The Sarah-Jane Adventures

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4.6 Death of the Doctor Part 2:
The concluding episode is better than the starting episode.
The Eleventh Doctor had previously appeared in a Russell T Davies story in The End of Time in the post-regeneration scene at the end but that little scene was written uncredited by current Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat.
Death of the Doctor is the first time that Russell T Davies has written for the Eleventh Doctor but in SJA rather than in the Doctor Who series itself. In fact Death of the Doctor is Davies’ first solo script for SJA, the series that he created.
It certainly felt like old times when the Doctor took Sarah and Jo to the alien planet.
Amy and Rory are explained to be elsewhere on their honeymoon. Upon hearing about Amy and Rory as the married couple who are the current TARDIS travellers, Jo said in contrast that she left the Doctor to get married. Times have certainly changed and one can only imagined what kind of companion Cliff Jones would have made.
Col. Karim makes allusion to The Brady Bunch when describing the kids. The Brady Bunch is not a good way to promote SJA.
Prior to its broadcast Death of the Doctor was shown first at a special screening and at this screening the Doctor said to Clyde that he is immortal. However in the broadcast version the Doctor says that he can regenerate 507 times. The tone in the Doctor’s voice would suggest that he was joking. Russell T Davies said so as such in an interview with SFX.
As with the previous episode we see clips of the Third, Fourth and Tenth Doctors but also this time around are the First and Second Doctors thanks to Jo meeting the both of them in The Three Doctors.
Counting the solo use of clips of the Tenth Doctor in season 2’s Secrets of the Stars, Death of the Doctor makes season 4, the third season in a row to feature an appearance by the Doctor.
The solution in defeating the villains proved to be very satisfactorily and very exciting.
Clyde’s joke about Santiago and Chile (chilly) is funny and I should have seen it coming.
Wonder why the Doctor did not tell Jo that he is the last of the Time Lords when she mentioned them.
Somewhat unexpectedly Sarah said that she did research of some of the Doctor’s other companions and they were Ian, Barbara, Ben, Pollu, Harry (Sarah’s former TARDIS travel mate from Robot – Terror of the Zygons), Tegan (whom Sarah has no memory of meeting in The Five Doctors) and Dorothy. Dorothy is undoubtedly Ace as Dorothy is her real name and also this Dorothy set up a company called A Charitable Earth (ACE).
Putting aside Dorothy, Sarah was able to research the other companions because they are all TARDIS travellers from the 1963 to 1989 run of Doctor Who who stayed in 20th century Earth after their travels with the Doctor had ended. However this does not present a complete list of TARDIS travellers who began their post Doctor lives in 20th century Earth. Not mentioned were Dodo and Victoria. Dodo was killed off in the novel Who Killed Kennedy and Sarah had met Victoria in the direct to video drama Downtime. I can only speculate that Davies has accepted the canonicity of Who Killed Kennedy & Downtime for him not to have a reference to Dodo and Victoria in Death of the Doctor.
While I did find the starting episode to be cheesy on the way Sarah had her meeting with fellow former companion Jo whom she had never met before, the concluding episode proves that there is something special about being a companion of the Doctor and that is something that would always be cherished.

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4.7 The Empty Planet Part 1:
Written by Gareth Roberts.
It’s this time of the season where the usual Sarah-lite story is slotted in with Lis Sladen only appearing in the first few minutes of this episode.
Having popped up briefly in the first episode of the two previous stories Luke in contrast is completely absent here. Finally a proper chance for viewers to miss him since leaving for Oxford.
Rani, Clyde and another boy Gavin found themselves the only ones on the planet Earth as everyone else is missing.
A influence of Gareth Roberts writing this story is probably the most recent but defunct version of Survivors about most of the planet Earth being wiped out by a virus leaving only those who survived to fend for themselves with their new situation. Thankfully there is no virus here in The Empty Planet just hopefully at best everyone vanishing and placed somewhere else.
Incidentally the lead actor of the aforementioned version of Survivors, Julie Graham is a guest star in this season SJA but it seems isn’t in this story (although she can be seen briefly in the montage that begins each other of this season).
Another possible influence of Survivors is when Rani prayed that she was not the only one on the planet which is what Abby had prayed in the first episode of the original series of Survivors.
The Empty Planet also brings to mind the Seventh Doctor’s fully fledged final TV story Survival which depicted the disappearance of residents of Ace’s old hometown Perivale.
The mysteriousness of the disappearance of most of Earth’s population is well presented especially from the performances from Anjli Mohindra (Rani) and Daniel Anthony (Clyde). Clyde sure posed an interesting question whether he and Rani would have been mates if they had not met Sarah Jane.
The episode ends with the appearance of the red and white robots. Would have been more impressed with the cliffhanger if I had not known about their presence in this story beforehand.

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4.8 The Empty Planet Part 2:
Very enjoyable conclusion to this story.
Although I mistakenly thought he was the baddie, I knew that Gavin was the key element to this story.
Wow what a revelation that the planet was emptied so that the robots could find Gavin.
It was unexpected that Clyde and Rani's grounding by the Judoon in Prisoner of the Judoon would come to play in this story.
Clyde and Rani are the latest Whoniverse characters to get a royal honour following on from Ian (The Crusade),
the Fifth Doctor (The King's Demons) and the Tenth Doctor and Rose (Tooth and Claw).
A very good story giving all of the action to Clyde and Rani with Sarah only turning up at the end.

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4.9 Lost In Time Part 1:
Written by Rupert Laight.
A character known only as the Shopkeeper sends Sarah, Clyde and Rani are each send to different time zones to retrieve an object for the Shopkeeper. Sarah is in 1889 in a hospital haunted by ghosts, Clyde during World War II where he meets the boy George and Rani in 1553 when she becomes the lady in waiting to Lady Jane Grey in her short and doomed reign as Queen.
Quite like a rapport between Rani and Queen Jane. It was a very good opportunity that was done well in presenting Lady Jane Grey as a historical character in a work of fiction because prior to this I don’t recall ever seeing other portrayals of her.
The scenes with Clyde and George along with the Nazis is a good fun way of having a boys’ only adventure.
Having just said good things about Rani and Clyde visiting their respective time zones there is however really nothing much to say about Sarah’s experience in 1889 except an intrigue about ghosts in the future from a 1889 perspective.
A very good climax of a cliffhanger.

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4.10 Lost In Time Part 2:
Very very good conclusion to this story.
Felt heartwarming Rani being with Lady Jane at her last moments in life as history has already decided her fate.
Knew there was something wrong about George’s teacher and was proven right about her. Thanks to Clyde, George becomes a hero.
Sarah’s storyline is better here than in the starting episode.
Emily’s granddaughter giving Sarah the key felt like Back To The Future II when Marty McFly in 1955 got a letter from Doc Brown written in 1885. Emily’s granddaughter’s name is Angela Price which was also the real name of Mrs Moore from Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel.
Sarah, Clyde and Rani finding out what became of the people they met in the past provides a fitting coda to this story.

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4.11 Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith Part 1:
As the fifth season has already been commissioned this is not the final story of the series despite what it says in the title.
Written by Gareth Roberts and former DWM editor Clayton Hickman.
The already established Doctor Who/SJA writer Gareth Roberts had collaborated with Hickman before for two Doctor Who audio stories The One Doctor & Bang-Bang-a-Boom!
While Roberts and Hickman had written for the Sarah Jane gang before with the Red Nose Comic Relief special in 2009, Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith is their first fully fledged TV story together.
Guest star Julie Graham was the lead actor of the 2008-10 version of Survivors and I thought it was a shame she wasn’t in The Empty Planet, two stories back as that presented a similar situation to Survivors.
Having said that I am glad she has finally appeared in the Whoniverse.
Of all the Whoniverse shows it seems fitting for Julie Graham to appear in SJA playing Ruby White because as Clyde says Sarah and Ruby do look alike.
Since her name is Ruby she appears in every scene she’s in wearing something red.
The presence of Ruby in this story makes this feel like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle about a married woman whole hold on her family life is seriously threatened by another woman. A method that the other woman employs to drive a wedge between the married woman and her loved ones is to make the married woman appear to have lost her senses.
As I knew next to nothing about what Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith was going to be about prior to watching it, it was quite a coincidence that the previous thing that I saw Julie Graham in was the 2006 TV drama The Kindness of Strangers which for all appearances is the British version of The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and it had Julie Graham playing the married woman.
In Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith, Julie Graham puts the shoe on the other foot as Ruby is the other woman.
Knew from the outset there was something dodgy about Ruby especially since Sarah having trouble remembering things not long after Ruby turned up on the scene.
Much of the episode was quite predictable but still well handled in direction by Joss Agnew.
Not a bad cliffhanger.

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Sarah Jane's Alien Files:
Rather than having a regular behind the scenes programme like Doctor Who Confidential for Doctor Who and Torchwood Declassified for Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures instead has Sarah Jane’s Alien Files in which the main actors of SJA presents this programme in character.
Although there are newly filmed segments for the actors in character presenting the Alien Files, it does not add anything new in story terms as it is mostly made up of clips of episodes of the main series as they recount what went on before.
Overall the Alien Files is quite enjoyable and it was shown concurrently with SJA season 4 which meant that there was a lot of ground for the Alien Files to cover since SJA has been on. It is unknown whether there will be more Alien Files after the six episodes but it is hard to imagine there will be another set of episodes to accompany SJA’s fifth season next year as I don’t think there will be enough material by then to look at things that weren’t cover before.

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4.12 Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith Part 2:
Unlike the previous stories that had Sarah’s name in the story title, this story does not feature at all the Trickster at all. Ruby White however still makes for a very good villain.
While the starting episode made me think of Ruby as being like the other woman in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, the concluding episode made me think of Ruby as being like villains seen in Doctor Who & Torchwood that of Vivien Fay in The Stones of Blood from Doctor Who and Mary in Greeks Bearing Gifts from Torchwood. Like Vivien Fay and Mary, Ruby is revealed to be an alien prisoner who came to Earth by a prison ship she was in but was able to roam free on Earth due to the death of her captor.
Having been absent for most of the time since going to Oxford, Luke does very well in coming back home just to save the day.
The way Luke defeats Ruby is similar to how he defeated the Bane Mother in Invasion of the Bane.
The last we see of Ruby in this story suggests that this may not be the last time we see of her.
Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith, goodbye for now that is,

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Defending Bannerman Road:
Defending Bannerman Road is a Sarah Jane Adventures comic on the SJA site:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/sja/funandgames/academy/defending-bannerman-road/comic/

With audio narration by Anjli Mohindra, this adventure has the gang encounter the Krulius and it was quite surprising who also turned up in this story.

A very very fun story.

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Sarah Jane Adventures: Monster Hunt – The Beginning:
A SJA comic that is available on the SJA site:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/sja/funandgames/comics/monster-hunt-comic-one

The Krulius is this introduced in the first of this two part story.
A thrilling start to this story as we first see the Krulius on a spaceship.
A funny line was when Clyde said “Aliens on Facebook”.
Not quite a cracking cliffhanger but does make this reader wanting to find out what happens next.

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Monster Hunt - The Ending:
The concluding chapter to the Monster Hunt story:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/sja/funandgames/comics/monster-hunt-comic-two

The conclusion to this story is marvelous almost from the get go.
It has been superbly structured from Bannerman Road to the Krulius spaceship where Sarah faces off the Krulius alone.

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Return of the Krulius:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/sja/funandgames/comics/academy-comic-one

The first of a two part comic story which sees Rani meeting up with the titular enemy.
A pretty good opening installment of this story and quite a surprise of who Rani bumps into other than the Krulius.
The story is concluded in Defending Bannerman Road.

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The DVD subtitles for Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith Part 1 when Eddie Smith first appeared it correlated him saying "Welcome to the fete. Fate worse than death."
Eddie Smith was expressing humour with wordplay therefore he actually meant "Fete worse than death" not "Fate worse than death".

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Enemy of the Bane:
Whilst Nick Courtney did return to play the Brigadier in Enemy of the Bane, the credit for the Brigadier did not. For this story the character is listed as simply Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart.
Apart from the character’s introductory story Web of Fear when he was a colonel, the credit for the Lethbridge-Stewart character for Enemy of the Bane is the first time the character has been credited without his Brigadier rank despite the fact the character is more commonly refer to by this rank than by his actual name.

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It is with ultimate shock that I have just found out that Lis Sladen has passed away.

More on this at the Doctor Who thread.