It's been three months since "Last of the Time Lords", and nearly ten months since "Invasion of the Bane", but it's finally time to return to Bannerman Road and
The Sarah Jane Adventures. And you might get a blast of nostalgia as you note that we're now getting multi-part (well, 2, but still) adventures with 25-minute installments, just like 20th-century
Doctor Who. (And if that's not enough nostalgia for you, you can spend time looking at all the things in the background in Sarah Jane's attic: there's a book on UNIT and lots of drawings of
Doctor Who things, like the old sonic screwdriver, the TARDIS, and, intriguingly, the Jagaroth spaceship from
City of Death. Oh, and writer Gareth Roberts has one of the Slitheen namedrop the Wallarians, as mentioned in
Carnival of Monsters.)
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The Slitheen decide what to do about Sarah Jane. (Revenge of
the Slitheen Part Two) ©BBC |
We get some more recent nostalgia as well, as the Slitheen are brought back. They seem rather more at home in a school than in Downing Street, which is both a positive and a drawback, as they're not quite as grotesquely incongruous and threatening here. But the farts seem to gain more notice from the students, which is somewhat entertaining. These Slitheen seem just as villainous as the bunch we saw in
Doctor Who, but now they have the added motivation of revenge against the planet for the deaths of their family members. Their plan is a little odd, though; they want to drain all the energy from the Earth and the sun, put into giant batteries, and then sell it off. It looks like it takes an incredible amount of effort to make this happen -- the Slitheen must really want revenge.
The other major event in these two episodes is the introduction of Clyde Langer, a fellow boy from school who, like Maria and Luke, has also just started school in a new place. Clyde is cocky and self-confident and perhaps trying a bit too hard to be cool, but he quickly fits in with Maria and Luke, and he's certainly significantly less frustrating a character than Kelsey was in "Invasion of the Bane". He certainly copes with all the new alien stuff a lot better, and he does help in figuring out the Slitheen's weakness. Daniel Anthony does a good job of making Clyde likeable while he's skeptically learning about aliens and then running away from them. (And his face when the one Slitheen explodes on him and Maria is great.)
It's not an incredible standout episode, but it's fun while it lasts and serves to reintroduce everyone and the basic format of
The Sarah Jane Adventures. It's certainly never dull, and while it may not be memorable, it's still entertaining while it lasts to see everyone in action, running around schools and fighting aliens.
The Sarah Jane Adventures are off to a good start.