“This time we’ll kill Sarah Jane Smith properly!”
Monday, December 4, 2006 by Graham Kibble-White
“Sonic lipstick”, a giant fold-out computer called Mr Smith, SJ whizzing around in a Nissan Figaro, a craze for fizzy drinks sweeping the nation… the preview disc for The Sarah Jane Adventures has hit my desk, and it looks awfully good.
“When the programme-makers first contacted me,” said Elisabeth Sladen in interview recently, “I thought they were calling me about Torchwood. ‘Ooh,’ I said, ‘I’m going to be in the 9pm slot for once! I’m going to be grown up!’.”
But, from the excerpt I’ve seen, this is absolutely, deafeningly a kids’ show, with a lot of the action told from the point of view of the juvenile lead, Maria. Sarah is very much portrayed as “the other”, a fantastic, mysterious person who chats to aliens (one of whom has, fittingly, dropped in from Torchwood) on her back lawn. The baddy – Samantha Bond – is just this side of a cartoon, and that’s how it should be.
Word of mouth about this show is already good. Unsurprisingly, I’m excited.
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