The framing story for this is...odd. They've decided to give us a look fifty years into the future, where we see Rani as an old, lonely person, living in Sarah Jane's old place, as she explains to Adam how her life ended up this way. But there's no clear reason at any point as to why this framing story is here in the first place; she doesn't remember things differently or have the power to change her past -- it's just the story of how Rani having a bad day cost her.
As far as bad days go, though, this one is pretty interesting, with Rani being called to the south coast of England by a former friend named Sam, who's found something strange at a closed-down amusement park that he thinks Rani should investigate. Some homeless people are riding rides and doing little else, and the caretaker of the place isn't explaining what's going on. But look, it's Elisabeth Sladen's husband, Brian Miller, as the caretaker! (You might remember Brian Miller as the showman from Snakedance, or (possibly) one of the Dalek voice artists from the last two Dalek serials of the 1980s.) It's rather nice to see them together on screen, even if they don't directly interact that much and the caretaker Harry is hindering Sarah Jane's investigation.
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| Eve starts to unleash her powers. (The Mad Woman in the Attic Part Two) ©BBC |
It's nice to have a story with a happy ending, and The Mad Woman in the Attic reveals that Eve's ship has been slowly repairing itself, while trying to get Eve to expend her energy in safe ways (with Harry's help), until the ship is ready to depart. The ship can also show people their past and future (since Eve's people were time sensitives), which means, excitingly, we get clips of old Doctor Who episodes featuring Sarah Jane -- including The Five Doctors (which was important if you were one of the people arguing that The Five Doctors had been removed from the timeline in the wake of the Time War). Plus we get a tantalizing hint of the future, as we see the TARDIS materializing in Sarah Jane's attic.
But yes, sorry, happy endings. Eve isn't evil, and the ship uses her excess energy to finish repairing itself, along with that black hole K-9's been monitoring since the first episode, which means they can leave for other places. It's a really lovely moment, made even sweeter by Eve's adoptive family, Harry and Sam, electing to go with her: she won't be lonely anymore. The only odd bit is where the ship decides to remove Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde from the timeline in response to an offhand comment from Rani earlier -- "I wish they'd just leave me alone" -- which does feel strange in context, and even stranger when it's so easily fixed by Adam. It's like they just wanted to show us the future with Rani happy with family in Sarah Jane's attic instead of the one where she's all alone, because it doesn't really fit with the rest of the story (even as we acknowledge the underlying "loneliness sucks" theme).
So The Mad Woman in the Attic is a sweet, lovely story about how great it is to have friends, even if they're sometimes not exactly what we want. It's a well-constructed story with some fine performances, and other than the framing story this one's really firing on all cylinders. Plus we finally get K-9 into the series proper! (Presumably since Bob Baker has allowed them to have K-9 back, now that he's gotten his own K-9 spinoff show going and there won't be confusion as to which show is the K-9 one.)
Of course, the trailer for the next story looks even more incredibly thrilling -- Sarah Jane's getting married and...is that the Doctor?!