TV Retrospective - The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 1 part 1 - Invasion of the Bane/Revenge of the Slitheen

It’s been a while I know, but it’s time for another TV retrospective.

There have been a few Doctor Who Spinoff’s over the years, but there’s one I’d define as the best

In your dreams. This is the Sarah Jane Adventures

The series premiered in 2007 and ended in 2011 thanks to the tragic passing of Elizabeth Sladen. But it had a decent run of 1 tv movie and 52 episodes across 5 series. I’ll be covering the show 4 episodes at a time, counting the TV movie as 2 episodes.

Also, because of scheduling issues I’ll covering the first 2 series during April and May, the 3^rd in July and 4-5 will be covered from September.

Invasion of the Bane

So, we open with the ultimate premise of the series. Earth can be an adventure

So, we’re introduced to Maria Jackson and her father, Alan. They’re moving into a new house. Across the road is one Sarah Jane Smith, you might’ve heard of her. With the moving in done pretty badly really, there are still boxes outside the house… We’re introduced to Chrissie, the second most annoying character on the show, Alan’s ex-wife and the reason they moved in the first place. She leaves thankfully. We here an advert for Bubbleshock drink, which contains Bane. If you know the title of the episode, you’ve already guessed what the alien threat is here.

Maria hears some noises and sees flashing lights. She heads outside to see Sarah Jane sending an alien on her way, she gets some kind of communication device in return. Maria runs back into her house and surprisingly her slamming of the door doesn’t wake Alan up. Because they want to push the point, they show another Bubbleshock ad the next morning.

We’re introduced to Kelsey, the most annoying kid on the show and thankfully only here for this episode. She tells Maria she’d be dead at school without music channels, something we won’t see come into play in the next story which features Maria at school. Maria doesn’t like Bubbleshock. Kelsey invites her to town and Alan is more or less ok with her wondering off with a complete stranger 2 minutes after they’ve moved in. They plan to take the Bubbleshock bus to the factory which offers guided tours. This may sound extremely dumb given what the Bane want but there is technically a reason, it’s still a stupid reason which I’ll explain later.

Apparently the previous tenants of the house went mad, screaming about aliens. Sarah Jane walks by at the convenient moment and gets hounded by Alan. She hopes they won’t make too much noise. They are not students, so they won’t be partying and you don’t live next door you live opposite, you won’t be able to hear them through the walls, this is a non issue. Sarah Jane heads off without answering any questions.

Kelsy gives Maria her number, which she will never use thank goodness, and explains that Sarah Jane is 'a journalist or something'. Which she would know, how? Has she read an article of hers if so why wasn’t she sure? The bus arrives and we see the first problem of the villain’s plan is unveiled, they’re giving away bottles for free. This may not seem like an issue and more an integral part of the plan but bear in mind they still have to pay for the factory, for the plastic to make the bottles, presumably there are non-Bane ingredients to pay for, not to mention the fuel/electricity for the Bubbleshock buses. This doesn’t come cheap, and it’s not like Bubbleshock is addictive… exactly. OK and apparently 2% of people not liking Bubbleshock is a well-known fact, not a great marketing gimmick. Although, it worked for Marmite so… what do I know?

Sarah Jane follows the bus in her car, barely avoiding the factory gates. Her watch begins picking something up. The kids begin going through a security scan, one of the most advanced I’ve ever seen. Now if the US had one of those, maybe they wouldn’t need to be racist. I jest of course. OK, there’s ulterior motives at play as the data of something is transmitted to ‘the archetype.’ He’s nearly perfect, which will please ‘mother’

Sarah Jane sneaks around and uses her sonic lipstick to get inside, before being captured. Quick question, where did she get that? Seriously, the technology is not from this time period, it’s from the far future. She wasn’t given it by the Doctor at any point that I’m aware of. And only the Doctor would be able to produce one of these things. And don’t forget, The Stolen Earth/Journey’s end takes place after this episode, so she hasn’t met the Doctor again in the meantime. The head of the company, Mrs Wormwood, tells her captors to take her to her office.

Meanwhile the tour guide tells everyone to turn off their phones as the signal interferes with the machinery, a warning they really should’ve gotten before they entered the factory. Kelsey calls the guide her Muffin. After destroying more of the business’ profits, he confronts Maria, and says they’ll soon have everyone drinking Bubbleshock, the whole world. Nothing nefarious going on here, nope, nope.

Sarah Jane is brought to the office. Apparently, Sarah Jane has being to contact them for months but without success. Mrs Wormwood agrees to an interview. Also, Bubbleshock got approval for sale within 2 weeks. Nothing nefarious going on here, nope, nope. A scientist friend of Sarah’s attempted an analysis of the drink and Mrs Wormwood says she doesn’t see the point in analysis. Do I even have to say it again. Mrs Wormwood brings a bottle of Bubbleshock for Sarah Jane to drink

Apparently Bubbleshock has gained an endorsement from Blue Peter, a BBC show which isn’t allowed to advertise. Anyway, Bane was attempting to resist analysis so Sarah Jane refuses the drink. Kelsey plans to call a friend. Mrs Wormwood asks her assistant to escort her out and gives her the kill order, fortunately Sarah Jane was ready for that. Kelsey hides from some guards to make her call as Sarah Jane makes her escape.

Kelsey makes her call and a massive alarm goes off, panicking Kelsey, she sees something which makes her scream further. An eye in the ceiling. Maria goes after her as the others are evacuated. As the guards are on alert, Kelsey is captured by the tour guide, the phone is destroyed as the tour guide calms his mother.

Maria makes a call, setting off the alarm again, this time the archetype wakes up and makes a run for it. He runs into Maria and begins mimicking her speech. They both begin running. Question, why is the archetype running? He doesn’t know of the danger. They decide to hide in the womens' bathroom thinking that the guards would respect custom for some reason. Sarah Jane has the same idea.

The guards regroup on the girl’s bathroom and find an open window where they could’ve escaped. Sarah Jane uses her magic lipstick to open the gates. Trust it’s the lipstick equivalent of the sonic screwdriver, it’s magic. Kelsey is in Mrs Wormwood’s office. Sarah Jane takes Luke in as Maria confronts her over last night. Sarah Jane says she will never get anyone involved and tells Maria to go home.

Maria goes home and doesn’t think for a second of Kelsey and goes for a sulk. Kelsey tries to talk her way out but Mrs Wormwood doesn’t understand a word she says. She has discovered that Sarah Jane Smith carries residual artron energy, the same sh*t that awoke Daleks twice. Kelsey tells her where Smith lives, on Bannerman road and she must’ve moved since the old days because she’s in Ealing, rather than Croydon.

Kelsey screams again. Alan brings Maria a cup of tea and has a father daughter talk and they hug. Anyway, Mrs Wormwood knocked Kelsey out rather than killing her since she wants to avoid undue attention. She begins processing through her mind and it’s full of gibberish and a TV show that people stopped caring about before this even started airing. But she does get the address. 13 Bannerman Road, and she lives alone. She wiped Kelsey’s memories so she can’t give anything away.

Apparently, the tour guide’s name is David, he’s taking Kelsey back to Bannerman road. Sarah Jane talks to the archetype and gets some vague confusing answers, she discovers that he has no belly button and was born 360 minutes ago, implying that he was grown rather than grown, David drops off Kelsey and eyes the house of Sarah Jane. Kelsey tells Maria that David dropped him off and Maria rushes to warn Sarah Jane. And we see the alien form of the Bane, and get another scream from Kelsey.

Sarah Jane tells them to go upstairs as the Bane monster breaks in, it climbs up the stairs but Sarah Jane has a spray to keep it at bay. It’s activates its image translator for some reason before running away, leaving behind some black goo. Kelsey sneaks into the attic and finds her office, full of junk mostly, but some alien artefacts, a few photos and some research.  Sarah Jane explains that aliens fall to earth all the time, some are lost, some have crashed and other comes to invade. Meanwhile Kelsey less than suddenly says she’s into the arch-oh for goodness sake, I’m just gonna call him Luke, this is getting ridiculous. He’s not officially named Luke until the end of the episode but f*ck it.

She explains her history with the Doctor. There will be the occasional episode based in different time periods or in space but largely for budget reasons we’ll be staying in Ealing for most of the season. Kelsey is in denial as we see that K-9 is currently sealing a black hole created by a project in Switzerland. K-9 will come back later in the series but they keep his appearances minimal, probably for budget reasons.

David pleas for forgiveness from Mrs Wormwood but because he failed, he’s killed and it’s implied he’ll be eaten. Maria examines the communicator from earlier and Luke also gets a chance to look at it. Her watch starts beeping, detecting alien life, in the Bubbleshock. Of course, that’s the Bane. Slight question, why didn’t that go off like crazy whilst she was in the bubbleshock factory. Sure, she could factor down to being the workforce but there was nothing.

As Kelsey ‘motivates?’ her to do something, she calls out her computer, Mr Smith voiced by Alexander Armstrong, he’ll be important later on. But right now, for reasons, as Sarah Jane tells him to phone the Bubbleshock factory, he exposits the number aloud. This is a plot point. Sarah Jane offers them a chance to leave but of course Mrs Wormwood refuses.

“The people who fight have plans and weapons but I don’t, that’s what makes me different” so what you’re saying is… your enemies are smarter than you. That’s not a great advertisement. Mrs Wormwood contacts the Bane mother and tells her to reach out to all the pieces of herself in the people drinking Bubbleshock, including Alan and Kelsey, which means thankfully she’s not going to be in the final confrontation.

The converted people act like slow zombies going ‘drink it’ so it’s up to Sarah Jane, Maria and Luke to avoid the zombies and head to the Bubbleshock factory. They get in and Sarah Jane uses her sonic to shut the gates locking the zombies out. The lock into the factory is deadlock sealed she can’t get in using the sonic, but there’s a massive great big bus that’s capable of bursting right through their extremely cheap walls.

Of course, Sarah Jane doesn’t have a plan so… Luke was created using scans of the various people touring the factory. Their intent was to find a way to lure in the 2% who don’t like the drink. She activates a device that weakens him, not ensure why it doesn’t kill him but… Maria tries to harm the creature with her phone, it’s not all that successful but it gives Luke an idea. He has the device from earlier and can remember the frequency that Mr Smith read aloud, the memory of 10,000 humans. He’s a genius, or at least he will be soon. So, the threat is over, Mrs Wormwood gets away and the factory blows up for some reason. Also, Luke can no longer be killed by the controller thing.

Group hug, the government said the zombie mode was down to some chemical imbalance, Luke is still not wearing any clothes when he comes round to Maria’s house. Luke is introduced as her son, Chrissie is back because Kelsey’s gone and we need someone to annoy me. Luke goes some clothes on and gets his name, after a few references are done with.

Invasion of the Bane is a pilot episode, not everything’s perfect and I’m glad they kicked Kelsey to the kerb after this episode but it’s a good start and shows a lot of promise for things to come later down the line.

Rating 7/10

Revenge of the Slitheen part 1

We open with some narration from Maria, recapping the important parts of the first episode, clips included. It’s time for them to go to school. And to tease we get clips from later in the episode.

So, Luke is dropped off, with Sarah Jane uncomfortable with being called Mum, or is she, Maria thinks she isn’t. Anyway, our new character and thankfully a replacement for Kelsey walks by. There’s a new building in the school, probably to replace the one that blew up last year. Is this the same school? I have no idea. No sign of Kenny but he’s probably facing trial since he admitted to be responsible for blowing up the school. Not a smart move in hindsight.

Someone is scanning for a teacher on security monitors. It’s the Slitheen, those characters created for New-Who when they didn’t know what tone they were going for. The teacher is killed in the one of the few on-screen deaths, well, known deaths anyway.

Turns out Maria and Luke aren’t the only new people. Clyde Langer introduces himself, he’s the new character. I wonder if they insisted that he had to be black. Not angry, just curious, it doesn’t bother me, Clyde’s a great character. So the headmaster goes to do a speech and farts. This joke is juvenile and the Slitheen are a recurring species because of budget. Fortunately, they ditch this in the next story. He excuses his farting because that’s professional to do in front of the school.

He’s taking classes to tour the new technology block for some reason. Luke and Clyde talk and we see that Luke is very socially underdeveloped. This will fortunately change reasonably quickly. Clyde can smell batteries.

Clyde joins Maria for Lunch, saying it was a choice between her and the kid getting bullied. Morals, ladies and gentlemen, they don’t exist yet. He and Maria share something in common, they moved here after divorces. Except whilst Chrissie is annoying, Clyde’s father is… much worse. Even the teachers are bullying her. The school dinners are mouldy, that’s disgusting.

With school out, the two Slitheen say they plan to do a test run. Maria takes a lift home with Sarah Jane and Luke and we see Alan be a snarky bastard. I like him. Sarah Jane shows Alan the new technology block, which Alan responds looks similar to another one on the other side of town, built by a company named Cold Fire construction, it also smelt metallic.

Luke tells Sarah Jane about the social mistakes he keeps making but she brushes him off. Here’s the thing, Luke is not socially developed, many children his age could see him as a potential target for that reason. Thankfully the guy that even the teachers seem to bully keeps the bullies off him I guess.

Sarah Jane sees that Cold Fire construction has done buildings all around London. Great, Chrissie’s back… I don’t care. So the Slitheen begin their test, and the power goes out, even the torches don’t work, even Sarah Jane’s watch doesn’t work and candles? I’d guess an EMP but that wouldn’t affect candles. Things begin to destabilise, so they turn off their machine and power is restored.

The next day, Sarah Jane asks Alan for the plans for the Cold Fire building, which he has for some reason, what is Alan’s job again? Anyway, there’s a blank space with no door. Clyde begins eating in science because he’s a moron. A cold chip sandwich which gets the attention of the Slitheen teacher, he throws it away and tells a protesting Clyde to use the canteen.

Sarah Jane visits the school Alan mentioned, it’s having exactly the same problems and the one person who raised protest fell on a spike and spent 3 months in traction. It’s science club and Luke and the kid even the teachers bully is there. He shows them a ‘theoretical’ model and Luke immediately begins to solve the problem. Question, doesn’t Luke learn by reading and remembering what he reads? Where did he read a book on this?

Sarah Jane asks Maria to discover the source of the smell, she joins Luke and Clyde decides to tag along and ask probing questions Luke doesn’t have cover answers for. Sarah Jane confronts Cold Fire construction about all the issues. Luke also works out the empty space. Meanwhile Mr Jeffrey, one of the Slitheen teachers enters the classroom Maria is hiding in. Mr Jeffrey takes off his suit, as does the woman Sarah Jane was interviewing.

Maria joins Clyde and the chase continues, Sarah Jane is cornered. Luke manages to open the door to the secret room. The kid even the teachers bully opens a door for Luke and Maria. Luke finds the device and sees that it might not be theoretical. Turns out the kid even the teachers bully is a Slitheen as well.

It’s a promising opener, I just wish they’d chosen any other species really. The Slitheen’s jokes were old long before this came out.

Rating 7.5/10

Revenge of the Slitheen part 2

Luke and Maria outrun the child Slitheen, Like escapes and magic lipstick plus perfume frees Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane calls Luke and tells them a big enough smell can distract the Slitheen. Clyde uses his deodorant. This keeps them at bay long enough for Sarah Jane to let them out.

Clyde muscles his way in on the group. And of course, now the Slitheen are alone they can loudly exposit their plan. Destroy the planet, buy a fleet of warships and invade their own planet.

Moving on, Sarah Jane’s watch knows about the Slitheen, she remembers Rose telling them about the Slitheen in downing street. Luke saw inside the secret room and may be able to help. He asks Mr Smith to bring up a list of all the Coldfire buildings in London, Clyde helpfully points out that they’re all at the ends of tube lines. Sarah Jane expands the scope and they discover that Cold Fire have set up in 10 cities all of which have underground railways. I also think it might be a bit suspect for Cold Fire, a global company to only operate in London. Or are they using multiple dummy companies for this?

Luke realises what he’s done and confesses. Not sure how an equation can solve a storage problem but what can you do. OK, it’s revealed that the underground railways are for cooling and the food going off and the battery smell are side effects of living near the capacitor. More questions. One, if the capacitors cause cellular decay in organic matter, aka the food going off, why are humans and Slitheen immune? 2, didn’t anybody notice that underground railways are getting hotter? And 3, why are they being set up in schools of all things. Potentially thousands of witnesses?

Luke says he may be able to destroy the system at the school. Los Angeles has already started using the capacitors. They search for weaknesses for Slitheen but Mr Smith goes down. Clyde remembers the reaction to the chip sandwich, and they work out that the vinegar must be their weakness, it actually took them less time than the Doctor.

They next stage of the Slitheen’s plan goes into place, they turn out the sun. Giving them only 8 minutes before things actually change. Chrissie goes to visit Alan because she needs to be annoying. They get into the school, somehow, they don’t have the sonic anymore. The head confronts them but Maria eventually grows balls and covers him in vinegar, resulting in one of the 50 million slime explosions in this show. The other Slitheen calls in reinforcements, all 6 of them

Luke and Sarah Jane soon get in but are soon captured. But… Luke realises that his calculations won’t work with the power of the sun, it’ll explode. They reset the system, but with the power back, Sarah Jane’s sonic lipstick works again and they sabotage the machine. 5 of the 6 reinforcements teleport away aside from the woman from Cold Fire. They remaining 2 are trapped and beg for Sarah Jane to let them out. She accepts but they’re soon fried, the boy seems to teleport away, but Sarah Jane feels guilty.

She arranges for UNIT to deal with the rest. As we get another appearance from my favourite character, Chrissie. I’m just going to let her comic relief lie, Clyde gets some backstory and we get some warnings about Mr Smith, we get some stupid explanation for the events and we’re at the end of the episode.

It’s an interesting episode, with some nice character moments for Luke but some of it does fall apart upon deeper analysis.

Rating 7/10

Next time we look through the eye of the gorgon and see laser tag come to life.