And so with its fourth
story, The Sarah Jane Adventures sets its stall firmly at what it will always
be best at - and what makes it unique from its parent show and indeed
Torchwood: leaning deep into the abiding love the audience has for the leading
character (and the woman who plays her), and manages to do so on what is
essentially a steal from nu-who: a Sarah-Jane 'lite' episode. The gag in the
prologue, where it's remarked that Sarah Jane can see her surrogate son face
off aliens, but she'll wince when there's a risk he might fall off his
skateboard - has the tone exactly right: scary monsters and super creeps are
all very well for your monster-of-the-week fun, but where Sarah Jane Adventures
manages to be truly scary - and even upsetting - is in the small, human stuff.
After a trip to the only
skateboard park in London that's never been troubled by graffiti artists, Maria
is troubled that Sarah Jane is saving the world, often on a daily basis, with
no recognition. Sarah suggests she prefers it that way - she really doesn't
want to be noticed - before gifting Maria with a puzzlebox. This episode
introduces us to the monster that is as unavoidably linked with Sarah Jane as
the Weeping Angels are with the Moffatt era of Doctor Who: The Trickster, a
monster so compelling he ends up troubling The Doctor himself before too long.
The puzzlebox ends up being a mild obsession for Maria, which for our purposes
is a pretty good thing: Maria has been pushed to the background in recent
weeks, and it's good to see her grab more of the story.
Before long, Sarah Jane
vanishes, and more disturbingly, she appears never to have existed in Maria's
reality. This has the knock on effect of meaning that all the relationships that
thus far have been set up no longer exist: Clyde is confused when Maria rings
him, not only is he concerned as to how his phone number is public knowledge,
but he's pretty sure he can guess the girl's motives: 'If you wanna ask me out,
I can fit you in next Thursday,' he says, which is a line that manages to make
him sound arrogantly cocksure and somehow quite sweet at the same time.
Maria, desperate to locate
Sarah Jane (she also remembers that the Earth is going to suffer a Deep Impact
type scenario within 24 hours) becomes more frantic and manic. Alan, her dad,
treats her with respect and patience even once it becomes clear (from his point
of view, at least) that his daughter is unwell. This is actually quite
beautiful. Yes, it's mainly so the plot can tick over nicely enough without
getting snagged on too many pointless arguments and misunderstandings, but
since this is a kid's show we're talking about, it's important to note that all
regular cast of adult characters are portrayed as people that can be trusted,
and relied on.
Well, that's the regular
cast of grown ups. Sarah Jane Adventures continues - as it will do for the rest
of the duration - to be a stop gap for a rosta of Brit Actors Who You'd
Forgotten But Should Really Be Getting A Lot More Work (in this at least, it's
like a kiddie version of Inside No 9), and this week it's Jane Asher, revealed
to be a childhood friend of Sarah Jane back in the Sixties (the casting of
Asher is in itself a bit clever-clever, considering this episode's title -
there was once a spoof radio drama called Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman,
and yes, it's about who you think it's about).
This story - quite
deliberately - does massive damage to the timeline of Sarah Jane in a way that
is frankly too big for the episode itself to fully deal with (with Sarah dead
at the age of thirteen, who will demand that the Doctor listens on Skaro 'We're
talking about the Daleks', etc etc). Like all the best episodes of this series,
the stakes are seemingly much smaller - dealing purely with the existence or
not of one human woman (yes, there's a subplot about an oncoming meteor, and we
will inevitably have a Turn Left flavoured conversation about exactly how many
times Sarah saved the world), but this is ultimately an episode that dares ask
the terrible question: can you imagine a universe without Lis Sladen? And would
you want to?
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