Her Last Bow

So, the final episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It would, of course, be best of of all had these not been the final episodes at all, but that is of course not possible. Even so, it would surely have been better had there been some inkling, some forewarning of what was about to happen – because as things stand, this is not quite the ideal conclusion to a consistently strong series.

Anyway, at least both stories are strong, if tonally very different. Slightly more to my taste was Phil Ford’s The Curse of Clyde Langer. This one scored heavily for me in terms of its atmosphere and characterisations: the actual plot felt more than a little contrived when it came to Clyde’s predicament. But Daniel Anthony was simply very good indeed and actually quite affecting, and his relationship with Ellie convinced me. (Although I was rather less convinced by Lily Loveless as Ellie: a very good young actress, but she simply didn’t look like someone who’d been sleeping on the streets for two years.)

At this point I shall have my usual tedious old whinge about Who-world metaphysics and plotting – basically, the story didn’t make it clear quite how the evil totem pole at the heart of the story was benefiting from putting a curse on Clyde’s name. How’s that supposed to work then? At least give me some technobabble to work with. And, beyond this, there was no explanation as to what the evil totem pole actually was. You can’t have a villain who’s just an evil totem pole in Who-world. You’ve got to come up with some sort of pseudo-scientific rationale, otherwise this is just a spooky fantasy show rather than the putative SF Who-world series are sort of required to pass themselves off as. But a strong outing nevertheless.

And so to The Man Who Wasn’t There, which – as I’ve mentioned – is surely not the story the makers of the show would have chosen to conclude with, for all sorts of reasons. Not least amongst these is the uncomfortable fact that the story operates on one level as a satire of Steve Jobs and Apple – and, unintentional though it was, even appearing to make fun of celebrities who’ve died of cancer was a horrible misstep given the circumstances surrounding this particular run of SJA episodes.

Beyond that this was fairly satisfying, if rather knockabout stuff, perhaps a little too broad for my tastes but with some good gags along the way. A shame not to see the dog one last time, but I suppose that may be just my own preferences. (Will we ever see him again? Surely there are always possibilities.)

As I’ve said before, this is a series which was consistently good from its pilot episode to its foreshortened final series: for every story which dropped the ball somewhat (and there were a few – Lost in Time and Mona Lisa’s Revenge being two obvious examples, to my mind), there were a greater number of extremely high quality (quite apart from the big guest star episodes, there were very strong stories like The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith and The Empty Planet).

One has to wonder what the series’ legacy will be to Who-world in particular. With Nicholas Courtney’s death being acknowledged in a moving scene in the last series of the parent show, can we expect a similar tribute to Lis Sladen? I’m not sure; only six months or so separated Courtney’s death from the broadcast of The Wedding of River Song, and I’m getting the strong sense that Season 33 of Doctor Who won’t begin broadcasting until Autumn of 2012, a full eighteen months after Lis Sladen’s passing. To do it in a timely manner or not at all would be my instinct.

Were this the Rusty Era with the franchise (ugh) operating as a family of shows, I would half expect Clyde and Rani and everyone to pop up briefly at some future point, just to establish the direction their stories look set to take – but not as things currently stand. Still, fans and fanfic will find their own solutions, as always.

In any case, time to say goodbye. The way in which the series concluded is, of course, terribly sad: but that shouldn’t detract from the marvellous fact that it existed at all in the first place, and achieved such great things in its time. Till we meet again, Sarah.