TV Retrospective: The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 5 episodes 1-4 - Sky/The Curse of Clyde Langer

The final series of the Sarah Jane Adventures was tragically cut short after the death of Elizabeth Sladen. They had filmed everything they needed for 6 episodes, Skye, The Curse of Clyde Langer and The Man who never was, each following the usual 2-part narrative. I’ll be covering the first 2 of these stories in this retrospective, in the next I’ll be covering the final 2 episodes and will be analysing some of what the plans were for the rest of the series.

Sky part 1

Sarah Jane is star-gazing whilst narrating about her life, as she usually does at the beginning of every season. A meteor crashes into Earth, conveniently landing in a junkyard where there are no casualties. An old man witnesses it as some robot creature emerges from it. It activates cloaking but much like the Cybermen its footsteps are quite loud so it’s kind of pointless.

So, we open with the trio briefly talking to Luke, he’s going to see a band. Sarah Jane is clearly missing him about, which I wish was an arc dealt with much sooner. That night, her doorbell rings, Sarah Jane answers and finds a baby on her doorstep. She heads out to see if she can find the person who left him but there’s no sign of them. Sarah Jane takes her inside and the when she cries, light bulbs explode.

Sarah Jane quickly texts Rani and Clyde for help. It didn’t just affect her house, it was affecting the entire street. Clyde comes around with nappies to help but neither of them want much to do with a baby, even Mr Smith won’t come out with her around. Sarah Jane quickly realised the baby isn’t human. Just her luck. Clyde, having had some experience looking after a child tries to feed her to calm her down. It was likely no accident the baby came to her, she needs protecting.

Cut to a nuclear power station, where static electricity is flaring from the rails and a portal opens out of which comes the diet version of Mrs Wormwood, Miss Mires, she’s the mother of the child and hypnotises one of the workers to help her. As Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani are about to head to the park to get the baby away from the street, Gita walks in, she thinks Sarah Jane has fostered a baby, Gita tells Sarah Jane about the meteor that crashed in the junkyard. Sarah Jane leaves Clyde with the baby whilst she and Rani investigate.

Miss Mires searches the power grid for surges and finds one on Bannerman road. Guess who is investigating the Meteor? Professor Rivers, so naturally Sarah Jane can bypass the red tape. They find some footprints in the mud implying something big and heavy was here. They see the man who witnessed it but he runs off with them giving chase.

The meteor had done some damage to his radio, Sarah Jane fixes with her sonic lipstick it in return for the information. Clyde tells stories to Sky (she was named in the last scene with her) and in the process she flattens his phone battery. He does a mime act, which doesn’t go down well, and tells jokes that usually require an understanding of the English language, you know, something a baby doesn't usually have yet.

The guy tells Sarah Jane and Rani about what he saw, thankfully Professor Rivers has the tech to track him. Miss Mires pays a visit to the Chandra house, claiming they’re looking to isolate the cause of the power surge. Professor Rivers traces the metal man, heading right towards Bannerman road, with no contact from Clyde they rush back. Gita mentions to Miss Mires about the baby Sarah Jane ‘fostered.’ The metal man breaches Bannerman road, Clyde notices when the metal man is right in front of him. Fortunately it’s not very smart and he gets away. But with guns trained on him, his only choice is to trust Miss Mires and get into her van.

With Clyde no-where to be found, Sarah Jane gets Mr Smith to check CCTV cameras, thankfully he finds one quickly. Clyde’s demanding answers about what’s going on. The Flesh Kind are at war with the Metal, like the metal man we saw earlier. Sky has a destiny that could end the war. Clyde’s not having it and runs off with the baby, hiding behind 2 of the entranced guards. Sarah Jane arrives at the power station but the metal kind are not far behind.

Clyde is cornered by Miss Myres, she wants to take the baby home. They run but the metal man blocks them. Soon Sky is glowing with energy, according to Miss Myres, the weapon is primed. She ages to about a young teenager.

Not much of a cliff-hanger but ultimately a good episode, setting up intrigue as to what Sky is and who she will become.

Rating 7.5/10

Sky part 2

Sky is able to blast the metal man back but a crisis of conscience fuelled by Sarah Jane stops her from proceeding any further. Apparently, she’s a biological weapon created by Miss Myres to destroy the Metal Kind. A spark from the sonic provides enough of a distraction for them to escape. Miss Myres co-erces the Metal Man to help her track her down.

So, Sky has all the memories from being a baby at the house including some of Clyde’s terrible jokes, but she doesn’t remember anything else. She is able to control her powers now, so she can meet a very cautious Mr Smith so she can be scanned. She’s a perfectly healthy 12-year old child, she’s also a bomb that would destroy all of Miss Myres’ enemies across the universe at the cost of her own life.

Rani helps Sky with a few base terms and finds her vocabulary is limited, despite her ability to speak near-perfect English. We get to hear Sarah Jane Adventures’ morality play. All killing is wrong. In a situation as complex as this, I wish they’d handled it with a bit more subtlety, especially since Sarah Jane has hung around UNIT and whether intentionally or not, she’s been responsible for the deaths of various aliens across the universe, most notably Slitheen.

She has a genetic trigger, she will detonate upon sensing massed Metal Kind soldiers. It is possible to reverse it, but only Miss Myres can do that. Which is a problem, since it means going back to the Power Station and convincing her, which won’t be easy either. Sarah Jane agrees to help anyway. For some reason the power station has two guards now, but thankfully Sky’s abilities help them pass them with ease.

She leaves Sky with Rani and Clyde and tells them to stay put until Miss Myres is convinced to help, naturally this doesn’t happen, and neither does the convincing Miss Myres part. The Metal Kind, according to her at least have declared all Flesh enemies and the Flesh Kind are losing the war. Wanting to convince them of the child’s importance she’s used the captured metal man as a homing device, she’d going to bring the Metal Kind here in force and show the destruction they’re capable of. I really wish they’d further explore the moral greys here, but maybe it’s a little much to ask, so lip-service to it will have to do.

Continuing the lip-service to moral greys we hear from the captured Metal Man that the flesh kind tore ore from their Planet and abducted their children to use as slaves. When the Metal Kind come, Sky will activate and destroy them. She activates the homing device, but it’ll take time for the portal to activate, time for Sarah Jane to hand the child over and have her face the Metal Kind on a battlefield rather than have them on Earth.

Sky tries to convince Sarah to let her do this but she’s less than convinced. Then the moral bullsh*t from Sarah Jane starts. Sarah Jane, you’ve killed before. The Doctor is against killing too but as a last resort he will not hesitate to do it. Sky runs for it, and closes the door behind her. Sarah Jane goes after her whilst Clyde and Rani look for a way to shut down the power station, since it’s activating the portal.

Clyde and Rani find the nuclear rods, they can shut the plant but because the episode needed some false tension, they need to raise them in the right order. The order of the spectrum (this wasn't at all forced in or anything) that resolves quickly and power plant is shut down, deactivating the portal. Sky absorbed a lot of energy, and her genetic programming has been deactivated. The Metal Man takes Miss Myres away to hell or something. And the 4 rush home where we get a ‘funny’ scene with Gita and Haresh seeing the aged child and find her powers have been down-graded

In the attic they find err I forget his name and his bird, the Captain, from Out of Time. They’re the ones who delivered Sky to Sarah Jane. Sky wants to stay with Sarah and the Captain gladly agrees before disappearing. There’s a hint they were going to find out more about him later on but the series cancellation kinda put a premature end to that. But all in good time.

It’s a good story, but sometimes the simplistic morality of the leads harmed the episode

Rating 7/10

The Curse of Clyde Langer part 1

We open with Clyde drawing comics when he should be studying for history, whilst Sky is enrolling in the school. Soon fish begin dropping out of the sky, because of course… Home from school, Mr Smith scans for alien activity, whilst it is possible for it to rain fish, not big ones like the ones that came today.

Mr Smith notes that a museum has a Totem of Lost Tribes (come on, try harder than that!) A legend suggests it rained fish when it was removed from a cave. Clyde gives money to a homeless person, something which will come into play later on. They find the totem with the sh*tty name and Clyde gets a splinter from it. And we get a bit of history. A god named Hetacumtek (right) may have been trapped in here when he tried to take over the world. (I’m paraphrasing but let’s not get bogged down by details) Sarah Jane scans the device and finds nothing unusual.

Clyde gets a bonding scene with his mum and you can bet this’ll factor into the episode. Clyde goes to sleep, with the splinter still inside him

Get that goddamn thing out. Overnight, the name Clyde Langer burns on everything it’s written on. Time to begin the actual plot of the episode and it’s not a plot I’m a big fan of. Everyone hates Clyde apart from Skye, who’s alien biology is immune to whatever mental link made everyone hate him. So, Clyde just walks into Sarah Jane’s house because as we’ve said so many times, her door is always unlocked.

But before that, we get Sarah Jane looking at Clyde’s art, and enjoying it, but upon hearing his name, it begins. Oh joy. Look, I don’t like this, I mean at all, a character arc like this is better done when the character is genuinely unlikeable and this gives an opportunity to isolate him and allow for self-reflection and change but Clyde, for his faults, is not an unlikeable character. Most of his flaws have either been ironed out or have a distinct charm which means they’re unlikely to change, so this ends up being kind of pointless.

And of course upon Haresh mentioning Clyde’s name, both of them turn against him as well. Rani says she hates him and Clyde gets permanent exclusion from school, pretty sure that's illegal but whatever. Clyde nearly gets beaten up by some old friends after the ‘curse’ activates, he hides behind some bins near the museum oh and even Luke turns against him. Sarah Jane sends Sky off to school and is noticeably angry and Clyde for reasons Sky doesn’t understand.

Clyde tries to ask the guide from earlier about the curse but soon Sarah Jane comes and his name is spoken, he’s then ejected from the building. Sarah Jane calls the police to complain about being harassed. The homeless girl is watching in the background. Clyde comes home to find his mother staring at a letter for him. Guess where this is going, just guess. Police arrive to question Clyde about the Harassment charge but Clyde runs for it, right onto Bannerman road, where Sarah Jane had Mr Smith on watch to eliminate him, didn’t work.

Clyde tries to withdraw money but the screen just has his name show up and he loses his card as the police close in. OH COME ON! The rain continues to tell us to feel sorry for Clyde. The Homeless girl from earlier comes to give him her aid.

I don’t like this episode, in case I haven’t made that clear enough.

Rating 4/10

The Curse of Clyde Langer part 2

OK, so we’re past the everyone turning against Clyde bit, maybe we get some better story progression now the universe is largely done sh*ting on him.

The girl wakes Clyde up, he’s no under a bridge, with a bunch of other homeless people, she encourages him to try and make things up. Her name is Ellie, Clyde calls himself Enrico to avoid enacting the ‘curse,’ not that she believes him.  Sarah Jane declutters the attic, getting madder every time she sees Clyde’s name, Sky tries to ask why but isn’t given a response.

At the museum, lightning beings to come out of the totem. Ellie’s been living rough for 2 years, her dad died and her mum remarried which didn’t work out for her. She also mentions people go missing often thanks to something they’ve called the Night Dragon. Rani and Sky talk, but when she asks about Clyde Rani leaves in a huff

The museum curator calls in Sarah Jane to investigate the totem pole, believing there might be more truth in the Hetacumtek legend. Sarah Jane notices the eyes glowing and recommends the exhibit be closed. Clyde and Ellie begin begging for change but Clyde begins reminiscing about how things were. Yeah…

Mr Smith reveals the energy around the totem is building as Clyde and Ellie get food at a brothel, and we see get some character introduction to a few others around, also someone who can purportedly read tea leaves, something is coming and Clyde is their target. Clyde saves Ellie from some skateboarders, she calls him his lucky charm. Both Sarah Jane and Rani have had some spouts of crying, it’s like something’s wrong.

Sky goes to visit Mrs Langer, trying to get the bottom of this. She notices the Clyde’s name glow on a letter and realises the name is somehow the problem. The totem now has an ugly CGI face. In need of warmth and having to stay away from the usual hideout thanks to superstition, Clyde burns his own artwork to create fire, and the Universe just can’t stop, can it? There’s no reason for this, Clyde’s interactions with the homeless could’ve been done without having everyone hate him. They bond over this scene as the storm intensifies, and the CGI gets worse.

Sky is clever in a different way to Luke, this episode definitely showcases that, especially this half. She tells them her theory and Mr Smith verifies that at least some of it might be true and the longer Clyde is isolated the more likely it is Hetacumtek can escape, if they can say his name, maybe they can break the curse. Both struggle but eventually they manage to do it and thank god that’s over. Now plot can stop meandering and maybe get interesting.

But of course at this point Clyde and Ellie are hitting it on. Clyde thinks he can earn money as a street artist which really isn’t a bad idea. She goes to get a coffee for them to celebrate but at that exact moment Sarah Jane, Rani and Skye find Clyde. Now this puts Clyde in a dilemma. But eventually he really doesn’t have a choice and goes with them and god it’s uglier than ever.

Mr Smith teleports the totem to the attic and Clyde uses his name to destroy it, and heal his splinter thank god, that was going to bother me. Clyde returns home to his mother and I’m not sure how she’s going to explain this one to her. Clyde searches around for Ellie but finds she’s disappeared, she also was going under a false name. As it turns out, the Night Dragon is a truck that some people can take a lift from and she’s gone elsewhere to start her life anew.

OK, so Clyde’s arc was meeting and potentially falling for a new girl who wasn’t Rani, this will never be brought up again so as I said, pointless. That said, with the plot starting to take hold, this episode did have some great moments. The ending was actually a poignant one, if a little ham-fisted with it’s message. I just wish this episode had more of a meaning within the context of the show, this experience was a hollow one in my opinion.

Rating 6.5/10

Next time, Luke and Sky have their first meeting as the final story begins