THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES REVIEW: REVENGE OF THE SLITHEEN
Written By: Gareth Roberts
Directed By: Alice Troughton
Hello everyone and welcome to another SJA Review. In today's review, I'll be reviewing the first story of the first series of the Sarah Jane Adventures which is "Revenge of the Slitheen". The big green farting aliens from Series One of Doctor Who, come into Sarah Jane's life to cause the biggest power cut in the world's history.
So even though 'Invasion of the Bane' was the story which started everything, 'Revenge of the Slitheen' was that first story, the one which got the ball rolling for the series and as such set up the boundaries of the quality of stories to expect in this years series.
The story is set based around a secondary school and weird things happening there since a new technology block has been built. School dinners are off, teachers are acting suspiciously and farting a lot, power drains happen in the evenings and it all leads back to the school.
Maria is adjusting new life and starting a new school, but luckily for her, she has Luke to keep her company, they befriend another boy Clyde who sees himself as being the class joker and the cool kid as a way of fitting in with the rest of the class. In starting a new school Maria and Luke find that it's not all that it seems. With the aid of Sarah Jane and Clyde they discover that the teachers are not teachers but aliens called Slitheen who are former enemies of the doctor. They've taken control of the technology block and are trying to come up with a solution to an equation which if completed will allow them to switch off the sun. Sarah Jane investigates the company controlling the science block while Maria, Luke and Clyde investigate the school. In doing so they very quickly run into trouble.
And that's all I'll say about the story without spoiling it for people reading this who haven't seen it yet.
Offering my opinion on the story, in a round about sort of way it's a good story with a very simple plot to follow. With a children's programme, you can't really have what you have with Doctor Who now which is over complicated storylines and plots because the audience just think it's too confusing and don't like it, but that's just Steven Moffat trying to be clever. It's easy enough to get the premise of what the stories about in a child's mind and of course, speaking from experience watching it for the first time, I just wanted to see the Slitheen. Which seems a bit silly, given that their name is in the title, but it's all about teasing the audience for those who are so looking forward to seeing them.
It reminded me of "School Reunion" a bit. The school being a give away to that. I liked the mystery behind what was going on to the school it asks questions to work out the answers to as you're watching it, it'll make you want to watch and find out what's going to happen. Sarah Jane does what she does best, as an investigative journalist, we get to see her do some investigating which is brilliant and always fun and exciting to see.
For the majority of us who watch Doctor Who and are avid fans, will have seen the Slitheen stories in series one and will know all about them because we've seen them before in Doctor Who so we don't have to get to know the monsters or what their plans are, because Slitheen are just sooth sellers who will sell anything for a profit and they're ruthless at that. It's what makes them menacing, with the farting there to provide comic relief which doesn't always work. As a Doctor Who fan, you're watching this story and thinking you have one up on the characters in the story because when they first meet the Slitheen they don't know how to fight them and you as the viewer try to help them out with the information you know. For instance, in the scene where they work out that vinegar is the Slitheen's weakness you're just screaming at the television going "It's Vinegar!" and that is always fun. It's also reassuring for the viewer to feel they're involved with what they're watching on screen.
The conclusion to this story for me, seemed a bit rushed which was a shame. It was sort of wham bam, thank you ma'm and that was it. Clyde joins the group, the end. It's almost as if they didn't allow time to draw the Slitheen part of the story to the end in order to fit in the bit with Sarah Jane and Clyde, I don't quite know what it is about the ending which I don't like, but to me the ending scenes where the Slitheen are defeated was a bit rushed. It also left unanswered questions about what was going to happen with the school, and there's still a secret room with a reactor there which went into overload, shouldn't the school have blown up? There were just some things left unanswered for me.
Sarah Jane was good in this story, don't think we really saw enough of her get into much action. I mean yes, I mentioned before about her investigating and being a detective and using her skills that she has, and that's all great, In Part Two of the story she doesn't really do much, it's all in Maria, Luke and Clyde.
The Slitheen were good, although you could have probably come up with a different monster with that plot line and it probably would have worked just as well, if you can get passed the farting it then that's all good, I don't really mind them.
Overall, it's okay. Nothing special and for a first story, it doesn't really lift your spirits in thinking "wow! that was a great opening story to start the series!" it was just okay.
6/10
Next Week: The Eye of the Gorgon.
