the rift again to face the unknown.

Jack and John are a fascinating pairing, giving Jack what is probably his best bit of characterisation he’s had so far in the series. The two of them quickly bond through having fallen both through time. But John is soon showing signs of being unable to deal with his new surroundings; his tyrannising of Emma shows us that he’s likely to struggle with modern social mores, and his only connection to the life he knew is a son with dementia. Eventually he turns to suicide, as Jack discovers. But there’s a twist: Jack confesses that he is “a man, like you, out of his time, alone and scared.” It’s “bearable” because “it has to be”. As Jack sits alongside John in the car, harmlessly inhaling the fatal fumes, we’re made to suspect the only difference between the two is not that Jack doesn’t want to end it all, but that he can’t.

Emma’s arc is comparatively straightforward; she’s young, and able to adapt. Once again we see the caring side of Gwen as she takes her in, gently introduces her to the modern world (I love their little chat about sex). But this leads to an “oops” moment as Rhys discovers that Gwen’s mother does not, in fact, know anything about Emma. “What worries me is how easy it is for you to lie to me, Gwen,” says Rhys. This particular fault line can only widen as the series approaches its end.

The most interesting couple are Diane and Owen, of course. Diane does not fit either Owen’s or our stereotypes about the ‘50s, being wild and independent yet somehow seeming rather more grown-up than people today. Particularly Owen, who thinks that “We could be fuck-buddies” is a good post-coital line. We get a good conversation about “casual” sex here; Diane has a rather deeper understanding of such things than Owen. In fact, Owen’s his usual self here, by which I mean he’s a bit of an arse; his convoluted confession of love to Diane shows this perfectly. Of course, she means a lot more to him than he does to her. Diane is a free spirit, craving experience and stifled by the ease and convenience of the twenty-first century, while Owen’s a bit clingy and, well, shallow. The manner of Diane’s departure is perfect.



Very good indeed, a high 4/5.

Torchwood: Small Worlds

“…For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”

I’m not that familiar with P.J. Hammond’s work, having only seen the first one-and-a-half “assignments” of Sapphire and Steel in spite of having owned the box set for ages, but he’s impressed me here and no mistake. It’s a brilliant, bleak, imaginative treatment of a fantasy archetype and yet another genre / mood for Torchwood. It’s just a shame that Tosh, Owen and Ianto make little more than token appearances, although it’s noticeable that Tosh shows some medical skills here.

We (and Gwen) get to see a little more of Jack’s past as we’re introduced to Estelle, his ex-girlfriend from before the war, and Gwen realises he’s not only immortal but apparently ageless; “He’d be in his early nineties now,” says Estelle of Jack’s “father”. We also learn that he was in India (well, Lahore was in India then…) in 1909 at some point, although where exactly this slots in is not yet clear. All this nicely develops the mystery of Jack and promises us a lot of juicy goodness to come. All the same, though, this new serious version of Jack is now looking to be a worryingly permanent presence, and John Barrowman isn’t quite as convincing as this version of the character.

But the story is about the faeries (I’m going to spell them that way, ‘cos it’s cooler), of course, and to make them sinister, all-powerful beings whose origin is shrouded in mystery but hinted at in a really cool way (“lost lands”) is a masterstroke. The story focuses on their “chosen one”, Jasmine, perhaps to the extent of neglecting most of the regulars but successfully nonetheless. Her fairy protectors deal with bullies, a sinister paedophile (an eyebrow-raising inclusion) and her stepfather Roy, who quite cleverly is shown to be just about nasty enough to deserve his fate, at one point telling Jasmine “…No wonder your dad left,” and later striking her. Worst of all, of course, he drinks horrible lager from a can. You’ve got to say it for the bloke, though; if you want a fence putting up lightning quick then he’s your man.

The ending is bleak and powerful; there’s absolutely nothing our heroes could have done. Jack is absolutely right to give in, as the only alternative is the end of all life on the planet. The team’s reaction to him is a bit callous, though, and stinks more than a little of moral cowardice. What else do they think he could have done, exactly?



There are a couple of niggles over Jack’s character and the neglect of members of the team other than Jack, Gwen, and to a lesser extent Owen- this is starting to look like a running sore- but as an episode this was superb. Not perfect, but still enough for a 5/5.