The Sarah Jane Adventures – Comic Relief Special

There is an urban myth that when a TV show makes a special sketch for broadcast on a telethon-night, it's not to be taken too seriously.

In fact, the pressure to perform on a telethon-sketch is far higher than on a regular episode. When a telethon-sketch fails, then viewers turn off, and further down the line people actually die as a result.

Somewhere out there, some poor people are dead because of this sketch.

Well, that's not technically true. For on a telethon night, the higher pressure is more accurately placed on us viewers, to like everything regardless.

So when I cringed through the same joke five times tonight, it was really my fault.

That joke, by the way, was somebody breaking wind. Yes, five times in a five-minute sketch. Four of them weren't even the first time.

Comparisons are inevitable with Doctor Who's last awful outing on Comic Relief – the marginally less flatulence-dependent Curse Of The Fatal Death. Even the "that was me" joke from there is reused again in this.

But that's the only element that I had a real problem with here. My other problems were minor.

- Rani's surprise at an Earthquake in Ealing.

- K-9's return from space to reveal that said alien visitor is indeed a Slitheen. He's not so diligent the rest of the time, is he?

- Said Slitheen's description of K-9 mark 3 as "a computer crammed with secrets from the past and the future."

Like I said, minor.

Where the sketch does take-off and succeed though, is in its presentation of countless Ronnie Corbett-related in-jokes, without ever actually breaking the fourth wall. Having a story with a beginning, a middle and an end is to be applauded too. And the production-values - there are a lot of effects in this. It's like watching a short film.

Lastly, consistent with the last series, I feel I should mention that it was all about a character who turned-out to actually be someone else inside.



Not sure why he changed, especially as he didn't try to kill them.

Maybe he'll explain later?

(Don't take my whinging word for it, watch it here! :))