N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
Almost yer classic game of two halves is series three of The Sarah Jane Adventures (insomuch that half the series is solid but unspectacular and half of it really is excellent).
“As we all know, there’s nothing more important than friendship.”
Sarah Jane, The Gift, Part Two
There was lots of stuff I didn’t remember too — with The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith being the only story for which I had any really clear memories. It is the one with the Doctor, after all!
But perhaps what’s most striking about Series Three is how firm the bond of friendship between Luke, Clyde and Rani (and of course Sarah Jane) has become. Whether it’s Clyde and Rani running around a haunted mansion together or the three of them chasing an angry Mona Lisa around an art gallery, you get a genuine sense that this is three kids at ease in each other’s company, taking the mickey, making crap jokes, having each other’s backs.
It makes Old Rani’s sadness at having seemingly lost it all in The Mad Woman in the Attic all the more poignant.
I do have one minor gripe with the Series Three DVD — well, two!
One, that despite the series being made in HD, there has been no blu-ray release of it (actually a common complaint for me as far as BBC television shows go), and two, much like Doctor Who‘s webisodes (the TARDISodes and Monster Files), the online Alien Files weren’t included as extras; indeed, the Series Three DVD is generally extra-lite.
Still, if The Sarah Jane Adventures ever gets a Collection-type Blu-ray release, it will give them a change to fix the ‘humaniod’ typo on the Blathereen mini-sode!