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"Playtime is beginning."
After a light series opener, The Sarah Jane Adventures serves up this gritty character piece, which is as one of the best stories yet. WARNING: Minor spoilers. Read at your own risk.
The Mad Woman in the Attic opens in the year 2056, when an elderly Rani lives at 13 Bannermen Rd, and is known as "the mad old woman of Bannerman Rd". At some stage a tragedy of her own making took Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde from her and she now spends her days in the attic, mourning their loss and grieving over some terrible mistake she made many years ago. In the present, Rani is contacted by an old friend who asks for her help to find an alien who is trapped in an abandoned theme park and as you can imagine, the present and future plots are separate strands of the same story.
Mad Woman in the Attic is primarily Rani's story as it focuses on her finding her place in the world and more importantly, as a member of Sarah Jane's group. For the first time I feel that she was a fully-fledged member of the team instead of a temporary replacement for Maria and Anjili Mohindra gives a qualified performance that manages to carry the story.
The plot involves a fair bit of timey-whimey goodness, and is the most complex I've seen in a kid's show since Russell T Davies' Century Falls or the final episode of Steven Moffat's Press Gang. The plot twists and turns like a rollercoaster throughout the second episode in particular, as things that seemed sinister turn out to be benign, and others that seemed innocent end up having devastating consequences. The underlying moral story is simple but one that people seldomn follow - saying things you don't mean to the ones you love can cause a massive amount of damage. Words are generally more powerful than people realise, and are not something to be taken lightly. It was also good to see a story that didn't involve the team saving the world. By making the threat more intimate the emotional impact of this story is actually heightened and in my opinion more stories should take this storytelling route.
As well as sporting a dense plot, Mad Woman is also one of the scarier Sarah Jane episodes and writer Joe Lidster effectively builds a sense of menace throughout much of the story. Until three quarters of the way through a genuinely creepy atmosphere permeates in almost every scene but nevertheless, this is neatly balanced out by the upbeat, hopeful and quite frankly beautiful ending.
The alien-of-the-week is Eve, a playful but potentially deadly time sensitive alien who is in fact a refugee of the Dalek's attempted genocide against her people during the Time War. Eve has the ability to see people's pasts and also show them their future and her childlike playfulness and inability to understand the consequences of her actions drives much of the story's middle act. Underneath this part of the story is a subtextual warning about power being handled to people who haven't yet developed the maturity to use it wisely.
And as well as the mention of the Time War there's another scene which will make fans of Classic Who squeal with delight, as Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker appear briefly in a flashback!
In spite of all this story's strengths the plot makes little sense in many parts. Why did Samuel Lloyd leave Luke the note, and assuming he believed that his intentions were benign why was he so sneaky in the first place? It worked as a dramatic device to build the important sense of menace, but once the twists were revealed the entire buildup seemed quite silly. Also, the budget cut is quite obvious in the scenes set inside Eve's ship, as the set is clearly a few pieces of set dressing surrounded by curtains. Even so, these flaws are reasonably well covered up by effective lighting and camerawork so the production team deserve some recognition for stretching the limited budget.
Despite these few flaws, The Mad Woman in the Attic is an excellent piece of drama, even compared to adult television, and it stands as and one of the best Sarah Jane stories yet. This story just makes it into the top spot.
5/5
P.S. This week's song is an upbeat piece of pop-rock by Christian singer Francesca Battistelli.
P.P.S. The upcoming Dr.Who special, The Waters of Mars is also set in 2056 and promises to be one of the scariest stories yet. After seeing the water monsters on set the production team realised they were slightly too scary for kids so they had to be modified. Even so, this trailer was enough to give me the shivers, so any kids who find Dr.Who too scary had best not watch this trailer!
The Mad Woman in the Attic opens in the year 2056, when an elderly Rani lives at 13 Bannermen Rd, and is known as "the mad old woman of Bannerman Rd". At some stage a tragedy of her own making took Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde from her and she now spends her days in the attic, mourning their loss and grieving over some terrible mistake she made many years ago. In the present, Rani is contacted by an old friend who asks for her help to find an alien who is trapped in an abandoned theme park and as you can imagine, the present and future plots are separate strands of the same story.
Mad Woman in the Attic is primarily Rani's story as it focuses on her finding her place in the world and more importantly, as a member of Sarah Jane's group. For the first time I feel that she was a fully-fledged member of the team instead of a temporary replacement for Maria and Anjili Mohindra gives a qualified performance that manages to carry the story.
The plot involves a fair bit of timey-whimey goodness, and is the most complex I've seen in a kid's show since Russell T Davies' Century Falls or the final episode of Steven Moffat's Press Gang. The plot twists and turns like a rollercoaster throughout the second episode in particular, as things that seemed sinister turn out to be benign, and others that seemed innocent end up having devastating consequences. The underlying moral story is simple but one that people seldomn follow - saying things you don't mean to the ones you love can cause a massive amount of damage. Words are generally more powerful than people realise, and are not something to be taken lightly. It was also good to see a story that didn't involve the team saving the world. By making the threat more intimate the emotional impact of this story is actually heightened and in my opinion more stories should take this storytelling route.
As well as sporting a dense plot, Mad Woman is also one of the scarier Sarah Jane episodes and writer Joe Lidster effectively builds a sense of menace throughout much of the story. Until three quarters of the way through a genuinely creepy atmosphere permeates in almost every scene but nevertheless, this is neatly balanced out by the upbeat, hopeful and quite frankly beautiful ending.
The alien-of-the-week is Eve, a playful but potentially deadly time sensitive alien who is in fact a refugee of the Dalek's attempted genocide against her people during the Time War. Eve has the ability to see people's pasts and also show them their future and her childlike playfulness and inability to understand the consequences of her actions drives much of the story's middle act. Underneath this part of the story is a subtextual warning about power being handled to people who haven't yet developed the maturity to use it wisely.
And as well as the mention of the Time War there's another scene which will make fans of Classic Who squeal with delight, as Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker appear briefly in a flashback!
In spite of all this story's strengths the plot makes little sense in many parts. Why did Samuel Lloyd leave Luke the note, and assuming he believed that his intentions were benign why was he so sneaky in the first place? It worked as a dramatic device to build the important sense of menace, but once the twists were revealed the entire buildup seemed quite silly. Also, the budget cut is quite obvious in the scenes set inside Eve's ship, as the set is clearly a few pieces of set dressing surrounded by curtains. Even so, these flaws are reasonably well covered up by effective lighting and camerawork so the production team deserve some recognition for stretching the limited budget.
Despite these few flaws, The Mad Woman in the Attic is an excellent piece of drama, even compared to adult television, and it stands as and one of the best Sarah Jane stories yet. This story just makes it into the top spot.
5/5
P.S. This week's song is an upbeat piece of pop-rock by Christian singer Francesca Battistelli.
P.P.S. The upcoming Dr.Who special, The Waters of Mars is also set in 2056 and promises to be one of the scariest stories yet. After seeing the water monsters on set the production team realised they were slightly too scary for kids so they had to be modified. Even so, this trailer was enough to give me the shivers, so any kids who find Dr.Who too scary had best not watch this trailer!
