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.

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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’.

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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).

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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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The Sarah Jane Adventures episode 24: Prisoner of the Judoon – Part One (15/10/2009)

‘I am Sarah Jane. I’ve just been upgraded. And you will obey me.’ Third series, third opener that imports a monster from Doctor Who. This is a bit different because the Judoon (or at least this Judoon, Captain Tybo) isn’t the villain. He’s transporting the eponymous prisoner, Androvax, when his ship crash lands. The complication being Androvax is able to possess humans – giving Elisabeth Sladen the opportunity to play the baddie.

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Torchwood episode 31: Children of Earth – Day Five (10/7/2009)

‘Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame.’ Victory at a terrible cost, so business as usual for Torchwood. It works better than some Doctor Who finales by virtue of being quite so bleak, even if there are strong Turn Left overtones to it (the UK collapsing into martial law as people are rounded up and bussed away). Clearly the murder of Jack’s grandson for the sake of all the millions of children being harvested by the 456 is more extreme than Donna choosing to sacrifice her own life to save the “proper” timeline, but in the end it all boils down to the same thing.

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Torchwood episode 30: Children of Earth – Day Four (9/7/2009)

‘There’s nothing we can do.’ The first half of this episode is Torchwood Gogglebox, as the team watch the negotiations with the 456 and the British Government’s response. At first, they bargain with the lives of the easily forgotten: failed asylum seekers, one child for every million people. When the aliens reject the offer, and stick to their demands for 325,000 kids, the discussion descends into squabbling over exemptions and throwing the underprivileged under the bus. That’s one way to level up, I suppose.

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Torchwood episode 29: Children of Earth – Day Three (8/7/2009)

‘We want your children. We will take your children.’ The first half of this episode is a mash-up of various popular TV shows of the 2000s. The Torchwood team turning out their pockets and going out to add to the stash is Hustle, Johnny’s own hustling is like something from Shameless, and the scenes set in the corridors of Whitehall come from any number of political thrillers (although Capaldi’s presence inevitably recalls The Thick of It). And is Hub 2 the same warehouse the Doctor, Jack and Martha hid out in during The Sound of Drums?

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Torchwood episode 28: Children of Earth – Day Two (7/7/2009)

‘If you’re the good guys, who am I working for and why do they want you dead?’ The 456 remain noises off in an episode that focuses on Torchwood as fugitives, fleeing a conspiracy to take them off the board ahead of the aliens’ arrival. This makes for a gripping interlude as Gwen and Rhys hide out, Ianto makes covert contact with his family, Jack demonstrates his most remarkable restorative powers yet, and Lois flirts with becoming Torchwood’s Deep Throat.

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Torchwood episode 27: Children of Earth – Day One (6/7/2009)

‘I can survive anything.’ Almost a different show, this feels less like a sexy version of Fringe and more like a 21st Century reimagining of Quatermass, with a Nigel Kneale-ish streak of brutality. The cold open, children encountering what looks like an alien spaceship in 1960s Scotland, flips to present-day Cardiff and Gwen going about her business while around her kids on the way to school suddenly freeze and without much preamble we’re straight into the story.

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