April 9: Prisoner of the Judoon Parts One & Two (SJA)

And so now we move on from July 2009 and the events of Torchwood: Children of Earth²⁰⁷ and on to October 2009.  Series 3 of The Sarah Jane Adventures begins in much the same way as series 2 did, with an appearance of a Doctor Who alien.  But unlike The Last Sontaran, which was overtly a sequel to a Who story, Prisoner of the Judoon merely uses the Judoon for a brand-new story, involving an escaped criminal who crashed with his Judoon captor on Earth.

It's rather nice to have a story that focuses on the Judoon -- up to this point they've been generally relegated to the background, in favor of stories about plasmavores and disappearing planets, but here the Judoon are placed front and center, and we get to learn about their mindset and how they operate.  As such, it's quite a bit of fun following Captain Tybo around, as he insists on obeying all posted signs regarding traffic laws and "keep out" areas, but he has no problem shooting at people if he thinks they're breaking the law or obstructing the course of justice.  It sounds rather frightening, but writer Phil Ford and director Joss Agnew both do a good job of giving these scenes the right amount of lightness to make them seem funny rather than scary.

However, some of the best moments in Prisoner of the Judoon go to Elisabeth Sladen, who spends much of part one and just about all of part two being possessed by the escaped criminal, Androvax.  Sladen is clearly having a great time, playing an evil creepy alien, as she goes around threatening people and making plans to escape, thanks to some blueprints from a spaceship that crashed in 1947 Roswell that Mr. Smith happened to have on file.  (This is a reference to the animated Doctor Who special "Dreamland", which Phil Ford also wrote but which hadn't actually been broadcast at the time Prisoner of the Judoon went out.)  Sladen plays possessed Sarah in a much more slinky, sensual manner, which is particularly unsettling coming from Sarah Jane.  But what's also worth nothing is that Sladen plays this in a way that's different from her possession by Eldrad in The Hand of Fear -- not surprising, given that that was 33 years earlier, but it's still good to see a different take on a possessed Sarah Jane.  The way she seems to embrace being evil, as she looks forward to her upgraded nanoforms destroying Earth, is wonderfully villainous, and the moments where the possessed Sarah Jane speaks to the genuine Sarah Jane in reflections are well done without seeming too much like Gollum from Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

Gita and Haresh are surprised by materializing Judoon.
(Prisoner of the Judoon Part Two) ©BBC

Plus we get some fun moments with Gita and Haresh Chandra in the Genetech facility, putting plants around the lobby and encountering aliens up close and personal for the first time ever.  (Presumably they know about aliens from the Daleks and such, but they probably didn't see them up close.)  These scenes are also played for laughs, as, after their initial encounter, Gita and Haresh spend most of their time dodging the Judoon as they try to make their way out of the building, looking panicked every time they run into them.  It's great fun.

Prisoner of the Judoon does a great job of reestablishing The Sarah Jane Adventures (well, that's what it seems like they're trying to do, what with Sarah Jane's speech at the top and tail) as a fun, quick-paced show.  In many ways this is, more than ever, setting itself up as the opposite to Torchwood, showing us that while there may be horror in the universe, there are also, as Sarah Jane states at the end, the most wondrous things: "Parts of the universe are dying all the time.  Planets, stars, people.  But the amazing part is that it isn't the end.  It's only the beginning of something new and exciting being born."  That sums up Prisoner of the Judoon (and The Sarah Jane Adventures) pretty well.








²⁰⁷ There's a thought; were Luke, Clyde, and Rani affected by the 456?  What was Sarah Jane doing that week?  (Allowing for the fact that the British government weren't telling anyone what was actually going on -- but still, you'd think Sarah Jane would have been doing something -- particularly if Luke and company were affected.)