The Sarah Jane Adventures: Sky

Part One

“If I start asking my Mum questions about how to look after a baby then she’s going to totally freak.”

I never seem to pick up much enthusiasm for starting a new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, and this time is no exception. I’m always very much aware that this is very much a kids’ show, I’m a 34-year-old man, and I’m only reviewing this series because of my completist urge to review all of televised Doctor Who. I’m conscious that I don’t find much to say about it, which isn’t surprising: it’s for kids, and not necessarily always brimming with subtext. And yet, I usually end up enjoying it, and this time is no exception.

It’s certainly… different to see Elisabeth Sladen in new episodes so soon after her sad demise. But it’s also exhilarating to see the brand-new pre-titles sequence, and to hear Sladen’s voice delivering that wonderful monologue. It’s becoming very noticeable that the actors playing Clyde and Rani are getting older, but it’s good to see the gang again.

And this time we get a new addition, although obviously not for long; a baby whom Sarah Jane names Sky is mysteriously abandoned on her doorstep, and we get lots of fun scenes with Clyde showing how great he is with babies. Aaah. It’s also great to see some comedy with Haresh and the lovely Gita. I know I’m supposed to like the regulars more, but I think they’re my favourite characters…!

We get a lot of scenes in a nuclear power station; it’s almost as though this is a 1970s Doctor Who story. We get a few scenes with the wonderful Floella Benjamin as Professor Rivers again, including a great scene in which she plays with some lipstick and pretends she’s Sarah Jane. Plus there’s a great villain in the mysterious “Miss Myers”.

And then, as a cliffhanger we discover that Sky is suddenly much older. And a bomb.

Part Two

“And Clyde thought he had it tough with Luke!”

Er, excuse me, but surely if Sky is twelve years old then she isn’t actually a teenager? And surely there will be narrative difficulties with her being five years younger than Rani and Clyde, and therefore in a different school year? Still, it’s probably a good idea to have regular who’s closer to the age of the target audience, and also sensible of Phil Ford to give her a background which is more or less the same as Luke’s.

Still, it’s rather eyebrow-raising to have our new regular be, essentially, a suicide bomber. And I’m really, really not sure about that scene of Sarah Jane breaking into an area full of electricity pylons in a children’s programme!

Still, we get a nice ending, even if Sky surviving and being “defused” is awfully convenient. But then, in a genuine surprise, we see the shopkeeper and his parrot from Lost in Time. Are we going to find out who they are, or what they want…?

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Eternity Trap

Part One

“I bet he made a mean balloon giraffe at children’s parties.”

I knew this was going to be great as soon as I heard the splendidly Dickensian name “Erasmus Darkening”. Absolutely no ambiguity about who the baddie is here.

A ghost story is something very new for SJA, and this feels very fresh. It’s also great to see everybody’s favourite Lib Dem peer, Floella Benjamin, as Professor Rivers, who now even gets given a first name: Celeste. And then promptly, er, disappears. I like the well portrayed and Uriah Heep-like Toby, too, in spite of the fact that he was a bit of an obvious red herring. But this story from Phil Ford is superb not because of any particular stand-out gimmicks but because it feels fresh, it’s very well-told and it’s got oodles of atmosphere. This is simultaneously very kid-friendly and yet as scary as anything I’ve come across during the Marathon.

It’s fun to see Sarah Jane playing the sceptic for once, and as this is a Luke-lite story it’s nice to see more of the developing chemistry between Rani and Clyde. I love the way this story shamelessly and deliberately has fun with all sorts of ghost story tropes, and we even get a blatant Nigel Kneale reference which almost made me fall of my chair. “Stone Tape manifestation", indeed…! The nursery is very scary indeed. A million times more so because of that rocking horse, for some reason. Reminds me of Ghost Light.

This is great. We get Rani being really investigative and Clyde being really witty. We get the missing Professor Rivers “ghosting” through her walkie-talkie, like Miss Evangelista. We get secret passages. Secret passages are cool. We get ancient electronic oojimaflips. And we get “This is Hogwarts, Tim Burton style”. I’m loving this.

Part Two

“Oh boy, this is worse than The Sixth Sense.”

There’s inevitably a slightly disappointing air to part twos in general as the way the plot is resolved is seldom quite as satisfying as it could be, even in a good quality drama. But here it’s satisfying in very possible way: from the plot mechanics side, the all-apparent-magic-is-really-science, Dæmons-fashion, side, from the loads-of-atmosphere side, and from the lots-of-fun-with-tropes side. This is unremittingly great.

I can’t do enough gushing. It all ties up, there are some nice plot revelations, it all looks fantastic, the dashing Lord Marchwood gets to be heroic, Toby turns out not to be such a Uriah Heep after all once Sarah Jane has broadened his horizons, and we get to see Clyde and Rani being very brave and stoic. This is a top 5/5. And although it’s not an “arc” story, or a particularly important story for any particular character, I see no reason to mark it down for being a non-“event” episode. This is the best episode of SJA yet.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Day of the Clown

Part One

“Both of you- promise you’ll never breathe a word about what we do.”

Well, we’ve come across clowns twice before in the Marathon: in The Celestial Toymaker and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. But by this point the gradual shift in the perception of clowns is almost complete, and the “clowns are creepy” meme has completely taken over. Everyone in this story seems to find clowns unnerving right from the start, and I certainly do.

Blimey. Been a while, hasn’t it? At least for the last week and a half I’ve had the excuse of my right arm being in a sling which made it rather hard to take notes, but the hiatus in my Marathon has been going on for several months longer than that! I just ran out of steam for a bit, really. Plus I was less than enthused with the prospect of a season of Sarah Jane Adventures to put behind me before I get to the stuff I want to see, but on the other hand determined not to skip anything as I’ve come so far without doing so. Still, I’m definitely back now, and at a pre-hiatus pace of several reviews a week. It’s a New Year’s resolution and everything. Honest!

Phil Ford’s back, and so’s Michael Kerrigan, helming what I believe to be his first story in the wider world of Who since Battlefield. And there are still echoes of Maria, and rightly so. But this story is mainly about the new family moving in at Bannerman Road, and the introduction of Rani. It’s quite a shock in the context of the Marathon to see a character who seems to have been around so long being introduced so late on.

The whole conceit of Rani’s dad, Haresh, being the headmaster is rather well developed throughout by means of his rather amusing antagonism with Clyde, but this does come at the cost of the character appearing as something of a caricature during his early scenes. Still, Rani’s mum, Gita, is lovely and warm, has a very pleasant Lancashire accent, and gets a nice introduction scene with Sarah Jane coming round with some tea and sarnies. (Aren’t people so much more neighbourly on the telly than in real life? Sarah Jane is supposed to be a bit of a recluse, as well.) Plus she’s played by Nina Anwar, who, in one of those nice Actor Spotting Moments that have added so much to the Marathon, played Constable Habib in The Thin Blue Line. I’ve, er, got a bit of a crush on her.

Oh, and how come Sarah Jane doesn’t like it when Gita calls her “Sarah”? It seemed to be fine for the Doctor and Harry to do it but not now, apparently.

There’s not a lot of plot this episode but that’s ok; we need to introduce Rani. The concept of the clown works rather well in that respect as we can get lots of creepy premonitions of what is to come without anything having to happen. We finish with the plot all poised to start…



Part Two

“Annoying ringtones have their uses.”

Rani is rather nicely made a member of the team here as Sarah Jane’s reluctance is simply overtaken by events. I like Rani; she’s brave, inquisitive and has a very different, more light-hearted, family set-up than Maria did.

I had a bit of a Fanboy moment at the bit where Sarah Jane’s looking at pictures of clowns on her laptop and up pops Clara the Clown from, er, classic tale The Celestial Toymaker.

The plot is by-the-numbers here, although there’s a nice moment between Sarah Jane and Professor Rivers of the Pharos Institute, played by everyone’s favourite Lib Dem peer Floella Benjamin. Also, Gita continues to be fab as she walks into an invisible wall without even spilling any tea. Classy.

The ending is surprisingly effective, with Clyde making a load of actually rather good jokes and an almost Gaimanesque element of the dark side of fairytale in the image of children caught by the Pied Piper being kept in a kind of limbo ever since Hamelin, but fading away after a time. Brr! 3/5, I suppose: somewhat by-numbers, but a nice introduction for Rani.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Lost Boy

Part One

“Children have no place in my life.”

Ah. It appears this write-up may also be a little longer than I’d intended my SJA write-ups to be. Bah.

We get a very early mention of Slitheen- do you reckon Phil Ford might be insinuating something here? It’s a nice and well acted scene, with Maria calmly explaining to her father just what she’s been doing all these weeks. Alan takes it well, but he’s worried that his daughter might be exposing himself to danger and, well, he’s right. Still, he changes to mind and the whole gang’s now one happy family. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

Suddenly the rug is pulled out from underneath everything with the revelation that Luke is apparently a kidnapped boy called Ashley- and Mr Smith confirms this. Instinctively we wonder if this might mean some kind of reality shift just like last time. Chrissie calls in the police, and things are looking grim.

Fortunately, Sarah has powerful friends and the investigation is not pursued. Still, Sarah Jane has been hurt deeply through being forced to give up Luke and, not for the first time, she responds by retreating inwards, wanting nothing more to do with Maria or Clyde for fear of being hurt more. This is an interesting development of her character, very well portrayed by Lis Sladen, which clearly has roots in her abandonment by the Doctor.

Then everything is turned on its head again as Luke’s new “parents” gradually reveal themselves to be baddies. And in a puzzling interlude Mr Smith sends Sarah Jane on a trip to somewhere called the Pharos Project, where we encounter a Professor Rivers, played by kids’ TV goddess Floella Benjamin. Blimey. Watching her presenting Play School is pretty much among my very earliest childhood memories, possibly thirty years ago. Now that makes me feel old.

We end (almost) on a double cliffhanger, as Luke’s “parents” and an annoying kid genius reveal themselves to be Slitheen and, incredibly, Mr Smith reveals himself to be a baddie and zaps Clyde (thereby making sense of their first meeting earlier in the series!). I make that four times in one episode that we’ve been shown that everything we thought we knew was wrong. Brilliant.

Although I must say was a bit surprised to see our heroes skiving school on a BBC kids’ programme…!



Part Two

“Well done, Clyde. You’re not as stupid as you pretend to be, are you?”

More coolness, as Sarah Jane gets to steal an artefact from the Pharos Institute, while Alan earns his spurs with the gang by helping Maria track down Clyde. And Clyde, in an extremely cool scene, gets to show how indispensible he is by making text appear on Alan’s laptop and revealing that Mr Smith has gone bad; he’s come a long way from the start of the series.

If we hadn’t had enough big reveals already, it turns out that Mr Smith is playing both our gang and the Slitheen against each other. Fortunately, they team up to defeat him, and Alan turns out to be a bit of a computer whiz, which is nice.

Less nice is the revelation that Mr Smith has been using Sarah Jane all this time, and for eighteen months he’s been working towards this moment; the release of his Xylok mates from within the Earth’s crust, destroying the world in the process. Fortunately, Sarah Jane defeats him with a bit of surprise help from K9 (yay!) and Alan’s disk. We end with a nice little heart-warming coda where everyone, even Chrissie, is shown as one big family.

I loved that. So much so that it tops even the last episode. 5/5.