Review: The Last Sontaran, and my thoughts on SJA ships
Damn, this story was awesome!
Oh, and this post is rated PG-13-- just in case there are any kiddies around.
I knew I was going to love this when the very first scene passed the Bechdel Test (of course, being SJA, that's not surprising), and it only got better from there. This two-parter saw the kids in very real, personal danger, they managed to save the world YET AGAIN (are you watching Torchwood-- THIS is how you do it!), and the writing and characterisation were brilliant. I teared up several times during scenes that dealt with Maria's leaving, and her departure itself didn't seem at all contrived-- rather, it seemed like a very natural portrayal of the way that sudden changes can come crashing down on us. I love that Sarah Jane reacted badly-- it's great that she's not perfect because she's an adult-- and Luke's reaction was the first thing in the episode that made me wibble. It seemed to be a stark sort of contrast to the losses that we're used to seeing on the other two shows-- with the Doctor and Jack, the tragedy is that they're pretty much destined to lose everyone they ever cared about (except each other, which is why they should have lots of HOT TARDIS SEX, but will they listen to me? No), while here with Luke we're seeing someone losing a friend for the first time-- and not just a friend, but someone who has been with him since he was born, as it were.
Nonetheless, there were a couple of weaknesses. The smaller of these was Kaagh was a bit flat-- his "Sontar-ha!" lacked spirit, and I didn't really get the feeling that he was all that enthusiasic about his mission. I also felt that sometime he was a little bit slower than a Sontaran should be, for the sake of narrative expediency. The biggest flaw, however, is that the world seems, yet again, to have COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN, about the events of the most recent Doctor Who finale-- Sarah Jane has one comment to the effect of "I can't believe you people STILL don't believe in aliens", but that's a little underwhelming considering that the Earth was transported through space and invaded by Daleks! I guess the other option is to suggest that this is set before TSE/JE, although that only works if Maria and Alan come back at some point (because they were in Cornwall in TSE).
I prefer, however, to think that this was set after Journey's End, simply because strengthens the resonances between Chrissie saving the world and supposdely not knowing it, and Donna's fate. Chrissie and Donna-before-she-met-the-Doctor always struck me as very similar people, and I've always been inclined to like Chrissie more than most people. The moment where she jabs the Sontaran in the probic vent with her stilletto was just priceless, and I felt a real moment of concern for her when she was lying there on the floor. And, of course, the fact that Chrissie actually DID remember give me hope for Donna too-- maybe there's some sort of foreshadowing going on here. :)
While the continuity between this story and Season 4 of New Who may have been a little shaky on points, the continuities between this and Old Who were just wonderful. We get references to both The Time Warrior and The Sontaran Experiment-- and I loved that these didn't need to be explicit references, but just little details that are unimportant if you haven't seen Old Who, but make it so much richer if you have-- for instance, when Kaagh wants to keep Clyde alive to perform experiments on it, it's completely consistent with the Sontarans in The Sontaran Experiment-- although this plot device works much better in SJA than it did in the older story (which is, I have to say, one of the weaker serials of Old Who). I have to say that this is one of the things that I really love about New Who and its spinoffs-- there is so much to discover the more deeply you delve into the world. You can just watch New Who, and enjoy it, but when you watch the spinoffs and Old Who, it's like seeing a flower unfold (lol, sorry to get all poetic on you), as all these different layers begin to interconnect with each other.
I've also been thinking a lot about the potential ships that could come out of this show. As you can probably guess from above, I'm definitely seeing some potential for Donna/Chrissie, but that's really just a side-point. Luke/Clyde is definitely developing in an interesting way-- I know that a lot of people have been shipping them for a while now, but this was the first time I've really felt it between them. They've always tended to team up together, of course, but they seemed to be a lot more... touchy... this time around. I've been interested that the actress playing Rani, the new girl who will be introduced next episode, has said in a couple of interviews that she plays "a girl between two guys" which seems to imply a certain degree of romantic interest from both Luke and Clyde-- and this would, of course, mean that they were pretty much enacting Sedgwick's schema for the expression of male homosexual desire, whereby the two men project their desire for each other onto the same woman, enabling them to express their desire in a conventional way that does not go beyond the boundaries of homosociality. And if this happens, I have a fic all planned out. :)
What's even more interesting, however, is the subtext between Sarah Jane and Maria. Now, before you get all squicked out on me, I will say that I am NOT suggesting that this should ever be a canon pairing, nor am I suggesting that anyone should write Sarah/Maria fanfic featuring an underage Maria. However, I do think that there has been a LOT of subtext between the two of them from the beginning, as is argued in this blog post on Lesbian Subtext in the Sarah Jane Adventures:
The lesbian coding is rife. By the end of the story [The Invasion of the Bane], Maria has distanced herself from Kelsey and her representation of hetero-normalcy in order to hang out with "dedicated spinster" Sarah-Jane and be inducted into the reporter's secretative lifestyle - which includes associating with an alien species last seen having a lesbian affair on Torchwood. There's even a scene about half-way through that takes no effort to read as Maria, awakening to her sexuality, being rebuffed by Sarah, object of her infatuation, and fleeing in tears. Here, "investigating aliens" takes on the same subtextual overtones as "casting spells" did for Willow & Tara on Buffy. Particularly when the chief alien Mrs Wormwood can be visibly seen to be checking out Sarah's backside, and then later on acidly commenting on the reporter's narrow hips (by implication ill suited to child-bearing heterosexuality).
Although Sarah Jane refers to Maria as "the daughter I always wanted" when they say goodbye, the relationship between the two of them has always been much more like that of equals than mother and daughter-- this comes through most strongly in Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, where Sarah Jane designates Maria as the person she trusts most (in opposition to Luke), and it is also stated explicitly in the audiobook The Glittering Storm, in which Sarah Jane directly refers to Maria as "my partner".
Furthermore, in some ways, the age gap between Sarah Jane and Maria actually makes this subtext more compelling, when SJA is contextualised by both Doctor Who And Torchwood-- given that the primary canon ships in both these shows-- Doctor/Rose, and Jack/Ianto-- also feature high degrees of age disparity. Indeed, Sarah Jane and Maria are actually closer in age than either of these two couples-- and they have the lowest age ratio of Older Partner:Younger Partner: the Doctor is approximately 45 times older than Rose, while Jack-- before he was buried alive for 2000 years-- is approximately 6 times older than Ianto; in contrast Sarah Jane is only 4 times Maria's age. And while I do firmly believe that there is a BIG difference between embarking on a relationship with an older person in your 20s than in your teens (that's why we have Age of Consent laws, after all), when you consider the high degree of agency that Jack and the Doctor have in contrast to Ianto and Rose, it could be argued that, if Sarah Jane and Maria DID hook up in a few years, they'd potentially have the most egalitarian relationship of the lot. Of course, the Doctor and Rose weren't allowed to officially hook up in canon until Rusty gave us a version of the Doctor that had lost a lot of his agency-- no TARDIS and no near-immortality-- but Ten II still had almost a full millennium of experience on Rose, not to mention his TIEM BRANE, which is capable of things that Rose, as a full human, never has a chance of understanding without her brain burning to a crisp-- so I think my point still stands.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this-- as I said before, I do NOT think we should be writing Sarah Jane/Maria where Maria is underage-- but I do find the subtext very compelling, and I think, within the context of all three shows, there are some good reasons for that.
Oh, and this post is rated PG-13-- just in case there are any kiddies around.
I knew I was going to love this when the very first scene passed the Bechdel Test (of course, being SJA, that's not surprising), and it only got better from there. This two-parter saw the kids in very real, personal danger, they managed to save the world YET AGAIN (are you watching Torchwood-- THIS is how you do it!), and the writing and characterisation were brilliant. I teared up several times during scenes that dealt with Maria's leaving, and her departure itself didn't seem at all contrived-- rather, it seemed like a very natural portrayal of the way that sudden changes can come crashing down on us. I love that Sarah Jane reacted badly-- it's great that she's not perfect because she's an adult-- and Luke's reaction was the first thing in the episode that made me wibble. It seemed to be a stark sort of contrast to the losses that we're used to seeing on the other two shows-- with the Doctor and Jack, the tragedy is that they're pretty much destined to lose everyone they ever cared about (except each other, which is why they should have lots of HOT TARDIS SEX, but will they listen to me? No), while here with Luke we're seeing someone losing a friend for the first time-- and not just a friend, but someone who has been with him since he was born, as it were.
Nonetheless, there were a couple of weaknesses. The smaller of these was Kaagh was a bit flat-- his "Sontar-ha!" lacked spirit, and I didn't really get the feeling that he was all that enthusiasic about his mission. I also felt that sometime he was a little bit slower than a Sontaran should be, for the sake of narrative expediency. The biggest flaw, however, is that the world seems, yet again, to have COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN, about the events of the most recent Doctor Who finale-- Sarah Jane has one comment to the effect of "I can't believe you people STILL don't believe in aliens", but that's a little underwhelming considering that the Earth was transported through space and invaded by Daleks! I guess the other option is to suggest that this is set before TSE/JE, although that only works if Maria and Alan come back at some point (because they were in Cornwall in TSE).
I prefer, however, to think that this was set after Journey's End, simply because strengthens the resonances between Chrissie saving the world and supposdely not knowing it, and Donna's fate. Chrissie and Donna-before-she-met-the-Doctor always struck me as very similar people, and I've always been inclined to like Chrissie more than most people. The moment where she jabs the Sontaran in the probic vent with her stilletto was just priceless, and I felt a real moment of concern for her when she was lying there on the floor. And, of course, the fact that Chrissie actually DID remember give me hope for Donna too-- maybe there's some sort of foreshadowing going on here. :)
While the continuity between this story and Season 4 of New Who may have been a little shaky on points, the continuities between this and Old Who were just wonderful. We get references to both The Time Warrior and The Sontaran Experiment-- and I loved that these didn't need to be explicit references, but just little details that are unimportant if you haven't seen Old Who, but make it so much richer if you have-- for instance, when Kaagh wants to keep Clyde alive to perform experiments on it, it's completely consistent with the Sontarans in The Sontaran Experiment-- although this plot device works much better in SJA than it did in the older story (which is, I have to say, one of the weaker serials of Old Who). I have to say that this is one of the things that I really love about New Who and its spinoffs-- there is so much to discover the more deeply you delve into the world. You can just watch New Who, and enjoy it, but when you watch the spinoffs and Old Who, it's like seeing a flower unfold (lol, sorry to get all poetic on you), as all these different layers begin to interconnect with each other.
I've also been thinking a lot about the potential ships that could come out of this show. As you can probably guess from above, I'm definitely seeing some potential for Donna/Chrissie, but that's really just a side-point. Luke/Clyde is definitely developing in an interesting way-- I know that a lot of people have been shipping them for a while now, but this was the first time I've really felt it between them. They've always tended to team up together, of course, but they seemed to be a lot more... touchy... this time around. I've been interested that the actress playing Rani, the new girl who will be introduced next episode, has said in a couple of interviews that she plays "a girl between two guys" which seems to imply a certain degree of romantic interest from both Luke and Clyde-- and this would, of course, mean that they were pretty much enacting Sedgwick's schema for the expression of male homosexual desire, whereby the two men project their desire for each other onto the same woman, enabling them to express their desire in a conventional way that does not go beyond the boundaries of homosociality. And if this happens, I have a fic all planned out. :)
What's even more interesting, however, is the subtext between Sarah Jane and Maria. Now, before you get all squicked out on me, I will say that I am NOT suggesting that this should ever be a canon pairing, nor am I suggesting that anyone should write Sarah/Maria fanfic featuring an underage Maria. However, I do think that there has been a LOT of subtext between the two of them from the beginning, as is argued in this blog post on Lesbian Subtext in the Sarah Jane Adventures:
The lesbian coding is rife. By the end of the story [The Invasion of the Bane], Maria has distanced herself from Kelsey and her representation of hetero-normalcy in order to hang out with "dedicated spinster" Sarah-Jane and be inducted into the reporter's secretative lifestyle - which includes associating with an alien species last seen having a lesbian affair on Torchwood. There's even a scene about half-way through that takes no effort to read as Maria, awakening to her sexuality, being rebuffed by Sarah, object of her infatuation, and fleeing in tears. Here, "investigating aliens" takes on the same subtextual overtones as "casting spells" did for Willow & Tara on Buffy. Particularly when the chief alien Mrs Wormwood can be visibly seen to be checking out Sarah's backside, and then later on acidly commenting on the reporter's narrow hips (by implication ill suited to child-bearing heterosexuality).
Although Sarah Jane refers to Maria as "the daughter I always wanted" when they say goodbye, the relationship between the two of them has always been much more like that of equals than mother and daughter-- this comes through most strongly in Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, where Sarah Jane designates Maria as the person she trusts most (in opposition to Luke), and it is also stated explicitly in the audiobook The Glittering Storm, in which Sarah Jane directly refers to Maria as "my partner".
Furthermore, in some ways, the age gap between Sarah Jane and Maria actually makes this subtext more compelling, when SJA is contextualised by both Doctor Who And Torchwood-- given that the primary canon ships in both these shows-- Doctor/Rose, and Jack/Ianto-- also feature high degrees of age disparity. Indeed, Sarah Jane and Maria are actually closer in age than either of these two couples-- and they have the lowest age ratio of Older Partner:Younger Partner: the Doctor is approximately 45 times older than Rose, while Jack-- before he was buried alive for 2000 years-- is approximately 6 times older than Ianto; in contrast Sarah Jane is only 4 times Maria's age. And while I do firmly believe that there is a BIG difference between embarking on a relationship with an older person in your 20s than in your teens (that's why we have Age of Consent laws, after all), when you consider the high degree of agency that Jack and the Doctor have in contrast to Ianto and Rose, it could be argued that, if Sarah Jane and Maria DID hook up in a few years, they'd potentially have the most egalitarian relationship of the lot. Of course, the Doctor and Rose weren't allowed to officially hook up in canon until Rusty gave us a version of the Doctor that had lost a lot of his agency-- no TARDIS and no near-immortality-- but Ten II still had almost a full millennium of experience on Rose, not to mention his TIEM BRANE, which is capable of things that Rose, as a full human, never has a chance of understanding without her brain burning to a crisp-- so I think my point still stands.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this-- as I said before, I do NOT think we should be writing Sarah Jane/Maria where Maria is underage-- but I do find the subtext very compelling, and I think, within the context of all three shows, there are some good reasons for that.