The Sarah Jane Adventures: Warriors Of Kudlak

A by-the-numbers tale which manages to be rather fun.

Free of Maria's parents, there's real room to get involved in the story, and towards the end I found I had let my guard down and started trusting the show. (perhaps because it was so obvious what was coming!)

And this is probably symptomatic of just how deliberately this show is aiming to be original Doctor Who in all but name. Quite apart from her sonic lipstick, wisecracking encounters and detective work, in this story Sarah Jane builds an eccentric-looking scientific device out of odds and ends, and starts rattling-off lots of complicated technobabble to Maria about how to operate it.


Sarah has obviously been taking some advanced science lessons since she first raised her eyebrows at Brendon's explanation of K-9's tristate bus driver in 1981. (or thereabouts)

She also claims to have had UNIT training, although as far as I know she's never been employed by UNIT.

Any suspicion that the author was faking familiarity with the character is outweighed however by the dialogue. This is Sarah in her element and, it must be said, Maria, Luke and Clyde all seem to be living for it too.

If the show keeps this standard up, then there's really no excuse for the one that's been going out on Saturday nights.