The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Last Sontaran

Part One

“I thought I told you two to stay out of the woods!”

“I know, but... did you really think we would?”

We have a short introductory sequence between Sarah Jane and Maria to quickly establish the set-up for new viewers and, of course, to foreshadow Maria’s departure, something which is nicely handled throughout by writer Phil Ford. The scene between Maria and Alan with the letter arriving is brilliantly written and performed, and Sarah Jane’s initially cold response is very in-character.

Meanwhile, at a conveniently nearby radio telescope, there’s a parallel father / daughter relationship, and funny goings-on of the extra-terrestrial kind. The effects are great; the semi-invisible creature in the woods reminds me of Predator. Soon the gang gets involved and it becomes clear that the baddie is a Sontaran. Of course, Sarah Jane immediately recognises the ship from her two previous encounters, and nicely builds up our sense of threat by declaring that this is too big for them and UNIT needs to be called in. Ooh.

There’s some nice dialogue between the Sontaran, Commander Kaagh, and the gang to round off the episode. We’re given a brief info-dump of the Doctor’s latest go at defeating the Sontarans (“I bet that must be quite annoying.”), and Kaagh, Styre-style, intends to perform experiments on Clyde. Naturally, having been in orbit and out of control when the Sontaran mothership blew up the only place he could possibly have landed is southern England within reasonable driving distance of Bannerman Road. Where else?



Part Two

“Your mum saved the world. She wouldn’t have a clue.”

“Believe me, it’s better this way. We’d never hear the end of it.”

Oddly enough, this very story came up in conversation in the pub last Friday (the regular Leicestershire fandom drinking session) and there was talk of this story consisting mainly of running around with very little in the way of plot. Unfortunately the second episode tends to bear this out, however much the b-plot of Maria’s impending departure may be the real story.

And that’s the heart of this episode, as Maria calls in Alan and Chrissie saves the world with a shoe, finally coming to understand and accept what’s been going on at the very end. It all feels quite moving and satisfying.

Kaagh, meanwhile, is allowed to go. That’ll turn out well. 3/5.

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.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?

Part One

“Somebody just walked over my grave…”

Oh dear. Looking at my notes for this one it’s going to be the sort of full-length write-up I said I wasn’t going to do for SJA. Bad, bad Gareth Roberts with all his pesky subtext…

We start with exactly the kind of ideal family scene which gives us a pretty clear idea that things are about to go very bad very soon, and any kind of experience of how TV drama works will give us a pretty shrewd idea of how. Sure enough; this status quo is smashed, in the form of reality being altered so that Sarah Jane died at the age of thirteen. And, as we’ll see, the status quo is to permanently change in relation to Alan, but that’s for next episode.

One niggle; how come Andrea (played by the really rather famous Jane Asher) coincidentally end up living in the same house as Sarah Jane? There’s no obvious reason other than plot convenience why she should. But I’ll overlook this, I think; it’s handwaved away quite nicely with the focus on Maria’s adjustment to the new reality misdirecting us away from such inconvenient thoughts. Anyway, perhaps reality simply adjusts the minimum amount possible? I can buy that.

This is an excellent way to handle a Sarah Jane-lite story, and a rather good example to the parent show in this respect, and this episode fully experiences the consequences for Maria of reality changing around her. Particularly powerful is the realisation that Clyde isn’t particularly friendly to her in this reality- showing us how much he’s changed in a few short weeks.

This is Maria’s episode, though, and we get more development of her relationship with her dad. Only at the end is it revealed that Andrea made a Faustian pact aged thirteen with the mysterious hooded figure we saw skulking around earlier. The episode ends with a Graske turning up (Not that I’m particularly vexed by such questions, but did their “previous” appearance count/ Whatever.). This is not exactly the prosthetics department’s finest hour, but it just about gets away with it.



Part Two

“Chaos is my blood and air and food…”

Maria is sent back to 1964 for reasons which are not entirely clear, where she meets two thirteen year old girls, Andrea and Sarah Jane. But why is Sarah Jane not speaking in a Scouse accent? Not only are there traces of Liverpool in Lis Sladen’s speech, but I recall some dialogue from Invasion of the Dinosaurs in which she used the Liverpool Docks as an example of something normal and familiar. Bit of a minor continuity error here, methinks. On the other hand, I love Andrea’s reference to “a Triffid coming to get us”. No doubt she saw the previous year’s film version featuring Doctor Who’s Carole Ann Ford.

Maria, erased from existence at Andrea’s whim just to stop her feeling bad, ends up in “Limbo”, where she meets Sarah Jane. We then meet the villain of the piece: the Trickster, a lover of chaos who refers to humans as ephemerals (hmmm…). His plan makes sense, sort of, and I’m glad we get an explanation as to what happened to the previous alien invasions which now won’t have been stopped by Sarah Jane. Apparently the upcoming meteor strike will be a much more aesthetically pleasing demise for the planet to the discerning aficionado of chaos.

The conclusion, with Andrea’s moral dilemma and self-sacrifice, is genuinely heart-rending, but the Trickster is defeated. Except… Alan now knows all about the aliens and stuff. Oops…

Truly excellent stuff. I’ve enjoyed the previous stories, but it’s nice to have something with a bit more depth. 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.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion of the Bane

“Anyway, it’s organic”

I’m going to try and keep these Sarah Jane Adventures reviews a bit shorter because a) I’m a fair bit behind on the Marathon and b) I’m 32 years old, a wee bit older than the target audience, which makes me feel not entirely qualified to judge the series. Of course, I still might get carried away…

Strangely enough, this is our first script involving Gareth Roberts, he of the many splendid novels, and it’s brilliant. The episode introduces the series format very well indeed (the first few minutes introduce the nuances of Maria’s family situation with admirable economy) while still giving us an exciting adventure and loads of laughs.

There are a lot of fun things here: the creature (and the device) from Greeks Bearing Gifts in another context entirely; a villainous henchman who seems to be entirely based on Vernon Kay; a Frankenstein-esque scene with electricity straight out of the James Whale films; sonic lipstick. There’s also a nice cheeky subtext to the whole thing about how kids shouldn’t just believe what adverts tell them. How very BBC.



A good start. 4/5.