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15TH OCTOBER 2007 - 22ND OCTOBER 2007

(2 EPISODES)

If I were Jacqueline Rayner, I would sue Phil Gladwin, the writer of this story. Warriors of Kudlak may be the most compelling of the first four Sarah Jane Adventures,

but that’s because it’s a blatant rip-off of Rayner’s successful Doctor Who novel, Winner Takes All!

In all seriousness, the parallels between this story and Winner Takes All are uncanny –  most notably, both see an alien race kidnap people to fight in a war by ensnaring them

using games – though to be fair, Warriors of Kudlak is arguably more effective as the people being kidnapped are all children, and of course Luke and Clyde just happen to

be children, as indeed do the show’s target audience.

Furthermore, the titular Kudlak (played by dependable BBC Wales monster man Paul Kasey) is a fabulous character. At first the viewer could be forgiven for pigeon-holing him

as just another alien baddie, albeit with a wacky oriental twang (think Nemoidians in the

Star Wars prequels and you’ll get the picture), but in the second episode especially the script really fleshes out his really quite noble depths.

Warriors of Kudlak is incredibly action-packed too, and I have to confess that I really got a little kick out of seeing Maria, Luke and Clyde on a spaceship for the first time. It’s another hit...

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2009

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Warriors of Kudlak is a pretty low-key story, but again, a fun outing. It’s an old idea – the LaserQuest-style game Combat 3000 is being used as a way of capturing kids and conscripting them into an alien war. The Last Starfighter did something similar with arcade games back in the day, and it’s become something of a cliché. It’s easy to forget, though, that for most of the intended audience, it’s the first time they’ve seen such a thing, and looking at it that way, it’s cracking. Particularly enjoyable is the way Clyde automatically assumes he’ll be fantastic at the game, only to be utterly whipped by superboy Luke.

Again, it’s the characters that make it work. Luke continues to develop - even getting a kiss from one of his fellow Combatants – while Clyde is as wise-crackingly watchable as ever.

Mr Grantham, played with sneering relish by Chook Sibtain, is a marvellous creep, and mak-es a fine human villain for Sarah Jane to square up to. However, the biggest impression is made by Kudlak himself, the apparent leader of the plot. An insect-faced Uvodni from the Orion Nebula, he manages to be a wonderfully gruesome monster, and a noble being driven to extreme acts to defend his race. Paul Kasey’s performance works brilliantly with one of the most effective, all-encompassing prosthetic masks yet seen in the Whoniverse. He also boasts the finest coat ever seen on an alien monster. The eventual reveal – that Kudlak is merely an underling of Mother, herself nothing more than a computer unable to allow the war to end due to her programming – is another cliché, but one that works well here.

Copyright © Daniel Tessier 2009

Daniel Tessier has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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