The Child Is Father To The Man

Sarah Jane Adventures: The Mark Of The Berserker Part 1

As soon as Sarah Jane fesses up she's off to investigate some dirty dealings in the NHS and leaves the kids to twiddle their thumbs you know this is going to be a break for Lis Sladen (I bet it's an urgent appointment to check on that portrait she has hidden in her own attic) and there is the dawning realisation that the younger actors are going to have to carry this on their own. Whilst I don't think the result makes for compelling viewing, I do think that both Daniel Anthony and Anjii Mohindra gave it all they've got to keep it working. It does suffer from the reductionist principle of having no Sarah Jane and, whilst she's away, no Mr.Smith too. Laudable as it is to let the series be carried by the younger members of the cast, it doesn't totally succeed as a story within the series own format. Where we get a Doctor-lite episode of the parent series, we do usually get a very strong script to support it and to date I would argue that Love And Monsters, Blink and Turn Left are very strong stories that operate purely because of the Doctor's absence within them and not in spite of it.

...as much as this tries to be honest about the consequences of absentee fathers it gets mired by over sincerity

Joseph Lidster quite rightly focuses in on Clyde Langer. We haven't seen his family or explored his home background yet and it's perfectly logical to do so. I love that we get to meet his mum and are given a goodly amount of background detail. Maria, Luke and Rani have had their moments in the sun, now it's time for Clyde. I just wish the story that teases out these details wasn't so crushingly, annoyingly 'worthy children's television'. The beauty of The Sarah Jane Adventures is that it is capable of telling engaging, escapist narratives for both children and adults and as much as this tries to be honest about the consequences of absentee fathers it gets mired by over sincerity and suffers with the consequence of a strained budget. No threat to the universe this week, can't afford one. We just get Clyde understanding why his father is such an obnoxious git. Match this with a subtext about drug addiction, the overweening use of power and a strong opening about peer pressure in school and you'd think this was onto a winner.

Lidster introduces us to Clyde's family via Luke having to sleep over whilst SJ goes on a bug-hunt in Tarminster. It's done very naturally and I did like Jocelyn Jee Esien as Clyde's mum. The interplay between her and Daniel is well done and she's a bit of a revelation. The sweet friendship between Luke and Clyde is also brought to the fore here and pointedly in the scene where Clyde offers to teach Luke how to draw, demonstrating a father-son relationship which is all about mentoring that's in contrast to what becomes Paul Langer's destructive effect on Clyde. The first episode basically uses a number of characters to establish what the alien pendant does, first with Jacob, then Rani, and how its power affects the user. This then narrows down to the reappearance of Clyde's absent father, Paul. The pendant then becomes the MacGuffin - the way the story will expose Paul as a weak father and reveal to Clyde why he shirked his responsibilities to his new born son. Good on paper but the actual episode is more or less a soap opera rather than a fantasy adventure story. It's little more than a CBBC version of Eastenders and the alien pendant is the only fantastical element in the story so far.

Even good soaps won't allow huge character arcs to dominate over outlandish plotting these days.

Don't get me wrong, I think Daniel Anthony steals the show with his performance and Gary Beadle is rather good as the shifty Paul. Clyde's hostility is well placed as Paul comes across as selfish and uncaring and we don't exactly get a hint as to why he's suddenly popped up in Clyde's life after five years. But this also shows up the problem with Series 2 where we've had large scale adventure stories that have mainly ignored any character development for Sarah and her young friends and now we have the series going in the opposite direction - lots of character development but to the detriment of telling a very exciting story. Much as I love Clyde I don't want the entire narrative weighed down by the anger he feels towards his father. Even good soaps won't allow huge character arcs to dominate over outlandish plotting these days.

And then you do ask yourself why Clyde would tell his long absent father about his exploits with Sarah Jane? Of course, he's trying to show off to his father, as any boy would, but I found it a little incredible that he would expose the gang in such a short space of time and so easily. It's a stretch and it's clear that Lidster had to get Clyde and his dad into Sarah's house and in contact with the pendant. Clunky and not very convincing. Mind you, I did chuckle at Paul's line , 'OK, is this some kind of trading card thing?' when Clyde reveals that he's saved the Earth on numerous occasions. Of course the big clue about Paul is his reaction to all the artefacts in Sarah's attic. He just wants to acquire it or flog it and it signposts how he exploits the alien pendant too. The build up to the cliffhanger, centring around Rani's father doing push-ups, Rani's suspicion that Paul has the pendant and Luke getting cross because Clyde has given him access to the attic is hardly the stuff of scary, fantasy adventure is it? However, it is saved by the horrible realisation that Paul has used the pendant to make Clyde forget who Rani and Luke are. A very uncomfortable moment in the plot - tense because we witness a father remodelling his son in his own image and bewildering that Clyde would actually go so far as to defend and then side with a parent who has had little positive influence on his life. It does make Clyde out as rather gullible and, to be blunt, stupid.

I tried very hard to like this first episode and there is much to admire about it. The performances are uniformly good, particularly Daniel Anthony, but, for me, it doesn't sit comfortably as good storytelling within the format of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Many might argue that this is the sort of drama that kids should be watching in the context of a science fiction series. For me, it's too domestic, low budget, worthy CBBC stuff mired within soap conventions. The second episode might very well change that but it looks like it already has one particular course already mapped out - knocking Paul Langer off his pedestal.