April 16: The Gift Parts One & Two (SJA)

(I keep forgetting to mention how inappropriate it seems to have a trailer for Torchwood: Children of Earth (complete with Peter Capaldi saying "shit") on disc 2 of the region 1 release of series 3 -- but then I guess that tells you who BBC Worldwide think the North American audience is...)

The Gift provides us with our final major appearance of the Slitheen in any Doctor Who show to date (they get a small appearance in the series 4 opener of The Sarah Jane Adventures, but that's about it), but they make the most of it.  I like the way we start in media res, with the Slitheen about ready to turn the Earth into a giant diamond that they can sell (although this just makes me think about the ningi from The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where a ningi is "a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side", and thus no one has ever collected enough ningis to own a Triganic Pu).  I also like the fact that the Earth is saved not by Sarah Jane and the gang but by a different family of Raxacoricofallapatorians, the Blathereen -- you can tell they're different because they're orange, not green.  The Blathereen are on the side of justice, and they provide Sarah Jane with a gift to all mankind: a special plant called Rakweed that could be used as food, thus ending famine.

The Rakweed releases its spores. (The Gift Part One) ©BBC

Of course there's a problem with the Rakweed (did you really think there wouldn't be?), in that it reproduces at an incredibly accelerated rate and it puts people into comas.  This part is the primary thrust of the story, but in some ways it feels incidental to the main two storylines: the one where Sarah Jane confronts the Blathereen about the situation, and the one where Rani and Clyde are trapped in the school, unable to avoid the huge amounts of Rakweed outside.  Part of me was kind of hoping that the Blathereen were genuinely misunderstood, and the Rakweed problem was a mistake ("Whoops, didn't realize it was going to start attacking people"), but no, the Blathereen are revealed to actually be Slitheen-Blathereen (married into the family), and thus are as evil as all the other Raxacoricofallapatorians we've seen.  Their being addicted to Rakweed is kind of interesting as well, but other than that there's little to really distinguish their actions from the Slitheen.  The stuff with Clyde and Rani is more compelling, as there's an element of threat involved -- we see other students and teachers succumb to the Rakweed spores -- but it still feels straightforward and thus rather unexciting.  The way they learn how to defeat the Rakweed is pure chance, and thus Sarah Jane's repeated praise of how good they are feels undeserved.  (There's also the matter of the racism displayed toward the Blathereen, but this at least is called out in the story, even if the resolution worryingly seems to reinforce it.)

I dunno, there's not really anything wrong with The Gift; it does what it sets out to do reasonably well, and there are some nice moments along the way.  It just doesn't seem that exciting -- this feels like an older Sarah Jane script from series 2 that they dusted off and used, but the problem is that the show has since moved on.  The Sarah Jane Adventures is now a more sophisticated show, and The Gift is a throwback to a simpler time.  It's not a bad story by any means, but it is somewhat old-fashioned.

But this illustrates how much The Sarah Jane Adventures has evolved this series.  They're comfortable enough to do more unusual stories that rely on characters rather than plots, and when they gel they really gel.  It's telling that the weaker stories have been the more standard runarounds.  The Sarah Jane Adventures have really hit their stride, and it's a genuine pleasure to watch this show.  Keep it up, you guys.