The SARAH JANE ADVENTURES: THE LOST BOY
Written By: Phil Ford
Directed By: Charles Martin
The Lost Boy was the fifth and final serial of the first series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It formed the series ninth and tenth episodes and was named after Dave Pelzer's "The Lost Boy".
Following Alan's discovery of what Maria gets up to when she hangs around with Sarah Jane, he thinks it's in their best interests to move again when Maria gets upset over this she runs over to Sarah Jane's and Sarah Jane and Maria manage to persuade Alan to have a change of heart and stick around. His condition for not moving away, however, is to be kept up to date with all their alien activities.
The next day, there's a report on the news from some concerned parents who are worried about their missing boy Ashley, who has been missing for five months. The odd thing which raises shock to the neighbourhood is that when a picture of Ashley is shown on the television he looks exactly like Luke.
So what could possibly be going on? That's the focus point which raises concern in the story.
As it turns out when Sarah Jane gets Mr Smith to do a DNA scan on Luke, the results show that Luke and Ashley are the same person and Sarah Jane has no alternative but to hand Luke over to his 'parents' I say parents in inverted commas because we don't know if they are his real parents or not, from what we've been lead to believe Sarah Jane is Luke's parent, because she always has been, since the series started. Are we lead to believe now that Luke was Ashley once but was abducted by the Bane and used as a subject to their twisted experiment? Everything doesn't seem to add up, that for me is what makes the mystery of this story a compelling and gripping one.
What's upsetting, however, is after losing Luke, Sarah Jane starts to feel negative thoughts and starts pushing Maria and Clyde away. Sarah Jane gets herself down and starts to isolate herself again, it is at that point Mr Smith leads us into the sub-plot of the story if you like, with this research centre that is conducting experiments into telekinesis, their child prodigy Nathan Goss is not all that he seems to be.
Other things start to unravel as the story goes on in building up to the story having a dramatic climax at the end in order for Sarah Jane to solve and save the day just in time. And they all lived happily ever after, the end. I joke, but the ending is very sentimental and sweet, it sets a lovely tone to just round the whole series off on a whole and Sarah Jane's final monologue in the final scene at the end reprises from her voiceover at the beginning and end of 'Invasion of the Bane'. That links everything together and gives the series a nice round off to everything.
I do like this story a lot because it's a story which belongs to one person. It's very much a multi characters story in the sense that it's about Luke in finding his true identity, It's Sarah Jane's story and it's also in some cases Maria's story too. Clyde, unfortunately, is left out of it. Poor Clyde, but you can't have it all. It's also a story which was full of surprises, sorry to spoil it for people who haven't seen it but it's an integral part of the story which I have to mention. One being the Slitheen, It's a surprise to see them, although it didn't have to be the Slitheen it could have been a different or new alien. And the most exciting and shocking surprise of the piece is the cliffhanger to Part One. It was the second surprise in a story which I wasn't anticipating to be so surprising. I didn't expect Mr Smith to be the bad guy behind it all, or indeed for Mr Smith to be the bad guy behind everything for the whole of the first series.
There are lots of really good continuity things in this story which I really like and are great to have, they add nice nods to not only SJA but to other things which relate to Doctor Who as well.
The Slitheen reappear in this story, only this time wearing new slimline skin suits, something which hadn't been introduced before, so Slitheen in skin suits no longer only need to be fat people, they can be anyone you pass walking down the street.
Clips from "Invasion of the Bane", "Revenge of the Slitheen" and "Eye of the Gorgan" were shown in this story.
Sarah Jane's membership with UNIT, during her original run as a companion with the third and fourth doctors, is stated in the report by the Chief Inspector reads when she's being questioned. Attached to it is a photograph of Sarah Jane from the classic era.
The Pharos Institue was named after the Pharos project in Doctor Who's Logopolis.
K9 returns briefly, it's always nice to see him, if only for a short while.
This has been a very enjoyable, personal and in some cases quite sentimental and touching story, particularly the ending. We start off with a compelling mystery which unravels into a dramatic climax and ending on a warm happy note which leaves the audience wanting more. I was looking forward to the next series at the time and I was left thinking "that was a good series" and in a divine exercise in trial and error if you weigh up the pros and cons, this was a highly successful series of five pretty strong stories which set the bar up for the series very well.
As for this story as a story, I enjoy it a lot more than the previous two stories which came before it. I like how it's about Luke and him finding his identity and how at one point we an audience question his identity through the mystery which is presented. Is he really who he thinks he is? and you have to watch the story to find out what's going to happen. Overall, a good story with lots of mystery, action, and endeavour to enjoy over the course of an hour.
6/10.
Next Week: The Last Sontaran.
