The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith

[meddow]

This week on the Clyde LangerSarah Jane Adventures, the Doctor continues to be bad at weddings...

This serial had the potential to be as bad as The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith (which was so bad it's been hard for me to love the show as much as I did back in series one) and I was watching it wondering if at any moment it would announce that Sarah Jane could not possibly be happy without a husband etc, etc. Thankfully it successfully managed to not make me ragey or cringe at all, or turn Sarah into Rose like it did in Temptation, and Lis Sladen pulled off the heavy scenes for the most part.

Anyway, thoughts (with bullet points this week):

• Poor Sarah. Not only heartbroken, but publicly humiliated. Again.


• I've been looking forward to the Doctor making a guest appearance on SJA since the series began. Now he has, I have to say that the Doctor's presence didn't add all that much. Tennant was great and all, but I think it was the lack of character development made the Doctor's presence, altough welcome, somewhat superfluous. Although, that last scene of the door closing on him, that made me all a bit sad for what is to come.


• I wonder where RTD's Whoniverse's obsession with weddings and brides stems from. To date we have: Father's Day, The Runaway Bride, A Day in the Death, Something Borrowed and now The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.


• Just when I don't think I can love Clyde any more, he goes ahead and decided to taken on the Trickster all by himself. It's gotten to the point where Clyde just steals the whole show, and managing to do that in an episode with the Doctor in it is a bloody impressive feat. Why has he not made a shift to the mother show and become a proper Companion again?


• I think we have official confirmation that poor Luke is the tin dog of SJA, what with being left behind with K9 to watch for the TARDIS while Clyde and Rani go off with the Doctor. Is Tommy Knight only working part time? Because it's been this way the whole of series three so far


• The everyone-meets-Peter scene with an alien slug on the loose and K9 trying to be covert was utterly hilarious.


• The Luke-bonds-with-Peter bit was done so incredibly well. There wasn't all that much time devoted to Sarah and Peter's romance, but if found it believable that she and Peter would be happy together.


• I like poor doomed Peter. I love that he was naive rather than evil. And yes, Post-naivety!Peter/Sarah - I ship it. They are actually quite adorable and I could imagine him hanging about politely offering tea to whatever lost alien Sarah's brought home this time.


• On the other hand, a mind controlling engagement ring is a terrible idea, and yay for Sarah getting suitably pissed off about the whole thing.


• Of the three serials of this series so far, Sarah's been either possessed or mind controlled twice. Please move away from the Hinchcliffe era, writers.


• Yay for an explination about the Sarah vs Sarah Jane name thing, or at least an acknowledgment that Sarah was Sarah to the Doctor and not Sarah Jane.


• Clyde gets anothe bullet point because I want to mention just how much I love this character. I remember back in the first series when he was the wise-cracking comic relief kid with little screen time or development. Now he's still the wise-cracking comic relief kid, but he's also self-sacrificing, just a little bit over-protective of Sarah and Luke and so incredibly mature beyond his years. He strikes me as incredibly Donna-esq, in that he appears rather superficial and on the surface and not considered 'special', but scratch the surface as the show often does and the character's complexity, stength and heart really comes through, and that makes him special. And Daniel Anthony gives the character so much life. Clyde has really become the highlight of SJA for me. And he wasn't mentioned last week in Rani's future, so I wonder what happens to him in the future.

Anyway, I love this series so much.