Sarah Jane Adventures, Episodes 11 & 12 (long)
The S2 finale of The Sarah Jane Adventures was a school-reunion of friends and foes, pitting Sarah Jane + crew (including my longtime favorite, Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart) against past SJA/Who baddies The Bane and Karg the Sontaran.
I do love revisting past characters, but basically didn't think this episode achieved its goals. However first I'll talk about the positive points:
First and foremost is their choice to (finally!) join up again with the Brigadier. Sir Alastair may be a little heavier, a little slower, and a little greyer, but he's still the same old Brig. OK, so he's a lot heavier, older, and slower, but I don't care. At 79, Nick Courtney is still acting in multiple jobs per year, not to mention his unwavering, enthusiastic support of Doctor Who in general. Everything I have read about this man makes me seriously respect him. I am very happy he's made his way onto the Who franchise, and fervently hope they will leverage his appearance into showing up again on the main series (maybe the regeneration episode?).
I also liked that his cane turned into a gun. :)
Other bits of good were: the incidental music, Clyde getting a lot of good lines (I'm starting to like him best out of the "kids"), and I actually was surprised when the Sontaran revealed himself at the first episode. Before the season aired, I had actually read about the Sontarans being in the finale, but had forgotten. So good for you, SJA, you made me go, "What?" (and Chris too.)
Otherwise, I'm not sure the episode worked out - there were too many players involved (Mrs Wormwood, the other Bane, Karg, the Brig, Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani, Clyde, the Bane masquerading as a UNIT officer, Rani's parents) for the ~54 minutes the two episodes totalled. If they had another half hour of air time, this setup would've worked fine, but as it was, a lot of characters didn't have much to do, or disappeared for long stretches.
With all the actors left little room for plot. It was kind of G-rated Indiana Jones:
1. Everyone search for the so-sophisticated-it's-indistinguishable-from-magic alien artifact.
2. Everyone fight over it.
3. The artifact is used, and it threatens to do something so overwhelmingly terrible everyone in the galaxy*.
4. The goodies prevail through Love, and the baddies kill each other, leaving clean gloves for the protagonists.
There probably would've been room for a better plotline, even with all the characters, if the writers had abandoned the "motherhood" angle on the story. Just like the S1 finale, someone comes along to challenge Sarah Jane's motherhood, so a lot of good air time wasted in hand-wringing and declarations of maternal love (from Sarah Jane and Mrs. Wormwood, who "engineered" Luke). Unlike the S1 finale, the touchy-feely business took center statge far too often, when really I just wanted to see the Brig fight a Sontaran. Ah well, I try to (constantly) remind myself that it's a kids show, so the squishy stuff isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
* - Note to Who producers: You insist on using "galaxy" as your frame of reference in many episodes, and in fact refer to humans traveling between galaxIES. I think you need an astrophysicist to acquaint you with the size of a "galaxy", and the vast distances of NOTHING between galaxies. None but the most sophisticated of races (Time Lords, Daleks maybe, certainly not humans) should be able to achieve the ability to travel between them. The result would be pure chaos.
So now there's no Who-related material until Dec 25th, and that's only the one special. At least there's the BSG webisodes (starting tomorrow), plus I've also finally started watching *gasp* Star Trek: Enterprise. And yes, I still hate Scott Bakula.
I do love revisting past characters, but basically didn't think this episode achieved its goals. However first I'll talk about the positive points:
First and foremost is their choice to (finally!) join up again with the Brigadier. Sir Alastair may be a little heavier, a little slower, and a little greyer, but he's still the same old Brig. OK, so he's a lot heavier, older, and slower, but I don't care. At 79, Nick Courtney is still acting in multiple jobs per year, not to mention his unwavering, enthusiastic support of Doctor Who in general. Everything I have read about this man makes me seriously respect him. I am very happy he's made his way onto the Who franchise, and fervently hope they will leverage his appearance into showing up again on the main series (maybe the regeneration episode?).
I also liked that his cane turned into a gun. :)
Other bits of good were: the incidental music, Clyde getting a lot of good lines (I'm starting to like him best out of the "kids"), and I actually was surprised when the Sontaran revealed himself at the first episode. Before the season aired, I had actually read about the Sontarans being in the finale, but had forgotten. So good for you, SJA, you made me go, "What?" (and Chris too.)
Otherwise, I'm not sure the episode worked out - there were too many players involved (Mrs Wormwood, the other Bane, Karg, the Brig, Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani, Clyde, the Bane masquerading as a UNIT officer, Rani's parents) for the ~54 minutes the two episodes totalled. If they had another half hour of air time, this setup would've worked fine, but as it was, a lot of characters didn't have much to do, or disappeared for long stretches.
With all the actors left little room for plot. It was kind of G-rated Indiana Jones:
1. Everyone search for the so-sophisticated-it's-indistinguishable-f
2. Everyone fight over it.
3. The artifact is used, and it threatens to do something so overwhelmingly terrible everyone in the galaxy*.
4. The goodies prevail through Love, and the baddies kill each other, leaving clean gloves for the protagonists.
There probably would've been room for a better plotline, even with all the characters, if the writers had abandoned the "motherhood" angle on the story. Just like the S1 finale, someone comes along to challenge Sarah Jane's motherhood, so a lot of good air time wasted in hand-wringing and declarations of maternal love (from Sarah Jane and Mrs. Wormwood, who "engineered" Luke). Unlike the S1 finale, the touchy-feely business took center statge far too often, when really I just wanted to see the Brig fight a Sontaran. Ah well, I try to (constantly) remind myself that it's a kids show, so the squishy stuff isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
* - Note to Who producers: You insist on using "galaxy" as your frame of reference in many episodes, and in fact refer to humans traveling between galaxIES. I think you need an astrophysicist to acquaint you with the size of a "galaxy", and the vast distances of NOTHING between galaxies. None but the most sophisticated of races (Time Lords, Daleks maybe, certainly not humans) should be able to achieve the ability to travel between them. The result would be pure chaos.
So now there's no Who-related material until Dec 25th, and that's only the one special. At least there's the BSG webisodes (starting tomorrow), plus I've also finally started watching *gasp* Star Trek: Enterprise. And yes, I still hate Scott Bakula.
Tags: doctor who
Mood: 
busy
Music: Wolfsheim - find you're gone
Labels: sarah jane adventures
posted by Skunque at
9:46 AM
1 Comments:
I just stumbled onto your blog. I too watch all things Doctor Who and BSG. You pointed out in this post that you've started watching Star Trek: Enterprise - the first 2 seasons are a very mixed bag with mostly lame episodes, but Seasons 3 & 4 improve so much that when the show was cancelled I nearly wept. The finale is the most atrocious episode ever though. Thankfully, the post-series books by Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin ("The Good That Men Do", "Kobayashi Maru" & "The Romulan War") take the finale, and turn it into something altogether different. :0)
Oh. And I like Wolfsheim too.
Bald Jason
http://www.gothboy.com
Skip the website if nudity bugs you. lol
Post a Comment
<< Home