One of
the warmest, fuzziest, most delightful classic Who homages in the modern Who
era. Just a lovely combination of past
and present wrapped in a wonderfully-fun Whovian package. The villains are a bit hokey, and some
aspects of the script could’ve used another pass, but the good stuff definitely
overwhelms any minor complaints (one mild, incredibly obvious spoiler.)
UNIT
troops descend on Sarah Jane’s house with a sad piece of news: the Doctor’s body has been recovered from an
alien battlefield by the avian Shansheeth, intergalactic carers of the dead,
and brought to Earth. Much to Clyde and
Rani’s dismay, Sarah Jane flat-out refuses to accept that the Doctor is really
dead – in their minds, she’s denying the awful but evident truth before her
eyes. Still, she agrees to attend the
funeral at a UNIT base in the hopes of discovering what’s really going on, and
there, she finds a friend and accomplice in another former companion: one Jo Grant.
There are
no words for how fantastic Elisabeth Sladen and Katy Manning are together in
this story. Bright, bubbly, hippy-dippy
grandma Jo makes such a great foil for Sarah Jane, and I love watching them
bond over their experiences with the Doctor.
There are classic Who
references galore – Sarah Jane and Jo swapping notes on Peladon is too fun, and
Sarah Jane’s description of other past companions she’s found online is just
beautiful – and the strong plot emphasis on the importance of memory is
altogether too fitting for a story like this.
And when
the Eleventh Doctor comes along (because, of course, he’s not actually dead,) it gets even
better. Fast and funny, big and
exciting, gorgeously emotional – it’s all good.
My personal favorite scene features two heart-to-hearts, first between
the Doctor and Sarah Jane (discussing his recent regeneration) and then,
stupendously, the Doctor and Jo (talking about why he doesn’t “look back” after
a companion leaves.) As I’ve said before,
even though Eleven looks so young – which Jo comments on hilariously – you 100%
buy him as having the same avuncular dynamic with Jo that Three did.
It’s
Clyde and Rani’s first experience with regeneration, and they both acquit
themselves pretty well. To be fair,
things have already kicked up quite a bit before either of them meets Eleven,
so there’s not a huge amount of time to react, but still, they respond both
well and believably to the new-to-them Doctor.
Rani has the briefest “Who on earth are you?” moment that, in context,
is more than appropriate, and Clyde is more fascinated than anything about the
physical side of regeneration. I
absolutely adore the scene of the Doctor and the kids crawling through a
ventilation shaft (because of course
they are,) where Clyde is cheerfully asking question after question about how
regeneration works. I especially like
that he asks if the Doctor can change his race.
1) The relevance of that question is exponentially increasing these days,
2) it’s totally something that Clyde would think of, and 3) it’s one that
carries more weight when asked by a character of color. Race along rarely factors into The Sarah Jane Adventures, but whenever
it does, they do a nice job with it.
Like I
said, it’s not perfect. The villains’
motivations are a bit murky, the Shansheeth very
clearly look like giant puppets, and Sarah Jane, Jo, Rani, and Clyde all act a
little more, “Doctor, what do we do?!” than they ought to. However, it’s such a fun, sweet love letter
to Who that I really don’t mind.
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