Episode
One
This pair of episodes has
a lot to do – namely, providing an exit for Maria and her family, and
stealthily setting up the introduction of a companion who, if the universe had
gone another way, could well have one day become Bannerman Road’s top alien hunting
roving reporter. But Rani won’t be here until the next story, so in the
meantime we have The Last Sontaran. This feels like it should have a lot more
weight than it eventually does, if only because it was the Sontarans that first
introduced Sarah to a world beyond the stars way back in The Time Warrior.
And to give Elisabeth
Sladen her credit, she does give a similar ‘no it can’t be’ vibe to that when
she was confronted by the voice of Davros over on Doctor Who just a few months
earlier, giving the gravitas to Kaagh that he needs (it’s notable that that the
Sontaran voice appears to be softer here than on the parent show, perhaps
recognising that CBBC can’t be quite as scary).
There’s a quick recap of
last year’s monsters from Sarah and Maria, if only to remind audiences who the
stars are, because for the rest of the pre-title sequence, the action relocates
to a radio telescope facility (one thing SJA is excellent at, is invoking warm
fuzzy memories of almost any Doctor Who story between 1970 and 1974) where
there are strange lights in the sky, and the sudden invasion of a mystery
villain. In the best Terry Nation tradition, the identity of the secret
returning villain is rather spoiled by the title. There’s a nice bit of linking
to Doctor Who itself, including, for the first time, use of actual footage from
that show (in this case, The Poison Sky).
The start of this second
series has taken Mr Smith’s reboot (and, presumably, the lack of K9’s copyright
being resolved) to give Sarah’s supercomputer a sense of humour (he even
smuggles in a obscure Hitchhiker’s Guide reference), although generally this
story is slightly more sombre than others – nobody is really allowed to play to
their strengths: Clyde’s natural charm is a bit quashed, and the righteous hope
of both Maria and Luke is set aside as the impending departure of the former
looms heavily. Even Chrissy’s comedy chops are somewhat diluted.
Really, this is all much
of the same problem that the opening story of the first season had, and
essentially for the same reason: moving a major companion around, and putting
them out of the narrative so that someone else can come along. The presence of
a sontaran is flashy enough to distract from the fact that not much else is
going on (yes, we’re now at the point that we’re cynical enough to say that the
end of the world in 45 minutes is ‘not much else going on’), but it’s somewhat
surprising that there’s a relative lack of theme going on in this duo of
episodes. SJA had always had a particular skill in linking the appearances of
its Monster Of The Week to an underlying motif: loneliness, fear of aging.
That’s not really present here, which is somewhat surprising, as Luke, Maria,
and Karrg all share the DNA of being oddities who are cut off from a family
that makes any lick of sense.
Not that there’s a
complete lack of humour: there’s a passing visual clue to Alien, and nice
banter between Sarah and Clyde: ‘I thought I told you to stay out of the
woods.’ / ‘I know. But did you really think we would?’. In addition, the
concept of a sontaran seeking revenge (as opposed to being on a military
offensive) is a genuinely interesting take on the race. Plus, the episode
manages to juggle a triple cliff hanger adroitly.
Episode Two
Throughout this season
opener, Kaagh makes repeated fascinated references to the fact that Sarah Jane
is female, which is a nice throwback to Linx in The Time Warrior. Also giving
us nostalgia vibes is all the running down corridors that opens episode two.
The Doctor himself gets a shout out in this episode, as Kaagh makes clear his
intention to take Sarah Jane back to his home planet Sontar as a trophy, to
make up for the embarrassing defeat of The Poison Sky.
Sarah gets trapped in a
room bemoaning her lack of sonic lipstick (‘Your what?’, her new companion
demands, which is exactly the correct response). Meanwhile, Chrissy is not well
served by her dialogue in this episode, struggling to comprehend that Alan may
have a new job. That conversation is cut short anyway by a phone call from
their teen daughter – not, as they may have been hoping, because Maria needs
rescuing from the park because some bigger girls have shoplifted some cider,
but because the world is about to end. They jump into a sports car to save her
(the sports car is oddly inexplicable. It shouldn’t matter in a story where,
essentially, all the characters are simply being moved to a logical position
for the finale, but as we’ve indicated, we’re used to SJA having at least one
extra layer. The sports car is apparently just a sports car. It doesn’t even
appear to be a deliberate riposte to Sarah’s own jaunty little number. Yes,
we’re probably overthinking this.
All the same, there’s
still moments of genuine charm: Alan’s initial inability to call up Mr Smith
with the usual expected greeting is, however inadvertently, a sly joke on male
ego. It’s frustrating, however, in an episode that at one point manages to
successfully spool out five different story strands, does not in Maria’s final
episode find anything more impactful for her to do than scroll through her
memories of season one. You’d hope in her departure story, she’d be given the
saving the world moment, although it’s cute that the honour goes to her mother
in a gag that really belongs in Jurassic World, albeit around ten years too
early. There are other clever beats (Luke makes what should be a much more
obvious and oft-repeated observation that this week’s visiting alien race will
have a different countdown system simply because they have less digits on their
hands).
Chrissy gets the most
interesting moment that is also the most tantalisingly frustrating when she
reveals she knows Sarah Jane’s secret. Although we expect to see no more of the
character, it does feel like an opportunity to deepen her personality has been
missed.
All in all then, a fairly
safe season opener: the appearance of a classic monster gets us to glide across
the fact that not much else is happening, although you can’t help thinking that
a stronger, more typically Sarah Jane Adventures story was waiting to be had
here: one where Maria was front and centre of the plot, and that it was her
actions that saved the world. But, in all honesty, a standard runabout with
team SJ is still very much worth a hour or so of your time, and if the ‘Next Time’
trailer is anything to go by, this new character Rani could very well get
everyone to up their game
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