Army of Dreamers

Doctor Who : Dreamland

I have just watched Dreamland the animated episode which has been on the red button for a while and I must admit that I wasn’t really looking forward to it, after bad reports I had heard about it, but now I have seen it.

I am glad that I ignored all of that and went into the story open minded. I didn’t watch it on the red button because at the moment our Freeview box is playing silly buggers and the red button doesn’t actually work at the moment but I might have got a bit bored of waiting for the next instalment so I am glad that I watched it in its full length format. I think the story flows much better in this format and it actually draws you in, which I don’t think it would have done in its shorter segments.

A lot of people complained about the animation but I don’t think that it was all that bad really. I have seen far worse animation than this on television and, it has to be said, far better animation but in this case I think it kind of worked. The only major thing I picked up with the animation is the characters didn’t really have many facial mannerisms to speak of and did seem a little bit stiff but apart from that I didn’t think it was too bad.

It certainly allowed for some rather nifty effects work and stuff that would have been way beyond the television budget to realise that if often the hallmark of animation. The story, like the best stories in animation (and the better single part stories in the television series), is a rather simple story that has a beginning and middle and an end, and it was written by someone who was worked in animation before, which I think does give it that edge that something like The Infinite Quest didn’t have, which didn’t really work for me.

If it didn’t have Georgia Moffett’s name in the title sequence I would have no idea that it was her playing the part of the waitress Cassie who was taken along for the ride by the Doctor along with her friend Jimmy Stalkingwolf which is a great name and is a bit like that companion they mentioned possibly having in The Last of the Timelords from the Nth Doctor book. Both Moffett and Tim Howar (who played Jimmy) did the usual companion things of asking the questions that the audience needed to know to keep up the plot, which due to the stories running time have to be told quickly in short, sharp strokes.

David Tennant is playing his Doctor more like his persona in his first series before he started to display the dark nature of his persona which might be the way he is portrayed in the Doctor Who Adventures comic strips, whom this story is squarely aimed at. The paranoia of the early fifties America is well played here with all of the local characters being positive that the Reds were out to get them.

I had to laugh when the Doctor said Manchester United when he first heard someone return to the reds, although as a Liverpool fan a little bit insulted that Manchester United was the first team he thought of when he heard the term reds. Another reason to dislike this Doctor I guess.

Even though this was squarely designed at the readers of Doctor Who Adventures there were plenty of references for the adult audience who were watching the references to Die Hard and the Aliens franchise in particular. I guess the Doctor also like actions movies in this incarnation.

What with this, the Christmas specials and the Christmas Idents us Doctor Who fans are being spoiled rotten this year after a nine month gap between episodes, the wait till the new series will seem like a brief moment compared to this year so we all have something to be thankful for.

Beware Blathereen Bearing Gifts

Sarah Jane Adventures: The Gift

We have reached the end of another series of The Sarah Jane Adventures and it only seems like five minutes since this series started! The basic gist of this episode is to never look a gift horse in the mouth as it may very well bite you on the arse.

In this case it was a gift given by the Blathereen (cousins of the Slitheen who have been a thorn in the side of Sarah Jane Smith since the very first series). A gift of Rakweed, a staple food on Raxicoricofallapatorius, which in the end did turn out to be too good to be true, but was simply irresistible when offered to them as it potentially offered a chance to feed everyone on the planet, from one plant.

Who wouldn’t take something like this, if offered? I know I probably would. Sarah Jane lowered her guard at that point as she would normally be the first person to think that there was something fishy going on but perhaps she has softened a bit since she became a mother, and if she has, is this a good thing? I don’t think that Sarah will ever be completely swayed by this sort of offer in the future especially after the way this one panned out. The plant even managed to get past Mr Smith’s scan at first which must show a degree of intelligence on the part of the Rakweed itself, rather than just being a rather tasty (well to the Blathereen at least) food stuff.

At first the Blathereen looked rather unthreatening but as always this was also an act that they turned out to be an offshoot of the family Slitheen and not the peaceful Blathereen as they claimed to be. The voices of the Blathereen were provided by Simon Callow and Miriam Margulies who were hamming it up left right and centre in these roles and obviously having a whale of a time playing the characters.

Once again Luke was out of action for most of the second episode of this story after coming into contact with the spores of the Rakweed leaving Rani and Clyde to take centre stage along with K9 to save the planet from the machinations of the Slitheen-Blathereen who are just as bad as their Slitheen cousins, but a little bit more cunning and conniving.

Luckily Clyde had took K9 to school with him to help him pass a test that he was never going to pass on his own. In the end it was a good thing that he did, as a K9 being stuck in Sarah Jane’s attic wouldn’t have been much help at all, and the planet may very well have been covered in Rakweed. Now this isn’t to say that cheating on tests is a good thing, which I am sure the BBC would never, ever condone.

The episode was written by Rupert Laight a newcomer to television, as far as I am aware, but who has written for Big Finish most notably in their very own Sarah Jane Smith series which is far, far removed from this series, and never added much to the character of Sarah Jane from her appearances in Doctor Who, unlike this series which has added to many layers to the character that we all love and have know for more than thirty years.

The Trouble With Lisa

Sarah Jane Adventures: Mona Lisas Revenge

In this episode a famous painting comes to life and causes havoc in the art gallery it was hanging in. Of course while this was happening Luke, Clyde and Rani were attending an exhibition of a painting of Clyde’s in the same gallery, and as a treat they were given a glimpse of the Mona Lisa. However when they got there in its place was a picture of the curator’s assistant, and not the lady without the eyebrows who never smiled.

Now Luke and Sarah Jane were not talking as Luke has seemingly become a typical teenager and Sarah Jane is his mother, and therefore someone who sticks their oars in when they are not needed. This is the first time that we have seen  Luke act like a normal teenager in this episode and it just doesn’t really work for me, he will never, ever be a normal teenager, no matter how hard Sarah Jane tries, he will always be that little bit different and there is nothing wrong with being a bit different.

This story also referenced the theft of the cup of Athelstan at Easter which was nice little tie in to Planet of the Dead and which will also mean that that particular gallery will never again be entrusted with anything even remotely valuable. I liked the idea that a painting can come to life but it also is quite a macabre thought that someone can be sentient trapped in a painting for ever more but be aware that they are trapped in a painting and unable to move.

That isn’t a particularly nice thought, and you can understand why the Mona Lisa was sick of being trapped in the confines of a frame, and wanted out. Suranne Jones played the Mona Lisa as a rather mouthy Mancunian. She was a lot of fun in the role and it was explained that the expression of the Mona Lisa’s face was in fact wind and that was why she didn’t smile. The lack of eyebrows was not explained but I don’t suppose that this would be a major point of interest.

I know that this point seemed to cause an awful lot of consternation on the Gallifrey Base forum but they all seemed to forget that in the third series episode The Shakespeare Code Shakespeare himself had a Manchester accent when he really should have had a broad Black Country accent. It didn’t seem to bother them then but it did seem to bother them in this case. I am sure that the kids the show is aimed at will not really care if she talks with a Mancunian accent either, I know I don’t even though I have just spent a whole paragraph talking about it. I have to try and pad out the review somehow don’t I?

The final denoument of the whole story was signposted in the very first scene, but I was still surprised when what happened happened. It was a very convenient ending, but at least it had not just come out of nowhere, and was there for the viewers to work out in plain sight from the very beginning.

Not the best of the series but an enjoyable hour of television, which is all we can expect of it in the end.

Eternity Weeps

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Eternity Trap

After the Timelord shenanigans of last time when the Doctor came to the rescue this time we are back to business as usual in this story with the attic dwelling Earth protectors. The episode started with Sarah Jane investigating disappearances from this old house where a paranormal investigation was taking place. It turns out that for two hundred years various people had disappeared without a trace from the house and its gardens and were never seen again.

Now being as Sarah Jane has seen more things that the majority of people would see in their lifetime she was less than willing to accept that there would be a supernatural reason for the events and the possibility that there might be a more natural explanation was what piqued Sarah Jane’s attention more than the possible hauntings did. Rani and Clyde tagged along for this adventure with Luke being conspicuous by his absence.

In the first episode it was said that he was playing chess with Rani’s dad and Clyde joked that he was already planning Rani and Luke’s wedding, and in the second episode he wasn’t really mentioned at all! That will be enough to keep fan fiction writers in stories for years to come, not that they really needs a reference like that to get their creative juices flowing.

Floella Benjamin returned for her third appearance in The Sarah Jane Adventures in as many seasons. Donald Sumpter played the ghostly figure of Erasmus who turned out be behind the whole thing and was in fact an alien being who had become trapped on the Earth over two hundred years ago hiding in the house (probably due to its massive network of underground tunnels etc) and posing as an alchemist tricking the owner of the time to allow him to work beneath his house to turn base metal into gold and then kidnapping people left right and centre instead all the time using the energy of the missing people for his own nefarious purposes.

The story was full of atmosphere and this was helped by the superb direction on display in this story, and because of this the story was downright spooky in some places (particularly in part one where everything was being set up) and nearly made me jump in places, if I hadn’t seen so many horror films and become so immune to shocks, unless they are not so obviously signposted, when I will jump up in the air with the best of them.

Not as good as the previous episodes, but a good piece of television all the same.

I Now Pronounce You

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith Part One

You would have to possess a heart of stone if the idea of Sarah Jane Smith finally settling down with a man and having the perfect family that she has always wanted but you would also be a bit too much of a romantic if you really believed that it could have a happy ending. This is basically what the first episode of this story was all about it was about the joy of Sarah Jane in meeting this man, and falling in love with him, and then being asked to marry him, even though it all happened in a very short space of time.

Having said that there are couples who have married a lot quicker than Sarah and Peter Dalton did in this episode. Often these shotgun marriage only usually happen because the bride is pregnant , or because one of the parties is desperate to stay in the country, and I am sure that either could really apply to Sarah Jane.

It certainly was a whirlwind romance wasn’t it? No wonder Clyde was so suspicious. Rani was at first but that soon disappeared when she realised that Sarah was sneeking off to meet a man and poor Luke didn’t really know what to think, but he knew that this man seemed to make her happy, and he really, really did, even before he had given her the engagement ring which seems to control Sarah, so it was unlikely to be that made her fall in love wih him in the first place.

Perhaps Nigel Havers has that affect on all women, he is, after all, a natural charmer. Of course we do not know what Peter Dalton is at the moment, we assume that he is an alien, because both K9 and Mr Smith both tried to tell Sarah Jane that there was an alien prescense, but what sort of alien he might well be will hopefully be revealed in the next episode. She even mentioned that that had been other men before who she might have got with, I wonder if one of those was Harry Sullivan, well it would explain why she keeps a photograph of him up in her attic, he obviously still means a lot to her, and it would have be nice if they had of gotten together just Ian and Barbara did in fan mythos after their travels in the TARDIS.

Of course throughout the episode we also did get the sound of the TARDIS attempting to land which permeated the whole episode until right near the end when the Doctor came running it just at the bit all grooms hate when the congregation is asked if there is any reason why him and the bride should not be married. Those seconds feel like a lifetime, believe me. The interaction between Mr Smith and K9 is very funny with Mr Smith referring to K9 simply as dog and sounding as patronising as an alien supercomputer possibly can.

The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith Part Two

We find out in this episode the truth about Peter Dalton and it was nice to find out that he wasn’t in fact an alien but was in fact just an ordinary bloke who when offered the chance not to die after tumbling down the stairs but to carry on living took the offer and started the episode events. The Doctor must have discovered that this event had taken place and was desperately trying to get to Sarah as quickly as he could hence all of the TARDIS sounds throughout the first episode which were the Doctor trying to materialise.

It was actually very sad when we find out the truth about Peter especially as by that point they truly did love each other and this was the one part of the episode that was truly heartbreaking as Sarah Jane Smith cannot have the one man that she had every truly loved because if she does then it will mean that she will have to give up her life as saviour of the world.

It was actually nice to see David Tennant return as the Doctor in this episode which is odd for me to say as I have never really been a fan of his Doctor but it seems like such a long time since the last episode that it was actually nice to see him. Both Rani and Clyde were a bit wary of him at first as well they might be considering they had never met him before but I think the fact that he actually knew their names probably helped them to warm to him.

Talking of Rani she looked her actual age in this episode in her exceptionally pink dress rather than the age she is playing in the series and would actually make a good companion for the Doctor herself judging by this episode if she was playing a character of her own age that is. The Doctor himself made a nice appearance in this story working well with the three youngsters partially by making them feel very important they they were separated from Sarah Jane so that they couldn’t help her. The Trickster who must know how determined they are from his two previous appearances in The Sarah Jane Adventures really didn’t bank on the Doctor, because without him the Trickster might very well have got his wish and the Earth would soon no longer be defended.

I am glad that Peter wasn’t an alien in the end, and it was another incredibly sad ending from The Sarah Jane Adventures. This programme is wasted on kids I tell you!

Mad World

Sarah Jane Adventures : The Mad Old Woman in The Attic

It was only a matter of time before Rani got an story for herself and this week she finally got her story. The basic premise of this story is to be careful what you wish for as it turned out in this story that the reason why she grew up to be The Mad Old Woman of Bannerman Road was all down to a decision she made when she was in a bit of a strop during this episode where she felt like she was being left out of the loop by the others.

This was also the first time that Rani seemed to feel a bit left out by the mere mention of Maria, which seems a little odd as I am sure they must have mentioned her before. I guess Rani must just have woken up on the wrong side of bed that morning as she really seemed to take it to heart. In every other respects Maria is in the past and Rani is well and truly part of the gang, so she must just have been having one of those days that day.

What was refreshing about this story was the fact that there was no threat in the end but for the majority of the story this just didn’t seem to matter as for the first episode at least there certainly seemed like there was a possibility as a threat which in the end turned out to be a complete red herring. The second episode presented a moment for all the people watching who aren’t even close to the target audience (of which I am one) with clips from a few of her Doctor Who stories and a little taster of something to come later on in the series.

There was even a very thinly veiled reference to the Time War by the character of Eve, basically a teenage alien who just wanted to have friends and not be lonely, and a nice little nod to the Superman mythos with Eve being sent away from a planet in a spaceship as a baby and then crash landing on the Earth. Eve’s people are time sensitive and were destroyed, probably by the Daleks due to the fact that she used the word exterminate, during the war but not before she was sent out in a ship by her parents to forge a new life on a new planet.

It was noticed how similar the characters of Adam and Tom looked in the story but the reason why they looked so similar was not at all obvious to this reviewer until the moment when it was explained why they did at the end of the second episode. I just thought that it was because most kids of that age seem to look the same anyway. I bet there isn’t many more times that Delta and the Bannermen will be used as an influence in either this or the parent series.

Elisabeth Sladen’s actual husband, Brian Miller, made a guest appearance in this story as Harry the caretaker of the now defunct amusement arcade in Danemouth and even got a few scenes with his wife and managed to come out of the part not chewing the scenery. Anji Mohindra was very good in this story and gave her best performance as Rani since she joined during the second series in the first story where she was pretty much the most important character as far as the story was concerned.

Probably the single most exciting moment in the episode for a lot of viewers would be the site of the TARDIS materialising in Sarah Jane’s attic and, not forgetting, the return of K9 to the series. It also seems like Mr Smith and K9 will have a rather spiky relationship as he certainly didn’t seem happy to see K9 at all. This rather begs the question that now K9 is back is there going to be much of role for Mr Smith now as he fulfilled the same role that K9 is now surely going to take for the rest of the series?

The Mad Woman in the Attic was an enjoyable story but I suspect that the best is yet to come.

The Great Space Rhino

Sarah Jane Adventures : Prisoner of the Judoon

We begin the third series of the Sarah Jane Adventure with a nice little pre credit montage narrated by Clyde which basically reiterates what the series is about in case there were any new viewers who hadn’t seen any of the previous two seasons which also happens at the start of the second episode so it is looking like this will be on the start of each episode this year, a bit like the Captain Jack narration at the start of each Torchwood episode if you like.

Prisoner of the Judoon gets going immediately and soon develops into a cat and mouse chase that could very well end in tragedy. We meet the Judoon again in this story and there is a nice scene when the Judoon pulls up in a police car that it has requisitioned and tells a youth to turn his music down. I think that there should be a Judoon on the streets in every town in Britain to stop all of these people from playing their music really loud and being totally antisocial.

We also get to meet an entirely new alien being, Androvax, the prisoner of the title, who can, literally, live inside the body of another creature, seemingly without causing any harm to the creature, and take over them, who is also responsible for the deaths of entire worlds, so not an alien coming in peace. Quite a neat little trick if you want to fool people into thinking you are not who people think you are and this alien certainly does not want to be captured by the Judoon again and almost certainly executed.

So the for quite a portion of this story Sarah Jane was incapacitated by Androvax and it was up to Luke, Clyde and Rani to save the day, which they did with aplomb despite the Judoon attempting to make it very difficult for them. I must say that the main Judoon, Captain Tybon, was not the most intelligent of Judoon as was fairly easily outwitted by children, which is bound not to go down well with other Judoons, not that he would stupid enough to tell other people how he ended up letting the Androvax escape in the first place, and then also be locked in a room.

We also got a secret research laboratory (which Sarah managed to get thrown out of earlier the same morning – convenient, or what, you decide?) which deals with nanotechnology, much beloved of science fiction, which Androvax became aware of from the moment he took over Sarah Jane’s body, and realised what a convenient way that would be to escape from the Judoon and leave no trace of him ever being there. Of course he didn’t reckon on the tenacity of three kids who had saved the world on lot of other occasions.

It did seem a bit odd that Luke, Rani and Clyde managed to get from the crash site, all the way to the nanotech headquarters via Bannerman Road without seeing anybody except for the youth playing his music loud I mentioned earlier, and a young girl and her mother. I mean it was supposed to be a weekend and there seemed to be nobody about, which often seems to happen in this sort of program, strange things happen but no one is ever around to witness them.

Perhaps there was something exciting on television when the events in this episode happened, or perhaps a sale somewhere. Nothwithstanding that little gripe (which let’s face it, the key audience of this programme is not really going to be bothered about, or even notice) I was mightily impressed with these opening episode and in particular Elisabeth Sladen for her really good performance as Androvax in the body of Sarah Jane, which did take this viewer back to a previous possessed form of Sarah Jane from her final appearance in the original series of Doctor Who, The Hand of Fear.

Rani is certainly improved as a character in this story and is now giving as good as she gets and is often found to square up to the aliens without so much as a blink, which is certainly not something Maria did, or even Rani herself when she first appeared. Rani is a bit more like Rose Tyler from the second series of Doctor Who in that respect, feisty and more than able to look after herself, which is certainly going to appeal to the young female viewers of this show, but not half as smug and annoying as Rose was then.

I cannot hesitate but to say that this has been the best opening episodes of the three Sarah Jane Adventures so far, it is just so assured and spot on and it almost like they have never been away. Of course, in my case, I only saw the last episode of the second series the other day, so for me they haven’t really been away, but you know what I mean.

Attack of The One-Eyed Squiddy Thing

Sarah Jane Adventures : Enemy of the Bane

In this story The Sarah Jane Adventures have come full circle with a sequel to the very first adventure where Sarah Jane rescues Luke from the clutches of the evil Bane who had created him in the first place.

Returning from that story is the wonderful Samantha Bond who plays Mrs Wormwood with her tongue firmly in her cheek and managing to not be overly hammy which is not that easy when you get a plum role as a villain in a show like this, particularly the adult actors who, more often than not, do tend to ham up for all they are worth.

We also get a returning character in the shape of Kaagh from The Last Sontaran, whom I did say that I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t the last time we saw him, but didn’t expect it to be so soon. Then there is the appearance of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart who has a lovely little role in this story which is much better than his last appearance in the television series proper back in 1989.

I think him appearing in this series works much better than it would if he appeared in the parent series and I think that if he were ever to reappear again he should do it in this series. The Brigadier is still married in this story but his wife does not appear so we can assume that he is still married to Doris. I also think that he may have moved house since the events of Battlefield, probably after he was knighted, as he is now Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, which was mentioned in the parent series during the Sontaran two-parter of the fourth series. That is also referenced with the apparently pointless jaunt to Peru that he was on when those events took place.

The Bane Kindreth are an interesting alien race, even if their actual form does look rather silly, but in the context of a children’s programme exceptable, you really couldn’t imagine them appearing in the parent show. The plot is pretty much a standard revenge plot with Mrs Wormwood and Kagh working together to enslave the human race with each of them planning to deceive the other one at some point.

Once again Clyde is rather sidelined as Rani takes centre stage along with Sarah Jane. Having said that I do think that the character of Clyde does in fact work better as the comic relief in the episodes as he, more often than not, does get the best lines of all the younger characters such as the line when the Bane break through the doors of Sarah’s house from which the title of this review comes.

One thing that I did notice in this story was that it was the first time where Maria is not really mentioned at all. She is referred to, but not by name, and this is a surefire sign that Rani is now truly settled into her role as the replacement for the character of Maria and it looks like she is going to be around for a lot more episodes and will soon have done more episodes that Maria did and truly be replaced in the hearts and minds of the children who watch the show and relate to the young leads.

If the series had ended with this story it wouldn’t have been a bad way to end the series with the events of the very first episode finally addressed and the notion that the characters would have carried on regardless. Luckily for us, this was not the last episode of the series, and the show will soon return with a third series (broadcast later on today in fact) and possibly even a fourth and a fifth series (here’s hoping).

Temptation! Temptation!

The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith

If you were able to go back in time and stop your parents from being killed when you were a baby would you do it, even though if you had ever watched Back to the Future you would know that it wouldn’t ever be a good idea to mess with the web of time? That is the question posed in this story where the Trickster returns to try and destroy the Earth once again by tricking Sarah Jane in the most twisted way he has done so far.

The story begins with a chase scene as a small boy dressed in anachronistic clothing is running through the streets of London pursued by Sarah Jane and Co. They get said boy back to where he came from which was a time fissure. Sarah accompanies the boy through the fissure to discover that he comes from the same village where she was born and that it was 1951 at a point when her parents were still alive, a month before their deaths.

In this episode we get to meet Sarah Jane’s parents, Eddie and Barbara Smith, the people she had always been lead to believe had abandoned her as a baby, only to realise that they were the nicest people that you could possibly know who adored their baby, and even wanted other children, nothing like the picture she had of them in her mind. You can’t really blame her for thinking that really as there seemed no logical reason why they went off without her unless they just weren’t bothered about her, so it was lovely that Sarah realised that her parents did love her after all and also that they were very brave people and that they would have been proud of her, even though it was nearly sixty years later.

Although it was nice to finally meet Sarah Jane’s parents the only bone of contention I have with the episode is that there now seems to be no links of Liverpool in Sarah Jane’s character which I would have thought would be obvious given Lis Sladen’s occasional user of scouse vernacular. I had a look in the book the eighties and they had a little write up about Sarah Jane saying that she was born in Liverpool, which would make sense, but in this version of events she was born in London and her parents are most definitely Londoners with not even a trace of Liverpool about them. I can only assume that Lavinia must have been in Liverpool for a while, or Sarah went to school in Liverpool. There I have solved my only bone of contention with the episode.

There were a couple of references to the Doctor in these episodes and even one from Rani, who I wasn’t aware even knew of the Doctor, but I guess that Sarah Jane had obviously told her at some point off screen, and a nice little scene where Sarah Jane bangs on the door of a police box thinking it was the TARDIS only to be greeted by a rather gruff policeman instead. She was very flustered at the time and wasn’t even thinking initially about the fact that police boxes were common place in the early nineteen fifties, but also the fact that she was bemoaning the fact that the Doctor was never around when he was needed seconds before this.

She even mentioned Peladon, which was the last thing I would expected to be referenced in this show, as well as her Aunt Lavinia, who was referred to but not in name.

It is nice when they delve into Sarah Jane’s past in this series in a way that they simply never touched on when she was in Doctor Who, it makes her character even better than it was on her initial run in the show, and makes her a much better character when you go back and watch her stories after seeing her in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Well I know it does for me and Sarah Jane was always one of my favourite companions and they have managed to retrospectively fill in her background over thirty years later. I can’t really imagine this working for many other companions with the odd few exceptions here and there, it would be nice to see Ian Chesterton again, but you just can’t see there being more spin off’s featuring original series companions can you?

Rani is a lot closer to Luke and to Clyde in this story which makes me think that this is set quite some time after events in the previous story, and she is well and truly part of the gang now. It was funny when Rani gave Clyde a kiss on the cheek before she ventured into the time fissure, the look on his face was priceless, and I always assumed that it was Luke who was the one she would have fancied, having said that she did think that she might have not come back at that moment so that is a sort of explanation for it, as at the start of the episode she had her arm draped round Luke’s shoulders and his round hers so they must be a little bit more than just mates. That sort of thing didn’t happen in my day. God, how old do I sound there. I’m 35 not 70!

The scenes in the second episode when Sarah Jane’s parents worked out what they had to do to stop the Trickster from subsuming the Earth were genuinely heart breaking and were well performed by all concerned proving, if it were needed, that children’s television can be just as powerful and moving as adult tv.

Langer and Langer

Sarah Jane Adventures : The Mark of the Beserker

This pair of episode were written by Joseph Lidster and were his second television scripts after the episode of Torchwood he wrote last year. The story is Sarah Jane lite as she leaves early on in the first episode and doesn’t appear again till the latter half of the second episode, so Rani, Luke and Clyde take centre stage. We also see an appearance by Maria and her Dad in the second episode when Luke gets in touch with them to help after he was unable to get in touch with Sarah Jane.

Not only is this episode Sarah Jane lite it is also Mr Smith lite as he doesn’t make an appearance in the story apart from an answerphone style message left my Mr Smith saying that Sarah Jane had shut him down while she was away. Basically Maria and her dad fill in the role of Mr Smith in the second episode of this story with their input which, to all intents and purposes, saved the day.

I did think that Maria might be a bit more jealous of Rani than she appeared to be here, or even Rani being a bit put out that Luke had got Maria involved when she was part of the team. In this story there is a pendant with an odd design on it which allows the wearer to make people do whatever they want.

This starts off in little ways such as making a school bully shut up, or making your dad hop on one legs or do press ups, which most people would love to have the power to do, but can also do more lasting damage such as making people forget friends and loved ones with just a single sentence. It seems that the more that you use the powers afforded by the pendant the more you want to use it and Rani quickly learns that it is not good to have after nearly making her Dad believe that she wanted him dead, even though that was not what she said. So pretty scary stuff I am sure you will agree and most people would try and get rid of it as soon as possible, so long as you had a moral compass that is.

In this episode we also find out a bit more about Clyde such as that he lives with his mother and that his dad left the family a number of years before. I wasn’t aware of this fact until I saw this episode and am not sure if it was mentioned before. Clyde’s mum is played by Jocelyn Lee Esien better know for her rather hit and miss comedy series My Name is Jocelyn on BBC3, and his dad is played by Gary Beadle best known for playing Paul Trueman in Eastenders.

Now Clyde’s mum, Carla, seems like a nice woman who is just trying to bring up her son in the best way possible and his dad, Paul, is a bit of a bastard who ran off with his wife’s sister and is pretty much only ever thinking about himself and what he wants to do. It is therefore not suprising that Carla wants him nowhere near Clyde or herself.

It is not said why Clyde’s dad chose that particular time to come and pay him a visit at first but the reason behind it is explained at the end of the story in kind of mirror of what had happened with Clyde himself. In an attempt to impress his Dad, Clyde boasts about how many times he has saved the Earth with Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Maria and takes him to Sarah Jane’s attic where (unbeknownst to Clyde) the pendant enticed Clyde’s dad to take it and as soon as he realised the power that it gave him he thought I’m gonna have a bit more of it. Perhaps the pendant is drawn to bad people with lack of will power in particular as Rani found it quite easy to get rid of it after she had only used it the once, unlike Clyde’s dad who used it the once before deciding that he could whatever he wanted and that nobody could stop him.

The action really cranks up in the second episode as Clyde’s dad goes on the rampage with the pendant, using it to blag a flash car for free, buy Clyde lots of presents to make up for not being around for years and, most evil of all, making Clyde forget about this mother. It was almost heart breaking when Clyde’s mum gave him a hug and then was pushed away by Clyde who genuinely didn’t know who she was, which must be every mother’s nightmare, and even if you aren’t a parent you can imagine how it would feel if you blanked your own mother like that. Luckily for everyone Clyde’s dad didn’t really know about Sarah Jane Smith, or consider her a threat, so that she was able to turn up right at the end to put things right with the world. In this story there was another mention of Sarah’s past, such as the fact that her parents died when she was baby, which appears to be a nice lead into the next episode where the Trickster and the Graske return.

These episodes did a lot for Clyde’s character and he really is quite a sensitive soul despite all of the bravado and the cheek that he displays to the people around him (although not it seems to his mother who, along with Sarah Jane seems to be one of the few adults that Clyde trusts), which really do him a lot more credit than he seems to think they do.

I had been a little bit disappointed in the first few episodes of this second season but it is more than back on track with this story.