The Sarah Jane Adventures...
Initially I hadn't planned to watch The Sarah Jane Adventures. I don't much like most kid's shows, and even though Sarah Jane was delightful in "School Reunion" I hadn't much interest. Then I saw a trailer for the show, and thought, "I want to watch that." The mark of a really good trailer.
So I watched it. Enjoyed it, though it kept up a sort of oscillating continuum of things I liked and things I didn't. Rubber monsters? Oh dear.
I've heard Russell T. Davies and other producers make the point several times that the adult material of Torchwood and the kids' material of Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures would not cross over in any way. So it came as a surprise to see Sarah Jane, in one of the first scenes, talking to an alien who looked like Toshiko's girlfriend in the Torchwood episode "Greeks Bearing Gifts". My first thought was, of course, that Sarah Jane had an alien girlfriend. She turns out to be a friend who is a poet; and Tosh's girlfriend, of course, was a murderer and a heart-eater, a criminal of her race. Tosh would have done better with a poet.
Stuff I disliked:
(1) The Willy Wonka nature of the plot.
(2) Kelsey Harper, Maria's friend, who is annoying. Owen Harper in Torchwood is also annoying. But James Harper was not. I guess I can absolve Russell T. Davies of a grudge against people named Harper.
(3) Plastic monsters.
(4) Monsters who operate from the ceiling. I thought that was absurd in the Doctor Who episode "The Long Game" and it was no better here. Does Russell T. Davies think ceiling-monsters are scary? I prefer closet-monsters, as in "Fear Her".
Stuff I liked:
(1) Maria Jackson, the young protagonist. I thought she looked a little like Indira Varma and she had a lot of style and charm.
(2) Luke. Interesting character, engagingly portrayed.
(3) Maria's father. He was terrific. (Her mother was just weird, but presumably mostly absent.)
(4) Maria and her father have William Morris wallpaper in their house. I loved that. Of course, it was probably the doing of the former tenants. I hope they don't cover it up.
(5) The corporate-alien-villain nature of the plot. And the set design on the evil soft drink factor - terrific visuals.
(6) Sarah Jane's references to the Doctor as "a very special man".
(7) Sarah Jane herself. There were many things I liked about her that strike me as fairly unusual on television - the 'successful single woman' angle done right. Her cool house. He comment that "There are two kinds of people. Those who panic, and then there's us."
(7) A line from Sarah Jane that struck me as being very like something out of Doctor Who: "The people I fight have plans and weapons but I don't. It's what makes me different." The point has been made that the Doctor wins by having no plan, by playing things by ear. Seems to me that this is contrary to the usual received wisdom of the popular media, where 'having a plan' is a good thing. (Teamwork too.) I love it that this isn't the case in these shows.