Category: Season 3

Under the control of Androvax the Annihilator, Sarah has returned to a genetic engineering lab that she’s been investigating, and sets the lab’s wealth of nanoforms to the task of rebuilding Androvax’s ship… and then to the destruction of Earth. Judoon Captain Tybo and the kids arrive at the same lab, pursuing Androvax – and the rest of his Judoon platoon will arrive on Earth at any moment. If they can’t come up with a way to get Androvax out of Sarah’s body, the race is on to see who will destroy Earth first: Androvax or the Judoon, who will let nothing and no one keep them from their quarry.

written by Phil Ford
directed by Joss Agnew
music by Sam Watts and Dan Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Mina Anwar (Gita Chandra), Ace Bhatti (Haresh Chandra), Terence Maynard (Madison Yorke), Robert Curtis (Security Man), Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith), Paul Kasey (Captain Tybo), Nicholas Briggs (voice of Captain Tybo), Mark Goldthorp (Androvax)

Notes: This episode offers the Doctor Who universe explanation of the 1947 Roswell incident, and mentions the “Dreamland base,” tying into a CG-animated Doctor Who adventure, Dreamland, broadcast toward the end of the third season of The Sarah Jane Adventures. The new Doctor Who series had previously mentioned Roswell, with the ninth Doctor encountering the “mileometer from the Roswell spacecraft” in Henry Van Statten’s underground museum in the 2005 episode Dalek. Being taken over is practically a hobby for Sarah Jane: she fell under the thrall of the giant spiders of Metebelis 3 (a.k.a. Planet Of The Spiders), and by Eldrad of Kastria in her final story as a Doctor Who regular, The Hand Of Fear. And speaking of the Pertwee years, the Judoon sentence Luke, Rani and Clyde (and possible Sarah) to exile on Earth; the good news is that they seldom leave it anyway, so they probably won’t be sitting around in a lab trying to fix a dematerialization circuit for years on end…

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A boy wanders into a vacant house on Bannerman Road in 2059, finding an old woman living a hermit-like existence. She says her name is Rani Chandra, and begins to tell the boy of the adventures she had 50 years ago with her friends Luke, Clyde and Sarah Jane Smith. She also recounts the tale of how she came to be the hermit she is now – the tale of a demon living in an abandoned amusement park, the one monster from whom her friends couldn’t save her.

written by Joseph Lidster
directed by Alice Troughton
music by Sam Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith), Souad Faress (Old Rani), Gregg Sulkin (Adam), Brian Miller (Harry), Toby Parkes (Sam), Eleanor Tomlinson (Eve), Kate Fleetwood (Ship)

Notes: Brian Miller, appearing as the somewhat suspicious amusement park proprietor, is the husband of Elisabeth Sladen; this is far from his first appearance in the Doctor Who universe, as he provided Dalek voices in Resurrection Of The Daleks (1984) and Remembrance Of The Daleks (1988), and appeared “in the flesh” in 1982’s Snakedance. Souad Faress previously appeared in the 1979 Blake’s 7 episode Horizon – in which Brian Miller also appeared.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A face in the mirror – the artificial intelligence at the heart of Eve’s stranded spacecraft – peers into the minds of Sarah, Luke and Rani, picking out their past and predicting their futures. In Sarah’s future, she sees the return of the TARDIS, but for Rani’s future, she sees nothing except the life of a hermit in what was once Sarah’s attic – a future that seems inescapable. Sarah and Clyde find Rani and meet Eve, and Rani tries to convince her friends that Eve isn’t a force of evil, but simply needs their help. Even if she convinces everyone that this is true, is she right?

written by Joseph Lidster
directed by Alice Troughton
music by Sam Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith), Souad Faress (Old Rani), Gregg Sulkin (Adam), Brian Miller (Harry), Toby Parkes (Sam), Eleanor Tomlinson (Eve), Kate Fleetwood (Ship), John Leeson (voice of K-9), Jai Rajani (Shuresh)

Appearing in footage from Planet Of The Spiders: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor)

Appearing in footage from The Hand Of Fear: Tom Baker (The Doctor)

Notes: For the first time in The Sarah Jane Adventures, footage from Sarah’s travels in the classic Doctor Who series is shown, namely her introduction to the third Doctor in The Time Warrior, the possessed Sarah attacking the third Doctor in Planet Of The Spiders (his final story), and Sarah’s farewell to the fourth Doctor in The Hand Of Fear. This is only the second time that classic Doctor Who footage has been incorporated into a modern episode from the Doctor Who universe (the first being a brief sequence in the Doctor Who Christmas special The Next Doctor).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Sarah, Rani and Clyde pay a visit to Ashen Hill Manor, reputedly the most haunted house in England. Professor Rivers and her somewhat smug assistant Toby have already set up shop in the house, looking for spikes in electromagnetic readings and other signs of paranormal activity. Despite Sarah’s reassurances that there are no such things as ghosts, strange things begin occurring almost immediately, including Rani’s sighting of Erasmus Darkening, an alchemist who supposedly conducted dark experiments in a lab beneath the manor in the 1600s. When Professor Rivers vanishes without a trace, even Sarah Jane has to admit that something strange is happening.

written by Phil Ford
directed by Alice Troughton
music by Sam Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Floella Benjamin (Professor Rivers), Donald Sumpter (Erasmus Darkening), Callum Blue (Lord Marchwood), Adam Gillen (Toby Silverman), Amelia Clarkson (Elizabeth Marchwood), Rhys Gear (Joseph Marchwood)

Note: Floella Benjamin has appeared as Professor Rivers in parts 1 & 2 of season 1 finale The Lost Boy, and in part 2 of season 2’s Day Of The Clown. Absent from this episode is Tommy Knight as Luke.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Clyde and Rani make an amazing discovery while exploring the catacombs in which Erasmus Darkening reportedly conducted his alchemy experiments, finding advanced electronics. But it soon becomes apparent that Darkening isn’t the only “ghost” on the premises – and not all of them are under Darkening’s power. In fact, some of these apparitions may prove to be more than willing to help in the fight against Darkening’s power. But will help from the other side be enough? Sarah still can’t bring herself to believe in ghosts, despite the mounting evidence.

written by Phil Ford
directed by Alice Troughton
music by Sam Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Floella Benjamin (Professor Rivers), Donald Sumpter (Erasmus Darkening), Callum Blue (Lord Marchwood), Adam Gillen (Toby Silverman), Amelia Clarkson (Elizabeth Marchwood), Rhys Gear (Joseph Marchwood), Tony Boncza (Mr. Scriven)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Clyde’s artwork lands in a local gallery, winning his class a trip there and a rare opportunity to see a prized piece of art on loan from the Louvre: the Mona Lisa itself. But when the legendary painting is unveiled, it isn’t the Mona Lisa at all – it’s an image of one of the gallery’s employees, trapped inside the painting. The news spreads quickly that the Mona Lisa has been stolen, and police pour into gallery. The woman who most people associate with the Mona Lisa is, in fact, on the loose in the gallery: she has escaped the painting and has at least a limited existence as flesh and blood. She arms herself with the Sontaran blaster depicted in Clyde’s painting and begins to trap the police in other paintings throughout the gallery. Only Luke, Clyde and Rani remain – until Sarah herself walks into the gallery, and into the Mona Lisa’s trap.

written by Phil Ford
directed by Joss Agnew
music by Sam Watts & Dan Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Suranne Jones (Mona Lisa), Ace Bhatti (Haresh), Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith), Jeff Rawle (Mr. Harding), Liza Sadovy (Miss Trupp), Lizo Mzimba (himself)

Notes: The gallery scenes were filmed at the Welsh National Temple of Peace and Health, which explains its resemblance to the space station in the Doctor Who episode The End Of The World, which also used it as a location.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Sarah has been trapped in a painting by the Mona Lisa, who will stop at nothing to find her brother, who is also encased in a painting elsewhere in the gallery. When Luke, Clyde and Rani try to interfere, a gun-toting highwayman from another painting is sent after them. Clyde is captured and brought before the Mona Lisa, who plans to keep him as an insurance policy against the others – and the means to free her brother and devour all life on Earth. With Sarah unable to help them, Luke sees no choice but to give the Mona Lisa what she wants… unless he can do what his mother has always done, and come up with a plan to save the world.

written by Phil Ford
directed by Joss Agnew
music by Sam Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Suranne Jones (Mona Lisa), Ace Bhatti (Haresh), Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith), Jeff Rawle (Mr. Harding), Liza Sadovy (Miss Trupp), Paul Kasey (Highwayman), John Leeson (voice of K-9)

Notes: The Mona Lisa itself has already played a significant part in Doctor Who history, as it was central to the plot of 1979’s City Of Death, co-written by Douglas Adams – but it’s just possible that City Of Death helps to explain this story. Luke theorizes that Leonardo da Vinci may have used paints laced with alien minerals for the Mona Lisa; it’s just possible that da Vinci’s paint was provided for him by Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, who demanded that da Vinci paint extra copies of the Mona Lisa for him as part of a scheme to fund time travel experiments in the 20th century. (It is mentioned in City that, as of 1979, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre – and therefore the one in this story as well – was one of Scaroth’s duplicates.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green