Category: Episode by Episode
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 11: The Lost Boy – Part Two (19/11/2007)
‘It’s Only Fools and Horses with green skin and claws.’ This is, in the end, very mildly disappointing. Partly it’s because a lot of the things that made Part One so effective, like Luke’s “parents” and Clyde’s investigations, get dropped in favour of a race against time to stop the Moon crashing into the Earth – just like the race against time to stop a meteor crashing into the Earth a fortnight ago. Which then calls into question why Mr Smith didn’t just “fail” to blow up that meteor rather than concocting this very convoluted plot.
Doctor Who: Time Crash (16/11/2007)
‘I’ve never met anyone else who could fly the TARDIS like that.’ The most picked-apart Doctor Who sketch since Moffat’s last one is essentially a safe way to reintroduce past Doctors into the 21st Century series. Davison was an obvious choice given both Moffat and Tennant’s liking for the fifth Doctor, and Tom would probably have been too big an event for an eight-minute mini-episode. As it is, this is just right, showing the old series love and respect while also poking fun at it (‘decorative vegetables’ and ‘Time Lords in funny hats’).
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 10: The Lost Boy – Part One (12/11/2007)
‘It seems you’ve got powerful friends, Miss Smith.’ This one definitely has an end-of-season-finale quality to it, which is quite impressive for a CBBC show. Maria coming clean to her dad about her involvement in Sarah Jane’s adventures is a neat recap of events in Series One to make sure that anyone who missed it knows about the Slitheen. The opening suggests the story is going to go in one direction, with Alan reacting badly to learning his daughter’s battling monsters and aliens, but pretty quickly it turns into a different kind of parent trap as Luke’s “real” parents make a tearful appeal on TV and Sarah Jane’s new life is upended.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 9: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane – Part Two (5/11/2007)
‘A friend of mine just saved the world. Her name was Andrea Yates.’ Doctor Who will tell a similar story with more bells and whistles in Turn Left – the world’s fate again hinging on the decision of a ginger. This is an astonishing piece of kid’s television, taking the old City at the Edge of Forever story and making the victim herself the one to make the decision.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 8: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane – Part One (29/10/2007)
‘Sarah Jane Smith, 13, died after falling from the edge of Westport Pier yesterday in a tragic accident.’ Here’s a thing: a Sarah Jane lite episode, with Maria taking the lead with minimal support from the other regulars. True, Jane Asher is on hand as Sarah Jane’s replacement Andrea Yates (should have called her April Walker), but Andrea is a very different proposition to Sarah Jane, and with even Alan unable to remember a world where Sarah Jane lives at Bannerman Road, Yasmin Paige is front and centre.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 7: Warriors of Kudlak – Part Two (22/10/2007)
‘It’s always the innocents that suffer.’ This feels a bit less toned down than the previous episode, with Sarah Jane darkly hinting at what happens to men like Grantham in prison, and an eleventh-hour twist that reveals the real monster is the military-industrial complex (or something like that). It’s also nice to see the series spread its wings a bit with a trip into Earth’s orbit for the team. The show continues to be engaging and fun kid’s TV.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 6: Warriors of Kudlak – Part One (15/10/2007)
‘I don’t see aliens behind every bush you know.’ A show like this carries a slight risk (or benefit, depending on your perspective) of becoming The Avengers In Color – the same plot every week with a different theme (cats, comic books, Hollywood), with a rather narrower range of story options available versus Doctor Who. After aliens hiding in a school and a nunnery, this focuses on a plot to use Laser Quest to kidnap children. And despite Sarah Jane’s sniffiness, yes: they’re aliens. But so far, the makers have cleverly navigated any limitations by jumping between settings that would probably be very familiar to most viewers (school, arcades) and less obvious settings for kids shows, like an old folk’s home.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 5: Eye of the Gorgon – Part Two (8/10/2007)
‘No one listens to you when you’re old.’ Between this and Revenge of the Slitheen there’s a clear template for the Sarah Jane Adventures: first episodes are the mystery and investigation, second episodes are the action and climax. Which absolutely makes sense, but it does mean – unless there’s a significant twist – that the back end of the stories largely involve lots of breathless running around. Meanwhile, the parent show is reaching for a more sophisticated way of working its multi-part stories by radically changing the setting and tone between episodes (as in Utopia and The Sound of Drums). Doctor Who is going to push further down that route once Moffat takes over.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 4: Eye of the Gorgon – Part One (1/10/2007)
‘Sometimes people have thought I’ve been mad, but I’ve seen things too.’ The focus shifts from the school to another institution, this time for the confinement of the senile rather than juveniles. Amusingly, it’s run by Graham Crowden’s daughter. One of the inmates is Bea Nelson-Stanley, now suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease but in her lucid moments able to remember a life spent travelling, battling Sontarans and Gorgons, and secreting powerful talismans.
The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 3: Revenge of the Slitheen – Part Two (24/9/2007)
‘I can’t believe you were going to save those Slitheen. They tried to destroy the entire planet. Billions of people. What was the big dilemma?’ Clyde is a brilliant character. Not for him the hand-wringing angst of so many modern Doctor Who characters. Instead, he’s full of Old Testament piss and vinegar. Literally, in the case of the vinegar – a critical element of the fight back against the Slitheen which he smartly works out from a few hints, justifying his position as the fourth member of Sarah Jane’s extended family.
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