THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SARAH JANE?
Written By: Gareth Roberts
Directed By: Graeme Harper
Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane. The story which suggests to the audience what if Sarah Jane was not around to save the day? and what would happen as a result of that.
I've never been too keen on this one if I'm being quite frank, my feelings towards this story are very similar to Doctor Who stories where the doctor's involvement is minimal. Stories like "Blink" where the Tenth Doctor's trapped in 1969 without the TARDIS. I think because this story doesn't have much of Sarah Jane in it, it's all down to Maria to work out the mystery of what happened to Sarah Jane. So this is a story that belongs to both Sarah Jane and Maria. In the sense that Maria is really the character which is leading this story forward whilst we get to know a lot about Sarah Jane's back story which has never been explored before until now.
So the story goes that some creature takes Sarah Jane Smith and Luke out of time completely so that they had never existed. In the meanwhile, a meteor is about to crash land on Earth and destroy all life on earth. Sarah Jane has a plan on stopping the meteor before it collides with earth but with her taken out of time, there is no one to stop that from happening.
There is a new woman living at 13 Bannerman road, Andrea Yates, who was Sarah Jane's friend when they were at school together. Maria is the only one who can remember Sarah Jane because the day before Sarah Jane got taken out of time, she gave a small silver box to Maria and the box itself acts as a force shield so that when time got affected it had no effect on Maria at all. It is then, that Maria gets caught up in working out the mystery of whatever happened to Sarah Jane.
It turns out that Andrea had made a deal with the devil, the devil being this creepy mysterious creature in a black cloak known as "The Trickster" who later goes on to be one of Sarah Jane's arch enemies.
So that's the basic outline of the story, it's all about getting Sarah Jane back in time so that she can stop the meteor from destroying Earth.
Commenting on something else now, It was really good to see the graske back. The graske were an alien which appeared in a webisode game at Christmas 2005 shortly after David Tennant became the doctor, and it seemed like an interesting choice to bring them into this series. They are nasty little creatures and I felt it made a nice edition, even if it was just one graske in the whole story.
Another good bit was seeing Alan Jackson prove his worth to the series, because even though he can't remember Sarah Jane, it's Alan who pretty much saves the day because Maria gets taken out of time as well, and time gets reset again so it's as if Maria has never existed, even her own Mum can't remember her and then suddenly the tables turn and something in Alan just clicks and that's what made the story interesting for me, because you just go "Yes, Alan is on it! Finally, we are getting somewhere" because the story in part one in terms of pace is very slow and boring and ends on a brilliant cliffhanger and then the pace and the excitement of the story finally picks up once Alan has the box and can remember Maria when no one else can, he clocks it and gets onto knowing the truth.
I also liked how emotionally centred the story was with Sarah Jane's side of the story, although I think the script went into a bit too much depth, and it got very personal to Sarah Jane which I didn't feel that the story really needed and as a result of that, I didn't like how simply the Trickster was defeated in this story and indeed all of the stories he appeared in, because it just got dull and repetitive. The ending was cut short for me and it wasn't that great an ending if I'm honest.
As I said before, not all that keen on this one and like Warriors of Kudlak it just lacks excitement for a while until it's picked up towards the end and then drops back down again. It's a pity that the storytelling does that and doesn't stay consistent throughout. It's another reason why I think "Invasion of the Bane" did well, as that was non-stop and felt a bit like a Doctor Who story.
Part One was a bit slow to get started because you've got all this explaining to do and then you got the mystery to work out of what happened to Sarah Jane etc. Once that's worked out it's all about how you can get Sarah Jane back in time to stop a disaster from happening in order for the world to be saved.
So yeah, lack of Sarah Jane, lack of excitement and pace and things that didn't quite add up are my mains reasons for not liking this story that much, but there are worse stories to come than this one.
I'll give it a 4/10.
Next Week: The Lost Boy (The Series One Finalie)
