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8TH NOVEMBER 2010 - 9TH NOVEMBER 2010

(2 EPISODES)

If there’s a single element of The Sarah Jane Adventures that holds it back from attaining the appeal of its parent show, Doctor Who, it’s that it is forever rooted to one place and one time. Except for once every couple of years, when we are treated to a slice of tea-time time-travelling adventure.

You’d expect that getting Sarah Jane and company back in time would require immensely contrived plot twisting. Not so - Sarah, Clyde and Rani pop along to an antiques shop to investigate a bogus report of alien sightings, and are summarily despatched back in time

on a mission. It really is pretty much as simple as that. There’s a mysterious wizard there to brief them, not that he does much of a job - he gives them no clue as to where they’re going,   only telling them that they must find objects made from Chronosteel, a material capable of altering history. They could look like anything, he claims, despite the fact that he has a handy carry case with clearly-shaped spaces for each item. All part of the job description, I suspect; I can’t help but agree with Clyde when he says that he “can’t stick these enigmatic types.” Still, Cyril Nri plays the enigmatic shopkeeper with perfect, over-the-top zeal. His potentially sapient parrot, Captain, helps too.

Anyhow, with a click of the fingers and a flick of the wrist, the shopkeeper creates a very-Primeval-esque time window, sending each of the three back to a separate point in history, with only a short time to find each object and return it to the present to prevent catastrophic temporal alteration. Rani finds herself in the Tower of London with Lady Jane Grey, Sarah Jane in a Victorian haunted house, and Clyde back in 1941 where a Nazi force is making

its way onto the English shore. Any one of these set-ups would have been more than enough to provide a cracking two-parter; all three together makes for something of a minor classic.

In reverse chronological order, then. First, Clyde’s segment: the previously unknown Nazi invasion of Great Britain. It’s hard to go wrong with a bit of Second World War adventure, and Clyde fits in rather brilliantly here, his plucky courage and charm matched nicely by his short-term sidekick, evacuee George Woods. It isn’t before long that they’re holed up in the local church, prisoners of the, admittedly small, Nazi taskforce. This could become very by-the-book, but it includes some new ideas to kick things along. These Nazis are using their segment of Chronosteel in the construction of a radar-jamming device that will turn the tide

of the war in their favour. There’re a couple of twists and turns. Even with such a small cast

of characters, and the Nazis are, quite rightly, truly hissable baddies. Satisfyingly, this is a show that isn’t scared to tackle subjects such as fascism and racism, albeit briefly; there’s no way that a Nazi officer would treat a black youth such as Clyde with the same respect as he would a white one, and he gets the brunt of his insults. It isn’t often that one hears the term “negro” on modern family television.

Meanwhile, fifty-two years earlier, Sarah Jane arrives in a spooky old house, accused of being a vengeful spirit by a young ghost hunter, Emily. Naturally, Sarah puts her straight in short order, informing her that there are no such things as ghosts. So where are the voices

of children coming from at eight o’clock every night? It doesn’t take long for it to become clear that something is up with time in this house. It isn’t completely clear whether Sarah’s presence at this point is a mistake, or if she was deliberately sent to this earlier point, yet

it’s clear that it’s the Chronosteel that’s causing the anomaly. Here, but a century or more later, it has taken the form of a key, one that has been used by a young babysitter (Look -

it’s Lucie Jones from last year’s X-Factor - how unexpected!) to lock up the two children in her care. Unfortunately, when one of them starts a fire by knocking over a candle, it ends in tragedy. It takes all of Emily’s willpower to influence the crossing timelines and undo the lock, preventing the terrible event that has haunted the house backwards through time.

Undoubtedly the strongest segment though is Rani’s. Arriving in the chambers of Lady Jane Grey, on the ninth day of her reign, can only mean one thing. If children burning to death was strong for a kids’ show, then this is something else. A sixteen-year-old girl, preparing for her execution as a traitor by her vengeful cousin, having been thrust onto the throne through no

will of her own. I wonder how many children today learn about Jane Grey. I suspect it isn’t very many - we barely covered her in school in my day. One of the great injustices of English history, Mary’s story is a tragedy that needs to be remembered by the younger generations, and a show like SJA is the perfect format. Among the two fictional near-tragedies, we are confronted with one all too real. Rani’s purpose is to remove the Chronosteel knife that will prematurely end Jane’s life at the hands of an assassin, not to save her. She still dies the following day. It’s a rather moving piece of television, hidden away on teatime CBBC, and that is down, in no small part, to the excellent performance by Amber Beattie as the Nine-Day Queen.

All three regulars put in fine performances. Anjli Mohindra shines the brightest, but then she has the meatiest subject matter to deal with. In fact, I’m particularly impressed, once again, by Daniel Anthony - watching a first series episode, you can really see just how far he has matured as an actor over the last few years. And who’d have thought Clyde would be such

a patriot: “We’re British and we’ll fight you every step of the way!”

If there’s a flaw with this story, it’s in the frequent jumps back to the shop, in which the old shopkeeper frets but adds little to the story, when what we really want to see is the three leads in their adventures. I also hope that this mysterious individual, or the powers that he works for, are featured next year, so that we may have some clue as to just who they are.

I do wonder, perhaps, that as we have had no Trickster story this year, we may in fact be seeing his opposite number. Small quibblings aside, this is one of the very strongest, most enjoyable yet mature SJA stories yet, blending three disparate storylines to great effect and even managing to fulfil classic Who’s original educational remit with no drop in pace. A real triumph. 

Copyright © Daniel Tessier 2010

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

Over the years I’ve come to expect big things from The Sarah Jane Adventures’ penultimate story of the season, and happily this two-parter continues the trend. Much like Gareth Roberts’ Trickster tales, Rupert Laight’s Lost in Time boasts a sense of scale and grandeur that manages to surpass even that of the season finale. With our three heroes each journeying to the past to recover pieces of a dangerous temporal element that is threatening to suck the Earth into the Time Vortex, this adventure embodies many of the key virtues that have helped The Sarah Jane Adventures’ parent series to endure for almost half a century.

What sets Lost in Time apart from most of its peers is its patent maturity. In three different time zones, each of our three heroes face an evil more frightening than any multi-coloured robot or MIB. Rani’s quest to recover the “Chronosteel” brings her to the Tower of London

on 19th July 1553, the final day of Lady Jane Grey’s nine-day reign as Queen of England. There she doesn’t find her path hindered by aliens, monsters are even contemporaneous human threats – her enemy is history itself, and the cruel fate that it has in store for her new friend. In 1941, Clyde faces an altogether more tangible terror in the form of a Nazi invasion force, the bigotry and evil of which hasn’t been diluted to take into account this series’ target audience. Even Sarah Jane’s 1889 thread pits her not against her usual class of foe, but fire and negligence.

And the story doesn’t offer up any easy answers. Rani can’t save the Nine-Day Queen from her fate; all she can do is comfort her as she resigns herself to it. Clyde can help to keep the Nazis out of Britain, but he can’t change his newfound friend having to take the fight to them in Europe when he comes of age. And as for the apparently-benevolent “Captain” (a parrot!) and his wizard helper, who sent our heroes on this quest in the first place, their backgrounds and motives remain as much of a mystery as they were at the story’s start. I smell a sequel.

The production feels lush and expensive, particularly when compared to The Empty Planet that audiences faced the week before. All four time periods are impeccably realised, buoyed throughout by a triumphant score from Sam Watts. There’s even an X-Factor cameo to sell this story to the kids, though fortunately she never quite manages to break into song.

On balance then, Lost in Time is without a doubt one the series’ finest stories. The three regulars are on tremendous form, particularly the two younger members of the ensemble, who continue to come on in leaps and bounds (I defy you not cheer when Daniel Anthony gives his rousing, Churchill-esque speech); the guest performers are superb, particularly Amber Beattie, who plays Jane; the script is pure dynamite, and the production values are top dollar. In short, there’s a little something for everyone for here, and more besides.

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2010

E.G. Wolverson 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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