THE DOCTOR WHO RATINGS GUIDE: BY FANS, FOR FANS

Sky
The Curse of Clyde Langer
The Man Who Never Was 		BBC
The Sarah Jane Adventures
Season Five

Reviews

Sarah's final curtain by Yeaton Clifton 24/5/13

"Yesterday upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away."
This is the beginning of a poem by W. H. Mearns that may or may not have inspired the title of the last episode of Sarah Jane Adventures, The Man Who Wasn't There. However, after that episode, the series was not there, and is not there again today. The series had acceptable ratings and a green light to produce six episodes, but, as the reader knows, the star of the show, Elizabeth Sladen, died of cancer, suddenly. Hence, the creators of the show could not give closure to the character because they had no way to know that the story would be over. To make up for lack of closure, the DVD contains a documentary about the character of Sarah, along with the last six half hour episodes of the series. If you live in the United States, you would not have seen the 5th season of the Sarah Jane Adventures on TV, although you can buy the DVD. This review will give a brief description of what makes this single DVD unique and interesting, without spoilers.

The main recurring theme in the six episodes is how the character Sky adapts to life with her life with Sarah. Sky is a second adopted alien who is in Sarah's care. Like Luke (who joined Sarah in the first season), Sky grew up very quickly, becoming school-aged in a matter of hours. This created challenges for her, such as learning to fit in on earth when you have no past. The character does adapt, and does in the last two episodes bond with Luke.

The six episodes contain three serials, all of which hinge on plot twists, so explaining too much about what they are about would introduce spoilers. However, it can said that the first story Sky serves mainly to introduce that character; the second, The Curse of Clyde Langer, deals with homelessness, and the finale The Man Who Wasn't There deals with slavery and commercialism. The topics are handled in subtle and thoughtful ways, and the plot twists are very entertaining.

The documentary on Sarah Jane is intended for fans with an idea of who the character is. Someone who just picked up the DVD because it was prominently displayed would probably enjoy the story, but would not make sense of the extra. The documentary tries to give insights into what makes the character work and what Sladen brought the character. Matt Smith is insightful in his discussion of Sarah as character and his experience working as a guest on her show. The documentary tells very little about the nature of her illness, except that she knew she had cancer when the fifth season was filmed, but she expected live a lot longer than she did, and fortunately fans have not been clamoring for tabloid-style details of what happened to Sladen.

Since this is the last of Sarah's adventure, the question is how is character presented in her final six episodes. Sarah is now against using weapons in principle. She had been eager for the Doctor to use a bomb to exterminate all of embryotic Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks, and she was eager for Laurence to bring a gun in The Pyramids of Mars, but the more mature Sarah is against weapons, demonstrating she grew to be more like the Doctor, and possibly more opposed to weapons than her former mentor. She no longer provides a stream of feminist rhetoric as she did in season 11, but she is in many ways more independent and assertive, so she is now walking the walk that she used to talk. She is delighted to have a family - those darling alien children - and well-adjusted to not having a man. Absence of both children and the Doctor seemed to bother her in School Reunion, but she has grown. The development of the character over time works very well.

It is a testament to Sladen that she could sustain the character. Sladen was very memorable in the first pilot for separate show starring Sarah Jane (remember K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend). School Reunion effectively was a second pilot, and it was notable the story made light of how Sladen no longer has the kind of sex appeal that Piper posses, when Sarah asked the 10th doctor "Am I getting older or are your assistants getting younger?" Older or not, she was very memorable in that performance, and got a show for younger children (an audience that did not grow up watching her). This DVD is strong tribute the way she project the character, and very much worth its price. Of course, the character cannot be dead because the earth would not survive without her.

7/10 - Recommended for all of Sladen's fans whether fans of the show, or people like me grew up with Fourth Doctor reruns on television.