The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 2 Episodes 9 & 10 - The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith

The Sarah Jane Adventures continue to deify children and make the adults enjoy it even more, in this latest story - ‘The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith’.

Okay I still have the odd gripe, but you can’t deny that this series has been the most groundbreaking CHILDREN’S PROGRAMME for a long while. That’s what it’s supposed to be – a programme for kids! I wish I had something so spectacular when I was a lad! The ITV series ‘Knightmare’ was considered cutting-edge when I was young – it looks like an absolute joke now!

This story continued the high standard that this series has already set. As always, Daniel Antony (Clyde) was great and stole every scene he was in. Young Rani is looking every inch ‘a Maria’ and even Luke is looking - quite normal!

Even the writing on this series doesn’t ‘dumb it down’ to kids. We even have a returning character, created in the SJA universe – The Trickster, to deal with! The ugly one (as he’s known among kids – I think!), has to create a world of chaos, so he could feed upon it – but the only way to do that is to take Sarah out of time – again!

So that gives us the opportunity to browse, once again, into Sarah’s back-story. Orphaned as a child, we never really learned a lot about Sarah’s past life before The Doctor. We do here, as Sarah ‘gives in to temptation’ and goes through a ‘time fisher’ (created, of course by the Trickster) and tries to prevent her parents deaths.

When she does, the future changes but thanks to the ‘box’ which featured in the Series 1 story, ‘Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane’, Clyde and Rani where protected from The Trickster’s changing of history. Thankfully all is put back in the correct path, as Sarah’s parents – who quite quickly realised who the old Sarah was – corrected history.

This episode wasn’t without its great moments. For one, the appearance of the TARDIS, ‘The Doctor’s Theme’ in the background and Sarah’s running towards it – only for it to be an actual 50’s Police Box! Then there was her scenes with her parents – surely too much good acting for a kids show?

But here comes my main gripe – why does Sarah, a very experience time-traveller, who told The Doctor in the episode ‘School Reunion’ that ‘everything has its time and everything must end’ so quickly become very naive? I found it quite strange that she decided, so quickly, to break the rules of time-travel. Yes I understand the need to see her parents but Luke already warned it that it could have been a trap and she just dismissed it! I just found it very out of character.

Overall though, it was a good episode that I thoroughly enjoyed.

8/10

Next Time: I HAVE ONE THING TO SAY: BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG! BRIG!