March 27: The Last Sontaran Parts One & Two (SJA)

Other than the major cast upheaval at the end of Part Two, the opening story of The Sarah Jane Adventures series 2 is pretty much business as usual.  This is a sort-of sequel to "The Sontaran Stratagem" / "The Poison Sky" from series 4 of Doctor Who, with Commander Kaagh explicitly being the only Sontaran survivor from the events of that story.  Kaagh wants to destroy the planet in order to avenge the destruction of the Tenth Sontaran Battlefleet, and it's up to Sarah Jane and company to stop him.

But as I said, this is largely business as usual.  We get a lot of running around a forest, avoiding Kaagh while also trying to foil his plan of crashing a whole bunch of satellites into nuclear power plants and thus turning Earth into "a cinder floating in space" (and I'm willing to bet this is a deliberate reference to one of William Hartnell's more infamous fluffs, from The Chase -- Phil Ford knows his stuff).  Part one is probably the better of the two, because we actually discover things and get some mystery.  (Even if they decide to keep the identity of the alien villain a mystery for a bit, with some sort of invisibility field and a couple of shots of just hands -- thus keeping alive the grand old Who tradition of holding back the first appearance of the monster named in the episode's title.)  There are floating balls of light and some sort of invisible creature causing problems for an isolated radio telescope father-and-daughter combination, and when we do finally see Kaagh revealed we get some entertaining exposition about what he's doing, as well as a couple references to Sarah Jane's time on Doctor Who (including Kaagh's desire to perform experiments on Clyde -- see The Sontaran Experiment if you need reminding).  Part two, on the other hand, is essentially an extended chase sequence.  Who Kaagh is chasing and where varies from sequence to sequence, but we're still just watching them scramble around, while Kaagh goes after one group or the other, as they try to stop his plan.

Luke, Clyde, Maria, and Sarah Jane are confronted by Commander
Kaagh. (The Last Sontaran Part One) ©BBC

But where this episode succeeds is in the character moments. Anthony O'Donnell does a great job as Kaagh, trying to erase the disgrace of an entire Sontaran Battlefleet having been defeated by a single man.  Meanwhile, Yasmin Paige gives a great performance as the conflicted Maria, who wants to go to America with her dad but is still sad about leaving her friends behind.  And Joseph Millson and Juliet Cowan are really quite lovely as Alan and Chrissie; it's especially nice to see Chrissie matter-of-factly accepting the existence of aliens and being worried about Maria's safety instead.  (And it's also really nice how, after Maria tries the old "make her think she just had a weird dream" trick, Chrissie reveals at the end that she wasn't remotely fooled: "I remember it all, you know," she says to Sarah Jane as Alan and Maria drive away.)  Of course, that's always been one of the great strengths of The Sarah Jane Adventures -- the way the characters interact with each other and react to the situations -- but it's still good to see it continue.  And I also like how, at the end, Kaagh is sent on his way, rather than being killed or anything like that; it's good to see this show retain its sense of mercy and compassion.

However, this is indeed the final story for Maria Jackson (barring a cameo or two) and her family.  As she's been the primary audience identification figure for the show, it'll be interesting to see how the dynamics change.  But Yasmin Paige has been very good as one of the leads, and it'll be sad to see her go -- and indeed, to see Joseph Millson go as well, as Alan has often been one of the best parts of the show.  They could have done a lot more with this (particularly with Alan now being comfortable with the idea of aliens), but alas, it wasn't to be.  (And it's not like it was for a bad reason, mind -- Paige wanted to focus on her studies, which is a laudable thing.)

Still, while it might not be the most fantastic send-off ever, The Last Sontaran is a great representation of what The Sarah Jane Adventures are usually like.  One of the great things about this show is that so far they haven't had a story that was of noticeably lesser quality than the others, and The Last Sontaran continues that trend.  It's actually probably one of the weaker entries in the show thus far, and when that's the case you know things are going well.