Category: The Sarah Jane Adventures
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 34: The Gift – Part One (19/11/2009)
‘I’ve had bad experiences with aliens bearing gifts.’ The Sarah Jane Adventures revisits The Claws of Axos with seemingly-friendly aliens offering the solution to world hunger, only for that gift to turn deadly. The good news is this is much (intentionally) funnier than The Claws of Axos, with a script that’s well balanced between the comedy of Sarah Jane entertaining the Blathereen for dinner, or Clyde borrowing K9 to cheat a biology test, with Luke succumbing to the effects of the rakweed spores.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 33: Mona Lisa’s Revenge – Part Two (13/11/2009)
‘That enigmatic smile everyone bangs on about? Wind.’ The usual Part Two runaround, with some nice additions like Mona Lisa’s vampire-like allergy to direct sunlight (old paintings do have to be kept in carefully controlled conditions), and Harding’s dawning realisation of what obsession can do. It’s neat that this ends with both Luke and Harding learning to appreciate the woman in their lives – whether the feeling is reciprocated or not. The only bit that I didn’t really get was the Dark Rider – the concealed face and suggestion of long brown hair made me wonder for a while if this was going to turn out to be Sarah Jane in disguise, somehow.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 32: Mona Lisa’s Revenge – Part One (12/11/2009)
‘Before I met Luke, who was I? A lonely, frosty woman in the big house who knew more about creatures from outer space than she did humans.’ This is more like it, a script that balances Luke and Sarah Jane’s evolving relationships, as they explore the reality of the relationship between parents and young adults, while also having to deal with the Mona Lisa stepping out of her frame and going on a rampage.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 31: The Eternity Trap – Part Two (6/11/2009)
‘It’s a super-spook smack-down.’ Probably the limpest Sarah Jane Adventure yet, as it lacks either the emotional punch of something like The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, or the comic action of Prisoner of the Judoon. The result has the requisite amount of running round, but not much more going for it. Principally, there aren’t the jump scares or haunting moments that would make this an effective chiller even for kids.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 30: The Eternity Trap – Part One (5/11/2009)
‘I think what you experienced was a stone tape manifestation.’ They missed Halloween thanks to the wedding, but this is a fast follower, a ghost story complete with spooky point of view shots, a sobbing girl, a mysteriously rocking horse and a gothic secret passage. All the cliches are present and correct. So too is Sarah Jane’s Doctorish scepticism, although I am surprised she isn’t more forthcoming about her own encounters with the ghosts of N-Space.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 29: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith – Part Two (30/10/2009)
‘It all rests with you, Sarah. Your greatest challenge. The hardest thing you’ll ever face in your life.’ The reason this works as a Sarah Jane Adventure is that the Doctor is a red herring, pretty much only there to run round with the kids and remind Sarah that she knows how the Trickster operates. Cleverly, he’s kept trapped in a separate pocket of time for most of the episode, which means Tennant gets to dash around looking cool, doing Tom Baker impressions and being brilliant one last time – these were, after all, his final scenes recorded – while Sladen gets the meat of the story.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 28: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith – Part One (29/10/2009)
‘The world can look after itself. I’m busy with something normal for a change.’ I really enjoy the tone of this one, and the way it starts as a light comedy, like Mr Smith prissily arguing with the newly-returned K9. There are also strong elements of farce, including K9 bustling about trying to help Rani and Clyde catch an alien as Sarah Jane attempts to hide her uncanny side-line from Peter. This is all summery and sweet, as the December bride brings her new fella home, while Rani, Clyde and Gita rubberneck and K9 forlornly admits he can offer no useful advice to Luke on what to say or how to behave.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 27: The Mad Woman in the Attic – Part Two (23/10/2009)
‘We’ll face the future together.’ Cleverly, this uses the nature of Rani’s story – the older version remembering the key moment of her youth – as a mirror for Sarah Jane. For Doctor Who fans, there’s a lovely JNT style flashback to Sarah’s adventures The Time Warrior, Planet of the Spiders, The Hand of Fear and The Five Doctors. And there’s the promise that ‘he is coming back’.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 26: The Mad Woman in the Attic – Part One (22/10/2009)
‘Playtime is over.’ After the knockabout Prisoner of the Judoon, this is more substantial and interesting. The premise is similar to Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? in that it features another woman living in Sarah Jane’s house, and a crisis point in the past that has led to this moment. And there are some similarities in setting, too – the peeling Victoriana of the British seaside (here, Danemouth: a nice Agatha Christie reference).
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 25: Prisoner of the Judoon – Part Two (16/10/2009)
‘Sarah Jane really does have a habit of meddling. It’s a pity she didn’t take up knitting instead.’ As usual, the second episode is a bit less interesting than the first, and I’m not entirely sold on the benefits of swapping a deserted and condemned council estate for the hi-tech surroundings of the nanoform factory. But this is fun enough, particularly the sub-plot of the Chandras coming face to face with the Judoon (Gita’s curtsey is peerless).
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