N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

Perhaps the scariest thing for Luke in Warriors of Kudlak is that his Mum witnesses his first kiss with a girl. Clyde looks suitably embarrassed for him.

What comes before that makes Warriors of Kudlak arguably the least interesting of the four Sarah Jane Adventures to date. While originality isn’t necessary a pre-requisite for a great story, unlike Eye of the Gorgon, the tropes here seem a bit too much seen it-all-before. (And I’ve never been fond of the kind of dull pontificating on what makes a good warrior that goes on here from Kudlak and the Mistress.)

“I grow tired of your talk, Mister Grantham. Just bring me children!”

Kudlak, Warriors of Kudlak, Part One

I was reminded, though, when Luke offered to team up to Clyde at Combat 3000, of a time I had made a similar suggestion to a friend while at Laser Quest back in the early 90’s. As soon as I had turned my back, said friend shot me. I gave him another chance; he shot me again. Never has anyone learned the lesson of ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’ more swiftly than I did that day.

Elsewhere, Sarah Jane and Maria go cloudbusting, we get a growl for a cliffhanger, Sarah Jane subsequently gets called a cool old bird by the suitably oily Grantham, and there are more guards from the ‘planet Zovirax’ (which I found doubly confusing given the Mistress sounded a bit like Anne Reid — for no kind of explanation whatsoever, see Smith and Jones).

And there’s definitely a theme developing here. In Invasion of the Bane, Revenge of the Slitheen and now Warriors of Kudlak, it’s kids being targeted. Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise given the show’s target audience.

I did wonder how the other kidnapped kids got home, though, given they’d been taken from all over the country, but all ended up back in Ealing with Sarah Jane and the gang. Perhaps our eponymous heroine gave them the rail fare for the journey home?