THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES: THE LAST SONTARAN
Written By: Phil Ford
Directed By: Joss Agnew
The Last Sontaran, the story which started the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures on the 29th September 2008. It was the first time a Sontaran appeared in the series and most importantly, it marked the departure of Maria Jackson.
This story starts off as being a reminisce of the old days, Sarah Jane and Maria are gazing up at the night sky recalling on all the things they've seen and looking forward to what other dangers are about to come. That in itself is a nice lead into the adventure which takes place in this story, basically strange things are happening at a research station and no one quite knows who or what is the cause of it, Sarah Jane and her friends go to investigate and upon investigation, Sarah Jane finds out something she wasn't expecting to discover. - There's a Sontaran on earth.
As far as first stories go in regards to setting up a new series, I'm quite glad it started with the Sontaran story first. It's always good to play series strengths and bring back some old favourites from Doctor Who, and an enemy of which is relevant to Sarah Jane because she's met two Sontarans, both different in terms of appearance and rank. But both of those times, she had the doctor with her. This is the first time she takes on a Sontaran on her own. I think that's what makes it quite a thrilling task for Sarah Jane especially, it's the fact that she's up against a ruthless enemy, she knows what they're like and yet she's still determined to take them on.
The Sontaran itself is held back through bits of Part One, you don't really see the Sontaran too soon or that often until right towards the end of the episode, and even then there's still a lot of unanswered questions of who is this Sontaran?, what is it doing on earth?, what is it planning? and all of this is worked into the episode cliffhanger, so a result of the mystery of holding back what is behind the cause of the strange things happening at the research centre which I think is pretty pointless regarding that we know it's a Sontaran because the word "Sontaran" is in the title. It's all about teasing the audience into seeing it. Parts of the story could've been explained sooner to allow the action to develop quicker.
The mystery in this sort of related back to me as the sort of the eeriness of stories like "The Moonbase" which was very effective on the story telling, especially when characters had an uncomfortable feeling of being watched.
The peril in this seems to be very dangerous, there's a great sense of threat in this story, of which was rather sorted out very simply. And there are some Doctor Who stories like that, there's a big danger or a big sense of threat, it all looks as if the world is going to end and then suddenly something so simple happens to sort it all out. That's the stories problem for me, resolutions to things which are just a bit too much on the safe side. Which is a shame because I thought Kaagh's plan was a really good one and he very nearly succeed. The only flaw to his plan was Kaagh himself, because everything Sarah Jane and the gang could come with were very simple ways of delaying or fighting and Kaagh allowed himself to be beaten by Sarah Jane and a gang of teenagers. How embarrassing. Into that as well as Maria's sop story about leaving which of course added the emotional element to the story, she doesn't know if she should move away or stay but it was so clear that she was going, but there's that thrown into the mix on top of everything else.
In short this episode is good in some cases and not so good in others, and it didn't exactly do Maria any justice because she hardly did anything in this story. It was sort of like the last chance to see Maria, Alan and Chrissie for one last story. It was good to see Alan Jackson in on the scene and doing something to help because Maria rings him to go into the attic and talk to Mr Smith so they can get a profile on the Sontarans so they can discover Kaagh's weaknesses. The comedy element is Chrissie finding out as well so now she's involved in it all.
The ending was a bit rubbish in regards to how the problem was solved, but the actual way the story ended with saying goodbye to Maria I thought was done nicely. I particularly liked the scene with Maria and Sarah Jane. It was very well acted. So that was good.
All in all this story has a lot of potential only to be let down by simple things.
6/10.
Next Week: Day of the Clown.
