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THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES |
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Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen Luke Smith - Thomas Knight Clyde Langer - Daniel Anthony Rani - Anjli Mohindra 
OTHER SARAH JANE ADVENTURES SERIES Series 1 Series 2 Series 3 Series 5 DOCTOR WHO The Sarah Jane Smith Years The Tom Baker Years The Christopher Ecclestone Year The David Tennant Years Torchwood 
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The Nightmare Man- Part 1 Originally transmitted October 11th 2010Luke Smith was created to be the perfect human and so it is no surprise when he does his A levels a year in advance and gets accepted to Oxford University. Since it means leaving not only him mum, but all his friends it's not surprising that he has nightmares on the nights before he departs, but these nightmares are being visited on him by an alien who feeds on the emotions brought by nightmares and Luke's emotions are so strong and pure that they are providing enough energy for the alien to manifest itself in our world, trapping Luke in the dreamworld. The new series of THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES starts just as it has always been, cleverly melding real fears of its target audience into tales of aliens and danger. In this case it's the very real fears of seperation and stepping out into the unknown that every child faces when they leave home and become independent. Grafted on to that is a story about monsters in the closet of the unconscious that is our sleeping minds and the combination works really well. True, the framing device of using the frightened confession to camera is tired and overused, but everything else is working well here right up to the cliffhanger of Luke locked into a black and empty space. Written by Joseph LidsterDirected by Joss Agnew Top The Nightmare Man- Part 2 Originally transmitted October 12th 2009The Nightmare Man is in our world now, feeding off the energy of Luke, Rani and Clyde's nightmares. Sarah Jane, Mr Smith and K-9 manage to get a message through, but can the kids break out of their worst nightmares to take on the Nighmare Man on his own territory? Normally the second part of a SARAH JANE ADVENTURES story involves a lot of running around trying to stop something evil from being done, but this story has a much more cerebral approach to its resolution. Clyde's fears of failure and Rani's fear of losing her humanity to ambition are touched upon and Elisabeth Sladen gets a chance to show her expanding range when she plays Sarah Jane as a stylised old woman. The resolution also has a suprise in store when Luke does actually leave for college and takes K-9 with him. The show continues to shake things up. Written by Joseph LidsterDirected by Joss Agnew Top The Vault Of Secrets- Part 1 Originally transmitted October 18th 2009Rani's mother takes up with a UFO group just at a time when Sarah Jane needs to contact the leader of the group about the story of missing alien space ship and the Men In Black who defend it. This is a sequel to the Season 3 opener Prisoner of The Judoon. In a nice twist, the creature that was the body-hopping enemy then is something of a mistrusted ally this time around, begging all sorts of questions about the nature of trust. Also neat are the Men In Black who are some sort of android with lasers where their hands ought to be (shades of DOCTOR WHO's mannequins), led by the aptly named Mr Dread. Cheryl Campbell is sufficiently likeable to make her UFO nut immediately someone to trust and care about. The pace is fast without being furious and there is plenty of fun along the way. Roll on part 2. Written by Phil FordDirected by Joss Agnew Top The Vault Of Secrets- Part 2 Originally transmitted October 19th 2009Androvax, the shapeshifting alien, takes both the discs needed to get back to his ship in the hidden vault to free the survivors of his race. Unfortunately, this will wipe out the Earth. Sarah Jane must work with android Mr Dread to save everyone, including the enemy, a task that is complicated by Rani's mother getting involved. As is traditional for THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES, the second part of this story involves a lot of running around and not a lot of actual plot. Man In Black android Mr Dread turns out to be a great character and we can only hope that he makes a comeback very soon. The UFO hunters of the first episode are sadly sidelined, but the final resolution works out for the best for everyone, which makes it a good way to end a story about doing the right thing. Written by Phil FordDirected by Joss Agnew Top Death Of The Doctor- Part 1 Originally transmitted October 25th 2009Sarah Jane learns that the Doctor's body has been found and returned to Earth by a race of intergalactic undertakers that just happen to look like vultures. Travelling to UNIT headquarters, she, Rani and Clyde encounter Jo Grant, also one time Time Lord's companion and learn that this all a trap designed for them. Fortunately, a familiar Time Lord shows up. Writer Russell T Davies returns to writing for the Doctor in this SARAH JANE ADVENTURES story, though Matt Smith barely shows his face before the end credits roll. Before that, we have Elisabeth Sladen revisiting all those sequences where the character believed the Doctor to be dead, only having more time to make it more realistic. As a portrait of a woman in grief it's a bit on the unforced side, but it's a masterpiece of a performance comapared to the return of Jo Grant. Katy Manning may have played her as a bit of an innocent, but never as the klutzy unbelievable character we are presented with here. It's perhaps more in the writing than the performance, but it's a poor showing. Not half as poor, however, as the Shanshee, the quite terrible vulture creatures that are served up here. Of all the creatures put on screen since the return of the Doctor this is quite plainly the worst and harkens back to some of the worst times of the classic series. The show deserves better than these. Still, perhaps in the second half there'll be an explanation as to why that might be. Written by Russell T DaviesDirected by Ashley Way Top Death Of The Doctor- Part 2 Originally transmitted October 26th 2009The Doctor fashions a device that will get him permanently to Earth and thus is able to save Clyde and Rani. This means that Sarah Jane and Jo are in the hands of the vulture aliens as they reveal their plot to use the companions' memories to create a Tardis key so that they can use the machine to prevent death. Wow, stopping death is a pretty big aim to have and its certainly the most impressive thing about these aliens who continue to be the poorest thing about the show, ever. Matt Smith is his usual self as the Doctor, but the time that he spends with Katy Manning, explaining about why he never came for a visit is moving stuff, even if it is reminiscent of the same conversations that Elisabeth Sladen had with David Tennant in . His revelation about how many times a Time Lord can regenerate flies in the face of accepted wisdom, but Russell T Davies throws in some lovely lines for those who have been watching the Doctor for a while. Less lovely is the intrusive and loud music that drowns out half the dialogue in an attempt to give the story impetus and excitement that it doesn't really need. Written by Russell T DaviesDirected by Ashley Way Top The Empty Planet- Part 1 Originally transmitted November 1st 2009Clyde and Rani wake up one morning to find themselvest the only people left in the whole of London, with the exception of a young boy called Gavin. What has happened? Where has everyone gone? And what is that noise they keep hearing? The initial premise of this story is hardly an original one, but it does throw up a number on intriguing questions nonetheless. The obvious one is why Clyde and Rani are the only people left behind. If it was to do with their alien fighting then why wasn't Sarah Jane left alongside them? There are the usual scenes of confusion, disbelief and finally acceptance, all well played by Daniel Anthony and Anjli Mohindra. The mystery doesn't really move much further forward as the pair swap theories, so when the red and yellow robots show up there's a mixture of disappointment at such a banal explanation and relief that they are much more believable than the galactic vultures of the last story. Written by Gareth RobertyDirected by Ashley Way Top The Empty Planet- Part 2 Originally transmitted November 2nd 2009The primary coloured robots are looking for an exiled prince to come and retake his place at the head of a great empire, but Clyde and Rani have just sent their only companion away to hide. If they don't get him back in 20 minutes then the human race will never come back. It's back to default mode as there is a lot of running around in this second episode of a SARAH JANE ADVENTURES story to make up for the fact that the plot doesn't stretch to the full running time. The resolution to the mystery of why humanity vanished is more banal than it could have been, but the countdown to disaster adds tension in at the end. Written by Gareth RobertyDirected by Ashley Way Top Lost In Time- Part 1 Originally transmitted November 8th 2010Sarah, Clyde and Rani investigate a shop and are sent back in time to find three objects being used to change Earth's history. Sarah Jane finds herself investigating a haunted house, Rani is the new maid in waiting to Lady Jane Grey and Clyde is facing an invasion by nazis in World War 2. The sands of time are running out and Earth's future is at stake. This story doesn't bother explaining who the strange shopkeeper is, what he needs the three items for, where they came from and why they are disrupting the timeline, but gets on with the job of throwing the three heroes into their respective stories. Of these, Rani's is the most successful, dealing as it does with a tragic figure from history and presenting Lady Jane as a girl very much Rani's age. Even as Rani grows to like the doomed queen, she knows she cannot save her. Meanwhile, Clyde has stepped straight into THE EAGLE HAS LANDED, a boys' own tale of derring do. Least interesting is Sarah Jane's tale of a haunting. It's the kind of thing that the show has already done. Written by Rupert LaightDirected by Joss Agnew Top Lost In Time- Part 2 Originally transmitted November 9th 2010Rani saves Lady Jane Grey from an assassination attempt, but can't save her from her sister Mary. Clyde forestalls a whole invasion and Sarah Jane solves the haunting, but fails to gain the key that is her aim. The objects that have to be found by the three heroes are very much reminiscent of the KEY TO TIME episodes of DOCTOR WHO in the time of Tom Baker, though the stories set around them are all much less outlandish. Rani's tale remains a tragic one, whilst Clyde's adventure story gets wilder, and less believable, by the second. A squad of nazis defeated by two boys and never thinking to shoot? Hardly likely. Most disappointing, though, is the Sarah Jane tale which is a muddled backwards time travel story that has no explanation as to how it was to affect Earth's history in a big way. Then again, this whole story is pretty short on explanations, wrapping things up without every telling who the mysterious shopkeeper and his parrot are or what the mysterious items are or what they are for. It's a fun enough ride, but leaves far more questions dangling than a plot should. Written by Rupert LaightDirected by Joss Agnew Top Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith- Part 1 Originally transmitted November 15th 2010Sarah Jane Smith is not quite herself. She is forgetting small things and that puts Clyde, Rani and herself in danger. Thank goodness for Ruby White, the new woman who has moved into Bannerman Road and who seems to be perfectly qualified to take over from Sarah Jane. Or is she all that she seems? Julie Graham (SURVIVORS plays Ruby White, the apparently perfect replacement for Sarah Jane, but Elisabeth Sladen once again shows why she is the star of this show. Her performance as a woman facing the slow erosion of her faculties and the ending of her time of usefulness is poignant and touching. That we don't believe for a second that it's anything other than alien influence isn't down to her performance. Before the end, the truth is revealed, but by then the trap is sprung and things don't look good for planet Earth. Written by Clayton Hickman & Gareth RobertsDirected by Joss Agnew Top Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith- Part 2 Originally transmitted November 16th 2010Sarah Jane has gone without a word, but Rani and Clyde don't believe it and call in the entire team to find out where she is. The first episode was all about the fear of growing old and outliving your usefulness, interesting themes for a children's show, but this second episode involves a lot of running around and resolving the problems raised in the first. It's exciting enough and the threat is, inevitably neutralised, but the music overloads everything and the story really deserved something a bit better for a second half. Written by Clayton Hickman & Gareth RobertsDirected by Joss Agnew Top |
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