THE COMPLETE DOCTOR WHO REFERENCE GUIDE-SARAH JANE SMITH audios and TV show, and K9 AND COMPANY
THE COMPLETE DOCTOR WHO REFERENCE GUIDE-SARAH JANE SMITH
K-9 and Company
A Girl's Best Friend
Producer
John Nathan-Turner
Script Editors
Eric Saward
Anthony Root
Designer
Nigel Jones
Written by Terence Dudley
Directed by John Black
Theme Music by Fiachra Trench and Ian Levine
And Arranged by Peter Howell Incidental
Music by Peter Howell
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), John Leeson (Voice of
K9), Colin Jeavons (George Tracey), Bill Fraser (Bill Pollock), Nigel Gregory
(Vince Wilson), Sean Chapman (Peter Tracey), Mary Wimbush (Aunt Lavinia), Ian
Sears (Brendan), Linda Polan (Juno Baker), Neville Barber (Howard Baker), John
Quarmby (Henry Tobias), Gillian Martell (Lilly Gregson), Stephen Oxley (P.C.
Carter).
For many years, investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith
travelled through space and time with her best friend, a carefree and somewhat
irresponsible Time Lord known as the Doctor. But all good things must come to
an end, and they were forced to part. Sarah returned to Earth and her career,
but before they went their seperate ways, she made the Doctor promise not to
forget her.
Six days before Christmas, Sarah arrives in the sleepy
village of Moreton Harwood to visit her Aunt Lavinia and write her latest book.
But something is rotten in the county of Gloucestershire. Lavinia has gone
missing, seemingly the victim of a local coven. Worshippers of the pagan
goddess Hecate gather in a local churchyard, promising death to unbelievers.
True to her nature, Sarah is drawn into the mystery but is confronted by a wall
of silence from the villagers.
However, Sarah soon finds help from an entirely unexpected
source. For the Doctor has sent her a present; a robot dog that answers to the
name of K-9...
Original Broadcast (UK)
A Girl's Best Friend 28th
December, 1981 5h45pm-6h35pm
Notes:
Released on video. [+/-]
Novelised as K-9 and Company by Terrance Dudley. [+/-]
Doctor Who Magazine Archive: Holiday Special 1992.
A Girl's Best Friend
(drn: 49'56")
One night, a High Priest and Priestess of a coven, wearing
goat masks light candles, beginning a ceremony. The other coven members join
hands and dance around the altar chanting “Hecate! Hecate! Hecate!
Sarah Jane Smith's Aunt Lavinia is called away early to a
lecture tour in America, and leaves her market garden in the hands of her
partner Commander Bill Pollock and farmer George Tracey. She leaves under a bit
of a cloud, as the villagers of Morton Harewood have taken exception to the
letters she recently wrote to the local paper, denouncing their belief in
witchcraft and claiming that it is still actively practiced in the area. Unable
to contact Sarah before leaving, Lavinia tells her friend Juno Baker to expect
Sarah's arrival; Sarah will be spending the holiday here with Lavinia's new
ward, young Brendan Richards. And perhaps she'll finally find time to open the
mysterious crate which Lavinia has been keeping in the attic in Croydon for the
last three years.
Sarah arrives a few days before Christmas only to be greeted
by the surly George Tracey, and is surprised not to have any word from Lavinia
-- it isn't like her aunt to go without any word. Brendan calls from the
station, having taken the train as he was fed up waiting for her at his school.
She picks him up and brings him back to the house, where they meet Commander
Pollock. Juno Baker calls to invite Sarah to a get-together with other
villagers, but Pollock advises her not to go as the Bakers are her aunt's
biggest rivals in the market garden business. Once Pollock leaves, Sarah and
Brendan set to the mysterious crate, which when opened reveals what appears to
be a mechanical dog. Sarah accidentally activates it when she leans on its
control panel, and it introduces itself as K-9, Mark III -- a gift from her old
friend the Doctor...
Brendan is utterly enchanted by his new acquaintance, and
Sarah leaves him to put K-9 through his paces while she sets off to find word
of her aunt. The local postmistress, Lily Gregson, is no help, claiming that
her aunt never sent any cables and warning Sarah that many locals were upset by
her letters to the paper. Sarah decides to go to the Bakers' party after all,
where Juno confirms Lily's claims...
Brendan is using K-9 to test soil samples from the garden
when he is attacked by George Tracey and Tracey's son Peter. K-9 stuns Peter
with a blast from his nose laser and George flees in terror before Brendan can
get a good look at him. As K-9 pursues him, Peter recovers and desperately
warns Berndan to get away before it's too late. Searching for the intrduer in
the garden, K-9 accidentally knocks over a set of ladders into the glassed-over
growing area, causing several hundred quid's worth of damage. George takes the
opportunity to flee, and when Brendan comes out to investigate the noise Peter
manages to slip his bonds and escape as well. George is trying to convince the
High Priest of the local coven that his son was taken from him by Hecate's
familiar, a great white dog, when Peter arrives -- and as he hasn't seen K-9
he's unable to corroborate his father's claim. Brendan and K-9 tell their story
to Sarah when she returns, but she decides to report it to the police later.
The next morning, Brendan and Sarah find Pollock and Tracey
studying the damage to the garden, and when Brendan tries to show off by citing
the pH of the soil which K-9 analysed last night, Tracey snaps at him,
demonstrating his experience and love of the land. Pollock reminds Brendan that
science can't control the elements yet; people here are still at the mercy of
the weather. That night, George sends his terrified son back to the manor to
kidnap Brendan again, and Sarah, studying her aunt's books on witchcraft,
doesn't realize until morning that Brendan is gone and the phone lines have
been cut...
Convinced that Tracey knows more than he's saying, Sarah
smuggles K-9 into his cottage before going with Pollock to report the incident
to the police. The police prove unhelpful, but Staff Sergeant Wilson tells
Sarah that Peter Tracey has also vanished -- having been placed in the custody
of his father some time ago as a suspended sentence after housebreaking. But as
soon as Sarah and Pollock have gone, Wilson heads for Tracey's house to warn
him of the danger. K-9, hidden under Tracey's stairwell, listens in as the
conversation makes it clear that Wilson and Tracey are part of a witches' coven
which intends to murder Brendan as a human sacrifice. Tracey is convinced that
Hecate will punish him for disobedience, but Wilson can't go along with human
sacrifice and sets off to warn somebody.
Tracey departs his cottage soon afterwards, and Sarah
collects K-9 from the cottage, and is horrified by his revelations. She
immediately sets off to find Wilson only to find his dead body in the road
nearby; somebody has tied up a goat on his bike path and he has suffered a
heart attack from fright. She tries to explain the situation to Pollock, who
finds it difficult to believe but agrees to help her. Later that night, the
reluctant Peter Tracey is finally initiated into the coven...
The next day, Sarah goes to meet Pollock only to find that
he too has vanished from his home. The police don't believe her story, and
hampered by her inability to explain K-9, she has claimed to have overheard
Wilson and Tracey's conversation herself -- but can't explain how she did so
while hiding outside the house. She goes to the Bakers for help but finds them
perhaps just a little too eager to dismiss their claims. Back at the manor, K-9
studies Lavinia's books on witchcraft and announces that the sacrifice will
take place at midnight on the winter solstice, December 22 -- and that's just
in a few hours' time.
Juno calls Sarah to invite her over, claiming she shouldn't
be left alone while she's so clearly distraught, but Sarah turns down the
invitation and sets off with K-9 to search all churches, hallowed ground,
within a five mile radius. Although somebody tries to kill her by running her
off the road with a driverless tractor, she only becomes more determined... and
yet she and K-9 come up empty after checking all churches within the area. With
less than an hour to go until midnight, K-9 -- unaware until now of its
significance -- points out that the map of the area indicates that there is an
abandoned chapel on the grounds of the Manor itself. Sarah and K-9 rush back to
the manor and arrive at the chapel with seconds to spare; just as the High
Priest and Priestess of the coven are about to stab the drugged Brendan with a
sacrificial knife, K-9 and Sarah arrive, and K-9 blasts down both the Priest
and Priestess, throwing the locals into utter disarray. As the would-be witches
scatter in terror, Sarah removes the goat masks from the High Priest and
Priestess... to reveal that they are Bill Pollock and Lily Gregson.
As Christmas dawns over Morton Harewood several of its
citizens languish in jail, facing charges of attempted murder. Sarah and
Brendan spend the holiday with the Bakers, who were innocent all along, and
Sarah finally gets a call from Lavinia -- who'd left word of her departure with
Pollock to pass on to Sarah. She's surprised that Pollock didn't do so, but
Sarah promises that she has such a story to tell her. Meanwhile, back at the
manor, K-9 tries to teach himself to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".
Source: Cameron Dixon
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
1. Comeback
1.Comeback
Written by Terrance Dicks
Directed by Gary Russell
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by David Darlington
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Robin Bowerman
(Harris), Alistair Lock (Mr Venables), Jeremy Jones (Josh), Matthew Brenher,
David John (Bank Robbers), Nicholas Briggs (Mr Hedges), Sadie Miller (Natalie
Redfern), David Jackson (The Squire), Peter Sowerbutts (Rev. Gosforth), Juliet
Warner (Ellie Martin), Patricia Leventon (Maude).
VILLAGERS MISSING IN POSSIBLE MOD COVER-UP
Six months after the last part of her undercover
investigative TV series for Planet 3 Broadcasting went out, Sarah Jane Smith is
running scared. Living under false names, her true identity compromised, she
has few friends and fewer clues as to her pursuers. Enter three people who will
change her life -- the mysterious Mr Harris, old friend Ellie Martin and a
guardian angel in the shape of the roguish Josh. Now, all roads lead to the
village of Cloots Coombe in Wiltshire but will she find answers she needs there?
Notes:
This is the first audio in the Sarah Jane Smith series.
Released: August 2002
ISBN: 1 903654 92 0
Sarah’s Aunt Lavinia has passed away, and Sarah has
inherited the house, the market garden, and all of the royalties on Lavinia’s
patents. As Sarah bids a private farewell to Lavinia by her grave, a stranger
stops by to deliver his condolences and to tell Sarah how much he’s looking
forward to tonight’s television show, the last episode in a series of exposés.
Sarah thanks him, unaware that the stranger, Harris, is more than he seems.
Tonight’s show will indeed be the last, and Harris and his employer know that
Sarah’s grief is just beginning...
Synopsis
(drn: 73'50")
A bank teller calling herself Marie Samuels is dealing with
an elderly customer, Mr. Venables, when two men with sawn-off shotguns enter
the bank. Marie distracts the men by fiddling with her mobile phone, and sets
off the alarm when one of the robbers takes her phone and smashes it. Furious,
the robber tries to shoot her, but a young man in the queue wrestles the gun
away from him. The police arrive, but arrest the young man, who’s still holding
the gun. Marie and Venables try to explain what happened, but since young Josh
is already under arrest, the police request that Marie come to the station to
make a statement. Unfortunately for “Marie”, one of the policemen recognizes
her as Sarah Jane Smith and greets her by name, thanking her for the help she
gave the police while she was still working for Planet 3 -- back before some of
the people she “exposed” turned out to be legitimate.
Sarah’s superior at the bank, Hedges, becomes worried when
he learns her true identity, and as soon as he gets the chance he calls his
associate, Harris. Harris, amused, advises Hedges to sit tight, assuring him
that all will be different in the morning. Indeed it is, for after discussing
matters with the CEO, Harris phones up Hedges again to inform him that his
services are no longer required. Harris’ employers have already hacked into the
bank’s servers, closed their accounts and withdrawn all of their support from
the bank’s other financial ventures. If word gets out then Hedges will be
ruined, but Harris simply hangs up, and when Hedges tries to call him back, he
finds that none of Harris’ phone numbers are in service any longer.
Sarah returns to her flat, furious with the well-meaning
policeman for blowing her cover; now she has to change her name and move once
more, starting her life from scratch yet again. Her friend Natalie, a skilled
computer hacker, promises to arrange for Sarah to get a new flat and credit
cards within 24 hours. As Sarah begins to pack, Josh Townsend arrives to thank
her for clearing things with the police; they were determined to pin something
on him due to a shady past as a teenage arsonist, but thanks to Sarah and
Venables’ statements, they’ve been forced to let him go... even though he
couldn’t explain why he was in the bank although he wasn’t a customer. He
admits now that he was looking for Sarah, to pass on a message from a common
acquaintance -- Ellie Martin, who roams the countryside fighting the
Establishment while Josh occasionally hands out leaflets for her in the city.
The next day, Josh accompanies Sarah to an Internet café to
meet Natalie, a wheelchair-bound young woman with a talent for computer
hacking. Natalie has already arranged for Sarah to get new credit cards under
the name of Lila Quest -- and she’s also looked up Josh’s background and
learned that, although his parents are rich, he’s turned his back on his
privileges and struck out on his own. Sarah finds him trustworthy, and allows
him to remain as Natalie informs her that her employment records have been erased
from the bank’s servers -- and that a large amount of money was withdrawn
overnight. Sarah contacts Hedges, bluffs him into admitting that he was
involved in potentially fraudulent activities, and offers to give him the
chance to tell his side of the story. Hedges agrees to meet her at the bank
after hours, but contacts Harris and warns him. He’s afraid that Sarah will
trick him into incriminating himself. Unfortunately for Hedges, Harris agrees,
and promises to ensure that the interview never takes place.
Josh is impressed by Sarah’s skill at playing Hedges, but
insists upon coming along, fearing that Hedges plans to set a trap for her.
He’s curious about Ellie’s note, which asked Sarah to meet her at the village
of Cloots Coombe, and mentioned something called “Operation Halter” which
seemed to cause Sarah some concern. Sarah promises to explain this later, but
first she visits the bank, only to find that Hedges has been shot through the
heart and the head. Oddly, amongst his paperwork she finds a note about Cloots
Coombe -- in somebody else’s handwriting, which suggests that her enemies are
trying to lure her into a trap. Since this is her only lead, she decides to
spring the trap anyway. Josh finally realizes that Sarah always suspected that
Hedges was up to something, which is why she got the job at this bank in the
first place.
Sarah picks up her trusty old VW Beetle, “Ethel,” from the
garage where she’d hidden it, but while she’s packing up in her flat, someone
apparently tries to steal the car -- which explodes moments later. Sarah and
Josh thus head for the coach terminal, where Sarah finds that Hedges -- or his
killers -- have closed out her current “Marie Samuels” bank accounts. Josh buys
two tickets on the credit card provided by Natalie, and he and Sarah set off to
investigate Cloots Coombe. On the way, Sarah explains that the final episode of
her programme for Planet 3 exposed illegal activity at the Scottish fishery
HalterCorp, but after broadcast, the evidence was proven to be fake. HalterCorp
sued Planet 3 for making false allegations, Sarah’s contact at HalterCorp vanished,
and not only did she lose her job with Planet 3, all of her official identity
was invalidated by people in high places. Ever since then, she’s been trying to
find out who set her up, and she started at Hedges’ bank, one of the branches
of the company where she had her original accounts. So far, however, the link
to Cloots Coombe is the only real lead she’s ever had...
At Cloots Coombe, the new Squire hosts a town meeting and
assures the townsfolk that their long wait is finally over; tomorrow, a
representative of the Company will be arriving from London to update them on
the progress of the experiments. The Reverend Gosforth asks pointed questions
of the Squire, but seems satisfied by the responses. In fact, he and the Squire
are in league, and Gosforth is only making a public show of support to convince
the villagers that he’s one of them. After the townspeople disperse, Gosforth
finds the Squire examining the decomposing body of a young woman by the well.
It isn’t the first body Gosforth has seen in this condition, but when he
presses the Squire for an explanation, the Squire none-too-subtly threatens him
should he continue to question what’s going on here.
Josh and Sarah meet Ellie Martin in the woods outside the
village, and Ellie introduces them to Maureen Fletcher, or “Maude”, a cheerful
elderly woman helps the well-meaning but disorganized protestors to plan their
protests effectively. Ellie and Maude explain that a French company, Réchauffer
Inc., has recently acquired a great deal of influence in the village -- and
that badly decomposed bodies have been found in shallow graves, with evidence
that they’ve only been dead for a very short while. Réchauffer has apparently
been producing no industrial waste at all, a claim which the protestors find
very suspicious. They’ve been trying to convince the villagers that the
by-products from Réchauffer may poison the Well of St. Clothilde, a shrine
which was once believed to have healing powers. However, not one of the
villagers will support them, and Ellie suspects that they’re living in fear of
the mysterious new Squire. All the protestors know for sure is that, despite
the proximity of Salisbury Plain, the Ministry of Defence is not involved;
they’re barred from conducting any experiments or weapons tests nearby due to a
protest the villagers arranged 18 years ago.
One of the protestors, Jenny, has failed to return after
trying to whip up support at the town meeting. Maude is unwilling to get the
police involved, as they may take a dim view of the protestors’ activities, but
Jenny still hasn’t returned the next morning. Sarah thus offers to inquire in
the village, and lends Ellie her mobile phone. She and Josh enter the town, and
Sarah soon spots something odd about the activity on the streets and the public
noticeboard. She and Josh begin asking after Jenny, but the villagers are a
tight-lipped bunch; Reverend Gosforth initially seems friendly, but he makes a
hurried departure when they describe Jenny. He makes his way to the manor house
to warn the Squire, but the Squire is already in a meeting -- with Mr. Harris, who
is disturbed to learn that the Squire has been feeding more people to the
monster in the well. They purchased Cloots Coombe to provide their company with
a secure base for future projects, but it seems the Squire has become
distracted by a sideline -- and the Squire is now arrogantly convinced that he
personally, by controlling the creature in the well, will ensure their
company’s success. Gosforth then arrives to warn the Squire that people are
inquiring after the woman who died by the well last night. Harris recognizes
his description of Sarah immediately, but the Squire is certain that he can
take care of her...
Maude reluctantly decides to call off the protest in the
light of Jenny’s disappearance, and Ellie tries to call Josh to let him know.
However, he’s switched his mobile off again, as he doesn’t want it ringing at
an inopportune moment. Natalie then calls, trying to get through to Sarah;
she’s been conducting some research, and has learned that Réchauffer Inc. has
set up shop in an old MoD base where the Ministry once conducted chemical
weapons tests. The MoD were barred from Cloots Coombe after an accident occurred
in the laboratories -- and Natalie has found out something disturbing about the
average age of the villagers...
Sarah decides to visit the manor house and try to bluff the
Squire into giving something away. Harris has gone by the time she arrives --
alone, claiming that Josh has given up and gone back to the protest camp. The
Squire appears gracious and charming, but too much so, and Gosforth appears
nervous as the Squire tells Sarah that Jenny left in a huff when none of the
visitors would listen to her. Sarah inquires about the Well of St. Clothilde,
the centrepiece of the village, and the Squire explains that though it was
rechristened by the Church, its original name was “Old Clootie’s Well” -- after
a nickname for the devil. It used to be a pagan shrine of healing, and there is
still power there.
The Squire “offers” to let Sarah see for herself, and takes
her and Gosforth to the well, where they hear something howling in the depths
of the tunnel which connects the well to the old MoD base. Sarah has already
worked out much of what Natalie is telling Ellie now, and the Squire confirms
her suspicions; there are no children on the village streets and no notices of
school events on the public noticeboard, because 18 years ago, a leak from the
labs contaminated the well and all the villagers became sterile. Réchauffer has
taken DNA samples from the villagers for use in cloning experiments, apparently
to give the villagers a new generation of children -- but in fact this is
merely a sideline. Their real intention is to breed an army of clones,
infinitely replaceable soldiers with no families to mourn their loss. The
initial experiments failed, producing a monstrous mutant which feeds on the
life force, or the chi -- but the Squire sees this as a success, and he
believes that the monster is under his control, and that his “perfect soldier”
will kill anyone who gets in his way. He prepares to feed Sarah to the
creature, but at the last moment Josh arrives; rather than returning to the
camp, he’s in fact brought his old arsonist’s skills into play and set fire to
the Réchauffer laboratories. The building explodes, and the fire sweeps along
the tunnel up out of the well, immolating the mutant and killing the Squire as
he rushes forward to protect his “child”.
The next day, Sarah confronts Gosforth, demanding to know
how he could have gone along with the Squire, and Gosforth admits that the
Squire knew of a scandal in his past and was blackmailing him. As Sarah isn’t
in a position to expose him, she departs, dissatisfied -- and unaware that
Gosforth was in fact working for Harris all along, keeping an eye on the Squire
and reporting back when he got out of control. He and Harris both agree that
the experiment was unviable, and that events have turned out for the best.
Harris’ employers have liquidated Réchauffer Inc., leaving Sarah with no
further leads in that direction, and Gosforth, who has grown to like it in the
village, decides to remain here, continuing to act as the village’s vicar --
while keeping an eye on the Ministry’s work on Salisbury Plain for Harris’s
real employers. Meanwhile, Sarah and Josh depart, knowing that while they’ve
won one battle, the people behind Réchauffer Inc. and HalterCorp are still out
there somewhere, still after Sarah. But Josh has enjoyed working as part of a
team, and from now on, Sarah will have him to count on.
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
The opening sequence ties into K9 and Company,
re-establishing the market garden at Moreton Harwood and explaining that
Brendan is off in San Francisco. There is no mention of K9 at this point, but
events in Mirror, Signal, Manouevre confirm that these audios take place after
the short story Moving On.
Recurring characters: Sarah (naturally) and Josh Townsend
appear in all five of the Sarah Jane Smith audios. Natalie appears in all but
the fourth, Ghost Town. Ellie Martin also appears in The TAO Connection and
Test of Nerve. The villainous Mr. Harris returns in Test of Nerve and Mirror,
Signal, Manouevre. The identity of his mysterious employer is revealed in Test
of Nerve.
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
2. The TAO Connection
2.The TAO Connection
Written by Barry Letts
Directed by Gary Russell
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by David Darlington
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Mark Donovan (DI
Morrisson), Alistair Lock (DC Johnson), Jeremy James (Josh Townsend), Juliet
Warner (Ellie Martin Sadie Miller (Natalie Redfern), Caroline Burns-Cook
(Claudia Coster), Moray Treadwell (Will Butley), Jane McFarlane (Nurse
Jephson), Steven Wickham (Mr Sharpe), Robert Curbishley (Read), Toby Longworth
(Wong Chu), Maggie Stables (Mrs Lythe), Wendy Albiston (Meg Hawkins).
BILLIONAIRE RECLUSE BUYS HOLTOOTH HALL
The body of an old man is found floating in the Thames --
although the corpse’s DNA corresponds to an 18-year old friend of Josh and
Ellie. Sarah Jane heads towards West Yorkshire in a bid to discover what killed
the man, why someone is kidnapping homeless teenage boys and whether there is a
link between that and philanthropist Will Butley’s retreat which hosts The
Huang Ti Clinic. Sarah discovers that there is more to ancient Dark Sorcery
than she may have otherwise believed...
Notes:
This is the second audio in the Sarah Jane Smith series.
Released: August 2002
ISBN: 1 903654 93 9
Morrison and Johnson, two ordinary policemen walking the
beat, spot a body floating in the Thames, presumably the body of an old wino
who’s given up on life. Or so they assume...
Synopsis
(drn: 73'50")
At the morgue, the old man’s autopsy proceeds with no
surprises... until Johnson arrives with the identification papers. The dead man
is apparently Toby Davenport, who is only 18 years old.
Life in Cloots Coombe is returning to normal, or as normal
as it can get. Ellie Martin has moved back to the city for a while, and she’s
holding a spot on the street for the missing Toby Davenport. Josh runs into
her, and passes the story of Toby’s disappearance on to Sarah. She takes an
interest for the missing boy’s sake, particularly when she learns that the
police are being surprisingly tight-lipped about it. Natalie does some digging
for Sarah, and learns about the “misidentification” of the corpse, which has
thrown the whole concept of fingerprint identification into doubt. The
investigation has been blocked by the highest levels of the government, but
Sarah is an old friend of Claudia Coster, an administrator in the Ministry of
Intelligence. Through Claudia, Sarah learns that the incident is somehow linked
to millionaire philanthropist Will Butley, without whose contributions the
Prime Minister would have had serious trouble financing his last campaign.
Butley lives in a manor on the Yorkshire Dales, and Josh thus finds himself
accompanying Sarah out to the countryside once again...
In his home on Haltooth Hall, Butley throws a temper
tantrum, throwing his lunch to the floor and demanding his daily draught. His
caregivers, Nurse Jephson and Ron Sharpe, have had to go through this before,
and Sharpe is thoroughly sick of it -- and of Butley. Despite what they once
had together, Sharpe is revolted by Butley’s senile pawing at him; but he still
needs Butley alive for now, and he thus tolerates Butley’s bouts of dementia
and abuse, as revolting as he finds the old man. Soon, however, he will reach
his limit.
Josh and Sarah track down Holtooth Hall, and are surprised
to find that it’s now the Huang Ti Clinic. Sarah and Josh try to bluff their
way past the gate guard, Read, but fail. As they leave, Sarah remembers having
heard the name of the Huang Ti Clinic before; pop star Lotus, an apparently
ageless beauty, quickly left the public eye after she was expelled from the
clinic for her behaviour, and she soon became far less beautiful. Through
Natalie, Sarah learns that the clinic was named for the founder of Taoism -- a
philosophy which, like alchemy, involves the pursuit of spiritual and physical
immortality. Nat directs Sarah to Wong Chu, a Taoist who lives in the vicinity
and who explains the philsophy to her, inasmuch as such things can be
explained. Wong Chu believes that the Huang Ti Clinic uses Taoism and tai chi
as gimmicks, but admits that it is possible to slow the process of ageing
thorugh an understanding of how chi flows through the body. Wong Chu himself is
nearly 80, though he appears to be in his late 30s. However, it’s said that
lives can be extended through the use of dark sorcery...
Convinced that the Huang Ti Clinic is more than it seems,
Sarah books rooms at a local B&B; run by Mrs Lythe. As local girl Nellie
cleans up, Sarah chats with her and learns that Nellie intends to apply for a
position at Holtooth Hall. Claiming that she wants to play a joke on a friend,
Sarah pays Nellie 250 pounds to postpone her application, and goes to the Hall
in her place. Read nearly recognizes her from earlier, but not quite, and Sarah
thus gets through to Nurse Jephson, claiming to be Nellie’s friend Daisy
Grigson. Jephson, who doesn’t care about the differences between the local
girls, assigns “Daisy” to clean away the lunch trays with her new co-worker Meg
Hawkins. As they do so, a new client arrives; Sue Tappman, the model (as it
were) wife of rock star Pete Tappman. Sarah manages to slip into the room while
Sharpe is telling Sue about the clinic’s regimen, and watches as Sue drinks a
meaty-tasting red draught which Sharpe calls “concentrated essence of chi...”
Sue also nearly recognizes Sarah, who once wrote an exposé
of the fashion industry, but Sarah bluffs her way out of the encounter. Later,
she tells Josh that she recognized many of the clinic’s clients, and they’re
all multi-millionaires at least. She’s taken a brochure, which merely describes
a watered-down version of the Taoist philosophy with no indication of how it
could prove so effective within mere weeks. However, she also found an enticing
locked door, and has determined that it’s possible to look into the room beyond
through a row of skylights on the roof.
The next day, Sarah helps Josh to slip into the grounds so
he can look through the skylights. Evading Jephson, Josh manages to get up to
the roof without further incident, and through the skylight he sees two rooms;
one is a laboratory, and the other is like a hospital ward with 20 naked men
and women hooked up to drips and transfusions. Sarah gets the security code for
the door when Jephson enters the room without noticing Sarah “cleaning” nearby,
and as soon as Josh reports that the coast is clear, Sarah enters the room to
investigate. What she finds in the “ward” horrifies her. Josh then warns her to
hide, as Sharpe is pushing Butley’s wheelchair towards the lab. Again, Sharpe
can barely tolerate Butley’s senile abuse, although Butley insists that dear,
cruel Ron still loves him, really. Sarah hides as Jephson enters the lab and
lets Butley and Sharpe in through the French windows, but once inside, Butley
drives them both out again. Like Josh, they can see him through the windows,
manouevring his hands over a bottle of “essence” and muttering odd incantations
under his breath. It seems that Butley is using dark sorcery after all...
Later, at the B&B;, over a breakfast of tripe and onions
which Josh chooses not to share, Sarah explains that blood is being extracted
from the “patients” in the ward, and that silk threads have been wound around
acupuncture needles in the victims’ bodies and passed through the blood. The
“essence” fed to Sue Tappman, and presumably to all of the clinic’s clients, is
the chi-enriched blood of young men and women, who are aged by the process --
in Toby’s case, aged to death. Josh is bemused by Sarah’s reaction; she
obviously cares deeply about what she’s found, yet can still remain detached
enough to act without rushing in heedlessly. She explains that she picked this
demeanour up from a friend.
That night, Josh and Sarah watch from hiding as an ambulance
collects a body from Holtooth Hall and drives off. They follow it to the moors,
where they split up to get a better view of the “paramedics” as they dig a
shallow grave for the body -- but Josh gets a bit too close, and the thugs beat
him up and take him back to the Hall. Sarah is unable to intervene, and thus
calls Nat with instructions to go to the police should anything happen to her.
She doesn’t want to involve them yet, for fear that the government will then
arrange for Butley’s crimes to be covered up, and Nat is disturbed to learn
that Sarah apparently thinks Josh is expendable. But Sarah fully intends to
rescue him herself.
The next morning, Sarah slips back into the secret ward to
find Josh lying on one of the beds, connected to the drips and pincushioned
with acupuncture needles. She frees him, but the process has left him drained
and disoriented, as though half-asleep and half-drunk. She gets him out of the
ward and hides him on the grounds, leaving him to sleep until he’s fit enough
to get back over the wall to safety. However, when she returns to work, Meg
mentions having seen Jephson run out through the security door in a panic a
moment ago. Sarah rushes back to Josh, wakes him, and gets him back over the
wall and away to safety mere moments before the searching security guards find
the ladder propped up against the wall.
Back at the Hall, Butley awaits his daily draught... but
Sharpe has finally had enough of the old man’s abuse and dementia, and he
withholds the draught, demanding to know the secret of the essence. Until
Butley tells him the incantation which makes it effective, Sharpe will give him
no further draughts -- and at Butley’s age, he won’t last more than 24 hours.
Butley reacts with threats, pleading, and piteous sobbing, but Sharpe is only
disgusted further. He leaves Butley to consider his options. Butley thus calls
in Read, ostensibly to ask what the security alarm earlier was about. In fact,
he knows how “obliging” ex-Guardsmen like Read can be with the right
persuasion, but he’s not after sexual favours -- he simply wants to buy a gun,
and he’s willing to pay 60,000 pounds, enough for Read to set himself up with a
pub in the country. Read considers the offer, and admits that although he
doesn’t personally own a gun, he can get one. For 40,000 pounds up front and a
promise of more to come, tomorrow he will give Butley a gun and then take the
rest of the day off.
The next day, once Josh has fully recovered, he and Sarah
return to the Hall to confront Butley and learn the truth. This time, Josh
enters the Hall with Sarah, lures Jephson into her office and knocks her out.
Sarah disguises herself as a nurse and searches the room, which is full of
historic memorabilia. She and Josh then hear shouting from the next room, as
Sharpe demands the secret from Butley and Butley refuses to give in. His
faculties are deteriorating rapidly, however, and he’s becoming more panic-stricken
as he feels himself dying. Can’t Ron forgive him his abuse? Can’t they go back
to how things used to be? Sharpe ruthlessly cuts through his illusions; before
they opened the clinic, Sharpe was nothing more than Butley’s rent boy, and he
knows what happened to all the others. He was only out for money; he never
loved Butley the way Butley imagines, and was always sickened by what they had
together.
Sharpe leaves Butley locked in his room and enters Jephson’s
office. Fortunately, he doesn’t recognize Sarah, who passes herself off as
Jephson’s replacement. Sharpe orders her to take care of Butley, but tells her
to give him no medication unless Sharpe tells her to. Sharpe then leaves, but
before Sarah and Josh can confront Butley, Read arrives. Josh grows impatient
waiting and leaves the office too early, running into Read on his way out.
Sarah joins in the fight and knocks Read out, using Venusian aikido techniques
she learned from “an old friend.” She then confronts Butley and soothes the
paranoid old man, assuring him that she’ll help him get whatever he wants from
cruel Ron if he tells her everything. Butley confirms what she had already
guessed; he is over 300 years old. Working as a clerk in Shanghai, he fell in
love with a Taoist philosopher who taught him the secret of chi... and he then
killed his lover and spent centuries luring young men into his clutches, having
“fun” with them, and then draining their lives away to extend his own.
The enraged Sharpe arrives, drives Sarah out, and confronts
Butley with a tape recorder he’d hidden in the laboratory. After years of
tolerating Butley’s abuse, he has finally learned the truth about the
“incantation”. Infuriated by all the time he’s wasted, he begins to throttle
Butley, but Butley shoots him through the heart with the gun provided by Read.
Butley begins to bawl uncontrollably upon realizing that he’s killed his
darling Ron, but he’s even more concerned for himself. However, Sarah refuses to
give him his draught, instead having Josh flush it down the sink as she plays
Sharpe’s tape recording... and learns that Butley was only ever reciting “Mary
Had a Little Lamb.” Butley dies of old age at last -- far too late, as far as
Josh and Sarah are concerned.
Later, back in London, Sarah, Josh and Nat discuss the
outcome of the investigation. As Sarah feared, the whole incident is being
covered up, and the public will never know the truth; but, no doubt thanks to
Claudia’s intervention, no charges have been pressed against Sarah and Josh.
However, Butley’s secret is now out, and the group notes that the Prime
Minister has looked surprisingly young in recent weeks...
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
Although the monster in Comeback also fed on the life force,
or chi, there does not appear to be any connection between it and the events at
the Huang Ti Clinic.
The cover-up of Toby Davenport’s death is overseen partly by
Department C-19, the group responsible for covering up UNIT activities in Who
Killed Kennedy and The Scales of Injustice, amongst other stories. Claudia
Coster and D.I. Morrison appear again in Test of Nerve.
As well as having learned Venusian aikido and professional
detachment from the Doctor, Sarah refers to Josh as “Harry” while undercover,
presumably a reference to Harry Sullivan.
Nat’s concern when Sarah apparently places higher priority
on “the greater good” than on saving her friend Josh’s life comes into play
again in the next audio, Test of Nerve.
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
3. Test of Nerve
3.Test of Nerve
Written by David Bishop
Directed by Gary Russell
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by David Darlington
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Alistair Lock
(Newsreader), Jeremy James (Josh Townsend), Sadie Miller (Natalie Redfern),
Caroline Burns-Cook (Claudia Coster), Roy Skelton (James Carver), Robin
Bowerman (Harris), Juliet Warner(Ellie Martin, Mark Donovan (DI Morrisson).
GERM WARFARE TRIALS HELD ON SIXTIES TUBES
Sarah Jane Smith receives a mysterious gift with a cryptic
message. The London Underground will suffer an horrific terrorist attack during
rush hour unless Sarah can find and stop those responsible. As rush hour draws
closer, the terrifying reality of the threat becomes all too apparent. One
friend is murdered and another is abducted. Sarah must be willing to sacrifice
everyone and everything she holds dear to save the city. This is one deadline
she simply cannot miss...
Notes:
This is the third audio in the Sarah Jane Smith series.
The final track of the CD contains a trailer for the Doctor
Who audio, The Rapture.
Released: September 2002
ISBN: 1 903654 94 7
These are the day’s news headlines: a junior government
minister has been jostled by protestors outside the scientific research company
Biogard, and an investigation is underway; and a group of Travellers have been
forcibly evicted from a disused tube station where they were squatting. The
group’s spokeswoman, Ellie Martin, intends to appeal to the authorities...
Synopsis
(drn: 59'08")
Sarah has arranged to meet Josh and Nat at her apartment,
but something else arrives as well -- a glass cage with a rat inside and a note
attached. When Josh removes the note, the cage seals itself and fills with
nerve gas, killing the rat quickly but painfully. The note, signed “an old
acquaintance,” informs Sarah that the same will happen to London within 24
hours unless Sarah stops it...
Sarah phones up her civil servant friend Claudia Coster, but
Claudia isn’t free to talk -- she’s in a meeting with a certain Mr Harris,
discussing the Biogard incident. After their meeting, Harris personally
contacts James Carver, the man who jostled the minister outside Biogard.
Carver, a former soldier and staunch supporter of veteran’s rights, is confused
and disoriented, but he listens as Harris explains what he has in mind. Carver
seeks compensation for British soldiers used as medical guinea pigs without
their knowledge, but his demands have been ignored, and his crusade has cost
him his home, job and marriage while the original tests have cost him his
health. But if he does as Harris suggests, he will never be ignored again...
Nat investigates the incident at Biogard, suspecting a
connection, and learns that several lab rats were stolen in a recent break-in.
She also identifies James Carver, whom Sarah recognises from an interview she
once conducted; since then, however, he’s lost a lot of weight and hair. Josh
decides to investigate Biogard undercover, while Sarah meets privately with
Claudia to pass on the warning. Ellie arrives shortly afterwards to meet with
Josh, only to learn she’s just missed him. She complains to Nat about the
security thugs who evicted her group from the tube station without even letting
them collect their belongings, and leaves a message for Josh to meet her at the
Serpentine Gallery at 3:00. Meanwhile, Josh visits Biogard, posing as a
reporter, and is given a tour by the company’s head of security -- Philip
Harris.
Sarah and Claudia meet in Pall Mall, and Sarah hands over
the cage with the dead rat and the note which came with it. Claudia admits to
Sarah that the break-in at Biogard is more serious than anyone’s let on -- it
appears that a tray of sarin pellets may have been stolen as well. Claudia
agrees to analyse the cage’s contents and investigate James Carver’s connection
to the company. Sarah returns to her flat, where Nat provides her with
terrifying statistics about the sarin gas attack in the Japanese subway and the
presence of suspected terrorist cells in London. Josh arrives and confirms that
Biogard has been developing antidotes for bioweapons, and that it’s possible
some of their test samples were stolen. Nat wants to go to the police, but
Sarah admits that she’s handed over their only evidence. Josh is furious and
storms off to meet Ellie, accusing Sarah of making decisions without consulting
her friends. Nat admits that she too feels left out sometimes, and Sarah,
irritated, starts to follow Josh -- only to run into James Carver at the
doorstep ...
Josh arrives at the Serpentine late, to find that Ellie has
given up waiting for him. She’s left him a text message on his mobile phone,
directing him to the old Brampton Road station on the Piccadilly line, where
she’s gone to collect the gear she left behind. He makes his way to the tube
station, breaking through a side door, only to find Ellie’s bag lying abandoned
on the stairs while muffled cries for help come from the platform. He
investigates to find that Ellie has been locked inside a larger version of the
same glass cage the dead rat was delivered in -- and as he tries to get her
out, someone very familiar shows up and shoots him...
Carver explains that he saw Sarah in St James’ Park and
recognised her from the interview she conducted with him. Prone to fits of
violent temper, a wandering mind, blackouts and memory loss, he first asks her
for help and then reveals that he’s carrying a pellet of sarin gas -- and that
he’s planning to release a whole tray of pellets in the Underground tomorrow at
rush hour. He then excuses himself to use the bathroom. Nat, terrified, insists
upon calling the police, but moments after she hangs up, Carver bursts out of
the bathroom in a paranoid rage and accuses her of doing just that. As Sarah
tries to talk him down, Claudia calls Sarah back. Furious and paranoid, Carver
seizes the phone and demands to know who’s calling. Claudia knows better than
to lie; according to Carver’s medical history he’s suffering from a brain
tumour which makes him very aggressive and susceptible to suggestion. When
Carver learns that Claudia works for the government, he gives her an ultimatum:
he wants to meet with the PM to discuss compensation for British soldiers given
unsafe vaccines against their will, and if he doesn’t hear an answer on the
6:00 news tomorrow morning, he will release sarin gas in the Underground.
Carver’s mood plummets after he disconnects, but just as it
seems Sarah is about to talk sense into him, the police arrive. Furious, Carver
threatens to release the sarin pellet, but pulls himself together and flees,
telling Sarah sadly to remember him as he was. Infuriated, Sarah leaves Nat to
explain herself to the police while she hides on the fire escape and calls back
Claudia. Claudia is trying to get Carver’s warning to her superiors, and
advises Sarah to drop by her flat later. Nat gets rid of the police, telling
them that the call was a mistake, but Sarah is furious with her for making the
call in the first place and thus driving away their only lead. Nevertheless,
Nat continues her research, and unearths the terrifying results of government
experiments into possible germ warfare on the Underground; the full results of
the tests were never made public for fear of causing a panic. Disturbed, Sarah
sets off to speak with Claudia, leaving Nat to hack into Biogard’s staff
database and try to find out who could be responsible for the break-in if it
was indeed an inside job.
Josh wakes up to find that, like Ellie, he’s been trapped
inside a glass cage on the station platform. Harris merely shot him with a
tranquilliser dart, and he’s been waiting outside for Josh to wake up just to
make his position perfectly clear. Like the break-in, which Harris staged
himself in order to get the sarin, this is all part of a complex game his
employers are playing with Sarah. Harris places a sarin pellet in a small
chamber atop the cages; if Ellie and Josh try to escape, they’ll be dead in less
than a minute. Harris leaves them to spend an uncomfortable night alone in the
cages; Josh still has his mobile phone, but he can’t get a signal down here.
He’s desperately worried, but not just for Sarah -- if Harris is willing to
kill Sarah’s friends to make a point, then what’s going to happen to Nat?
Elsewhere, Carver admits that he’s having doubts, but Harris pushes him to go
through with the plan in order to make his suffering mean something.
Sarah arrives at Claudia’s flat only to find that her friend
has just been shot. Claudia dies warning Sarah to get away, but it’s too late
-- Detective Inspector Morrison arrives to arrest Sarah, having received an
anonymous phone call informing him that she’d killed Claudia. Sarah is taken in
for questioning, and eventually must tell Morrison everything; unfortunately,
Nat’s earlier claim that her call was a false alarm now plays against her.
Sarah spends the entire night in the interrogation room, desperately aware that
time is running out for the commuters of London...
Natalie works through the night, nearly falling asleep in
her wheelchair -- but she snaps fully awake when Harris uses Josh’s keys to
enter the flat. Harris smashes the computer, informing the terrified Nat that
he and his employers always know where Sarah is to be found, no matter how hard
she tries to hide. Harris tips Nat out of her wheelchair, takes it out of the
flat -- and returns with a bomb. Harris’ employees want Sarah to suffer, and
they’re going to start by killing her friend. Harris sets the bomb’s timer and
departs, leaving Natalie only 30 minutes to crawl to safety. She begins to pull
herself out of the flat, furious and refusing to let Harris make her a victim.
Meanwhile, Carver phones up Claudia Coster’s office and leaves a message on her
voice mail. It’s 6:00, his demands have not been met, and he wasn’t bluffing.
Claudia’s neighbours confirm seeing Sarah arrive after they
heard the shots, and Morrison thus releases her, but advises her to keep her
wild story about sarin gas to herself. She storms out of the police station and
immediately receives a phone call from Harris. It’s time to turn the screws.
Natalie is trapped in Sarah’s flat with a bomb, and Carver about to release
sarin gas into the Underground. The police won’t believe Sarah if she warns
them, and if she tries to do so anyway, Harris will detonate the bomb
immediately. Sarah must choose between saving her friend and the lives of
millions -- and she can’t even be sure whether Carver will carry out his
murderous plan. Time is running out, and as rush hour has just begun, Sarah is
simply unable to get back home and then to the disused platform in time. She
tries to call Natalie, but the mobile phone is still in Nat’s car. Sarah must
make a terrible choice...
The disoriented Carver stumbles into the Brampton Road
station, where he finds Josh and Ellie and Josh talks him into releasing them.
Ellie sets off to warn the police, while Josh remains behind, intending to get
a piece of Mr Harris when he returns. But he soon learns that it’s Carver who
has the sarin pellets, literally strapped to his body. Josh tries to talk sense
into him, but Carver is sick of listening to other people’s lies, and he won’t
let anyone stop him; he’s going to make his presence known, by throwing the
pellets in front of the next tube train to pass through the station.
Sarah arrives at the station, and also tries to speak sense
to Carver, trying to get him to understand that he’s being used as a pawn just
to get to Sarah. Harris then joins the debate; he’s watching everything unfold
on closed circuit television, and he uses the station’s public address system
to speak to Carver, urging him to go through with it. A train is approaching,
and if Carver throws the pellets in front of it, he will kill thousands,
perhaps millions of innocent people. Forced to choose, Carver finally realises
he can’t go through with it, and he puts down the sarin pellets, asks Sarah to
forgive him, and leaps in front of the train as it passes through the station.
The city is safe... but has Nat paid the ultimate price?
The good news is, Nat is alive; though she scraped her hands
raw pulling herself out of the flat, Harris underestimated her and left the
wheelchair discarded just outside. The bad news is, the close call has shaken
her badly -- but she’s even more shaken to understand that when Sarah had to
choose, she didn’t choose to save Nat. Intellectually, Nat knows that it was
the right decision, but emotionally she still feels betrayed, and she has to
take some time off. It seems Harris has succeeded in driving a wedge between
Sarah and her friends. Josh assures Sarah that he’s still on her side for the
long haul, and suggests that they take a holiday, but Sarah is beginning to
believe that to save her friends she must face her enemies alone.
The Biogard scandal and the recovery of the sarin makes
headlines, but the full story is not released and the public never knows the
truth behind the “anonymous” suicide on the Piccadilly line. Harris disappears
before the police can question him, and reports to his employer, the CEO of
operations. She is dissatisfied with the outcome of the sarin attack, but
concedes that at least Sarah has suffered a major setback. Harris departs to
put the next phase of the plan into action in Asia, leaving his employer, Hilda
Winters, to dream of revenge...
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
Recurring characters: Ellie Martin and Philip Harris first
appeared in Comeback; Claudia Coster and D.I. Morrison first appeared in The
TAO Connection, although this is the first time Sarah meets Morrison face to
face. Before her death, Claudia worked for Department C-19, the group
responsible for covering up UNIT activities in Who Killed Kennedy and The
Scales of Injustice, amongst other stories.
Josh and Sarah take the holiday Josh suggests in the next
audio, Ghost Town, while Harris’ “Asian project” is revealed in Mirror, Signal,
Manoeuvre.
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
4. Ghost Town
4.Ghost Town
Written by Rupert Laight
Directed by Gary Russell
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by David Darlington
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy Jones (Josh),
Ingrid Evans (Yolande), Brian Miller (Abbotly), Robert Jezek (Jack McElroy),
Elizabeth Faulkner (Candice McElroy), Mark Donovan (Professor Vodanski).
PEACE CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN ROMANIA
Sarah and Josh set off for a well-deserved break in a remote
Romanian village, hidden deep in the Carpathian Mountains. Sarah has arrived at
an appropriate time -- the place has become the location for an International
Peace Conference. When Sarah is awoken in the night by a terrifying apparition
Josh is forced to wonder whether it’s a ghost or just a figment of Sarah’s
imagination? But conference delegates are being terrified too -- literally
scared to death. Is there something deadly about this little whole village?
Notes:
This is the fourth audio in the Sarah Jane Smith series.
The final tracks of the CD contain trailers for Mirror,
Signal, Manoeuvre, the Doctor Who audios The Sandman, ...ish and The Rapture,
and the 2000 AD: Judge Dredd audio series.
Released: October 2002
ISBN: 1 903654 95 5
22 November, 2001. A worried scientist, working alone in his
laboratory, has finally isolated the perfect pitch, but he’s beginning to
become concerned about the purpose of “Project CIA.” His doubts have come too
late, however, as a familiar figure enters the lab and a struggle ensues. Some
time later, Yolande Benstead is woken by a hammering at her door; a bedraggled,
terrified figure has stumbled to her home through the storm, and he has no idea
who he is...
Synopsis
(drn: 56'42")
Following the recent sarin gas incident, Sarah and Josh have
decided they need a holiday, and thus they’re off to Romania to look up an old
friend of Sarah’s. As Josh tries to overcome his fear of flight, Sarah admits
to him that she’s finally taken the step of selling her aunt’s house and market
garden in Moreton Harwood. Juno Baker sorted out the details, the money has
been deposited into her “Marie Samuels” account, and her belongings are waiting
to be unpacked in her new flat, which used to belong to the late Claudia
Coster. But all that can wait; now she and Josh are on their way to a small
town in Romania, where Yolande Benstead retired when her brand of journalism
became too controversial for her nervous editors. As it happens, the village is
currently hosting an international peace conference, and Sarah wants to see
this historic event first-hand.
Sarah and Josh take a taxi to Yolande’s home, a creepy
Carpathian chateau which Josh compares to something out of Scooby-Doo. Yolande
is delighted to see Sarah again, and after Josh and Sarah get unpacked and
settle in, dinner is served and Sarah and Yolande catch up. There are no
televisions in the house; Yolande is too far out to get a good signal, and she
keeps abreast of the news via the papers and an old wireless in one of the
bedrooms. She lives alone apart from her servant “Dmitri”, who turned up on her
doorstep six months ago with no memory. Yolande has tried to help him remember
who he is, but she fears tat he’s experienced something so traumatic that he
may never remember what happened to him. She feels sure, however, that he is
completely harmless.
Sarah and Josh retire for the night in separate rooms, but
Josh tells Sarah to give him a shout if anything spooky happens. Sarah scoffs
and retires to her room, which comes complete with a stuffed grizzly bear and
the old wireless set which Yolande mentioned. However, her sleep is broken when
the clock strikes three by an eerie, low-pitched hum, and by the terrifying
shrieks and wails of a spectral apparition. Josh arrives to find Sarah
screaming hysterically, and as she recovers, she claims to have seen a ghost...
The next day dawns bright and sunny, but Sarah is still
shaken and can’t believe she actually saw a ghost. She tries to snap out of her
mood by going for a walk around the village with the grumbling Josh. Meanwhile,
Yolande speaks with Dmitri and tries again to find out who he is, but he seems
particularly agitated today and insists that he can remember nothing. All he
knows is that something unbearable happened to him -- and last night he hears a
sound which he believes he’s heard before.
Josh and Sarah split up upon reaching the village; Sarah
wants to explore the town, but Josh just wants a pint after the exhausting
three-mile hike. Sarah finds her way to a local museum, where she meets another
expatriate Brit, Christian Ian Abbotly. Abbotly won’t or can’t tell her what he
does for a living, leading her to conclude he’s involved with the peace
conference in some way, but he does offer her his business card and invite her
to share a cup of coffee. While Sarah spends a pleasant afternoon in Abbotly’s
company, Josh catches a taxi back to the house and finds Dmitri helping Yolande
with the gardening. He also tries to find out what Dmitri knows about last
night’s strange events, but gets no further than Yolande; however, he does get
the strong impression that Dmitri is hiding something, perhaps even from
himself.
That night, Yolande invites two more friends to dinner: Jack
McElroy, the American delegate to the peace conference, and his young wife
Candy. The five of them spend a very pleasant evening together, and it’s well
past midnight by the time Jack and Candy take their leave. Candy is devoted to
her husband, and Sarah considers him a very lucky man. But that night his luck
runs out. As the clock strikes three, Sarah sees the same apparitions she did
the previous night, but this time they’re not quite as terrifying as before...
but in the McElroy’s home, Candy is literally frightened to death while
preparing for bed. The next day, Sarah and Josh learn of Candy’s death. Jack is
in a state of shock, and Sarah, furious, vows to learn the truth.
Sarah and Josh return to Yolande’s home, where Yolande is
trying to calm the agitated Dmitri; last night, he actually managed to write
something down on a piece of paper, until the sounds came and frightened the
memory out of him again. Yolande finally admits to Sarah that things like this
have been going on for months, but she’s wary of investigating; even after
spending six years in the village, she is still regarded as an outsider, and if
she calls in the police because she’s seen a ghost, she’ll never be accepted.
This is the real reason she invited Sarah to stay with her.
Sarah and Josh return to the village to investigate, and
while there Josh meets Abbotly. He doesn’t get along with the smug ex-pat and
retreats to the bar, but Sarah accepts Abbotly’s invitation to dinner. Abbotly
excuses himself as Josh returns with further information; it seems that quite a
few delegates have seen apparitions similar to those which killed Candy, and
the conference is being disrupted as a result. Is the entire village haunted?
Sarah decides to get positive proof one way or the other,
and has Josh wire up her bedroom with audio and video recording equipment.
Yolande is reluctant to risk Sarah’s life, but allows her to try this
experiment anyway. That night at 3 a.m. the apparitions return, and this time
Josh and Yolande see them as well when they burst into Sarah’s room to rescue
her. Thunder rolls as they flee to safety, while elsewhere in the house, the
terrified Dmitri is confronted by a very familiar figure. Yolande hears something
like a muffled thunderclap and investigates, to find that Dmitri has been shot
and killed.
The next day, Josh finds that the video equipment has burned
out; they’ll need to rent another player to find out what’s been recorded. In
the meantime, Sarah has another lead; Dmitri’s murder definitely implies he’s
involved with whatever’s happening, and before he died he wrote down the name
of a university department. Josh and Sarah drive to the university, where they
finally learn Dmitri’s true identity; he was once known as Doctor Mikhail
Berberova, and he was a professor in the physics department. Sarah and Josh
question the department head, Professor Vodancski, who is shocked to learn of
Berberova’s death. Berberova was doing brilliant work in the field of sonics
until he vanished two years ago, apparently resigning his position to work on a
top-secret project which he referred to in his notes as “Project CIA”.
Josh can’t quite believe what he’s become involved with, but
for Sarah the pieces are starting to fit together. When she and Josh return and
play back the video from last night, Sarah isn’t surprised to find that there’s
nothing unusual on the tape; the spectres which so terrified her, Josh and
Yolande simply weren’t there. Ordering Josh and Yolande to call the police if
anything happens to her, Sarah prepares to keep a dinner date -- but first she
and Josh pay one more visit to Jack McElroy to see if Sarah’s suspicions are
justified. In the room where Candy died, Sarah finds an old radio receiver,
just like the wireless set in her own guest room.
Sarah visits Abbotly at his home, and questions him about
the peace conference, claiming that she’s heard it’s not going as smoothly as
hoped. Abbotly evades her questions and leaves to fetch some more wine, and as
soon as he’s gone Sarah searches the room -- and finds a tape with Berberova’s
voice, a record of his notes and his personal doubts about Project CIA. Abbotly
catches Sarah listening to the tape and holds her at gunpoint, admitting that
he’s been using Berberova’s work to disrupt the peace conference but refusing
to tell her who he’s working for. As Sarah suspected, Berberova had isolated
certain low-frequency electromagnetic fields which affected people’s
perceptions, creating the illusion of supernatural visitations and generating
fear within their minds. Once his work was complete, Abbotly turned the
ghost-wave on him, and eventually murdered him to keep him silent. He now
prepares to shoot Sarah, but at the last moment Josh arrives, overpowers him
and seizes the gun. Like Sarah, he worked out the truth when he realised that
“CIA” stood for “Christian Ian Abbotly.” Sarah survived despite the old radio
receiver in her room because Yolande’s house was too far out to receive a
strong signal. With Jack’s guidance, the delegates agree to resume the conference
after some time off; Abbotly’s mysterious employers have failed to disrupt the
cause of international peace.
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
Sarah’s conversation with Josh on the plane does more than
refer back to K9 and Company; the unpacked belongings in Claudia Coster’s flat
will play an important role in the next Sarah audio, Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre.
This is the only Sarah Jane audio not to feature regular
character Natalie Redfern.
Sarah is still in touch with Detective Inspector Morrison,
who appeared briefly in The TAO Connection and Test of Nerve; however, he
doesn’t actually appear again in the series.
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
5. Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre
5.Mirror,Signal,Manoeuvre
Written by Peter Anghelides
Directed by Gary Russell
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by David Darlington
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy Jones (Josh),
Sadie Miller (Natalie), Robin Bowerman (Harris), Louise Falkner (Wendy
Jennings), Peter Miles (Dr Brandt); Toby Longworth, Mark Donovan (Taxi
Drivers).
PARAMBIKULAM-ALIYAR PROJECT IS UNDERWAY
A bio-warfare scandal from the 1940s takes Sarah to a remote
island in the Indian Ocean. She pursues the scoop with a fellow journalist from
her former company, Planet 3. But why won’t she contact her friends back in the
UK? Josh and Natalie discover that Sarah has been searching for pursuers in the
rear-view mirror for so long that she hasn’t noticed who’s now in the driving
seat. A long way from home, and far from safe, will Sarah see the dangers in
her present and the enemies from her past -- before it’s too late?
Notes:
This is the fifth and final audio in the first Sarah Jane
Smith series.
The final track of the CD contains a trailer for the Bernice
Summerfield audio The Dance of the Dead, and an extended remix of the Sarah
Jane Smith series’ theme music.
Released: November 2002
ISBN: 1 903654 96 1
There are three new messages on Sarah’s Planet 3 voice-mail
account. The first is from Josh, who has found the information she requested.
The second appears to be from a fax machine or modem which dials her number and
then disconnects. The third is from Natalie, who needs to talk, feels that
Sarah has been holding out on her, and informs Sarah that someone from Planet 3
has been asking after her. Sarah erases the messages.
Synopsis
(drn: 67'16")
Sarah calls a taxi to take her to Heathrow Airport, but
finds two waiting for her. The first driver intends to charge her extra for
making him wait and tells the second driver, a man with an Indian accent, to
sod off back where he came from. Sarah decides to take the Indian’s cab rather
than the lout’s, but soon realises she’s made a mistake when the driver sees
through her claim to be a PR consultant named Lila Quest, claiming that he is
her biggest fan. The driver enthuses over her past successes until Sarah, fed
up, threatens to set off her rape alarm if he doesn’t shut up. Apparently hurt,
he promises to make less comments, and she corrects him -- it’s “fewer,” not
“less.” The rest of the trip is spent in relative silence, but the intrusion
into her privacy leaves her fuming, and when she arrives at Heathrow the only
tip she gives the driver is “mirror, signal, manoeuvre as you drive away.”
Later, Sarah checks her voice mail again and finds another
message from Natalie, but deletes it without responding. Sarah’s own journey
takes her to the Lakshadweep islands, where she is eventually found trying and
failing to get information out of a local malmi, fisherman. Sarah has tried
speaking in Malayalam, though not Mahl, and has now resorted to English, but
the malmi remains silent, presumably waiting until she offers him a bribe. Her
questions about odd goings-on in the 1940s attract the attention of Wendy
Jennings, a reporter from Planet 3 who recognises Sarah and offers to compare
notes on their presumably related stories; however, it seems that Wendy is
being followed by a tall European man, and Wendy thus arranges to meet Sarah
that night at a nearby restaurant to talk in private.
Sarah finds it a relief to speak with a fellow journalist
who understands what it’s like to be on the move constantly; she hasn’t even
unpacked her belongings in her new house yet, including some broken electronic
equipment which she can’t repair because they don’t make the parts for it yet.
She covers up this slip, and Wendy goes on to explain that she’s investigating
the company Scala. Scala is allegedly conducting genetic research to clear a
parasitic infection out of certain major Indian lakes, but Wendy has found a
connection between Scala and a scandal involving genetically engineered factory
farm salmon in Scotland. One of Scala’s researchers, is staying near the
tourist resort on Bangaram Island, and Wendy has come to Lakshadweep to
interview him. Before she can explain further, she spots the European man from
the boat, and slips away, arranging to meet Sarah at Bangaram on Friday
evening.
Natalie leaves another message on Sarah’s voice mail, and
then calls up Josh while she hacks into the public records office on Sarah’s
behalf to look up information on Operation Halter. Josh is at Sarah’s new flat,
unpacking for her, and wonders if moving into her dead friend’s flat means
Sarah’s getting less paranoid. Natalie reminds him that doesn’t necessarily
mean less people are looking for her, but Josh corrects her, just as Sarah
would -- it’s “fewer” people, not “less.” Natalie then finds the Operation
Halter documentation, but just as she realises that it’s all about to be made
public anyway, Josh answers the ringing doorbell -- and on the other end of the
line, Natalie hears the sound of Josh being savagely beaten. Sarah’s new
apartment is being burgled.
As Sarah and Wendy walk on the beach, admiring the vista of
the Chagos Islands, Wendy tells Sarah more about Joseph Brandt, the researcher
they’ve come to interview. Their discussion is interrupted when a Jeep churns
its way across the wet sand, heading right for them, but Sarah tricks the
driver into spinning into the sea, where the cold water cracks his Jeep’s
engine block. As she and Wendy retreat to their hire car, she realises that the
driver was swerving to hit her, not Wendy. Wendy identifies the driver as their
stalker and borrows Sarah’s mobile phone so she can call and warn Brandt.
However, Sarah refuses to let her call the police; the fewer people they
involve, the better. She finally admits that she came to Lakshadweep on the
trail of British germ warfare experiments from the late 1940s, in which Brandt
was involved. She’s not interested in Scala; she’s interested in Operation
Halter.
Josh is in the hospital with a black eye and a broken wrist;
fortunately, the thieves weren’t killers, and they just wanted him out of the
way while they went about their business. There were two men; one thug who
stood guard over Josh, and a smaller Indian man who ransacked the flat. They
took one of Sarah’s packing crates, containing a small grey box like a TV or
radio with two aerials on top. Natalie managed to get an ambulance to the flat
eventually, but was delayed by having to find out where the flat was exactly.
If Sarah had told Natalie where she was living, Natalie could have gotten help
to Josh more quickly, and Natalie intends to tell her just what she thinks of
that; the next time Sarah calls in to check her voice mail, Nat will be
connected, and she’ll find out what phone Sarah is calling from.
Sarah and Wendy keep their appointment with Brandt, who has
already guessed what Sarah wants to talk about and offers to tell her
everything. Operation Halter was a shambles from the start. Many test animals
proved unsuitable and were therefore shot and dumped in the sea; the rhesus
monkeys had to be treated for pneumonia before they could be infected with the
test bacteria; weather conditions proved rougher than expected, and the tests
were therefore run off shore in the local fishing grounds rather than in the
open sea; and one of the young researchers was himself infected. Brandt also
informs Sarah and Wendy that he’s resigned from his position in disgust at what
Scala had planned for the Parambikulam-Aliyar project, but before Sarah can
find out what he means, there is a knock at the door. Wendy lets in a police
officer, and too late, Sarah recognises him as their stalker. The man struggles
with Brandt and a shot rings out as Wendy hits him over the head with Brandt’s
ashtray. Refusing to stick around and be blamed for Brandt’s murder, Wendy
flees for Bangalor airport, with Sarah in tow.
Sarah decides to take the investigation to the Scala offices
in the UK, but Wendy reveals that Scala has another office nearby in Tamil
Nadu; she found its address on some papers in Brandt’s office. As Wendy buys
train tickets, Sarah hits the pay phone to check her voice mail without wasting
her mobile’s battery -- and Nat traces the number and calls her back. Surprised
when the pay phone rings, Sarah answers with the name of the airport, and is
furious when she hears Nat on the other end; if someone is listening in on
their calls then Sarah’s just revealed her location. Nat is just as angry with
Sarah for keeping her friends in the dark, and reveals what happened to Josh
because of it; as far as Nat is concerned, Sarah’s too busy looking for
imaginary pursuers to pay attention to what’s really going on. Nat does tell
Sarah that Wendy was made redundant by Planet 3 two weeks ago, which is
presumably why she’s so desperate for a scoop. Sarah tells Nat to look for a
connection between the brucella bacteria tested in Operation Halter and
something called the Parambikulam-Aliyar project -- but hangs up when Nat again
advises her to stop being so paranoid.
Irritated, Nat nevertheless does as Sarah asks, and when she
shows Josh pictures of Scala’s four full-time employees he recognises two of
them immediately -- not the CEO nor the chief scientist, Joseph Brandt, but the
head of security, Philip Harris, and the financial director, Bandaru
Chakravarti. Harris is the man who tried to kill Josh and Ellie Martin with
sarin gas, and Chakravarti is one of the two men who robbed Sarah’s flat and
put Josh in hospital. Despite Sarah’s refusal to give out her phone number,
Natalie will have to track her down again to warn her that she and Wendy are
being set up. Josh checks himself out of hospital and buys a plane ticket to
India, overcoming his fear of flying for this emergency and taking along
Sarah’s special briefcase as a precaution. Meanwhile, Natalie continues to
research the four Scala employees, and learns that they were all members of the
same scientific research centre in the 1980s, many of whom went to prison for
breaches of the Official Secrets Act.
Wendy and Sarah catch the train to Coimbature;
unfortunately, all of Wendy’s notes about Scala are still on the Planet 3
server and thus inaccessible due to her redundancy. However, she still has her
journalist’s ID, which she can use to get a meeting with the CEO. Sarah is
reconsidering the way she’s treated her friends, but Wendy doesn’t believe that
investigative journalists can ever truly have friends. Everyone has secrets
they don’t want revealed; hasn’t Sarah ever wondered what happened to the people
she’s written stories about in the past?
Sarah and Wendy reach their destination and take a taxi to
the Scala offices, passing a river and reservoir which Wendy identifies as part
of the Parambikulam-Aliyar project, a series of dams and reservoirs used for
generating power, irrigation, and drinking water. The taxi drops them off at
the Scala offices, where Wendy creates a distraction at the gate while Sarah
slips away for a look around the laboratories. She manages to access a computer
terminal, and what she learns is horrifying. Natalie then contacts her, but
before she can deliver her warning Sarah passes on a warning of her own -- the
employees of Scala are planning to release brucella into the
Parambikulam-Aliyar project, poisoning the land and killing millions. Natalie
tries to warn Sarah about the company’s CEO, but the call is interrupted when
Sarah is captured by Scala’s financial director, Bandaru Chakravarti -- the
“taxi driver” who dropped her off at Heathrow and subsequently broke into her
house.
Unfortunately, Sarah was unable to provide Natalie with
details about the forthcoming terrorist attack, and Natalie realises that
she’ll never be able to persuade the Indian government to shut down the entire
Parambikulam-Aliyar system without providing specific proof of her claims.
Searching for further evidence, she hacks into the Planet 3 server to access
Wendy’s personal files, but she can’t find any information on Scala -- until
she speaks to Josh, and a miscommunication over the phone gives her an idea.
Instead of checking Wendy’s personal files, she checks her personnel files --
and finds something very interesting indeed.
Sarah spends a day locked up in the Scala building, but
eventually Chakravarti and Harris come to take her to the CEO’s office. There,
she is shocked to that Wendy is in charge of them -- but she’s even more
shocked when the CEO walks in and is revealed to be her old nemesis Hilda
Winters. Wendy’s real last name is not Jennings, but Jellicoe; she’s a
relative, either niece or daughter, of the man who went down for murder while
Miss Winters got only 15 years in jail. Harris was a member of the SRS as well,
but he remained on the outside and has spent the last couple of decades setting
up cover operations on the outside. Winters is behind the collapse of Sarah’s
journalism career, but revenge is only an amusing sideline -- as ever, her
plans are much more ambitious...
Sarah’s mobile phone rings, and Winters allows her to answer
the call, which is from Josh. He and Nat are concerned about Sarah, but Sarah
tells him that the less things Nat worries about, the better. Josh becomes
suspicious, but Winters takes away the phone, the call having served its
purpose. When Chakravarti raided Sarah’s apartment he took the electronic
equipment which Sarah had mentioned to Sarah, and with her usual disregard for
the “personality” of mechanical objects, Winters had Sarah’s “pet” dismantled
and analysed. With the technology thus acquired, she has constructed an
electronic voicebox with which Wendy can imitate Nat’s voice perfectly and leak
information to the press regarding Sarah’s “true” agenda. Chakravarti also
planted notes in Sarah’s apartment, both paper and electronic, apparently
proving that Sarah herself intends to release the brucella virus into the
Parambikulam-Aliyar project, creating a false story about Scala in order to
restart her career. To her horror, Sarah discovers that Brandt is still alive
and a part of the project; his death was staged, all to lure Sarah her to act
as a scapegoat for the terrorist attack which will soon kill millions.
Winters, Brandt and Harris take one car to the dam while
Chakravarti, Wendy and Sarah take the second. The doors and windows are sealed,
and Wendy puts away her gun, convinced that Sarah can’t escape. Gloating, she
plays Sarah a recording of the phone conversation she’s just had with Josh,
which continued after Winters disconnected the real Sarah. Sarah listens in
horror as someone speaking with Sarah’s own voice tells Josh that Scala has
decided to cancel the project -- and that she’s decided to release the virus
herself in order to expose them, rather than let them hide away and start up
somewhere else. Josh protests, but Sarah’s voice tells him that the less
reasons he offers up, the faster this will all be over.
Furious, Sarah attacks the distracted Wendy, trying to force
Chakravarti to pull over -- and when he refuses, she sets off her rape alarm,
just as she’d threatened to do on the drive to Heathrow. Chakravarti loses
control and drives off the road, and Wendy’s legs are trapped when the car
crashes into the river. Wendy passes Sarah the gun so she can shoot out the
windows, but Sarah can’t get Wendy out of the car and must swim to safety as
the car sinks, taking Wendy down with it. Sarah abandons the gun as she swims
to shore, but Chakravarti recovers the gun and confronts her -- but at the last
moment Josh arrives and shoots him instead, with the gun which he acquired in
Romania and smuggled into India in Sarah’s special briefcase. He’s been
following them in a hire car ever since they left Scala, having realised that
something was wrong when Sarah misused the word “less” rather than “fewer”
during their phone conversation.
As Josh recovers from the shock of having shot and killed
someone, the other car catches up and tries to run them down, but Josh shoots
at the tires, forcing them to flee. He assures Sarah that the
Parambikulam-Aliyar project is safe; Nat tracked down a known Tamil Tiger code
phrase and alerted the Indian government to expect a terrorist attack, and the
dams and reservoirs are all under a tight security clampdown. Natalie has also
passed on word about Winters’ past to the UK government, ensuring that Scala will
lose its government contracts. Sarah realises that she’s been sadly neglecting
her friends, and promises to do better for them in the future. But she’s
certain that Winters will give up her plans for the Parambikulam-Aliyar
project, thus evading capture -- and now Winters has the technology to carry on
her vendetta. This battle has been won, and the enemy has been revealed, but
Sarah and her friends are not safe yet...
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
Hilda Winters was identified as Sarah’s mysterious
persecutor in Test of Nerve, but this is the first time they meet face-to-face
in the audio series.
The “electronic equipment” identified by Miss Winters as
Sarah’s “pet” is fairly obviously meant to be K9 Mark Three, who broke down in
the short story Moving On and clearly won’t be appearing again.
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
6. Buried Secrets
6.Buried Secrets
Written by David Bishop
Directed by John Ainsworth
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by Steve Foxon
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy Jones (Josh),
Sadie Miller (Nat), Tom Chadbon (Will), Ivor Danvers (Professor Edmons), Daniel
Barzotti (Luca), Shaun Ley (Newsreader), Jon Weinberg, Jacqueline Pearce, David
Gooderson, Patricia Leventon, Stephen Greif.
Having lived a life of adventure as a traveller in time and
space, returning to a quiet life on present day Earth was never going to be
easy. Ex-journalist, Sarah Jane Smith is determined to make a difference in her
own way. Fiercely independent, Sarah relies on her own wit, judgement and keen
sense of morality to challenge the evils of the world. Life is never quiet for
long. Trouble has a habit of finding Sarah -- even when she’s not looking for
it.
Sarah Jane Smith believes her days as a crusading
investigator are behind her, safe from those who tried to destroy her. But
others believe she has a destiny and they will stop at nothing to prevent her
fulfilling it. A trip to Florence to help an old friend leads to the unearthing
of a murderous conspiracy buried within the city’s catacombs...
Notes:
This is the first audio in the second Sarah Jane Smith
series.
Released: February 2006
ISBN: 1 844 35200 5
Here are the headlines at midday. The world’s first space
flight for tourists could be ready for lift-off in a matter of months. The
maiden voyage of the Dauntless hadn’t been expected until 2008, but today it
was announced the revolutionary spacecraft could take to the sky by Christmas.
Officials at NASA have expressed concern that the Dauntless project team is
cutting corners to beat its competitors into space, but pilot Ben Kimmel has
dismissed those fears: “NASA’s trying to frighten investors away from the
Dauntless to protect its government funded monopoly on space. They know if we
succeed NASA will be as dead as a dodo within twenty years”.
Britain’s leading forensic archaeologist Dr Gareth Edmons
has left for Florence to take charge of the Medici Project. He’ll lead a team
exhuming Tuscany’s most famous family from underground crypts that date back
nearly 500 years. Dr Edmons discussed the project before his departure: “This
is one the most exciting digs I’ve ever been involved with. The Medici Project
has already found evidence that challenges the previously accepted history of
Renaissance Italy. Who knows what else we’ll find beneath San Lorenzo? I only
wish I was joining the project under happier circumstances.” Dr Edmons’
predecessor, Professor Gian-Carlo Brunetti, vanished without trace a month ago.
Italian police admit they’re baffled by his disappearance.
Here, police are investigating the sudden death of Hilda
Winters. She was under house arrest awaiting trial for the theft of sarin nerve
gas pellets two years ago. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said Miss
Winters’ death was not suspicious and nobody else was involved. Her co-accused,
Philip Harris, was shot dead last month while trying to escape.
Josh Townsend switches off the radio. He calls Natalie
Redfern in Italy with the good news that Miss Winters’ death means she won’t
have to testify, but the police had already informed her, presumably to save
the CPS the cost of her plane ticket home. Josh is disappointed as he was keen
to see her again, but she wasn’t looking forward to reliving her ordeal in
court. Josh tells her he’ll be house-sitting Sarah’s cottage on the coast
tonight, but then Nat has to go as she’s going to meet her new boss. She advises
Josh to think of this as a fresh start for all of them, but once she’s gone
Josh wishes to himself that things could be that simple…
Synopsis
(drn: 55'25")
Sarah answers the phone, but is angered to find it’s another
journalist who’s tracked down her ex-directory number. She has no intention of
making a statement and hangs up. Josh arrives at the cottage and they greet
each other warmly. She apologises for asking him to house-sit at such short
notice, but she’s been door-stepped by tabloid hacks twice already today and
caught another one going through her rubbish bins. She’d received a call from
DI Morrison earlier to tell her about Miss Winters’ death, but she’s not sure
how she feels as she doesn’t wish death on anyone. She wants to change the
subject and Josh admits that he’s quit yet another job - that’s seven in two
years! The problem is that nothing he’s qualified for compares to the
adventures they had. Sarah tells him she’s been busy sorting out Aunt Lavinia’s
inheritance and is helping to fund other people’s good causes. The taxi arrives
to collect her and Josh starts fishing for information about where she’s going,
but all she’ll tell him is that she’s hoping to see an old friend tonight.
At the Medici Project in Florence, Nat shows Dr Edmons into
the mortuary where the burial boxes are to be opened. He’s very impressed by
the scale of the operation and learns that they’ve exhumed twenty coffins so
far, but the Basilica di San Lorenzo is open during the day so they work mostly
at night. Unfortunately everything was put on hold after Professor Brunetti
disappeared. He’d been searching for concealed chambers in the crypt, but
Brunetti’s assistant Luca Parenti will have to show him where as Nat can’t get
down there in her wheelchair. Luca and Edmonds go down the ladder to the lower
level while Nat takes a phone call. It’s Josh again, claiming that he’s worried
about Sarah because she’s been acting strangely. Nat recalls that Sarah always
used to mark some sort of anniversary on this date so Josh goes through Sarah’s
diary and discovers she’s due to meet someone called Harry at eight o’clock in
a restaurant not far from Blackfriars in London. Josh is interrupted by someone
at the door with a recorded delivery letter. He thinks it looks important, so
taking it to Sarah will be a good excuse to see what really she’s up to. Nat
warns him not to do anything silly…
A slightly tearful Sarah arrives at the restaurant and
recalls that it’s been a year since she last came here. She remembers her days
with UNIT, with everyone risking their lives to save the world from threats
that nobody else even knew existed. Some days it feels like only yesterday, but
other days it seems like a lifetime ago. She knows she can never discuss it
with Nat or Josh and she’s starting to wonder whether she imagined the whole
thing. She drinks a toast to Harry, wherever he is. Just at that moment, she’s
approached by a man who asks if he can join her. He introduces himself as Will
Sullivan, Harry’s younger step-brother. She doesn’t recall Harry ever
mentioning having a brother, but this doesn’t surprise Will as he never liked
to discuss his family. Will explains that when he was growing up, Harry often
used to come round for Christmas and birthdays and he seemed more like an uncle
than an older brother. He’d already joined up by the time Will was a teenager
and it was his stories about being a naval doctor that encouraged Will to study
medicine too. When Harry left the Navy and joined a top secret intelligence
taskforce, his stories became wilder, more like science-fiction, yet he made it
all sound so real. He claims that Harry often used to mention Sarah. He’s
staying at Harry’s flat at the moment, which is how he knew about their
appointment. He gets out a photo of her and Harry that was taken at the hotel
near Loch Ness.
Nat sets up a video camera and starts recording as Dr Edmons
introduces his assistant, Luca, and explains that he’s about to open the
twenty-first casket the archaeological team have uncovered in the underground
crypt below the Church of San Lorenzo. According to their records, the small
coffin should contain the body of Phillipino Medici, the young son of Grand
Duke Francesco I. There is evidence of water damage from the flood of 1966, but
the seal remains intact, which suggests the box has not been opened for 400
years. Dr Edmons opens the seal and the group is suddenly hit by the terrible
stench of decomposition. This doesn’t make any sense as the body should have
mummified centuries ago. They remove the lid and are horrified to discover a
fresh corpse inside, dressed in modern day clothes and with his arms and legs
broken to fit inside the small coffin. Luca recognises the half-decomposed face
- it’s Professor Brunetti, the project’s missing chief archaeologist! Nat turns
off the camera as Dr Edmonds orders her to call the police.
Will tells Sarah he’s just spent the summer in Antarctica as
base physician for a British research team, which reminds her of her own
experiences on the ice. He explains that he came to the restaurant in the hope
of bumping into Harry, who’s been missing for some time on a hush-hush mission.
He’s been gone so long now that Will has almost given up any hope of finding
out what’s happened to him. Unfortunately Sarah can’t help him as she hasn’t
met Harry since he left for his overseas posting. He couldn’t tell her where he
was going or when he’d be back. She still keeps her regular annual appointment,
just on the off chance that he’ll turn up. She suddenly realises she’s been
talking about him in the past tense, as though she knew he was dead. She starts
to cry…
Josh arrives at the restaurant and sees Sarah having a drink
with a man dressed like an ex-public schoolboy, who he takes an instant dislike
to. He assumes Sarah is on a date, but he gets angry when he notices she’s
crying. Sarah pulls herself together and apologises to Will, but he’s
sympathetic and offers her a lift to the station. As they get up to leave,
Sarah spots Josh and storms over to him, demanding to know why he followed her!
He makes a weak attempt to explain his presence by handing over the letter, but
she’s not fooled for a moment. Will joins them and Josh rebukes him for making
her cry. Sarah is annoyed by Josh’s over-protective nature and the fact that
he’s mocking Will’s posh accent. She promises to have words with him tomorrow,
then she leaves with Will.
Luca reports back to Dr Edmons and tells him the police have
ordered everyone to stay at the crypt until they arrive. The elderly
archaeologist can’t understand why anybody would want to hurt Professor
Brunetti as he seemed such a nice man. Nat confirms that it was definitely
murder as she’s noticed a bullet wound on the dead man’s temple. The other
mystery is how the killer could have placed the body inside the casket without
breaking the seal but she discovers the bottom of the box had been broken open
and then hastily repaired afterwards, so that it wasn‘t visible from the top.
She suspects thieves had probably thought the coffin might contain jewels, but
Edmonds points out that thieves would be unlikely to go to such lengths to hide
the body.
As Will drives Sarah to the station, she apologises for
Josh’s behaviour. He may be a rough diamond, but he obviously cares for her.
She asks him about his work in Antarctica as she has herself donated some of
her inheritance into an ecological study there. Will is familiar with most of
the bases on the continent and asks her which one she’s funding. When she
reveals that it’s a project to drill for ice-core samples to calculate when
global warming will reach tipping point, he realises she’s talking about the
Nikita Base under the leadership of Gideon Munro. Incredibly, this is the very
team he’s working for! He’s leaving for there tomorrow and will spend the next
thirteen months at the Base. They arrive at the station and he realises that
because she’s funding the research it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to
arrange for her and Josh to visit. He leaves her his card with his email
address and asks her to keep in touch.
It’s almost dawn in Florence and Nat, Luca and Edmons are
exhausted after being questioned for hours by the police. The murder will be an
embarrassment to the city and the authorities will be pressing the police for
an early arrest. Nat’s phone rings - it’s Josh again. She tells him about the
death of Professor Brunetti and the fact that everyone who works for the Medici
Project is a suspect, including her! Edmons hasn’t slept for 24 hours so he
heads back to the hotel, while Luca escorts Nat home. He’s frustrated that the
crypt will now be crawling with police looking for evidence which is ironic as
his team contains some of the world’s best forensic specialists and none of
them will be allowed to help. Nat is curious to know who chose which of the
coffins to exhume first. Luca tells her the decision was Dr Edmons. She
realises there are still over a dozen caskets left, so it could have been
months or even years before the body was found.
Josh arrives at Sarah’s cottage the next morning, looking
rather shamefaced. He feels even worse when she lets him in and he sees she was
burgled last night and the entire house was completely ransacked. There had
been a spate of break-ins in the area recently, which is why she asked him to
house-sit. She knows he meant well, but she thinks it’s time he let her look
after herself. Fortunately nothing appears to have been stolen. As they tidy
things up, Josh tells her about the murder in Florence and Nat’s interrogation
by the police. Sarah wants to fly straight to Italy, whether Nat likes it or
not. Josh remembers Sarah’s letter and when she opens it she finds it’s from
Miss Winters, written just before she died.
The Keeper, a woman with a deep sultry voice, receives a
phone call from one of her acolytes telling her that they searched Sarah’s
house thoroughly but found no sign of the letter. She decides not to have him
take the letter by force as this would only draw attention to it. Instead, she
will rely on Sarah dismissing its contents as the last spiteful act of an old
adversary. Before he returns to the Chapterhouse, the acolyte tells her he left
listening devices in Sarah’s cottage and overheard her planning to visit Italy.
The Keeper will need to warn their contact in Florence.
Sarah is shocked by Miss Winters’ letter and needs to get
some air, so Josh joins her in the garden. The letter, some of which is in
Latin, contains a mix of threats and wild accusations, but Sarah is intrigued
by a warning that she’s being watched by people close to her. Miss Winters
explains that Sarah’s life is of more significance than either of them realised
and she should beware the scarlet acolytes of something called the Orphans of
the Future. There’s also a note stating that the Book of Tomorrows is opening.
Convinced that Nat can help them, Sarah is even more determined to go to
Florence.
Here are the headlines at midday. The British millionaire
and philanthropist Sir Donald Wakefield has confirmed he will be a passenger on
the first space tourist flight scheduled to take off from Nevada later this
year. Sir Donald is battling cancer, but says he will be well enough to take
the historic voyage on board the privately funded spaceship known as the
Dauntless. He joked with reporters about the flight at a news conference in
London today: “I want to see the heavens before I move there permanently, you
understand. I never acquire a new residence sight unseen.”
Animal rights activists have stepped up their campaign
against the staff at the Pangbourne Research Centre in Reading, near Berkshire.
Last night there was a firebomb attack on the home of Dr Gavin Dexter, Head of
Research at the laboratory. Police say nobody was hurt in the incident but Dr
Dexter’s property suffered significant damage. We spoke to Maude Fletcher,
veteran campaigner, who‘s maintained a round-the-clock vigil outside the
facility in Pangbourne since last Christmas: “I certainly don’t approve of, nor
condone, attacks on private property. The vast majority of animal rights
activists are peaceful people who simply want an end to needless and cruel
experimentation. Nearly three million animals were used and abused on the name
of medical science last year. How would you feel if it was happening to your
children?”
The remains of missing archaeologist Gian-Carlo Brunetti
have been formally identified in Florence. Ironically his body was unearthed by
the Professor’s replacement, British forensic expert Gareth Edmons: “We’re
still coming to terms with this loss. I’ve been asked not to disclose the
details of what we’ve found but I can say this, Professor Brunetti’s death is a
sad blow. Our sympathies are with his wife Isabella and their three children.”
Nat collects Sarah and Josh on their arrival in Italy. Sarah
comments on how contented she looks, despite everything that’s happened, and
she wonders when they’ll get to meet her mystery boyfriend. In fact, Luca is
waiting for them at the hotel with Dr Edmons. Nat has already had a chance to
do some preliminary research on Sarah’s letter - the Book of Tomorrows is
considered in certain circles to be one of the most significant texts ever
written. Back in the 16th century an Italian scholar started writing a journal
which became known as the Book of Tomorrows. Its pages were made from two kinds
of paper, one black with white lettering and one white with red lettering. It
contains several predictions, and not just vague prophecies open to
interpretation, they were apparently very specific and made mention of an
apocalyptic event due in our lifetime. Parts of the journal were lost over the
centuries and the book disappeared completely about 100 years ago, reportedly
stolen by a sect obsessed with the end of the world.
The sect was made up of scientists, philosophers, inventors
and other key figures across Europe and North America who held enormous
influence and called themselves the Orphans of the Future. They believed man’s
development had been aided by alien intervention and each visitation was
preceded by the emergence of a human herald. The Book of Tomorrows predicted
that the alien intelligence would return for a final visit before the end of
the last Millennium. Over the years, two different interpretations of the text
emerged. One half of the sect, called the White Chapter, believed the aliens
would take them away to a better life, while the Crimson Chapter believed the
aliens were coming to wipe us all out. Obviously the last Millennium has now
ended and the final visitation never happened, so the two sects presumably fell
apart as no one has heard of them since - until Miss Winters wrote to Sarah,
claiming her activities were funded by the White Chapter.
Dr Edmons receives a call from the police telling him
they’ve finished their work at the crypt and the Medici Project will be able to
start working again later tonight. Nat brings over Sarah and Josh to introduce
them and Edmons seems to recall Sarah from her previous television appearances.
Luca offers to give them a tour of the crypt after they‘ve settled into their
hotel, but Edmons appears a little flustered and makes his excuses, leaving
Luca to go to the crypt first to see what condition it’s been left in. Thinking
he’s alone, Edmons makes an urgent telephone call to someone with a warning
that the person they’ve been expecting has arrived. He says he recognised her
from her initials and the description given in the Book of Tomorrows - the
prophecy is coming true at last! Suddenly the phone goes dead and Dr Edmons is
shot dead.
Later that evening, Nat brings Sarah and Josh down into the
crypt beneath the Basilica di San Lorenzo, the final resting place of the
Medici family. She’s surprised that neither Dr Edmons or Luca are waiting for
them, but the underground sections are huge and she can’t get access to them
herself. Nat explains that Professor Brunetti was looking for secret rooms when
he disappeared. Two years earlier he’d discovered a chamber with eight
previously undiscovered caskets inside and he felt there must still be other
hidden spaces. Nat stays behind while Sarah and Josh climb down a ladder and
move further into the catacombs.
Nat tries to find Luca and Dr Edmons, but there’s no
response. She hears a noise nearby and realises she’s not alone… As Sarah and
Josh explore the beautifully carved tunnels, they wonder why anyone would want
to murder a forensic archaeologist. Maybe during the dig he found something
that wasn’t mean to be found? Suddenly the low-level lighting in the tunnels
start to fade and they’re left in complete darkness, except for a faint glimmer
of light ahead of them. They hear Nat calling out, but then she goes quiet.
Josh goes back to see if she’s alright while Sarah continues her exploration…
Josh goes back up to the main crypt and finds Nat unconscious!
Sarah hears Josh calling out to her urgently. He tells her
somebody attacked Nat but he thinks she’s going to be OK. Then everything goes
quiet. Sarah finds a small concealed room that she thinks might have something
to do with Professor Brunetti’s murder. The faint light is coming from a torch
inside and she would never have found it if the main lights hadn’t failed.
Further in, she discovers the walls are lined with hundreds of pages torn from
a book - and some of those pages are black with white writing! They would
appear to be from the Book of Tomorrows, yet they’re written in English.
Suddenly the door to the room closes behind her…and Luca emerges from the
shadows. He holds her at gunpoint and claims that her discovery of the room was
destined. He confesses to murdering Brunetti and hiding his body in the hope
that it wouldn’t be discovered for years. Both Brunetti and Edmons were “false
disciples” who’d come there looking for the missing pages from the book which
reveal the herald’s identity. But Luca has already found the truth…
He asks Sarah to shine her torch at some of the pages on the
wall. She reads the prophecies about how the aliens brought not only
destruction, but enlightenment too. A woman is said to have arrived at the same
time, carrying wisdom from the future. Her name was Sarah! At first Sarah believes
this is nothing more than a coincidence, but Luca explains that earlier pages
from the book referred to the herald by the initials SJS. The prophecies state
that her arrival here would be the final portent. His aim now is to ensure that
his enemies in the White Chapter never learn of her identity as they might
still have time to stop what his Brethren are planning. He plans to kill her
now and leave her body hidden in the secret room where it will never be found.
Sarah continues to insist that she has nothing to do with this - but then she
switches off the torch, plunging the room into darkness. He starts firing into
the shadows and she is injured, but just then Josh returns and struggles with
Luca. Sarah hears more shots being fired…before she finally passes out.
Here are the headlines at one o’clock. Two forensic
archaeologists were shot dead yesterday in a bizarre incident at the Medici
Project in Florence. The bodies of British doctor Gareth Edmons and his
assistant Luca Parenti were discovered in the crypt beneath the Church of San
Lorenzo by tourists. Local police are still investigating the case but believe
an academic argument may have turned violent. A British woman caught up in the
incident is recovering from gunshot wounds in a Florence hospital. Her name’s
not yet been released, but her condition is said to be stable. The shooting
happened less than 24 hours after the corpse of another academic, Professor
Gian-Carlo Brunetti, was found hidden inside a 400 year old coffin.
Sarah slowly recovers in hospital and receives a visit from
Josh. She’s lost a lot of blood and it was touch and go for a few days. Nat was
only knocked out and is waiting outside, but she’s not taken the news that Luca
was the murderer very well. Josh was also shot in the arm, but wasn’t seriously
hurt. Luca must have thought he was dead so Josh was able to follow him down
into the concealed room without his knowledge. The police want to talk to
Sarah, but she doesn’t know how much she can tell them as she still has more
questions than answers. Sarah asks what happened to Luca and Josh reveals that
he had no choice but to kill him. This is now the second time Josh has killed
someone to save her life and although she doesn’t approve of killing, she’s
pleased that he’s always been there to protect her.
Josh leaves and Nat comes in to visit Sarah. She appears
quite bitter about what happened and believes Luca was only with her to get to
Sarah, but her friend explains that he was already dating her before he even
knew of Sarah’s existence. Nat has decided to go away for a while and she asks
that no one try to find her. She wants to be on her own for a bit and says
goodbye. Sarah is devastated.
Back at Sarah’s cottage, Will Sullivan calls and leaves a
message on her answerphone. He says he’s talked with Gideon Munro who has
agreed that she and Josh can visit them in Antarctica.
Source: Lee Rogers
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
7. Snow Blind
7.Snow Blind
Written by David Bishop
Directed by John Ainsworth
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by Steve Foxon
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy Jones (Josh),
Tom Chadbon (Will), Nicholas Briggs (Munro), Julia Righton (Morgane), Jack
Galagher (Jack), Shaun Ley (Newsreader), Jacqueline Pearce, David Gooderson,
Stephen Greif.
Having lived a life of adventure as a traveller in time and
space, returning to a quiet life on present day Earth was never going to be
easy. Ex-journalist, Sarah Jane Smith is determined to make a difference in her
own way. Fiercely independent, Sarah relies on her own wit, judgement and keen
sense of morality to challenge the evils of the world. Life is never quiet for
long. Trouble has a habit of finding Sarah -- even when she’s not looking for
it.
Sarah Jane Smith travels to Antarctica where her friend,
Will is part of a research team studying global warming. But someone at Nikita
Base is a murderer and everybody has a guilty secret. When a massive storm
severs all communications, the killer strikes and the truth is revealed.
Notes:
This is the second audio in the second Sarah Jane Smith
series.
Released: February 2006
ISBN: 1 844 35201 3
Here are the headlines at midday. A legal bid to prevent
animal rights activists protesting outside a research centre in Berkshire has
failed. Last month staff from the Pangbourne Scientific Research Laboratory
gave evidence that they feared for their lives following a recent firebomb
attack, but the High Court ruled this was insufficient to justify banning
lawful public protest outside the centre. Pangbourne’s Head of Research, Dr
Gavin Dexter, told reporters the company planned to appeal: “I accept that people
have the right to express their point of view, but that shouldn’t give them the
right to harass or endanger my staff or my family“.
The world’s first space flight exclusively for tourists will
lift off on September 27th, it was announced today. All seats on the maiden
voyage of the Dauntless have already been purchased by British billionaire Sir
Donald Wakefield, but tickets are now available for subsequent flights. A
round-trip costs one hundred thousand American dollars, about sixty thousand
pounds. Sir Donald said he paid ten times that amount for his place on the
inaugural flight: “I dreamed of going into space since Yuri Gagarin circled the
Earth when I was a boy. I’ve achieved much since then, but this September I’ll
fulfil my final ambition. Frankly, I can’t wait!”.
Sarah orders Josh to switch the radio off as they’re nearly
ready to leave. Josh still doesn’t think this trip is a good idea as it’s only
been two months since she was shot in Florence by an acolyte of the Scarlet
Chapter of the Orphans of the Future, who believed she was the herald of an
alien visitation. She tells him she needs to clear her head, which is precisely
why she thinks it’s a good time to visit the base in Antarctica to see how
Gideon Munro is spending her inheritance. The fact that Harry Sullivan’s
step-brother Will is also there is just a happy coincidence. Josh still doesn‘t
trust her new friend, but Sarah assures him she’s already checked Will out and
everything he told her is true. The taxi arrives and as there’s no way Josh is
going to let her undertake this trip alone, he reluctantly goes with her. As
they leave, the phone rings and Will’s voice goes onto the answerphone. He
warns her that they’re having a few personnel problems in Antarctica and Munro
is threatening to pull the plug on the whole project, so it’s probably not a
good idea for her to visit them just yet.
Synopsis
(drn: 54'22")
The plane carrying Sarah and Josh leaves McMurdo in
Australia on course for the Nikita Base in Antarctica. Will Sullivan tells them
they have good landing conditions at the moment, but the weather is
deteriorating rapidly. He’s surprised to learn of the two passengers, but as
the flight is still two hours away, it’ll give him time to lay out the red
carpet. The pilot, Jack, assures Sarah that landing shouldn’t be a problem, but
taking off again later may be a bit tricky. He knows her from her earlier TV
appearances for Planet 3 and regards her as a celebrity. Jack tells them there
are rumours that the Russians once found something unusual in the area but
details were never made public. When the Antarctic Treaty was ratified, the ice
was protected from exploitation, so the Russians pulled out and Munro decided
to take over their old base. He warns her that most of the other research teams
have already left for the Winter and the place is almost deserted, but Sarah
had no choice as she was forced to delay her plans to visit earlier. There are
now only three scientists left at Nikita - Munro, Will and Morgane Kaditch, a
French scientist who’s rumoured to be a real heart-breaker. Josh is suddenly
interested…
Two hours later, the plane is cleared for landing. Will
tells Morgane that their visitors should be with them shortly and she’s worried
that Munro is paranoid enough already without strangers arriving. Will knows
this only too well and he would never have invited them if he’d known what the
situation was going to be like. Dr Gideon Munro overhears them and accuses them
of talking about him behind his back. Will tells Munro that he’s noticed he’s
been under a lot of strain recently, but Munro insists he’s still in charge of
the project and he refuses to be patronised. He believes his colleagues have
been trying to undermine him and he now regrets agreeing to Will’s request for
Sarah to visit. It’s too late to stop them now, but he hopes they’ll be
satisfied with a quick tour and will leave before the weather closes in. As
Munro leaves to greet the new arrivals, Morgane urges Will to do something
before it’s too late…
The plane finally touches down and Dr Munro and the others
go out to greet their visitors. Munro thanks Sarah for the generous donation
and adds that without private sponsorship the project would be virtually
impossible. As they head back inside, Sarah is surprised to learn from Will
that he’d been trying to send her messages over the last week, but he doesn’t
explain what they were about. Morgane welcomes Josh and promises to make his
first trip to Antarctica one to remember. She tells him she only has three days
left before she’s due to leave herself. Jack stays behind to check a warning
light flashing inside the plane, but will join them later.
Munro completes the guided tour, covering the common room
and kitchen and the sleeping areas. Will explains that the base has larger
storage areas, but they’re not heated so all the activity is centred around one
small building. Morgane is due to go to the drilling site later and invites
their guests to join her. She gives them both a panic button which will
transmit a homing signal to the others if they get lost on the ice. Although
Josh agrees to go to the drill site, Sarah is more interested in finding out
about the outcome of their research than the actual process. She asks Munro if
she can see any preliminary results and he leaves to prepare a report.
Once they’re alone, Will tells Sarah he wishes she hadn’t
come as there’s a massive storm front moving in and there’s a chance they may
get stuck there. Sarah realises he’s scared of something and asks him how he
got his black eye. He claims to have walked into a door, but that doesn’t fool
her for a second and he reluctantly admits that Munro punched him a few days
ago after accusing him and Morgane of plotting against him. He’s believes Munro
is cracking up and is getting increasingly paranoid. This sort of behaviour has
happened before on the Antarctic and he recounts an incident ten years ago when
the FBI were called in after two Americans tried to kill each other, and
another incident in the winter of 1983 when an Argentinean torched his own
base, forcing everyone to be evacuated. When things go wrong here, they usually
have fatal consequences. As base physician, Will is able to offer medication to
Munro, but he can’t force him to take it. Jack returns and tells them the
problem on the plane was worse than he thought and it’s unlikely they’ll be
able to leave today. He asks to borrow some tools and Will directs him to the
main storage hut. Sarah decides it would be a good idea for her to talk to
Munro alone so Will decides to accompany Morgane and Josh to the drilling site.
Sarah catches up with Munro and explains that they’ll
probably have to stay the night after all. He says that won’t be a problem as
they have plenty of space now the summer team have departed. He pours her a
whisky and she asks him about his background. He tells her his father and
grandfather were church ministers and he’s regarded as the black sheep of the
family. Sarah reveals that she coaxed details from Will about how he got his
black eye and Munro says he regrets his actions. He believes Morgane is the
real trouble maker and compares her to the Sirens of Greek mythology. He warns
Sarah that Josh should keep his distance from her and implies that Morgane and
Will are sharing a bed. Sarah becomes uncomfortable with the way the
conversation is developing and makes an excuse to leave. He advises her to wear
goggles if she’s planning to go outside as the ambient light in Antarctica can
cause snow blindness.
Will and Morgane bring their Snowcats to a halt and Josh
gets out, amazed at the spectacular mountainous landscape. They’ve arrived at
the drilling site, but it’s a bit dull and consists of just a few holes in the
ground. But Morgane believes that what’ve found beneath the ice could change
the world! Josh knows they’re investigating climate change, but Dr Munro has
forbidden them to discuss any of the details until they’re ready for
publication. Suddenly Morgane has a dizzy spell and nearly passes out. Will
believes she’s suffering from exposure as she’s been coming out to the site a
lot recently, but she says she’ll be fine in a moment. She agrees to return to
the base alone, leaving Will to show the nearby penguin colony to an excited
Josh.
Sarah checks on Jack, who’s just finished checking the
plane. He’s found the problem, but fixing it will not be so easy. He asks her
to sit in the cockpit and switch things on and off while he examines the
engine. He guides her through what he needs and she reads off some of the
instrument panels for him. They see Morgane returning on her Snowcat and Jack
tells Sarah that he’s heard rumours that Will and Munro were both smitten by
her and have been fighting over her affections.
Will and Josh trudge across the icy landscape, but they soon
start to fall out and argue over their concern for Sarah and Josh’s flirting
with Morgane. Will warns him to be careful of Morgane, but Josh realises it’s
his relationship with Sarah that’s really bothering him. Josh accuses him of
being jealous, but Will says he’s out of his depth and should go home. When
they reach the penguin colony, Will is shocked to discover the birds have all
gone. He suddenly notices the mountains on the horizon have disappeared under
the approaching storm. He estimates they have less than ten minutes to get back
to the Snowcat or they’ll be trapped…
Sarah uses the base’s radio to call Will and Josh, and they
respond with a warning that the storm front is closing in fast and they’re on
their way back. She tells them that somebody has left a note on her bunk
telling her to meet them in the main storage hut. She doesn’t know what it’s
about, but she has a suspicion that it might have something to do with her
first visit to Antarctica in which something dangerous was found in the ice.
Will advises her to wait until they’ve got back, but she’s confident she can
look after herself. Josh urges Will to go faster…
Sarah enters the storage hut and calls out to see if anyone
is there. As she looks around, the door opens again and someone enters behind
her, disguised in a balaclava. Sarah suspects that the person is trying to
frighten her, but before she can find out who it is, she is attacked…
Will and Josh arrive back at the base, but by now the storm
is so strong they can’t see anything other than the guide ropes that connect
the various buildings. Munro comes out to find them and tells them Sarah has
gone missing. Josh suggests they go straight to the storage hut, but the guide
ropes to that area of the base have snapped in the wind and it would be
hopeless trying to fight their way through the snow while conditions are this
bad. Will points out that if Sarah was in trouble she would have activated her
panic button, so they decide to go back to the main building and try contacting
her via the intercom system. Unfortunately there’s no response and the group
realise she’s either asleep, unconscious or lost outside. Josh becomes
frustrated as neither Will nor Munro seem prepared to do anything, but they
warn him its too dangerous to go out and if he gets lost in the blizzard he’ll
quickly freeze to death.
Just then, Sarah responds to Will’s call and tells him she
was taken outside by the stranger, who stole her panic button and goggles.
Somehow she managed to stumble back to the main storage hut, but Will deduces
from her symptoms that she has hypothermia. He tells her to change into dry
clothes and climb into one of the sleeping bags to get her temperature back up.
They can’t get to her because of the storm but she should be safe where she is.
She recalls that just after she was attacked she heard someone shouting
outside, but she’s not sure who’s voice it was. Munro, Morgane and Jack join
Will and Josh just as Sarah tells them that she thinks the voice could have
belonged to Munro. Will tells Sarah to get some rest as there’s nothing more
they can do for her now. Josh confronts Munro who protests his innocence and
claims that she must have heard him calling for her earlier. Morgane reminds
him that he attacked Will the day before and has been ranting and raving ever
since. Jack thinks he’s dangerous and unstable, but Munro responds by saying he
knows Jack has been plotting with Morgane for weeks. He’s seen them whispering
in the corner on several occasions. When Morgane accuses him of being paranoid,
he lashes out at her and the others grab him and escort him to his office. With
Munro safely locked away, Will tells the others it may be more than eight hours
before they can reach Sarah. Morgane points out that the guide lines between
the buildings don’t just snap in the wind, and Will agrees that Munro must have
cut them deliberately.
Much later, Josh and Will manage to reach Sarah in the
storage hut and she calls out to them. There’s a heavy build up of snow outside
the door so it will take them a minute to get through to her. Jack is checking
on the condition of the plane and Morgane is keeping an eye on Munro. Sarah
tells them her head is still thumping and everything in the hut is so dark she
can’t see anything. They manage to open the door and rush over to greet her,
and she’s shocked to discover she’s been trapped there for thirteen hours. As
they check her for frostbite they’re stunned when she asks them to turn on the
light. Josh points out that it’s broad daylight and Will realises she’s gone
snow blind. It’s caused by unprotected exposure to the sun and the symptoms
usually take eight hours to develop. He’s confident that if she only had
limited exposure she should recover soon, but he can’t make any promises. He
can help to relieve the symptoms, but it’s possible she may have been blinded
permanently.
Just then, Morgane contacts them over the intercom to warn
them Munro has escaped and appears to have set the main building on fire. Will
urges her to get out before she’s overcome by smoke but they hear the sound of
gunfire and Morgane cries out…then the intercom goes dead. Will tells Josh they
need to go back straight away to fight the fire, so Sarah has to be left alone
once again. A few moments after they’ve gone, Sarah hears the door opening and
footsteps approaching. It’s Dr Munro…
Will and Josh find Morgane in agony from her gunshot wounds
and they discover the radio equipment has also been destroyed. Will sends Josh
to find Jack in the common room and make sure he hasn’t passed out from smoke
inhalation. If Morgane dies, that will make Munro a murderer!
Sarah challenges Munro and accuses him of leaving her
outside in the hope that her death would look like an accident. She thinks he’s
going to shoot her, but he points out that guns are outlawed in Antarctica. He
seems genuinely surprised when she tells him Morgane has been shot and she can
tell from his voice that he doesn’t know anything about it. He realises she is
blind, but she tells him she can just start to make general shapes out. He says
he only wants to talk and admits that he left the note for her in her sleeping
quarters, but only because he has information that proves Morgane discovered
something very dangerous beneath the ice. Sarah thinks he’s referring to a seed
pod, but he seems confused. He activates a Geiger counter and reveals that Morgane
found uranium ore which is richer than the processed uranium found in nuclear
power stations. Sarah’s immediate concern is that she’s been in the same room
with it for over thirteen hours, but Munro assures her it’s safe as it’s stored
in lead-lined containers. It was Morgane that chose the drilling site, which
suggests she’s obtained old Soviet records relating to the Russian drilling
operation in the 1950s. She knew what they’d found and had used Munro’s
research project to get her hands on it. Munro had overheard her earlier,
speaking on the radio to someone and discussing how much profit they could make
from selling it, so he went through her belongings and found the Geiger
counter. He suspects she was working alongside some of the researchers who left
the base earlier, but a more likely suspect would be someone who could help her
get the uranium off the base quickly. At that moment the door opens and Sarah
hears a shot. Munro cries out…and then Jack approaches Sarah and taunts her for
being an investigative journalist who can no longer see anything!
Will drags Morgane to safety and asks who shot her, but
before she can answer Josh arrives to say the fire is spreading really fast. He
can’t find Jack and assumes Munro must have already got to him. Morgane starts
mumbling about the Book of Tomorrows and the End Days being upon them and that
she wished she’d been able to see the prophecy come true. Just before she dies
she reveals she is a member of the Crimson Chapter of the Orphans of the
Future. Will drags a shocked Josh out of the building.
Jack orders Sarah at gunpoint to carry a crate to the plane.
He reveals that he lied about the plane being out of action so he could stay
the night and collect the uranium. He forces her to load the crate aboard and
then get inside herself. Just then, Josh calls out to them and runs over,
followed by Will. Sarah manages to warn them about Jack and he’s forced to
admit to killing Morgane. He threatens to do the same to Sarah if they don’t
keep back, but Josh wants to know what the Crimson Chapter plan to do with the
uranium. Jack explains that he has no interest in the sect and he’s only in
this for the money. Now Morgane is dead he won’t have to share the proceeds
with anyone. While he argues with the others, Sarah is left unattended inside
the plane. She remembers enough about what Jack showed her earlier to adjust
the instruments in the plane. Jack climbs aboard and tells her she’s coming
with him as his insurance. He starts the plane and it moves off, with Josh and
Will powerless to stop him.
As the plane starts moving, Sarah reveals to Jack that she
regained her sight some time ago and has been bluffing him. She takes the
chance that his gun will be too frozen to work and she prepares to jump out.
Jack calls her bluff and pulls the trigger - but the gun is jammed. They start
to struggle and Sarah falls from the plane as it starts to pick up speed. Josh
and Will rush to help her, but as they’re heading for the remains of the base
she tells them she activated the fuel dump mechanism. Jack isn’t going to get
very far. She’s curious to know why Josh asked Jack about the Crimson Chapter
and he tells her about Morgane. It all starts to make sense - Morgane found the
high grade uranium ore beneath the ice and planned to sell it on the
international black market to raise funds. Jack was just in it for himself
until he got too greedy and killed her. Will admits he suspected Morgane of
something, but he had no idea what. That was why he tried to persuade Sarah not
to come here. She still feels it’s a bit of a coincidence that a research
project she was funding was being used as a cover for the Crimson Chapter.
Everything always seems to lead back to her.
The main building collapses as they approach, but Will
assures them the fire would have trigged an automatic distress beacon and they
can expect a rescue mission to arrive by dawn. In the meantime they can shelter
in the main storage hut. Something is still worrying Sarah. They estimate that
Morgane was hoping to raise tens of millions of pounds - so what on Earth is
the Crimson Chapter planning that needs so much cash?
Here are the headlines at midday. The international
scientific community has been rocked by allegations that a climate research
project in Antarctica was being used as a front for smuggling uranium. News of
the scheme emerged when an Australian pilot crash-landed on the frozen
continent and a rescue mission found the uranium among his cargo. The pilot is
now being questioned by the authorities. Details of the scheme remain sketchy
but early reports suggest those involved planned to sell the uranium on the black
market, enabling the highest bidder to manufacture weapons of mass destruction.
According to a source within the investigation, those behind the operation were
mercenaries.
The Keeper of the Crimson Chapter discusses recent events
with a colleague and concludes that her counterpart in the White Chapter must
have pulled a few strings to keep Sarah’s name out of the headlines. The
failure of their latest operation is unfortunate and it means they’ll have to
go ahead with their contingency plan. Their sleeper agent in Antarctica was
supposed to have arranged Sarah’s death and make it look like an accident, so
she gives orders for him to be brought in to account for what happened. Either
he carries out her orders or else she’ll be forced to intervene. The End Days
are too close to allow a crisis of conscience by one of their sleepers to
impede the great crusade. It is decided - Will Sullivan must kill Sarah Jane
Smith or face the consequences of his failure!
Source: Lee Rogers
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
8. Fatal Consequences
8.Fatal Consequences
Written by David Bishop
Directed by John Ainsworth
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by Steve Foxon
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy Jones (Josh),
Tom Chadbon (Will), Jacqueline Pearce (Keeper), David Gooderson (Dexter),
Patricia Leventon (Maude), Katarina Olsson (Emily), Shaun Ley (Newsreader),
Stephen Greif (Sir Donald).
Having lived a life of adventure as a traveller in time and
space, returning to a quiet life on present day Earth was never going to be
easy. Ex-journalist, Sarah Jane Smith is determined to make a difference in her
own way. Fiercely independent, Sarah relies on her own wit, judgement and keen
sense of morality to challenge the evils of the world. Life is never quiet for
long. Trouble has a habit of finding Sarah -- even when she’s not looking for
it.
Sarah Jane Smith has been attacked, stalked and shot by the
acolytes of a doomsday cult. When she tries to turn the tables, Sarah discovers
the Crimson Chapter has a weapon that could claim millions of lives -- and her
own actions may have instigated their genocidal plan.
Notes:
This is the third audio in the second Sarah Jane Smith
series.
Released: March 2006
ISBN: 1 84435 202 1
Synopsis
(drn: 56'20")
Here are the headlines at midday. The British billionaire
Sir Donald Wakefield has denied claims that he‘s too ill to take his place on
the world’s first tourism flight into space this Autumn. The Dauntless is due
to take off from Nevada in September and the colourful entrepreneur has bought
both passengers seats on the maiden voyage. Sir Donald told reporters cancer
would not get in the way of his lifetime’s ambition.
A medical research centre in Berkshire says it’s close to
synthesising an antidote to the deadly Marberg virus. An outbreak of the
haemorrhagic fever killed more than 300 people in Africa last year. The Head of
Research at Pangbourne Scientific Laboratory, Dr Gavin Dexter, calls the serum
a major breakthrough: “We are concluding our final round of testing and the
results are stunning. For too long, viruses like Marberg have baffled the
medical community, but what we’ve developed at Pangbourne will change the
world.” The Research Centre is owned by Mandrake Inc., a private company due to
be listed on the London Stock Exchange next week, but animal rights activists
have vowed to disrupt Mandrake’s first day of trading. Maude Fletcher has
maintained a vigil outside the facility in Berkshire for the last six months.
Sarah and Josh play back a video recording of the news
report and brief their new friend Will on events in the Wiltshire village of
Cloots Coombe two years earlier where they last met Maude. Will isn’t surprised
to learn that Josh is involved with ‘eco-warriors’ and they start arguing about
politics until Sarah intervenes. After what happened in Antarctica, she decided
to go on the offensive. Whether she likes it or not, she seems to be
inextricably linked to the Book of Tomorrows, so she’s been trying to find out
more about the doomsday cult known as the Crimson Chapter. They already know
that Hilda Winters was involved with them, so Sarah’s research started with
her. She traced the woman’s steps over the last few years as best she could and
discovered a list of names, all of whom served at one time or another on
Réchauffer Inc. Sarah thinks the two organisations might be one and the same
and the Crimson Chapter has used Réchauffer as a front to create biological
weapons. That kind of research costs hundreds of millions, which would explain
why Morgane was attempting to sell uranium to the highest bidder. They must be
planning to fulfil their prophecy of a cleansed Earth by creating their own
doomsday weapon. Sarah reveals that she’s been contacted by Dr Dexter from
Pangbourne, who claimed to be worried about what’s happening there and asking
her to investigate.
Just as that moment, a car pulls up outside Sarah’s cottage
- it’s Dr Dexter, meeting her as arranged. She introduces him to Josh and Will
and at first he’s reluctant to talk to her in front of her friends. Eventually
he explains that Pangbourne was able to make a breakthrough in the cure for
Marberg after Réchauffer insisted they abandon all other project when they took
over. Réchauffer Inc changed its name to Mandrake about eighteen months ago,
after which Dr Dexter discovered the truth about what they did at Cloots
Coombe. Mandrake needs a high profile drug to launch itself on the stock
market, so they’ve been pushed into adopting extreme and unethical methods to
achieve results. Dexter believes the antidote could endanger countless lives in
the future, but he couldn’t simply resign because his daughter is severely
autistic and she needs expensive private therapy that Mandrake funds. He
approached Sarah because he has no actual proof and he needs her to bring out
the truth about Pangbourne without involving him. He’s managed to sneak out a
memo which proves part of his story - it confirms that the ‘success’ of the
Marberg antidote was to be announced publicly regardless of the final trial
results. Sarah can’t commit herself and tells him she will consider what he’s
said and get back to him. Dr Dexter leaves and Will tells Sarah he thinks the
man was genuine, but Josh thinks he’s simply trying to save his own skin after
discovering what Mandrake was up to. Sarah realises Dexter could be linked to
the Crimson Chapter himself, but Will points out he was working at the research
centre even before Réchauffer took over. She asks Josh to look into Dexter’s
background to see how far back his connection with Réchauffer goes and also to
find out as much as he can about the Marberg virus and the antidote.
The Keeper receives a telephone call from Dexter informing
her that he’s just left Sarah’s cottage but he’s not sure whether she’s taken
the bait yet. Will Sullivan was also there, but he didn’t seem to suspect
anything. Dexter tells her that Sarah was not what he expected and the Keeper
knows that it will not be long before she meets the herald herself.
Sarah and Will go for a walk and he tells her she’s looking
tired. When she admits that she hasn’t been sleeping well, he says she doesn’t
need to shoulder the responsibility of fighting the Crimson Chapter alone. She
points out that they’re willing to kill her and ruins the lives of the people
around her, so she can’t help but blame herself. She’s at the centre of events
she can’t understand or control and she’s determined to stop it. First she
needs to find out who’s behind it all, so she needs someone with a medical
background to help her investigate Mandrake. Will realises she means him, but
he’s reluctant to become involved until she reminds him this is the sort of
work his step-brother Harry used to get involved in. If Mandrake is endangering
lives, they have to warn the authorities and to do that they need proof.
Reluctantly he agrees, although he insists he won’t do anything to break the
law. Josh joins them and tells them he’s established that Dexter’s story was
true. He’s been at the centre for seven years, long before Réchauffer took
over. He’s also found a record of Dexter’s daughter, so everything seems to
check out. Will agrees to visit Pangbourne tomorrow, so Sarah asks Josh to
speak to Maude to find out her side of the story. Sarah suspects the White
Chapter probably have a good idea what the Crimson Chapter are up to, so it’s
time she flushed out the other half of the Orphans of the Future!
The next day Will Sullivan arrives at the Pangbourne
Research Laboratory, but he’s able to avoid confrontation with the group of
animal rights protestors outside. The security officer allows him in after
checking that he isn’t one of the activists trying to create a diversion and he
drives up to the main entrance. Just then Josh calls out to her and they greet
each other warmly. He tells her he saw her interview on the news and wanted to
find out more. He’s surprised at the scale of their operation but she reminds
him that you can’t maintain an outdoors vigil for six months without a degree
of preparation. They discuss Mandrake’s connection to Réchauffer Inc. and she
invites him to her caravan so they can fill each other in on what’s going on.
Inside they exchange information and Maude is amazed to
learn that Dexter himself has apparently turned ‘whistle blower’ in protest at
corners being cut. She’s sceptical as Dexter has shares in the company and is
expected to become a millionaire overnight once the company goes on the market.
Maude tells him her daughter Emily, who recently finished her computer science
studies, has been helping the campaigners, but she had a blazing row with her
last night when Emily found a confidential memo about Mandrake’s stock options
after hacking their website. Maude objected to her daughter breaking the law
and Emily stormed off, promising to prove her allegations about the company.
Maude is worried that the protest is losing support fast, so Josh offers to ask
around to see if he can find out where Emily has gone.
Sarah receives a call from Sir Donald Wakefield in Nevada.
He knows she’s been trying to attract the attention of the White Chapter for
the last 24 hours and he wants to know what she’s looking for. She tells him
she wants answers and if she doesn’t start getting them soon, she’s going to
start asking more loudly. He warns her that wouldn’t be very wise, but she
refuses to be intimidated. He tells her to be at Brighton Pier in fifteen
minutes and he’ll call her again. She argues that she can’t possibly get there
in so short a time, but he’s not interested and hangs up.
Will is shown into Dr Dexter’s office and they pretend to
‘meet’ for the first time. Will expresses surprise at how few staff they have
at such a large facility, but Dexter explains they’ve had several break-ins and
death threats recently so non-essential staff were moved to other locations on
police advice until the situation dies down. As Dexter gives him an injection
containing a broad-spectrum immunisation, which all staff and visitors must
have as a precaution, he whispers in Will’s ear that he’s to pose as the new
lab assistant. They leave to visit the test subjects and Dexter explains that
they’ve isolated a variant of Marberg that replicates at nearly fifty times the
virus’s usual speed, which means it will incubate in hours instead of days.
There are half a dozen guinea pigs and Will is expected to put on a bio-hazard
suit before treating them.
Josh returns to Maude after having had a snoop around the
perimeter fence. Although most of the fence is secure, he’s found a blind spot
not covered by the surveillance cameras. He’s also learned that Emily and
another protester called Hamish were planning to break in. It seems likely they
used the blind spot, but when Maude points out that the staff would have called
the police if the two of them had been caught, Josh suggests that if the
company had something to hide they might beholding them prisoner. They have no
proof, of course, so Josh decides it’s time to take some direct action of their
own.
Will changes into the bio-hazard suit and is given
instructions not to remove it. He crosses through the inner door and moves into
the airlock, which features sonic sterilisers. Then he enters the test chamber
where he finds a trolley containing six syringes, one for each of the test
subjects. Dexter tells him the guinea pigs have suffered enough and now it’s
time to cure them. Will approaches the patients and is horrified to discover
they’re human beings! Dexter points out that animal testing is ineffective with
Marberg and its variants, but Will can’t believe that anyone would volunteer
for such a dangerous procedure. Dexter doesn’t care what he thinks - he is to
administer the injections immediately or the subjects will die in excruciating
agony. Will insists this is totally unethical and barbaric - and Dexter tells
him the orders have come from the Keeper herself! At last Will understands and
has no choice but to prove his loyalty to the Crimson Chapter by going ahead
with the procedure. If he refuses, the deaths of the six patients will be on
his conscience. Reluctantly, Will approaches the first patient whose name is
Emily. She tells him all the patients are protestors and that Dexter is a liar.
She resists the injection, but it’s no good. She begs Will to help her escape
and he promises he won’t let them hurt her anymore, but Dexter reminds Will
that he still have five more injections to administer.
Sarah arrives at Brighton Pier just as Sir Donald Wakefield
makes his second call. He tells her she’s been brought here to meet the Keeper
of the White Chapter and she turns round to find Sir Donald himself standing
next to her. She’s caused his Chapter quite a lot of trouble and he‘s come all
the way from Nevada to sort things out. It’s clear to Sarah that he’s quite ill
and he explains that he’s still recovering from his last chemotherapy session.
They sit down on a nearby bench and he explains that he’s the owner of the
remaining chapters of the Book of Tomorrows and if his counterpart in the
Crimson Chapter has her way, the streets will run red with the blood of
millions. Both factions were convinced the aliens would return to Earth in the
year 2000, but the prophecy was wrong. The Orphans of the Future were in crisis
and five years ago representatives from the two groups met for the first time
in a century. Scholars from both sides studied the Book and realised that a
crucial part of the prophecy had been overlooked - the emergence of a human
herald. They found a description and a name, which points towards Sarah. She
argues there must be millions of people who match that description, but he
tells her this is why it took so long to narrow the search down to her. They
now know the truth and they believe that in time she will come to believe it
too. Her actions in Antarctica forced the Crimson Chapter to advance their
plans and unfortunately the White Chapter are ill-prepared to match them. He
warns her that she’s in imminent danger and that Will Sullivan himself is an
agent for the Crimson Chapter and has orders to kill her!
Will demands to know what’s going on, but Dexter points out
he’s in no position to make demands. As far as Dexter is concerned, the
patients broke into the facility in protest at unethical experimentation on
animals, so it’s entirely acceptable for them to become the subjects instead.
Time was short and they needed to check that the antidote worked. They couldn’t
care less about the Food and Drug Administration and there never was going to
be a stock market flotation. They have a far more pressing deadline… It’s time
for Will to account for his failures! He’s ordered to enter a room where the
Keeper of the Crimson Chapterhouse is waiting for him.
Sarah protests to Sir Donald - she simply can’t believe that
Will is a Crimson Chapter assassin, but he plays back a tape recording of his
opposite Keeper’s instructions at the end of the Antarctica disaster. She
believes the tape is a fake, but he assures her they intercepted the call
shortly after her return to the country. She argues that Will has had plenty of
opportunities to kill her and Sir Donald agrees that he appears to be suffering
from a crisis of conscience at the moment. Sarah refuses to listen to any more,
but Sir Donald understand why she’s angry and confused. He implores her not to
leave - there’s one more thing he needs to tell her. It doesn’t matter whether
she personally believes she’s the herald, the fact remains that the Crimson
Chapter does believe it. The Keeper and her acolytes regard her emergence as a
call to action and have decided to manufacture their own apocalypse in keeping
with their interpretation of the Book of Tomorrow. Genocide will be committed
in her name, and only she can stop it!
The protestors increase their activity outside the
Pangbourne research facility and Josh demands to be allowed in. He claims to
have found witnesses who saw Emily and Hamish entering the building the night
before (although this isn’t actually true) and Maude accuses them of keeping
her daughter prisoner. When he threatens to call the police, a voice on the
intercom informs them that six protestors have broken into the laboratory
recently and foolishly opened the animal cages. They’re now infected with the Marberg
virus and are receiving treatment. Josh recognises the voice - it’s Dexter! The
doctor assures Josh that the protestors have been given the antidote and have
recovered. All six have now been released and are making their way out of the
building. Maude urges the other protestors to move back as their colleagues
emerge from the research centre. Josh notices that they still look very ill and
when Maude tries to comfort her sick daughter, he goes back to the intercom and
demands to know what’s been done to them…but there’s no reply.
The Keeper tells Will he’s been brought here to explain why
he failed to kill Sarah. He’d been hand picked because of his family background
as someone who was perfectly placed to gain her confidence, but he points out
that he wasn’t told to kill her until after he’d befriended her. He argues that
he’s a physician, not a murderer. Morgane had already reported Will’s
disobedience to the Keeper and she’d been instructed to compete the task in his
place, yet not only did Sarah survive, she actually succeeded in ruining their
entire operation in Antarctica that had taken years to set up. Their
contingency project has now been forced into activation before it was ready and
she hopes Dr Sullivan can live with the consequences. The Keeper adds that the
White Chapter also has an acolyte who is close to Sarah who is now aware of
Will’s identity and has orders to kill him! The real reason Dexter was sent to
contact Sarah was to extract Will from any danger, but now both he and Josh
Townsend can act as bait to lure the herald straight here. The guinea pigs have
already been released, so the Keeper activates her security cameras to see how
they’re doing… Will suddenly realises the truth - it wasn’t the antidote he
injected the prisoners with, it was a super-accelerated variant of the Marberg
virus itself! They’ll be dead within the hour…
Outside in the encampment, Maude tries to get her sick
daughter to drink something, but she continues to get worse. She wavers between
having a fever and being cold and now she has a rash appearing all over her
body. Josh is confused as Marberg takes ten days to incubate, but he’s
convinced that she’s showing all the proper symptoms. He tells Maude that Emily
is dying. Soon she will start vomiting and having chest pains and then she’ll
go into shock and her organs will start to shut down. At this rate, she’ll be
dead very soon and with the infection moving so swiftly, so will everyone else
who’s come into contact with her!
Sir Donald tells Sarah that the Crimson Chapter plan to wipe
out everyone simply to prove themselves right. Only a few will survive so that
the Keeper and her acolytes can “inherit the planet”. They’re willing to
sacrifice everyone but themselves for their beliefs. Sarah’s phone rings - it’s
Josh from outside the research centre. He tells her the protestors are dying
from what looks like the Marberg virus and Sir Donald realises it’s finally
started. Sarah asks him how she can stop this and he tells her she must go to
the centre, because if the Crimson Chapter intends to survive this, they must
have an antidote. Sir Donald will contact the Government to get the centre
cordoned off to prevent the infection spreading, and he will also arrange for
Sarah to be allowed access - but he reminds her that Will Sullivan is under
orders to kill her.
Will protests to the Keeper - her plans to release a virus
that will kill millions of people is madness. She reminds him that he pledged
lifelong allegiance to the Crimson Chapter, but he points out that he did that
when he was a student and just thought it was an exciting secret society. All
that cloak-and-dagger stuff felt like a game but he never really believed the
prophecies. The Keeper theorises that he was either envious of his brother’s
work in the intelligence community or simply wanted to take the benefits that
came of being a member of the organisation. Either way, he swore an oath of
loyalty and she expects him to obey her without hesitation or question. He must
atone for his failure or go outside to die with the others. The antidote he was
given by Dexter will only last for 24 hours and without another dose he’ll be
dead by tomorrow!
Maude tries to reassure Emily that help is on its way, but
Josh tells her there won’t be any ambulances coming. The authorities are
cordoning off the area to stop the infection from spreading because there’s no
officially recognised antidote and Westminster has decided the only thing they
can do is contain the outbreak. Josh suggests he go inside the research centre
to find an antidote himself while Maude stays to look after Emily. Suddenly
Sarah arrives and tells Josh she’s going in with him.
Dexter enquires whether everything is ready in Paris, Tokyo
and Moscow. He tells his colleagues that the Keeper will give her signal within
the hour and when that happens their agents across the world will break open
their vials. Will arrives and tells Dexter that the Keeper has given
instructions for all doses of the antidote to be moved to another location but
when he removes them from the refrigerator, Will pulls out a gun. Over the
intercom, the Keeper reveals that she gave him the weapon because she’s discovered
there’s a sleeper among her own agents. Dexter insists he is innocent, but the
Keeper orders Will to kill him anyway. A shot rings out and the scientists is
killed. The Keeper doubted that he was the traitor, but she always felt he was
too ambitious anyway. Now that Will has done what she asked, he wants to take
the antidote out to the protestors, but the Keeper has just seen Sarah arrive
on the security monitor and she wants her to have the decision whether the
people outside should be allowed to live or die.
Sarah and Josh are becoming desperate as they try to find a
way into the research centre. Josh starts to feel dizzy and has to sit down.
Sarah’s phone rings and a voice on the end introduces herself as the Keeper of
the Crimson Chapter. She offers Sarah a deal - her life in exchange for all
those outside. One of her acolytes is coming to the door with syringes filled
with the antidote and if Sarah accepts her terms, the protestors will be
allowed to collect them. The Keeper points out that Sarah is already dying, so
she has nothing to lose. She then delights in going through the symptoms those
infected can expect in the new hour or so - their eyes will start to weep blood
as their internal organs liquefy. Sarah agrees to come inside and the door
opens - to reveal the acolyte is Will Sullivan. He wants to explain, but there
isn’t time. She insists Will inject Josh with the antidote then together they
can take the rest to the others. She tells Will that she’s glad they met and
she asks him to give her love to Harry when he sees him.
Inside the centre, the Keeper welcomes Sarah at gunpoint to
the Crimson Chapterhouse. Sarah wants to know why she’s condemning millions of
people to die, but the Keeper points out the final death toll will be far
greater than that as she has acolytes in cities around the globe waiting for
her signal to release the virus. Sarah thinks she’s insane but the Keeper
argues that she’s prepared to use any means necessary to fulfil their sacred
prophecy, which makes her ruthless but not insane. Before she dies, the Keeper
wanted to thank Sarah to her face!
Josh administers the injections to Maude while Will looks
after Emily, but the younger girl is so weak they don’t know whether there’s
still time to save her. They’ve now used up the last of the syringes and they
don’t think it’s going to be enough so they decide to go back inside to see if
they can find more. As they walk towards the building, Will asks Josh when
exactly he was planning to kill him…
The Keeper wanted to thank Sarah because there were times
when even she doubted the prophecies and her faith was tested - but all her
doubts vanished when she learned of Sarah’s emergence. She’s proven that
everything she ever believed is true. Sarah insists that she’s not the herald,
but the Keeper says she has proof. They know that their alien benefactors last
visited this world 500 years ago because the Book of Tomorrows was inspired by
the journals of an Italian Duke who wrote of a young woman called Sarah who
spoke of the future as though she knew it intimately. The mention of the name
Guiliano sends a shiver down Sarah’s spine. It suddenly occurs to her that the
building is owned by a company called Mandrake, which is the English equivalent
of the word Mandragora, another name that’s mentioned repeatedly in Guiliano’s
journals. All of this, the virus and everything the acolytes have done, was the
result of something she said to Guiliano 500 years earlier. Sarah finally
accepts that this is all her fault and she breaks down in tears…
Will realises that Sarah still doesn’t know about Josh being
an agent for Sir Donald and the White Chapter. Josh denies it, but Will
explains that he was told by the Keeper herself - and Josh suddenly realises
that the Keeper is right here, in this building. Will pulls a gun on Josh and
tells him he wants things to go back the way they were. Personally he never
wanted to hurt anyone and was bullied and tricked into complying, but he
accuses Josh of being a cold-blooded killer! Josh admits this, but says he was
only protecting Sarah. He’s convinced that she’s the herald. She has to be…
The Keeper tells Sarah there were many within the Crimson
Chapter who wanted her dead, but she wanted to be absolutely certain she was
the herald before she had her killed. She hired Miss Winters to test her and
once she was sure, she authorised Sarah’s execution - but thanks to her courage
and several interventions by the White Chapter, she’s survived all their
attempts to have her eliminated. Sarah is now feeling quite ill and is finding
it difficult to concentrate. Before long, she loses control of her legs and
collapses to the floor. The Keeper explains that after their last attempt to
kill her in Antarctica failed, she realised the full significance of Sarah’s
survival. The herald must not die until now, when the End Days are finally upon
them! The Keeper assures her she’s not a monster and has no desire to see her
suffer unnecessarily so she makes Sarah an offer - she can experience an
excruciating death from the virus, or she’s prepared to end her pain with a
single shot. Sarah has served her purpose now - in fact, she’s even flushed out
the leader of the White Chapter for them. The Keeper asks Sarah for her
decision…and she asks to be shot!
Josh asks Will to give him the gun, but Will warns him to
stay back or he’ll shoot. Josh is convinced that Will isn’t capable of killing,
but the doctor points out that although he may not have been a killer before he
came here, he’s is now, as the death of Dexter demonstrates. Josh launches
himself at Will and the two men struggle for control of the gun. Suddenly a
shot is heard and a body falls to the ground.
Sarah wonders who was shooting and the Keeper explains that
she gave orders for Dr Sullivan to offer Josh the same choice she’s just
offered her. It’s sounds like he also wanted a quick death. Sarah begs her to
hurry as she can’t take any more and the Keeper steps forward to deliver the
final shot. But it was a trick - Sarah leaps forward and grabs the Keeper and
the two women struggle for control of the gun. Unfortunately, although Sarah
may not have been as weak as she was making out, she is no match for the
euphoric Keeper. Before long, the situation has returned to what is was a few
moments ago with the Keeper standing over Sarah with her gun poised. She raises
her weapon and two shots ring out…
Source: Lee Rogers
[Back to Main Page]
Sarah Jane Smith
9. Dreamland
9.Dreamland
Written by David Bishop
Directed by John Ainsworth
Music, Sound Design and Post Production by Steve Foxon
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy Jones (Josh),
Sadie Miller (Nat), Jon Weinberg (Kimmel), Toby Longworth (Mission Control),
Shaun Ley (Newsreader), Stephen Greif (Sir Donald), Patricia Leventon.
Having lived a life of adventure as a traveller in time and
space, returning to a quiet life on present day Earth was never going to be
easy. Ex-journalist, Sarah Jane Smith is determined to make a difference in her
own way. Fiercely independent, Sarah relies on her own wit, judgement and keen
sense of morality to challenge the evils of the world. Life is never quiet for
long. Trouble has a habit of finding Sarah -- even when she’s not looking for
it.
Sarah Jane Smith is still dealing with the tragic
consequences of recent events when she is offered the chance of a lifetime -- a
place on the world’s first tourist flight into space. The trip’s sponsor, Sir
Donald Wakefield, believes it is her destiny. But after her recent experiences,
what does Sarah still believe in?
Notes:
This is the fourth and final audio in the second Sarah Jane
Smith series.
Released: April 2006
ISBN: 1 84435 203 X
Synopsis
(drn: 60'35")
Josh finds Sarah unconscious on the floor and injects her
with the antidote to the Marberg virus. When she comes round, he tells her he’s
killed both Will and the Keeper. Sarah is horrified, but he argues that he had
to defend both her and himself. She wonders when he changed and learned it was
so easy to kill. He tries to help her up, but she says he’s done more than
enough for her already.
Here are the headlines at midday. Police have given more
details about the failed plot to release a deadly bio-weapon. It now appears a
British group obsessed with aliens were behind the operation. Members of a
group known as the Crimson Chapter were arrested at airports at twelve major
cities around the world. Each of them was carrying a vial of the deadly Marberg
virus. Scientists from the World Health Organisation estimate that the
hemorrhagic fever would have claimed millions of lives had it been released as
planned. Scotland Yard has traced the vials back to a research centre in
Berkshire where six people died in a Marberg outbreak last week.
In other news, the world’s first space tourism flight has
been cleared for lift-off next month. Officials from NASA had cast doubts on
the readiness of the Dauntless, but it passed a rigorous inspection in Nevada
this morning. Pilot Ben Kimmel told reporters that he couldn’t wait to fly the
innovative spaceship: “The Dauntless is going to rewrite history. By the year
2020 this baby will make a trip into space feel like catching a taxi.”
Meanwhile, astronomers have been surprised by the discovery
of a previously unrecorded comet approaching the Earth. The as-yet-unnamed
celestial body will pass so close, it’s believed our planet may pass through
the tail, as happened with Halley’s Comet in 1910. Scientists at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics estimate it’s been 500 years since
this particular comet previously passed near our solar system.
Nat realises Sir Donald Wakefield has been busy again,
keeping the Book of Tomorrows out of the news headlines. Sarah is grateful to
her for driving her to Will Sullivan’s funeral, but Nat had thought it was
about time they got back in touch anyway. She noticed that Sarah kept looking
around during the service and wondered if she was looking out for Josh, but
Sarah says she knew he wouldn’t be there. The police may have accepted his
explanation, but she doubts the Sullivan family would have been so forgiving.
In fact, she was hoping Harry might have been there. Josh keeps leaving
messages for Sarah, as has Sir Donald, but she hasn’t called either of them
back. Nat has sorted herself out after discovering the man she loved was part
of a doomsday cult, but Sarah still feels guilty about having so much blood on
her hands.
As they arrive back at Sarah’s cottage, they’re surprised to
see Josh waiting outside. Nat offers to send him away, but Sarah realises it
would be better if she spoke to him now rather than later. She asks what he’s
doing here and Josh cheerily announces that he’s got some good news - Sir
Donald has invited them both on an all-expenses paid trip to Nevada for the
launch of the Dauntless as a way of saying thanks. Sarah doesn’t feel like
celebrating and refuses to share in Josh’s joy that the Crimson Chapter has
been defeated. Sarah reminds him that six people have died - and Josh killed
three of them himself! Nat realises, for the first time, that Josh killed her
boyfriend Luca, despite the fact that he’d previously said he didn’t know what
happened in Florence. Josh becomes angry and Sarah recalls that he’d promised
to tell Nat the truth himself. Sarah wants to be alone, but Josh tells her Sir
Donald is already waiting inside for her. She’s furious that Josh let him in
and she says he’s apologised so many times now it’s just become meaningless.
Inside her cottage, Sarah asks Sir Donald to leave, but he
asks her to hear him out first. He tells her the cancer has spread through his
body and he only has a one-in-six chance of surviving until October. If he
lives long enough to be on board the Dauntless when it lifts off, he wants her
to be by his side. Sarah is amazed by his offer, but he reminds her that she’s
the herald of the Orphans of the Future and this is her destiny. She says she
doesn’t believe that a higher power or intelligence is shaping their lives - in
fact, she wishes she did as that might make the random cruelties of life easier
to bear, but she’s certain there’s no great plan, no predetermined force and no
alien intelligence influencing the course of her life. Sir Donald reminds her
she’s spent her whole life being a crusader, but this is her chance to see the
bigger picture. He wonders if she’s just afraid to believe the truth. Most
people at some stage in their lives ask themselves why they’re here, but he
thinks that since leaving UNIT she’s been looking for one last great adventure.
He can see it in her eyes - the quiet terror she keeps buried. Deep down she
suspects she’s been chosen for something special, that she has a destiny to
fulfil, and that terrifies her! Disturbed by his comments, Sarah orders him to
leave.
Josh tries to explain himself to Nat, but she can’t
understand why he needed to kill Luca in order to save Sarah, rather than just
disable him. He tells her it was a split-second decision and argues she would
have done the same thing - but Nat says that’s the difference between them as
she’s never believed the end justifies the means. He tells her he’s been having
recurring nightmares in which he’s playing cards with Luca and Will, with the
Keeper of the Crimson Chapter dealing. In the dream they’re playing for their
lives and one by one they all lose, until there’s just Josh left. The Keeper
deals the last hand and smiles at him as if she can see his future. He reaches
out to turn over the card…and then he wakes up, without ever knowing what the
card is. Nat suggests he’s sees a therapist.
Sir Donald wonders why Sarah she never married or had
children, and why she also walked away from her journalism career even though
there were opportunities to be had. She seems to have spent her life moving on,
always ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Sarah argues that she values her
independence, but he adds that even in her personal life she never lets anyone
get too close. She tells him he has no right to comment on her life, but he
insists she has a destiny that she can’t deny. Sarah calls the police, but when
Josh joins them she suddenly tells the operator it was a false alarm. Josh
wonders what the matter is and she tells him she’s only just realised now that
she’s seen Josh and Sir Donald together for the first time - the resemblance is
obvious. Josh is Sir Donald’s son!
As one of the survivors from the previous week’s killer
virus outbreak at the Pangbourne Scientific Research Centre in Berkshire, Maude
Fletcher is interviewed on a television news programme. She explains that she’d
never heard of the Crimson Chapter until Special Branch came to interview her
after the incident. She and her daughter had been keeping a vigil outside the
centre as they thought animals were being experimented upon inside. Emily broke
in to get evidence against Mandrake, and the staff used her and several other
protestors as guinea pigs for their experiments. Fortunately her daughter
survived as she got the antidote in time, but three of the others didn’t. Emily
is currently in hospital recovering from her ordeal.
Sarah demands to know why Josh didn’t tell her Sir Donald
was his father. He explains that his parents divorced years ago and he reverted
to his mother’s maiden name. Josh admits he is also an acolyte of the White
Chapter, but his father wouldn’t let him tell her the truth as he knew she’d be
a target of the Crimson Chapter once she was identified as the herald. She had
to be protected, so Josh was sent to watch over her. Josh continues to insist
that the death of Will was an accident during their struggle, but Sarah now
knows he’s been lying to her for years! Even when Miss Winters was sent to test
whether Sarah truly was the herald, Josh was there, looking after her - and it
was the Crimson Chapter who destroyed Miss Winters because she went too far.
Sir Donald also follows the Book of Tomorrows, based on the
journals of Duke Guiliano, who told of his city being plagued by the
Brotherhood of Demnos, but they were purged during the last alien visitation.
Guiliano reformed the survivors into a new group called the Orphans of the
Future who were committed to helping mankind. Before he died, he wrote down all
the future events he’d been told by the herald and she warned that an unearthly
power would return half a millennia in the future - and now her prophecies are
coming true. Astronomers discovered the approaching comet in 2001 and since
then Sir Donald had channelled all his fortune into getting the Dauntless ready
for the coming. They believe the comet heralds their salvation just as Sarah’s
emergence does. Sarah tells them this was just a few careless words from her at
the wrong time, and the arrival of the comet could be pure coincidence. Sir
Donald asks Sarah to come with him on the Dauntless to confront her destiny and
see this through to the finish. She needs time to think so he leaves her with a
document containing plane tickets and details of the training she’ll need to
undertake. He’ll be leaving for America today as there’s a new treatment being
offered that might stave off his cancer long enough for him to take part in the
mission. Josh asks Sarah to think about it, then he leaves with his father.
Sarah receives a phone call from Nat, apologising for
leaving her to deal with Josh and Sir Donald on her own, but they both had
plenty to think about. Sarah tells her that she needs to make her decision
about going into space by tomorrow as she’ll have to undergo four weeks of
training before the lift-off. She’s already agreed to go as far as Nevada, but
only if Nat will come with her. She explains that Josh is Sir Donald’s son so
she needs someone she can trust to keep an eye on things. She also tells Nat
that before they ever met, she used to travel with an extraordinary friend who
showed her things she could never discuss with anyone else. Only now has she
started to realise how lonely she’s been all these years and how much she’s
missed her friend. Ever since he walked out on her life she’s tried to put a
brave face on things, but for years afterwards she hoped he’d come back, until
she eventually stopped looking. The world had moved on and she found herself
out-of-synch with everyone else. Deep down she’s always wondered if he left her
behind for a reason and maybe this is it…? She doesn’t know if it’s destiny or
coincidence, but she needs to have something to believe in again. The trip to
Nevada will be a leap of faith for her. Nat is convinced that Josh is a genuine
friend and she doesn’t want to lose that. She agrees to go with Sarah.
Here are the headlines at midday. The first space tourism
flight is now less than three weeks away, but the identity of the two
passengers remains unknown. At a press conference in Nevada, pilot Ben Kimmel
refused to be drawn on who would be flying with him in the world’s first
private enterprise spaceship. British billionaire Sir Donald Wakefield
purchased both tickets on the maiden voyage on September 27th, but his
deteriorating health makes his presence on board doubtful. Here’s what Kimmel
had to say on the subject: “Sir Donald is a determined kind of guy, I wouldn’t
bet against him”. The hybrid propulsion system of the Dauntless is unique and
when the booster is fired, tiny solid-fuel igniters will scorch a massive tube
of rubber for one second, then nitrous oxide is blown through it. That will
accelerate the Dauntless to nearly three thousand miles an hour, fast enough to
get the ship into space.
In Nevada, Sarah and Nat are welcomed to ‘Dreamland’ by
pilot Ben Kimmel. Dreamland is the official call sign for the facility, but
some people call it Area 51. Sarah notices how quiet everything is and Ben says
this is often referred to as “the silence of God”. This is the place where
Chuck Yeager became the first man to travel faster than the speed of sound but
after a few days, most people don’t even notice the sound of a sonic boom.
Sarah is surprised that Josh wasn’t here to welcome them, but Ben tells her
he’s currently at the Medical Centre with his father and this will be their
first stop. In any case, Sarah will need to undergo a full medical in
preparation for going up in the Dauntless, but she reminds the pilot that she
still hasn’t decided whether she’s actually going on the trip.
Sarah reports to the Medical Centre where Josh is waiting
for them. The atmosphere between them is still uncomfortable and Josh realises
she must still be angry with him for lying to her for so long, but he assures
her she can still trust him. Even if the Crimson Chapter is history, she still
wants him to promise there will be no more guns, no more killing and no more
lies. He says he doesn’t have anything left to hide and she’s the closest thing
he has to a friend, so he gives her his word. Ben Kimmel joins them and begins
preparations for Sarah’s training programme.
A week later, Nat calls for Sarah and tries to waken her
from her sleep. Sarah is exhausted after her latest training session and
complains about being woken at three in the morning…until Nat points out that
it’s actually three in the afternoon! She’s missed breakfast and lunch, but she
was kept busy until midnight. Nat insists on opening the curtains and asks why
Sarah is putting herself though all this if she hasn’t even decided whether
she’s going on the trip, but her friend refuses to be pressed on an answer.
Sarah says Josh doesn’t mention his father’s illness, as if ignoring it will
make it go away, but Nat knows from her own personal experience of her mother’s
death that denial will only make things worse when the time comes. Josh knocks
on the door and tells them his dad wants to see all of them.
In the Medical Centre, Josh brings Sarah and Nat to his
father. The doctors have told them they can only have a few minutes as he needs
to conserve his energy, but Sir Donald says that will make little difference
now. He knows how awkward they must feel around someone who is dying, but he
wanted Sarah to know that her presence here has been a comfort to him over the
last week. He says he feels cheated after coming so close to the one true
ambition in his life, and now the cancer is taking that away from him. It’s
likely he’ll only live long enough to see the Dauntless lift-off, so he asks
Josh to take his place aboard. He asks Nat to sit in Mission Control and talk
to the passengers via a head-set so they can hear a friendly voice. He makes
his final request to Sarah - will she be on the Dauntless when it launches? She
agrees and he’s very grateful. He hopes she will find what she seeks out there
among the stars. She and Nat leave the Centre, giving Sir Donald a chance to
say his final goodbyes to his son, and once they’re alone, he tells Josh
there’s something important he needs to do…
Sarah and Nat have been waiting outside the Medical Centre
for two hours without news when Josh finally emerges. Sadly, he reports that
his father has passed away and he breaks down in tears. His two friends comfort
his as best they can.
Here are the headlines at six. With a week left before the
world’s first space tourism flight lifts-off, it seems increasingly likely that
Sir Donald Wakefield will not be on board. There’s been no official update on
his condition from the Dauntless project team in Nevada for several days, but
rumours have been circulating about a relapse of the British billionaire’s
cancer. If Sir Donald dies before the maiden voyage lifts-off, it’s believed
his son Joshua Townsend may take the empty seat. The normally media-friendly
tycoon had managed to conceal the fact that he had an adult son for years until
the story was broken by a tabloid newspaper last weekend. Sir Donald has not
been seen in public since then, fuelling further speculation about the state of
his health.
Meanwhile, the war of words continues between the Dauntless
and officials at NASA. Astronomers connected to NASA have questioned the wisdom
of proceeding with the maiden flight of the Dauntless at the same time as a new
comet is so close to the Earth. The comet will pass within two million miles of
the planet, one of the closest approaches for centuries. A spokeswoman for the
Dauntless pointed out the commercial spaceship will reach the apogee of its
flight some 70 miles above the Earth - “We’ve got a little room to spare”, she
told reporters in Nevada.
Two weeks later, Sarah and Nat are shown the Dauntless for
the first time. For a masterpiece of modern astronomics, Nat was expecting it
to be bigger, but Sarah thinks it will be cosy. The Dauntless will be attached
to a launch aircraft called the Valiant in a couple of hours, which will carry
them nine miles up before being released. The pilot leaves to perform his last
minute checks, leaving Sarah and Nat to wonder whether Josh is up to the flight
given that he’s only recently buried his father. Fortunately he seems to be
returning to the old Josh they used to know, probably because everything
they’ve been doing for the last few years has just been a build-up to this
launch. Sarah is more worried about how he’s going to react afterwards if
nothing out of the ordinary happens. He’s had a lifetime of indoctrination by
the Orphans of the Future, and to him this flight is the culmination of a
centuries-old prophecy. Everything he’s ever believed in could be shattered.
Josh chooses this moment to join them, and he also thinks the Dauntless looks a
little cramped. He’s come to collect Sarah as it’s time for them both to go
into quarantine. The three of them say goodbye to each other, but the flight is
due to take place in a couple of hours and they’ll only be in space for twenty
minutes, so they should be back in time for lunch.
In Mission Control, Nat tries out the communications
headgear and speaks to Sarah and Josh aboard the Dauntless. They’ve been
allocated their own frequency so they can talk throughout the flight. Sarah
complains that the seating is too tight, but Nat points out that when the
booster fires and she’s flying at thousands of miles an hour she’ll be glad
she’s strapped in. An announcement giving Mission Control clearance for
take-off is made and the launch aircraft starts to accelerate down the runway
and then takes off. As the Dauntless begins its maiden voyage, there is a round
of applause from the technicians. Sarah and Josh are finally on their way into
space…
The Valiant approaches the designated release zone and
preparations for separating the two ships begins. Nat checks on her friends and
although Sarah is OK, Josh is apparently looking a bit green around the gills.
The medical team report that both their heart rates were unusually high so they
need to brace themselves for the increase in the g-force. Once the hybrid
booster is fired it will feel like a giant invisible first trying to crush
them! The countdown begins…and Mission Control reports the separation has been
successfully achieved. The next stage is to fire the booster and a second
countdown begins… The Dauntless begins its incredible acceleration and the
speed soon passes a thousand miles an hour. Sarah and Nat are struggling to
breathe and Nat reminds them of their training. The compression on their lungs
means they need to take smaller shallow breaths. The pilot becomes concerned
when Sarah releases her harness to check on Josh, who’s having a panic attack,
but with Nat’s encouragement as well, they manage to get their friend to calm
down enough to breathe more slowly. Eventually he recovers and everyone signals
they’re OK. The booster is due to shut down in a few seconds when the Dauntless
reaches a height of 30 miles above the Earth. Once they reach sub-orbital space
they’ll see the stars and become weightless. Josh cheers for joy when they
finally reach Outer Space and even Sarah admits she thought she’d never be here
again.
Mission Control reports that they haven’t registered any
engine de-activation and Sarah asks the pilot Ben what’s happening. There’s no
response and she and Josh realise something has gone wrong. They urge him to
switch off the booster and Mission Control prepares to switch over to automatic
control to take over the operation. Suddenly Ben Kimmel reveals that he is an
acolyte of the Crimson Chapter! Declaring that the Book of Tomorrows will be
their salvation, he begins sabotaging the controls. Nat contacts Sarah on her
personal frequency and tells her Mission Control has lost all radio
communication with the pilot. Sarah tries to convince Ben that the Crimson
Chapter has gone, that the Keeper is dead and the other acolytes are all in
prison, but he refuses to listen.
To everyone’s surprise, Josh pulls out a gun. Sarah urges
him not to fire inside the spaceship, but Josh was told by his father than
there was always a chance the Crimson Chapter might try something at the last
minute. Josh promises Sarah he won’t hurt Kimmel providing he does what he’s
told, but the pilot has no intention of de-activating the booster. Josh gives
him a warning shot, but he’s determined to be a martyr and starts to struggle
with Josh for control of the gun. More shots are fired and the capsule starts
to fill with smoke as the instruments are hit.
We interrupt your normal programming to bring you this
breaking news story. According to reports reaching us from Nevada, the world’s
first commercial space flight has run into severe difficulties. Details remains
sketchy, but we’ve received unconfirmed reports that gunshots have been fired
in the cockpit of the Dauntless. We do know that all radio contact has been
temporarily lost with the spaceship. We’ll give you more on this story as we
get it.
Nat continues to call out to Sarah and Josh, but the only
response she gets is static. Slowly, the sound of Sarah’s voice breaks through
and she tells her that the pilot is dead and Josh shot him! Nat reveals that
Mission Control has lost all radio and computer contact with the Dauntless and
Sarah says that one of the bullets hit the cockpit controls and there’s a fire
on board. One of the technicians starts working on getting a piggy-back on
Sarah’s transmission in the hope they can get a signal to the on-board
computer. Sarah tells Nat that Josh has been shot in the stomach and has passed
out from blood loss. She’s asked to check on the condition of the guidance
system, but the fire seems to have destroyed most of the panels. The booster
has been disabled but the ship is still going up and Mission Control are trying
to calculate how much further the Dauntless is likely to go, but unfortunately
there’s no reliable data for such a situation. Just then, the communication is
lost and the technicians realise they have to get Sarah back on quickly as
she‘s their only link to the ship.
On the ship, Sarah tries to talk to Nat but she soon
realises it’s useless. Josh starts to wake up and she urges him not to move.
She can’t understand why he brought the gun on board, but he says it seemed
like a good idea at the time. He realises he’s lost a lot of blood and he
reminds her of the first time they met when she was working undercover as a
bank teller. He was hovering around trying to find a way to introduce himself
when the two bank robbers came in and gave him the perfect excuse. He’s always
been her guardian angel. She urges him to save his strength, but he needs her
to forgive him for breaking his promise. They hold hands, but he can’t feel
her. Sarah starts to cry and begs him not to leave her here on her own.
Mission Control try to boost the radio signal, but the
Dauntless is moving further and further away from Earth all the time and the
communications system was never designed to cope with that range. Just then the
static starts to fade again and Sarah’s voice comes through at last. She tells
Nat there’s nothing she can do for Josh and it’s starting to get very cold up
there. It seems as though the shots had damaged the life-support system too and
it’s getting hard to breathe. Nat manages to speak to her, but there’s nothing
much she can say. They’re already speaking to NASA and the Russians about a
joint rescue mission, but Sarah realises there’s not much hope. She assures Nat
that she knew the risks when she agreed to go on the flight…but then the
communications are lost as the ship finally goes out of range and Nat is left
to mourn on her own.
Sarah realises she can’t hear Nat anymore, but she thinks
she might still be transmitting so she carries on talking. Josh has gone cold
and his blood is started to freeze. The stars outside the window aren’t moving
so fast now, so it looks as though the ship is slowing down. The life-support
is definitely failing and it’s getting increasingly hard to breathe. Suddenly
there’s the sound of something outside the ship and Sarah looks out the window
to see a beautiful display of shooting stars. For a moment she thinks she can
see something … but perhaps she’s just hallucinating? Then she sees it again -
some sort of light coming towards her from outside. Suddenly Nat can hear
Sarah’s voice again over the communicator and she explains that something
definitely appears to be approaching the Dauntless. It’s so bright, it’s
dazzling. She explains that the light has now filled the entire window and is
flooding the cockpit. She’s seen something like this before, a lifetime ago,
and she never thought she’d see it again.
Mission Control is detecting nothing but empty space, and
although Sarah says she thinks the light could be coming from the comet, Nat
realises the comet is too far away from the Dauntless to be visible. Sarah’s
ears are filled with a roaring sound that gets inside her head. Suddenly
Sarah’s voice becomes calm - this is what she’s been searching for all this
time! She says goodbye to her friend Nat, and then the radio fills with static
again…
Here are the headlines at ten. There’s still no news about
the fate of the Dauntless, the world’s first commercial space flight. The
vessel lifted off for its maiden voyage from Dreamland airbase in Nevada
earlier today and all seemed to be going according to schedule until shortly
after the spaceship was due to cut its engines. Sources within Mission Control
have confirmed they heard what sounded like gunshots on board. Shortly
afterwards all radio contact was lost with pilot Ben Kimmel and his two British
passengers, Joshua Townsend and Sarah Jane Smith. Speculation is rife about
what happened on the ship, but a spokesman from the project team refused to
comment,. She insisted they haven’t given up hope and said talks had begun
about a possible intervention by NASA. However, a rescue mission is considered
highly unlikely as the Dauntless is only designed for making brief trips into
space and carries a strictly limited supply of air. Unlike the shuttle, this
vessel does not have the capability to hold orbit around the Earth. Whatever
happens, this incident seems certain to make future space tourism flights
unlikely…
Source: Lee Rogers
[Back to Main Page]
School Reunion
Logo
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Producer
Phil Collinson
Script Editor
Helen Raynor
Written by Toby Whithouse
Directed by James Hawes
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
David Tennant (The Doctor), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Noel
Clarke (Mickey Smith), Anthoney Head (Mr Finch), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane
Smith), Rod Arthur (Mr Parsons), Eugene Washington (Mr Wagner), Heather Cameron
(Nina), Joe Pickley (Kenny), Benjamin Smith (Luke), Clem Tibber (Milo), Lucinda
Dryzek (Melissa), Caroline Berry (Dinner Lady), John Leeson (Voice of K-9).
The Doctor meets an old friend, Sarah Jane Smith, and Rose
discovers the legacy of being a Time Lord’s companion.
Original Broadcast (UK)
School Reunion April
29th, 2006 7h00pm
- 7h45pm
Notes:
A commentary track by Phil Collinson, Helen Raynor and
Eugene Washington is available on the official Doctor Who website.
TARDISODE
Alone in a café Mickey searches through dozens of UFO
pictures on the Internet, hunting for something in particular. He arrives at a
page guarded by an organisation known as Torchwood, and realises this is what
he has been looking for. He calls Rose on his mobile phone and tells her there
has been increased alien activity at a nearby school, including reports of
strange lights in the sky. He tells her he needs her and the Doctor to help him
investigate the odd goings on; he believes something is out there. Sure enough,
miles away in the corridors of the school a giant bat-like creature stands and
unfolds its wings before screeching at the top of its voice.
Headmaster Finch walks through Deffry Vale School, on his
way to his office. When he arrives he finds a young girl sitting outside. She
explains she is ill and has been sent home by the Matron, but because she lives
at the local orphanage she is unable to do so. He comforts his pupil and ushers
her inside, telling her it is nearly lunchtime. He closes the door, and through
the frosted glass his shadow is seen shifting and changing. The girl screams,
but nobody is around to hear.
Elsewhere in the school, children are rushing to lessons at
the sound of the bell. Some of them pile into a science lab, and are followed
soon after by their teacher. He walks to his desk, sets down his bag and greets
his students. It is the Doctor.
School Reunion
(drn:44'12")
Apparently teaching Physics at the school, the Time Lord
ponders the subject before asking his students a question. The only one willing
to reply is a boy named Milo, who gives the correct answer. The Doctor then
asks another question and as before, it is only Milo who gives a response. He
begins testing the student with increasingly difficult questions; ultimately
discovering he understands how to travel faster than the speed of light.
At lunchtime the children and the Doctor shuffle along in
the canteen cue, where Rose is now working as a dinner lady. She stares at her
friend with an unimpressed look and he smiles back at her before wandering off
to find a seat. Later on, as the room is clearing, Rose walks over to clean the
Doctor’s table. He teases her as she mops up and moans about her new job. The
Time Lord protests, claiming it is Mickey’s fault they are at the school, for
it is he who summoned them to investigate strange goings on. He claims he was
right to do so and tells her about Milo, stating he has knowledge far in
advance of human understanding.
Conversation then turns to the school dinners, and the
Doctor comments about the odd tasting chips. He then ponders the behaviour in
the school, remarking how strangely obedient the children are. His musings are
interrupted when another dinner lady appears. She tells Rose to return to the
kitchen and in response to the Doctor’s criticism of the canteen food, claims
the menu is specifically designed by the headmaster to improve concentration
and performance in the students.
Elsewhere in the canteen another teacher, Mr Wagner,
approaches one of the students, a girl named Melissa. He tells her she is to
join his special class after lunch, and then turns to her friend Kenny, noting
that he is not eating the canteen chips. The young boy claims he is not allowed
to eat the food and Wagner leaves with Melissa, under the watchful eyes of the
Doctor and Mr Finch.
Back in the kitchens Rose observes as her fellow dinner
ladies don protective clothing and begin bringing in barrels of oil on a
trolley, taking special care not to spill any. As they do this Rose receives a
call from Mickey on her mobile phone. Sat in a cyber café he browses the
Internet, recounting the UFO activity spotted around the school in recent
months. As he searches he discovers a page blocked by a Torchwood Access
Barrier, but continues nonetheless. Rose then reveals that three months ago all
of the kitchen staff were replaced and new workers introduced, all of whom
appear to be acting strangely.
During the conversation the dinner ladies knock over a
barrel of oil. The content spills onto one of the party and visibly scalds her.
She screams and is hurried into a little office in the corner of the kitchen.
Rose hangs up on Mickey and offers to call for an Ambulance but those looking
after the wounded woman tell her not to, claiming they can deal with the
problem.
In one of the school computer rooms, Mr Wagner orders his
students sitting at the workstations to put on their headphones. He then clicks
a button on his own computer and the children’s screens light up with strange
alien text. They immediately begin typing at a frenzied pace, transfixed by the
information before them.
Meanwhile, Mr Finch escorts a female visitor around the
school, discussing the changes he has made since his arrival, including the
free school dinners programme. Although his visitor worries about working the
students too hard, the pair agrees good exam results are worth the effort. They
then walk off to examine the school further.
In the staff room the Doctor talks to a teacher named Mr
Parsons about the cases of extreme intellect developing in students around the
school. Parsons notes that the strange activity began when Mr Finch arrived.
Within weeks of his employment half of the staff caught the flu and were
replaced. The Doctor’s predecessor on the other hand left after winning the
lottery, despite never having played it in her life – the winning ticket was
posted through her letterbox.
Mr Finch arrives with his guest, whom he claims is writing
an article on the school. The Doctor is amazed to find that the woman is Sarah
Jane Smith, his former companion. Finch leaves to allow Miss Smith to talk with
the staff, and she begins by introducing herself to the Doctor, now working
under the alias of John Smith. Sarah remarks that she once had a friend who
went by the same name, and the Doctor claims it is a common one. His old friend
retorts, claiming that the man she refers to was far from being common.
The two continue to talk, discussing the new curriculum and
the fact that several students have become increasingly ill over the past few
weeks. The Doctor smiles uncontrollably and remarks that the reporter appears
to be pursuing more than a simple profile of the school. She tells him there is
no harm in doing some investigating as well, and he agrees, still jubilant at
her presence.
As lessons resume, Kenny finds himself alone in an empty
corridor. He hears a strange noise coming from the computer lab and goes to
investigate. When he enters he sees a bat-like creature crouching underneath a
table. It stands up and takes the form of Mr Wagner, who promptly tells the
student to leave.
That night Sarah returns to the school and breaks in via a
window. Elsewhere, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey also return to look around. Rose
makes her way to the canteen to collect an example of the oil she saw earlier
whilst Mickey heads towards the maths department and the Doctor goes to
investigate Finch’s office.
As Sarah, the Doctor and Rose make their separate ways
around the building they each hear a piercing screech coming from somewhere
within the school. Rose manages to collect her oil sample from the kitchen
whilst Sarah retreats to a corridor at the back of the school, where she is
shocked to discover the TARDIS. She backs away through a set of doors and finds
herself in the gym where John Smith, alias the Doctor, is waiting for her.
She is initially rendered speechless by the realisation her
old friend has returned, but manages to regain her composure and comment on his
new appearance. As the two begin to talk they discover they both have come to
school for the same reason – to examine the localised UFO activity. Overcome by
emotion Sarah remarks how the Doctor never came back to meet her once he
dropped her off on Earth, despite his promise to the contrary. Suddenly a
scream is heard and the reunited friends run off to investigate.
Running into another corridor they find Rose, who has also
heard the shriek. The Doctor introduces his current travelling companion to his
old friend. They begin to spark off of each other but the Doctor interrupts
their comments and insists they find the source of the scream. They continue
running through the school and eventually arrive in the maths department, where
they discover it is Mickey who yelled, having found a store of vacuum packed
dead rats in a nearby cupboard.
Whilst the Doctor belittles Mickey for screaming like a
girl, Sarah and Rose argue as to why the rats are being stored in the school,
and end up goading each other about the difference in their. Again the Doctor
cuts in to silence them by claiming they must visit Mr Finch’s office, as it
appears all of the strange goings on in the school have begun upon his arrival.
Despite his intervention the two continue to argue on the way to the office,
with Mickey rejoicing in the Doctor’s dilemma: “the misses and the ex”.
As they arrive at the office the Doctor ponders that the
rats may have been food for something, and his fears are confirmed when he
opens the door to discover dozens of giant bat creatures hanging from the
ceiling. Upon seeing them Mickey runs, and the others follow. Once they are
gone one of the creatures wakes up and screeches.
The Doctor and his friends arrive outside, realising now
that the creatures are replacements for the school staff. The Doctor takes the
oil sample Rose collected and tells the others they must return to the TARDIS
to analyse it. Sarah however has another idea and runs over to her car. The
Doctor follows and is overjoyed to discover another old friend – K-9 – stored
in the boot.
He examines the somewhat battered canine computer whilst
Sarah explains that the machine, which the Doctor sent to her as a gift, has
broken and she cannot repair it. Rose and Mickey share their scepticism
regarding the contraption whilst high above them on the school roof one of the
bat creature watches them. It looks on as they close the boot of the car and
prepare to leave, then flies of into the night.
Some time later that night the Doctor, Sarah, Rose and
Mickey all sit in a café. The Doctor begins trying to repair K-9 whilst talking
to Sarah about her life since they last met. Sarah insists she waited for him
once he had left but he claims she didn’t need him, she has proved already that
she can investigate things on her own and keep the spirit of their friendship
alive. Remaining insistent, Sarah remarks that her life now could never compare
to the one she had with him.
Outside, unbeknownst to the group in the café, Mr Finch and
one of the creatures from the school watch the unfolding scene from a nearby
rooftop. Back inside Sarah continues, claiming that the Doctor doesn’t
understand the pain of being a friend of his, having to witness a life out
amongst the stars then return to one on Earth whilst he continues. Although the
Doctor claims she is doing well in life she still claims that he could have
come back. The Time Lord claims he couldn’t return, but refuses to explain why.
Sarah then tells him that when he dropped her back on Earth it wasn’t the right
place. Instead of taking her to Croydon he took her to Aberdeen.
Suddenly K-9 whirs to life. With Mr Finch still watching
from the roof the Doctor rejoices as the computer recognises him. He hands over
the sample from the kitchen, which is identified as Krillitane Oil. The Doctor
explains to his friends that the Krillitanes are a composite race; they invade
planets and then adopt the physical aspects they admire of the races they
conquer before promptly destroying them.
The group then go back outside, where Mickey is distressed
to discover several similarities between K-9 and himself; they’re simply there
to help the Doctor when they are needed. As the Krillitane with Mr Finch grows
restless, Rose enters a heated conversation with the Doctor, worried that she
will be left alone in the future, as Sarah has been. He insists he will not
leave her behind and finally explains why he finds it so difficult to confront
his old friends – it is too painful for him. He tells her that because of his
long lifespan he meets a great many people, but none of them can last forever.
Whilst he lives on he must witness the ones he loves decaying and dying.
Although Rose could spend her entire life with him, he cannot spend all of his
with her. This, he claims, is the curse of the Time Lord.
Finch hears this and is surprised yet content to discover
the Doctor is a Time Lord. His companion then swoops down, heading toward the
four people below. It does not attack; instead it flies back up into the sky
and away into the night.
The next day the Doctor, Sarah, Rose and Mickey return to
the school. Rose and Sarah take the Sonic Screwdriver and head toward the
computer lab to examine the hardware, the Doctor decides to confront Mr Finch,
and Mickey is left to sit in the car and look after K-9.
Moments later the Doctor and Mr Finch arrive beside the
school swimming pool, staring at each other from opposite sides. The headmaster
introduces himself by his true name – Brother Lassar. The Doctor notes that
Finch has kept his human form whilst the other Krillitanes now resemble bats,
and Finch claims it is a personal preference. The others simply revert to human
form when required.
The Doctor demands to know what the Krillitanes are
planning; having assumed it is something to do with the children in the school.
Finch tells him to figure out the plan for himself and prove his intelligence.
The Doctor warns him that if her does not agree with what they are doing he
will stop them. Finch seems surprised by this threat but the Doctor insists he
will only warn the Krillitanes once. He claims he is no longer a young man, and
his mercy is waning. Finch maintains the Doctor will not fight the Krillitanes,
stating that soon he will join with them.
Meanwhile, Mickey sits alone in the car, frustrated at being
left out and perplexed that he has only a metal dog for company. Elsewhere Rose
and Sarah make their way to the computer room and again begin arguing again.
Sarah insists she has no intention of continuing her travels with the Doctor,
but recounts how difficult life can be without him. Rose continues to make
caustic remarks and Sarah takes exception. Soon they compete over which of them
has seen the most impressive sights with the Doctor and Sarah appears to win,
revealing that she has encountered the Loch Ness Monster.
Soon the two laugh at their childish attempts at
one-upmanship and instead share their experiences of being with the Doctor.
They relate to his rushed explanations of things and his intimacy with the
TARDIS, which causes them both to laugh. Moments later he enters the room,
which prompts the pair to giggle even further.
Mr Finch meanwhile has made his way to the staff room where
he tells his disguised brothers that they must initiate the final phase of
their plan, claiming the day has come when they shall become gods.
Outside on the playground the children are hushed by a
loudspeaker system, which announces lessons are to resume earlier than usual.
The pupils cheer and run inside, all except Kenny who realises something is
wrong with he classmates. The speaker also tells the remaining members of staff
to return to the staff room, where Mr Finch and his fellow Krillitanes are
ready to strike…
The students try to access the computer room but are turned
away by Rose. The Doctor continues trying to open up one of the computers but
realises it is protected with a deadlock seal, which his Sonic Screwdriver is
unable to penetrate.
Whilst students are led into other computer rooms, under the
watchful eye of Kenny, Mr Finch returns to his office and instigates a full
lockdown of the school. Back in the computer labs the Krillitane teachers
initiate the alien programme once more and the pupils begin typing, showing no
signs of reluctance or questioning. Seeing this, Kenny runs to find help but
finds all of the doors and windows locked.
In the empty computer room the Doctor watches the program as
it runs, and realises it is some sort of code. Suddenly it dawns on him what
the Krillitanes are doing – they are trying to solve the Skasis Paradigm,
something that will enable them to achieve god-like abilities. With such power
they will be able to posses the very building blocks of life itself. Outside,
Mickey sees Kenny banging on the front door of the school and realises he must
try and help the trapped boy. After consulting K-9 he decides upon a plan of
action and tells Kenny to stand aside.
The Doctor explains that the Krillitanes have been using the
heightened imagination of the children to solve the Paradigm, and have used the
Krillitane Oil to amplify their intelligence. Mr Finch enters and defends his
race’s lust for power, claiming they will change the universe for the better.
He tries to tempt the Doctor to join their cause, stating that with the power
they will soon inherit he would be able to prevent the Time War from ever
occurring and thus save his people. He seems enticed by this prospect but Sarah
cuts in, claiming he must accept that everything has its time and everything
ends, the universe moves on and he cannot change that. Suddenly the Time Lord
comes to his senses and flees with Sarah and Rose.
Elsewhere, Mickey starts the car and drives it through the
front doors of the school, breaking the security lockdown. He clambers out and
runs with Kenny to save the others. Meanwhile, in the corridors of the school
Mr Finch stands alone, screeching. All over the building his fellow Krillitanes
discard their human form and swarm the school.
Mickey and Kenny catch up with the Doctor, Rose and Sarah,
who manage to escape to the canteen. There they come under attack from the
Krillitanes but are saved by K-9, who blasts the creatures with his laser. The
Doctor and his friends escape but the Krillitanes are soon hot on their heels.
Emerging in an empty corridor the Doctor realises that having changed their
bodies so much, the Krillitane’s oil is now poisonous to them, which explains
the commotion in the canteen the previous day. He decides they must return to
the kitchens and Kenny helps them on their way by smashing a fire alarm,
triggering a noise loud enough to distract the bat-like attackers.
Whilst Mickey makes his way to the computer room to save the
children, Mr Finch disables the fire alarm and again sets off after the Doctor,
who has arrived back at the canteen. He tries to open a barrel of oil but, like
the computers, it is deadlock sealed. K-9 arrives and claims he will be able to
blast the barrel with his laser, but he will have to be in close proximity to
the resulting blast in order to do so.
Back in the computer room Mickey unplugs the machines and
the students are roused from their trance-like state. He tells them all to run
and soon they are on their way to safety outside.
The Doctor says goodbye to K-9, realising he will not be
able to escape in time. He then flees with Rose, Kenny and the distraught Sarah
whilst K-9 assumes his position. Moments later the Krillitanes, now in human
form, arrive and advance on him. He blasts the barrel, showering the creatures
with oil. They writhe in agony and seconds later a blast rips through the
school. Outside the children cheer. Rose and Mickey join them whilst the Doctor
tries to comfort Sarah – apologising for what has happened to K-9.
Some time later Sarah arrives in a nearby park, where the
TARDIS and the Doctor are waiting for her. He takes her inside and she marvels
at the console room, commenting on how much it has changed since she last saw
it. The Doctor offers her a place onboard when they leave but she declines,
saying it is time she stopped waiting for him and got on with her life. Mickey
on the other hand asks if he could come instead, and although Rose doesn’t seem
too keen on the idea the Doctor agrees.
Sarah decides it is time to go, but before she leaves she
tells Rose to come and find her if she ever needs help. Rose asks if she should
stay with the Doctor despite knowing what might happen to her in the future,
and Sarah tells her she must stay, claiming “some things are worth getting your
heart broken for”.
She turns and goes outside, followed closely behind by the
Doctor. After Sarah finally grasp the chance to say thank you for the time they
spent together, the Doctor enquires as to her home life. She claims she has no
partner; there was only one man for her, she travelled with him for a while but
“He was a tough act to follow”.
After saying goodbye to her old friend Sarah asks that he do
the same, even though he believes they will meet again. He looks at her and
finally bids her farewell: “Goodbye…my Sarah Jane”. They embrace for once more
and the Doctor returns to the TARDIS. However, he has one last surprise for his
old friend. As the TARDIS fades from view Sarah discovers a newly repaired K-9
waiting for her. He trundles forward, greets his mistress, and together they
walk off toward a new life…
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Sarah Jane Smith was the Doctor's companion from The Time
Warrior through The Hand of Fear, and witnessed his regeneration from his third
body (Jon Pertwee) to his fourth (Tom Baker) -- which was the first such
transition to actually use the word "regeneration". She's also
nominally met his first, second and fifth selves (The Five Doctors), but this
story makes no reference to that, and some of the dialogue suggests that Sarah
may not remember those events.
The Doctor left Sarah behind in Croydon, or rather Aberdeen,
in The Hand of Fear when a message from the Time Lords called him home to
Gallifrey and Sarah had to be left behind. Strangely enough although this
incident is referred to in the episode the name Gallifrey is not mentioned, and
hasn’t been at all on screen in either series one or two so far.
This story appears to a clear and possibly deliberate break
with the continuity of the BBC novel range. Sarah Jane Smith has two encounters
with the Doctor as part of that range, in Bullet Time (7th) and Interference
(8th). There is absolutely no suggestion in this story that those events
occurred. Indeed, Sarah's behaviour strongly suggests that, with the possible
exception of The Five Doctors, she has not seen the Doctor in any way, shape or
form since being dumped in Aberdeen. Since both of the BBC Books stories take
place in the mid-1990s, it can't even be fudged that maybe the adventures lie
in Sarah's future. However, both of these might be explained; in Interference
the action was mainly motivated by Faction Paradox, and since the Doctor erased
them from history in The Ancestor Cell, this timeline may simply no longer
exist. A similar reasoning could cover Bullet Time, since that adventure
apparently culminated in Sarah's death, a fact that was explained by the
presence of the Council of Eight in Sometime Never..., who tried to kill some
of the Doctor's past companions.
Sarah and K9 were never actually companions of the Doctor's
at the same time. K9 Mark I was the Doctor's companion from The Invisible Enemy
through The Invasion of Time. K9 Mark II was the Doctor's companion from The
Ribos Operation through Warrior's Gate. K9 Mark III was never seen as an actual
companion, but was left for Sarah Jane as a kind of apology for her having been
dumped, first seen in the short-lived spin-off series K9 and Company. He was
seen briefly in Sarah Jane's company in The Five Doctors, and thus K9 and
Company is treated as canonical.
Sarah refers to the events in The Christmas Invasion when
explaining how much she thinks about the Doctor.
When confronting each other, Sarah and Rose mention mummies
(Pyramids of Mars), ghosts (The Unquiet Dead), lots of robots (Robot, The
Android Invasion), Slitheen in Downing Street (Aliens in London / World War
Three), Daleks (Death to the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks), the Emperor Dalek
(The Parting of the Ways), anti-matter monsters (Planet of Evil), gas-masked
zombies (The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances), dinosaurs (Invasion of the
Dinosaurs), a werewolf (Tooth and Claw), and the Loch Ness Monster (Terror of
the Zygons, and the one that makes Rose stop.)
At the open, the Doctor is seen posing as a science teacher,
in a classroom very like the one in which his early companion, Ian Chesterton,
taught the Doctor's granddaugter, Susan. Like Milo, but obviously for different
reasons, she also had a rather puzzlingly advanced knowledge of science.
The Doctor has used the pseudonym "John Smith" on
and off ever since his second incarnation. He used it consistently throughout
his years with UNIT, starting with Spearhead from Space where he needed
something like an ordinary name, if only for documentation purposes.
The Doctor does not mention to Rose the limitation of 12
regenerations, established in The Deadly Assassin and central to the plot of
"Mawdryn Undead" and the 1996 film. It's possible that the new series
plans to ignore or work around the limitation.
In accordance with an apparent trend with the series, this
episode features a reference to the Torchwood Institution. In this episode
Torchwood is the name of the data access block on Mickey’s computer.
Sarah Jane Smith is almost, but not quite, unique amongst
the Doctor's long-term companions in that most leave the TARDIS voluntarily,
and in some cases may not care so much if they ever see the Doctor again. Only
his granddaughter Susan was left behind quite so unceremoniously as Sarah, and
despite his promise in The Dalek Invasion of Earth to come back some day, he's
never visited Susan again, either, at least, not in a televised adventure.
The use of the children resembles the Daleks' use of a child
in Remembrance of the Daleks, although there the Daleks simply wanted strategy
advice from a child's imagination, rather than information on how to tap into
godlike power.
The Doctor was introduced to Sarah Jane as "John
Smith" the very first time they met in The Time Warrior.
During this episode, The Deffry Vale School Website
biography of "Mr. Smith" states that he previously taught in
Shoreditch. Which means the Doctor probably claimed to have been a teacher at
Coal Hill School, where his granddaughter Susan used to attend.
[Back to Main Page]
Invasion of the Bane
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Producer
Susie Liggat
Script Editor
Simon Winstone
Written by Gareth Roberts and Russell T. Davies
Directed by Colin Teague
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Samantha Bond (Mrs
Wormwood), Yasmin Paige (Maria Jackson), Tommy Knight (Luke), Porsha
Lawrence-Mavour (Kelsey), Jamie Davis (Davey), Joseph Millson (Alan Jackson),
Juliet Cowan (Chrissie Jackson), Rungano Nyoni (Secretary), Philip North
(Technician), John Leeson (Voice of K9), Alexander Armstrong (Mr Smith), Olivia
Hill (TV Reporter); Konnie Huk, Gethin Jones (As themselves).
Sarah Jane is fascinated by Bubbleshock, a strangely
addictive organic drink that is taking the world by storm. She is almost
oblivious to the arrival of her new neighbour, Maria, a young girl starting a
new life with her father.
Maria becomes intrigued by the strange goings on at Sarah
Jane's house but, before she can investigate, she's whisked away by her new
friend, Kelsey, to the brightly coloured, but sinister, Bubbleshock factory.
As Sarah Jane tries to find out what the mysterious Mrs
Wormwood is doing at the factory, Maria and Kelsey embark on a tour which leads
them into the path of a monstrous creature and a strange young boy with no name
or past."
When Sarah Jane and Maria discover the secret ingredient of
Bubbleshock, they realise they are the only ones who can stop Mrs Wormwood and
her evil plans for the human race.
Original Broadcast (UK)
Invasion of the Bane
1st January, 2007 4h50pm
- 5h50pm
Notes:
Novelized as Invasion of the Bane by Terrance Dicks (ISBN:
978 1 40590 397 4).
Invasion of the Bane
(drn:60'22")
“I saw amazing things, out there in space. But there’s
strangeness to be found wherever you turn. Life on Earth can be an adventure
to. You just need to know where to look.”
On the planet Earth in a barely decorated room a young girl
watches a television advert for a new fizzy drink called Bubble Shock. As her
father begins to place sealed up boxes in the room she turns off the television
and walks outside, where her mother is ordering the removal men around.
As the girl, Maria, turns to go back into her house, she
sees a car turning into the house across the road. A middle-aged woman steps
out of the vehicle and Maria says hello, receiving a flash of a smile in return
as the woman walks inside her home.
Back inside, the boxes are mounting and soon the removal van
is driving away. In the kitchen Maria’s mother claims that it is time for her
to leave, much to her daughter’s distress. As she makes to depart for her own
home she tries to convince Maria that she will soon settle into this new area,
but the young girl does not appear to be convinced.
Outside she clambers into her car, asking Maria’s dad to
make sure the cheque he owes her is received soon. Left together Maria and her
father walk back inside, where soon she is furnishing her room with ornaments
and photographs, whilst the Bubble Shock advert continues to play on her
televisions set, the children in the ad shouting; “Bubble Shock: Contains
Bane!”
Maria turns off the set and clambers into bed, but some time
later she is awoken by red and purple lights glowing through the windows of the
house. Venturing downstairs she opens the front door to see the lights
emanating from the house across the street, and makes her way into the garden,
hiding behind a bush.
There she sees the woman from the street that morning
standing before a beautiful floating creature, a strange device grasped tightly
in her hand. The creature remains for a few moments longer before flying high
up into the air and fading from view, as the woman holds out the hand-held
computer, as if to guide her.
Maria rushes out of the garden then back into her house, and
the next morning she sits in the kitchen, the fizzy drink advert again filling
the screen of a nearby television set. Poking at her breakfast she asks her
father how she would be able to tell if she was going mad, and what she should
do if she saw something she knew couldn’t be possible.
Before he can reply there is a knock at the door and his
daughter rises from the table to answer it. Behind it stands a girl whom
introduces herself as Kelsey, and who after confirming that Maria has a
broadband Internet connection invites herself inside.
Flicking through the channels on the television she warns
Maria that in order to fit in at school she will need to get some music-related
channels, and then offers her a bottle of Bubble Shock, but Maria claims she
doesn’t like it. Kelsey then asks if she wants to go into town and upon hearing
that Maria has no money she tells her that they can take the Bubble Shock bus,
a free service that takes guided tours around the Bubble Shock factory.
Soon they are outside but Maria’s father catches them, and
to embarrass her, doesn’t let his daughter leave without giving him a kiss.
Kelsey explains that the previous occupants of the house left after going mad,
claiming they kept seeing aliens. This greatly interests Maria but Kelsey
scoffs, instead turning to leave.
They see the woman from the house on the opposite side of
the street and after Maria says hello she replies with something of an icy
shoulder. Maria’s father strides across the street to say hello properly,
introducing himself as Alan Jackson. The woman replies by explaining that she
works from home and hopes that the new family will not make too much noise.
Then realising her rudeness she introduces herself as Sarah Jane Smith, but
Kelsey cuts in by announcing her and Maria’s departure to catch the Bubble Shock
bus, which interests Sarah a great deal. She hurriedly runs to her car and
speeds away, leaving Alan alone on the street, somewhat bewildered.
As the two young girls arrive at the bus stop they see Sarah
speeding past, and Kelsey explains that she is the local mad woman, a lonely
journalist. Before Maria can find out more the Bubble Shock bus arrives, a
large orange vehicle full of people. The two friends step inside where free
samples of the drink are handed out. They sit down as Maria admits that she
can’t stand the popular energy drink, and Kelsey claims that she must be one of
the 2% on whom the product doesn’t work.
They discuss the ‘organic’ nature of the drink and soon
Sarah Jane is following the bus in her car. They approach the factory gates and
Sarah parks out if sight, watching as the passengers are herded into the
factory. Checking on a modified wristwatch, which begins to bleep strange
signals, a triumphant look comes across her face. “I knew it”
Inside the factory a hansom young tour guide observes as the
visitors are taken through a security scan, the information of which is beamed
into a control room-cum-laboratory elsewhere in the factory, transmitted into a
strange figure writhing on an operating table beneath a blanket, under the
watchful eye of an austere-looking woman, who claims that he is almost mature.
“Mother will be pleased”.
Elsewhere, Sarah begins making her way into the factory,
opening a side door with a strange device held within a lipstick case. However
trouble is lurking and on the other side of the door two guards are waiting for
her. Her details are passed onto the austere woman via her receptionist and
upon hearing her name she tells her to welcome the intruder into her office.
The tour begins and the young guide tells the visitors to
turn off their mobile phones. He welcomes them to the main production area and
then hands out free samples, the visitors taking bottles from a large trolley.
He picks out Maria, who has not taken anything, and tosses her a bottle,
claiming soon the 2% whom dislike the product will be overcome; the whole world
will be drinking Bubble Shock. Maria looks at the bottle, but puts it back in
the trolley; she’d rather have a cup of tea.
In the office of Mrs Wormwood, the severe looking woman from
the lab, Sarah is presented with a cup of tea as she explains that she wasn’t
breaking in, she wanted to see someone in charge, as has been her unrequited
interest for the past month. As the two talk the journalist begins to make
notes, remarking the presence of the name ‘Wormwood’ in the bible; a star that
fell to Earth and polluted the water.
Urging her to move on Mrs Wormwood listens as Sarah remarks
at the speed of which the company has received permission from the EU to market
a new foodstuff. Mrs Wormwood insists they are simply satisfying the essential
human need to eat and drink and then explains that the chemical known as Bane
is an ancient ingredient, and is not at all surprised when Sarah claims her
scientist acquaintances were unable to analyse the product. She offers Sarah a
bottle of Bubble Shock, doing her best to tempt her. Sarah claims she would
rather die than drink it, and then persists to discuss the erratic nature of
the Bane chemical, claiming it reacts like no substance on Earth.
Elsewhere Davy the tour guide continues his demonstration,
as Kelsey sneaks away to phone one of her friends. Back in the office Mrs
Wormwood welcomes the publishing of Sarah’s story about Bubble Shock, but
claims her insinuations of Bane being alien will lead to claims of insanity
being made against her.
Hurrying her visitor out she quickly enquires as to Sarah’s
marital status, claiming her lonely life is wasted. She tells her secretary
Lesley to show her out but Sarah has the last word, asking what planet she
comes from. “Nice try” she replies and Lesley leads the writer away to the
elevator, receiving orders through her earpiece to kill her. Sarah however is
one step ahead and as Lesley moves to strike she knocks her out, before running
off to escape.
Kelsey wanders around the factory, finding herself in the
strange control room. She tries to turn on her mobile phone but receives a
visible shock, and as the various machinery begins to clatter she runs for her
life. Alarms sound and smoke billows across the factory floor. Davy hurries his
tour group out and in the laboratory the figure beneath the blanket awakens; it
is a young boy.
Arriving in a corridor, Kelsey screams out in terror as a
strange creature reveals itself to her from the roof above, a giant eyeball
surrounded by green tentacles. Maria hears her screams and rushes to find her,
as Lesley returns to inform Mrs Wormwood of Sarah’s escape.
Davy arrives to find Kelsey cowering in fear. He has her
mobile phone destroyed then addresses the creature in the ceiling; the precious
Bane Mother. Elsewhere Maria tries not to be discovered by the guards and
attempts to use her phone, only for the machinery to go awry again. In the
laboratory the young boy detaches himself from operation table and runs off,
eventually bumping into Maria. Repeating everything she says to him he runs
away once more, only this time with the young girl in tow.
Davy attempts to keep the situation under control but Mrs
Wormwood is not impressed; arriving in the laboratory she discovers the
Archetype has escaped.
The young boy and Maria try to find a place to hide and
conceal themselves in the ladies lavatories, leading the boy to reveal he has
no understanding of the gender divide. Sarah, who is continuing her flight from
the factory, soon joins as Mrs Wormwood and Davy continue their search, soon
arriving at the same location
They enter, only to find the three captives have escaped
through a window, into the car park where Sarah uses her sonic lipstick to open
the gates. Maria protests that Kelsey may still be inside the factory, but
Sarah has no time to wait. They speed away in the car as Mrs Wormwood and Davy
return to the office, where Kelsey is being held.
Back at her house Sarah takes the Archetype inside, telling
Maria to go back home. She protests, confessing to seeing the alien in Sarah’s
garden the previous night. The journalist warns her that her own life is
dangerous, and she will not risk other people’s lives. For her own sake she
must stay away.
Maria rushes home and returns to her bedroom in tears,
whilst back at the factory Mrs Wormwood is getting nowhere with Kelsey, who
continues to chatter. She draws a comparison in intelligence to Sarah Jane,
using the information from the factory scanners to outline the presence of
Artron energy in her DNA, evidence of travelling through the space-time vortex.
Kelsey overhears and tells them where Sarah lives. Mrs
Wormwood turns off her image translator, forcing the girl to scream as an
unseen alien form overcomes her. Soon she is unconscious and Mrs Wormwood, back
in human form, manages to search her mind to locate Sarah’s home and takes away
the memories of Kelsey’s harrowing experiences at the factory. She dispatches
Davy to take her home, and also to deal with Sarah Jane.
As the Archetype sits in Sarah’s home he marvels at the
oddities that decorate the cosy living room, and as Sarah enters with a tea
tray she ponders at the fact he appears not to have a name or any memory prior
to running through the factory with Maria. After claiming not to have a home he
asks if he can live with Sarah, but she vetoes the idea.
He becomes confused by concept of food and drink, but is
interrupted by a strange voice calling for Sarah from upstairs. Sarah closes
the living room door and tells him it is nothing, warning him never to go
upstairs. She then proceeds to scan him with her watch, which detects him as a
normal human boy…who was born 360 minutes ago.
Davy and Kelsey arrive back at Bannerman Road, and once the
young girl is gone the tour guide marks his target; Sarah’s home. Kelsey
returns to Maria’s house but ignores her friend’s questions. Whilst Davy
patrols the building on the opposite road, Sarah begins to realise that the boy
from the factory may never have been born; instead he appears to have been
grown.
Davy prepares himself as Kelsey to Maria that it was he who
brought her home, causing her to run and warn Sarah. However they are too late;
Davy has discarded his human form and is rushing towards them; a giant slug
with many large tentacles and a single bulging eye. Sarah guides the three
children upstairs as he breaks down the door, following them as they ascend.
Sarah rushes up into the attic and returns with an oddly
shaped aerosol, spraying the creature until it drops down on the stairs,
reverting to human form. Davy flees from the house as Sarah laments using the
last of the devices in her hand, before proceeding to examine a trail of slime
left on the floor.
Maria claims it is too late for her not to get involved, and
thanks Sarah for saving them, a sentiment she returns with a warming smile
before noticing that Kelsey has wandered into the attic. The others follow and
she orders them not to touch anything.
Realising that they have seen too much for her to stop them,
and that no one would believe them if they were to reveal what they have seen,
Sarah begins to confess more about her life. She explains that aliens fall to
Earth all the time; some get lost like the one Maria saw the previous night,
some crash land and others wish to invade.
Maria confesses she believes her before asking if Sarah
works alone; to which she explains that the government are aware of alien life
and some secret organisations are set up to deal with it, although unlike her
they tend to resort to violence as a solution.
Explaining how she began to deal with such matters Sarah
explains she once met a man called the Doctor, whom she travelled with in space
and time, but their time came to a sudden end; and she had no-one left to talk
to. Years later she met him again and although they had both changed she began
to realise that she could continue the life she had with him alone on Earth.
Maria asks if aliens run the Bubble Shock factory, but
Kelsey dismisses the idea. A sudden bleeping rings out cutting her off and
Sarah rushes over to a concealed safe elsewhere in the room. She opens it to
reveal a magnificent view of space, explaining that it is a black hole created
by a scientific group in Switzerland, but it has gotten out of control and
could consume the Earth if not sealed off.
She has sent her pet robotic dog K-9 to deal with the
problem and although Kelsey scoffs Sarah rejoices at seeing her friend again,
having been away for over a year. The dog explains that he must move on,
leaving Sarah alone once more.
At the Bubble Shock factory Davy is scolded for his failure
by Mrs Wormwood, who reverts to her true form and turns on him; claiming he
will become food.
Back at Sarah’s house Maria examines the various alien
objects decorating the room, and as Sarah ponders more about the Archetype’s
origins, he notices that her watch is detecting something. Realising he is
right Sarah traces it to a bottle of Bubble Shock Kelsey has brought in,
realising the Bane in each bottle is an alien entity.
After Kelsey moans that Sarah is not taking action, she
concurs by calling for someone called Mr Smith. Suddenly a section of the wall
drops away to reveal a giant computer, which houses the voice that called to
Sarah earlier. It links her to Mrs Wormwood’s office in the factory.
As the link establishes, Sarah claims that she has uncovered
the Bane’s identity, and asks them to leave the Earth alone, or else she will
act. Mrs Wormwood is not phased and severs the link, leaving Sarah somewhat
disenchanted. Unlike her adversaries she has no weapons or plans, which is what
makes her different.
In the factory Mrs Wormwood announces that events have
escalated, it is time for the war on mankind to begin. She calls for the Bane
Mother to open her mind and convert the humans containing Bane. The ceiling
opens above her and the Bane mother, the creature Kelsey saw earlier, reveals
itself.
All over the world people drinking Bubble Shock begin to
change. An orange aura floats around them and they appear to loose control over
their own bodies; including Maria’s dad. Back in the attic Kelsey struggles to
remain standing. Suddenly she stands upright and holds out the bottle of Bubble
Shock. “Drink It.”
Sarah and the others run from the house as Maria warns her
father to stay in the house. It is too late; he is already under the control of
the Bane. Mrs Wormwood meanwhile continues to call out: “All those who have not
taken Bane must be converted.”
Sarah hurries Maria and the Archetype into the car, and as
they speed away she tells them not to panic. Swerving through he streets of
people under the Bane’s influence they eventually arrive at the factory,
wherein Mrs Wormwood calls for the newborn Bane to join her.
Outside Sarah ineffectively warns Maria to stay in the car
and then locks the gates against the crowd of people marching toward the
factory. She tries to open the main doors of the building but a deadlock seal
stops her. Now stuck in the car park Sarah calls upon the Doctor to help and
then suddenly has an idea.
Mrs Wormwood continues her eulogy but a strange noise
interrupts her. Suddenly the Bubble Shock bus crashes through the walls of the
factory and as Sarah, Maria and the Archetype step outside, Sarah emphasises
her previous warning, only to be confronted by the Bane Mother overhead.
Mrs Wormwood welcomes the return of her laboratory creation
and she explains that the Archetype is the sum of all human weakness, strength
and knowledge; grown to discover how to overcome the 2% of people who didn’t
drink Bane. However now their plans have advanced he is no longer needed. She
reaches for a ring on her finger and when she presses it the young boy stumbles
to the ground.
Sarah begs her to stop but Mrs Wormwood claims he is dying;
and soon the others will join him. “The time of man is over. And the time of
Bane is come”. She claims Sarah has failed, led to this end by her lonely life.
Maria cuts in and claims she is no longer alone; she has her.
Reaching into her pocket she produces her mobile phone and
aims it at the Bane Mother. The signal rings out but Mrs Wormwood claims it is
too tiny to make a difference; it has only angered the Bane Mother. Sarah warns
that she should have stayed on the bus, but Maria states she is glad she
didn’t.
As the Bane Mother descends the Archetype staggers to his
feet, producing the alien signalling device Sarah used to send home the alien
that Maria saw in the garden; a million times more powerful than Maria’s phone.
Remarkably, he remember the frequency Mr Smith used to call
Mrs Wormwood back in the attic, and recites the very long code before
activating the frequency and aiming it again at the Bane Mother. This time it
has a greater affect. Mrs Wormwood protests as the Bane Mother begins to die,
and orders the Archetype to stop. But it is too late, he is human now and the
Bane have no control over him.
As the factory fills with smoke and the Bane Mother cries
out in agony, Sarah and the others stagger for safety. Eventually they reach
the car park but they are not the only ones to run for cover. Mrs Wormwood
positions herself on a service elevator and as she is lowered below ground she
calls out.
“Until the next time…Miss Smith”
Fire rips through the factory building and showers of sparks
fly out from all directions. Sarah and her new found friends rejoice at their
victory, literally jumping for joy as smoke billows into the sky.
Some time later, news reports announce that the government
are refusing to comment of the afternoon’s events, instead withdrawing stocks
of Bubble Shock from the shops and having scientists claim the unusual human
activity as a chemical imbalance of the brain caused by a leak at the factory.
Maria returns home to find her father safe and sound and is
joined by Sarah, who introduces herself properly and then claims that the
Archetype is her adopted son. Before she can tell them his name Maria’s mother
arrives, rather confused by the visitors. Somewhat rudely she bids them
farewell and the duo leave, followed by Maria who sneaks away as her parents
talk about the money owed between them.
That evening, under a blanket of stars, Maria joins Sarah in
her garden and they toast their victory with ordinary lemonade. Sarah asks what
has happened to Kelsey and her young friend explains she is now putting all of
her experiences down to hallucinations.
The Archetype joins them, now dressed in ordinary clothes,
and Sarah shows her young friends the official adoption papers Mr Smith has
produced. Maria notes that the young lad still needs a name, and as the
suggestions pour in Sarah finds the right one; Luke.
Maria asks if Sarah has a partner at all, and she claims
that there was only ever one man for her, but after him nothing compared.
“When I was your age I used to think…’oh when I’m grown up
I’ll know what I want, I’ll be sorted’. But you never really know what you
want. You never feel grown up, not really; you never sort it all out. So I
thought ‘I can handle life on my own’. But after today, I don’t want to.”
As Luke and Maria look up in the sky at a distant light
flying up amongst the stars, Sarah continues:
“I saw amazing things, out there in space. But there’s
strangeness to be found wherever you turn. Life on Earth can be an adventure
to. You just need to know where to look.”
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Sarah originally travelled with the Third Doctor from The
Time Warrior to the end of his life, and then with the Fourth Doctor from his
very first story, Robot, up until The Hand of Fear. She met the Doctor again in
The Five Doctors and Bullet Time and then in School Reunion.
The alien Maria sees Sarah returning home is of a similar
design to the one seen in the Torchwood episode Greeks Bearing Gifts.
Sarah’s attic is full of references to her previous
adventures with the Doctor; pictures of Daleks and the TARDIS, photos of the
Brigadier and her Sonic Lipstick, no doubt inspired by the Doctor’s Sonic
Screwdriver.
Sarah is not the first of the Doctor’s companions to receive
her own sonic tool, Romana built her own Sonic Screwdriver in Horns of Nimon.
Sarah’s reference to secret organisations built to deal with
alien life no doubt links to Torchwood, created by Queen Victoria in Tooth and
Claw, seen later in Army of Ghosts / Doomsday and then in it’s own spin off
series.
K-9 was given to Sarah by the Fourth Doctor in K-9 and
Company, and was seen again with her in The Five Doctors and School Reunion. He
will feature in his own spin-off series, albeit without Sarah, at some point in
the future.
In thinking of names for her new son, Sarah suggests “Harry”
and “Alistair”, the first belonging to her travelling companion Harry Sullivan
(who travelled with the Fourth Doctor between Robot and Terror of the Zygons
and met him again in The Android Invasion) and the second belonging to the
Brigadier, who first met the Second Doctor in The Web of Fear and would become
a regular face during the Third Doctor’s time on Earth.
[Back to Main Page]
Revenge of the Slitheen
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Phil Collinson
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Lindsey Alford
Written by Gareth Roberts
Directed by Alice Troughton
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Yasmin Paige (Maria
Jackson), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Joseph
Millson (Alan Jackson), Juliet Cowan (Chrissie Jackson), Alexander Armstrong
(Mr Smith), Martyn Ellis (Blakeman), Ian Midlane (Jeffrey), Pamela Merrick
(Wendy), Imogen Bain (Janine), Anton Thompson McCormick (Carl), Jimmy Vee (Carl
Slitheen), Paul Casey (Jeffery / Blakeman / Janine Slitheen), Lachele Carl
(American Newsreader).
Sarah Jane's young friends Maria, Clyde and Luke realise all
is not as it seems on their first day at their new school.
They soon uncover the Slitheen's deadly plan, but together
with Sarah Jane can they stop the evil aliens before it's too late?
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
24th September, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Part Two
1st October, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Notes:
Novelized as Revenge of the Slitheen by Rupert Laight (ISBN:
978 1 40590 398 1).
Part One
(drn:27'06")
On the first day of the new school year, Maria and Luke
arrive in the courtyard, Sarah Jane kissing her new son before she departs,
asking him not to caller her “mum”. The two friends then walk into their new
school, admiring a new building standing before them.
Watching them from somewhere within the building, the
Headmaster of the School (Mr Blakeman) observes them, before focusing his
unseen camera on Mr Jeffrey, a science teacher.
Moments later he is leading him through a corridor of the
new building, positioning him by a blank wall. Suddenly it rolls back and a
giant green arm reaches from within, grabbing Mr Jeffrey.
In the school hall Maria and Luke are met by Clyde, another
new student. Somewhat bemused by Luke’s overly formal handshake, he introduces
himself as the room falls silent. Mr Blakeman enters, and after breaking wind
he rushes through the formalities of ringing in the new school year, Mr Jeffrey
joining him on stage part way through.
He explains the new building is the technology block, and
some time later he is giving Maria and Luke’s class a guided tour through the
building, Clyde noting the strange smell around them, a smell like batteries.
Later, in the canteen, Clyde joins Maria at her table and
the two share stories of their parent’s separation. They are shocked by the
mouldy food they find on the plates before them, Clyde claiming something weird
is going on in the school.
At the end of the day Mr Blakeman and Mr Jeffrey watch the
children go before walking off to “test” their new building.
In Bannaman Road, Maria’s father watches as his daughter,
Luke and Sarah Jane arrive back from the school in Sarah’s car, and he teases
her about not walking home instead. They joke about the issue as Sarah looks on
in admiration at their relationship. Once Maria and Luke have gone the two
parents talk about the new technology block, Mr Jackson remarking that he
helped construct a similar building elsewhere in London; it too had an odd
metallic smell within.
Back at the school the two teachers rush about a darkened
control room, pulling levers on giant control panels. Electricity buzzes around
them and they look around with glee.
In her attic, Sarah talks to Luke about his first day at
school, reassuring him that he must take time to adapt to a new life, he may be
different but he must live a normal human life. Conversation turns to the new
technology block and Sarah reveals she has been investigating it’s construction
firm: Coldfire, who have been building identical buildings all around London.
“Makes a change for me” Sarah claims, “Not aliens is it?”
At the school the two teachers continue their work, whilst
at Maria’s house her mother arrives to investigate the new house and collect a
duvet from her ex-husband.
Meanwhile, the teachers conclude their work and Mr Blakeman
claims with relish: “Lights out, London”
Sure enough the lights in Maria’s house all go out. Maria
fetches a torch from the cupboard but it too fails to illuminate, apparently
from a faulty battery. Across the road the power in Sarah’s attic has gone as
well, even Sarah’s specially adapted watch has gone dead.
Maria’s father fetches candles to illuminate the room, but
his attempts to light them are of no avail, they die out as soon as he ignites
the wick.
In the school the machinery begins to destabilise and Mr
Blakeman deactivates it, returning power to the city. The candles light up, the
torch turns on and the electricity all comes back to life in Bannerman road.
Mr Jeffrey chides Mr Blakeman for his failure but he is
adamant he will manage to correct the fault, one more adjustment and they can
destroy the planet…
The next day Sarah leads Luke outside before he starts his
walk to school. Sarah reassures him again that he will be okay before moving to
talk to Mr Jackson, who shows her the plans to the school he worked in. She
finds a blank space on the map, which appears not to have a door.
She arrives at the other school sometime later, whereupon
the headmistress explains to her that ever since the new block was installed
food has been going off and an odd smell had been lingering in the corridors.
Sarah continues to look around; unaware she is being watched via a security
camera.
After impressing Mr Jeffrey in his science class, Luke
attends Science Club at lunchtime, finding himself and a boy named Carl the
only ones in attendance. Mr Jeffrey introduces the circuit diagrams for his and
Mr Blakeman’s machine, not explaining its actual purpose. As he hoped, Luke
finds the fault in the circuit and writes down a solution.
Sarah makes her way to Coldfire construction, phoning Maria
on her way and telling her to investigate the new block to try and find the
source of the smell.
At the end of the school day as Mr Blakeman and Mr Jeffrey
rejoice at the solution to their problems, Maria, Luke and Clyde begin to scout
around, whilst at Coldfire Construction Sarah is greeted by a company
secretary.
At the school, Luke realises that the dimensions of the
block do not measure up, there is an empty space concealed behind one of the
walls.
Sarah interviews the secretary, called Janine, and reveals
she has found that Coldfire have been constructing buildings in cities all over
the world, and each one has been surrounded by rumours of food going stale and
strange smells lingering nearby.
Maria arrives in one of the computer rooms, but Mr Jeffrey
is soon on her tail. She hides under a table but he can still smell her
presence. He claims that he need no longer hide and proceeds to pull open a zip
on his forehead, peeling away his skin to reveal a giant green alien hiding
inside.
“I am Slitheen”
Maria flees, whilst at Coldfire construction Janine proceeds
to do the same, causing Sarah to flee her office, closely followed by another
of the creatures. It follows her into a storage room, where the reporter hides
behind a stack of boxes. However, the smell of her perfume is enough to give
her away, and the revealed Slitheen advances on her.
At the school, Maria finds Clyde waiting in the corridor,
Luke nowhere to be seen. The Slitheen advances on them and they run, whilst
Luke manages to locate the entrance to the hidden room, and steps inside.
Looking around in amazement he turns to find Mr Blakeman waiting for him.
Cornered below some stairs, Clyde and Maria are found by
Carl, who leads them into another room. He closes the door before revealing
there is no way out. He reaches up to his forehead and peals away his skin,
revealing a far smaller but equally disturbing creature inside.
“I am a child of the Slitheen. And this is my hunt”
Part Two
(drn:27'24")
Clyde and Maria run, whilst Luke manages to dodge Mr
Blakeman and escape from the hidden control room. At Coldfire construction
Sarah Jane distracts Janine Slitheen by spraying her with her perfume, and
manages to run back to her car.
Meeting his two friends in the foyer of the building, Luke
watches as Carl Slitheen advances on them. Maria flees down a corridor as Luke
and Clyde run up the staircase. Sarah Jane then calls Luke and tells him to
distract the creatures by distracting them with a smell.
As the young Slitheen and its father advance Clyde pulls out
a deodorant aerosol from his bag and sprays them, giving them time to return
downstairs. Maria joins them as Sarah Jane arrives outside. She uses her Sonic
Lipstick to open the locked doors and the three children join her outside.
Before the Slitheen can escape Sarah seals the doors once more and the friends
drive away.
Carl Slitheen complains that his hunt has been disrupted
whilst Mr Blakeman and his accomplice, the unmasked Mr Jeffrey, theorise what
authority Sarah Jane may hold considering her possession of advanced
technology. Again the young Slitheen complains but his father comforts him, he
will soon get his hunt; “After all, tonight’s the night the lights go out!”
Arriving back at Sarah’s house Maria warns Clyde he must
forget what has happened and return home. However, after he threatens to call
the police she allows him to come inside. As Mr Blakeman and his accomplice
rejoice in their upcoming victory; the chance to regain fortunes and return to
their homeworld, Sarah begins to theorise what the creatures are doing on
Earth.
She and Luke discover, using Sarah’s special watch, that the
Slitheen are a family of scavengers who hide themselves by using the skins on
native species. Suddenly Clyde bursts in with Maria, but Sarah ignores his
protests to continue her deductions. Luke explains about the secret room but
requires help to sort out his own theories.
Sarah calls for Mr Smith, and after she does so a large
section of the wall of the attic slides away, revealing a giant computer. It
shows them a satellite picture of London, with a series of dots showing the
locations of buildings constructed by Coldfire. Sarah then asks to see all
buildings constructed by Coldfire around the world, and she realises that they
only exist in cities that have an underground railway system.
The ten cities form a loop around the whole globe, with a
Slitheen posted at each location. Luke then realises that in helping Mr
Blakeman he has made a terrible mistake; “I told the Slitheen how to destroy
the Earth.”
At the school Mr Blakeman inputs Luke’s equation into the
computer before telling all of the other Slitheen to stand by.
In the attic Mr Smith explains that the buildings are
conductors, when they are all working they transform light and heat into
electrical energy, as they did the previous night when Bannerman road was hit
by a blackout. Sarah then realises that the underground railways act as a
cooling system for the heat given off as a side effect, and the rotten food is
a result of being near to the conductors.
Maria notes that if they can take out one of the conductors
the chain will be broken and the system will fail. The Sonic Lipstick will be
able to put the machinery out of action, but they have no way of tackling the
Slitheen.
As news reports come in about power losses around the globe,
Mr Blakeman orchestrates the operation from the school, each continent falling
silent as the blackout approaches Britain.
Sarah asks Mr Smith to provide her with all possible
information concerning the Slitheen, but before he can identify their
weaknesses the giant computer cuts out; the power drain has started; even the
Sonic Lipstick has been rendered ineffective.
The four friends prepare to leave for the school again, but
before they go Clyde remembers how Mr Jeffrey reacted when he found his
homemade chip-sandwich in his bag that morning. They determine that it was the
vinegar inside the sandwich that caused him to recoil, acetic acid causing a
reaction with the calcium in the Slitheen’s bodies. They then run to the
kitchen, finding all the vinegar they can and pouring it into spray-bottles.
Now armed, they run through the streets towards the school,
whilst inside the building the Slitheen put the final preparations in place,
finally using their transformer to drain the power from the sun. As the air
turns cold and the sky fades into dark, Maria’s mother arrives at her home,
distraught that her daughter is nowhere to be seen.
Soon Mr Blakeman and the others detect Sarah Jane and the
others arriving at the school, and the headmaster decides it is time he dealt
with the intruders. He unzips his skin to reveal the Slitheen within. He finds
them in one of the corridors and advances on them, but they use the vinegar to
hold him off. Sarah and Luke run off to find the control room as Maria and
Clyde are left to fend for themselves.
Blakeman taunts Maria for not having the nerve to use the
vinegar to any great effect, and insults her along with the rest of the human
race. However, his heckles give her the determination to act and she showers
him in the liquid, causing him to explode in a pool of slime that showers the
two jubilant schoolchildren.
The other Slitheen sense something is wrong and warns the
rest of the family that something is wrong. They teleport from around the world
to join them as Sarah and Luke arrive. The Slitheen hold them as Mr Jeffrey
explains their plan; to suck the energy from the Earth until the atmosphere
collapses, leaving the planet dead but them alive and well, once they are
collected by a spaceship they will sell the stored energy contained within the
converters.
Sarah asks why they would do such a thing and the Slitheen
explain that the other members of their family who once visited the Earth were
destroyed, they now want to take revenge, and Luke has given them what they
needed.
However, Luke reveals that he did not know their plan
involved taking energy from the sun, the equation he gave them will not work.
Sure enough the machinery begins to overload and as Maria and Clyde arrive
(only to be held as prisoners along with Sarah), the creatures deactivate the
transformer.
Luke agrees to fix the problem, whilst outside the sun
returns to normal. Inside the lab Sarah throws the reactivated Sonic Lipstick
to Luke, but a Slitheen is soon on his tail. He manages to evade capture and
zap the controls with the device, causing the system to overload. All but two
of the Slitheen manage to teleport away, and the last two, who become trapped
inside the secret room, beg Sarah to save them from the blast.
She look on and raises the Sonic Lipstick to free them but
before she can act the young Slitheen disappears the elder is destroyed in the
blast. Suddenly the lights in the building return, the system has burnt itself
out.
Soon the friends are returning to Bannerman Road, Sarah
contacting UNIT to ask them to disable the remaining Coldfire buildings.
Maria’s parents greet her and she returns to her home, where her mother agrees
to stay for dinner. She recalls the strange events that have occurred since
Maria moved house to live near Sarah Jane, but the only connection she makes
between the reporter and the odd goings on is that she herself has been
affected by everything.
In Sarah’s house, Clyde questions his new friend about her
knowledge of aliens. She tells him of the Doctor, an alien whom she travelled
with through time and space and whose legacy she carries on in her life to the
present day. He then tells her than Luke, her son, shouldn’t have to call her
“Sarah Jane” anymore, he needs a “mum”.
Up in the attic Clyde tries to question Mr Smith about his
presence in Sarah’s home, but he and the others are more concerned with
covering up the recent events in the media. Maria then takes her excited new
companion to catch a bus home, leaving Sarah and Luke alone.
Luke is still worried about almost helping the Slitheen
destroy the Earth, but Sarah insists it is her own fault for not seeing the
trouble straight away. They the embrace, mother and son at last.
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Sarah makes reference to her reunion with the Doctor in
School Reunion.
The story begins with a recap of the previous adventures for
Sarah and her friends, Invasion of the Bane.
The Slitheen first appeared in Aliens of London / World War
Three and Boom Town.
Sarah contacts UNIT, the organisation she and the Doctor
were both once affiliated with. She first appeared intercepting a
UNIT-protected building in her first story, The Time Warrior.
Sarah recalls meeting the Doctor again in School Reunion,
she also remembers Rose’s comments about the Slitheen being in Downing Street.
[Back to Main Page]
Eye of the Gorgon
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Phil Collinson
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Lindsey Alford
Written by Phil Ford
Directed by Alice Troughton
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Yasmin Paige (Maria
Jackson), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Joseph
Millson (Alan Jackson), Juliet Cowan (Chrissie Jackson), Alexander Armstrong
(Mr Smith), Phyllida Law (Bea Nelson-Stanley), Sarah Crowden (Mrs Gribbins),
Doreen Mantle (Mrs Randall), Beth Goddard (Sister Helena), Audrey Ardington
(The Abbess).
With several residents claiming to have seen the ghostly
figure of a nun, Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde pay the home a visit to find out
what's going on. They soon discover that there is more to the story when Luke
is entrusted with a mysterious alien talisman by Mrs Bea Nelson-Stanley, a
resident at the home who knows a thing or two about aliens.
As the mystery unravels, the gang learn that the ghostly nun
is, in fact, part of an order protecting the Gorgon – a scary alien creature
who can turn her victims to stone with just one look. With the talisman an
important part of the Gorgon's plans for Earth, can Sarah Jane and the gang
stop her, and avoid her deadly gaze?
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
1st October, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Part Two
8th October, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Notes:
Novelized as Eye of the Gorgon by Phil Ford (ISBN: 978 1
40590 399 8).
One darkened night, at the Lavender Lawns rest home an
elderly woman is stirred from her sleep. Looking around the room she finds a
nun standing over her. She calls for help and turns on the light, but soon the
figure is gone.
Part One
(drn:27'30")
The next day Sarah, Luke and Clyde arrive at the home to
visit the woman, Mrs Randall, a friend of Clyde’s grandmother. As she and Sarah
discuss the nun, who has been seen by other residents in the past, Luke finds
another woman outside, beckoning to him.
Back in Bannerman Road Maria’s mother has come to visit,
hoping to make her new boyfriend jealous be temporarily leaving him. Although
her ex husband is not impressed, Maria is far more jubilant at having her
mother living with her again.
At the rest home Luke joins the woman, Mrs Nelson-Stanley
outside, where he discovers she believes herself to be in Egypt waiting for her
husband. However, she soon snaps out of her delusion, recognising Luke as the
boy from the window, and after revealing she too has seen the nun, leads Luke
away.
Inside Sarah talks with the owner of the home, Mrs Gribbins,
who is far more sceptical of the story of the nun, thinking Sarah is chasing
nothing but superstition in her search for a story.
In the grounds Luke is led to an ivy-covered plinth which
the old woman, who reaches into the foliage and pulls out a battered tin box.
Inside she reveals an ornate talisman, which she hands over to him to keep,
with only one instruction: “You must not let her get it”. Luke takes the item;
unaware Mrs Gribbins is watching them from the window.
In Maria’s room her mother enters, offering to take her
daughter shopping. However, Maria has homework to do and the two are soon
arguing, Maria distressed by her mother’s attitude to Sarah Jane and Luke, as
well as her sudden appearance back into her and her father’s lives.
Clyde, Sarah and Luke leave Lavender Lawns, Clyde moaning
about the elderly whilst Sarah explains to her young friends that everyone must
get old. Clyde protests, claiming that when he is older the technology will be
in place for his brain to be fused in a robotic body. They drive away, again
under the watchful eye of Mrs Gribbins.
Maria’s dad consoles her over the previous argument, but she
is still bitter about her mother’s negative attitude toward their neighbours.
She then begins to turn on him, upset he seems to have moved on quicker than
she has following his divorce, her life is changing and she isn’t prepared for
it.
Meanwhile, at a nearby abbey, Mrs Gribbins arrives and
knocks upon the door. When it is answered she asks to see Sister Helena.
In her attic, Sarah calls for Mr Smith and sure enough the
giant computer appears from within one of the walls. Lavender. He begins to
research the history of the Lavender Lawns Rest Home, but he finds nothing
peculiar. He then detects the object Luke has been given and identifies it as
alien. He is unsure if it is safe and as Sarah asks Luke where he acquired it,
a moody Maria enters. Sarah decides she must talk with Mrs Nelson-Stanley, and
she takes the young girl along with her leaving the boys in the house.
At Maria’s house, her mother is annoyed by her daughter’s
row with her. She finds her ex-husband somewhat unsympathetic, he is
disgruntled by the fact she seems not to notice how she affects her daughter by
turning up only when it suits her.
At the Abbey Mrs Gribbins explains about the talisman and
how it has been given to Luke. Sister Helena is annoyed that matters have now
been complicated; the Abbess will want to see her. She is taken away to a room
in which an elderly woman is seated in a chair. She raises her withered hands
and removes her veil, causing Mrs Gribbins to scream.
At Lavender Lawns, Mrs Randall takes Sarah and Maria to Mrs
Nelson-Stanley’s room, where they discover her husband was an archaeologist. He
died some years ago and since then she’s gone apparently mad. Maria sees the
talisman in a photo of the pair. Mrs Norman-Stanley soon arrives and Sarah asks
where she got the talisman. She does not answer, and instead recalls her
husband’s opinions of a race known as the Sontarans. Mr Randall explains the
old woman talks at length about the Gorgon, a creature from old horror films.
Sister Helena arrives at Sarah’s house, looking for
talisman. Luke reveals that he has it, but Clyde refuses to hand it over.
Maria’s dad arrives and she lies to him about visiting for a donation to repair
the Abbey roof, before leaving hastily. Clyde and Luke then explain Maria has
gone with Sarah but will return soon. Clyde tries to explain to Luke about
discretion before deciding they should return to the rest home to explain about
the sister, unaware a hearse is following them.
Sarah and Maria realise Bea is not talking gibberish; Sarah
has also encountered creatures known as the Sontarans. Mrs Nelson-Stanley digs
out an old record whilst Sarah questions her about the talisman. She explains
it was unearthed in Syria by her husband, and insists, “They mustn’t find it.”
The sisters are looking for it, and they protect the Gorgon.
The two friends then return home, where Sarah unearths a
book of Greek mythology. She explains that there were three Gorgons, one of
whom was Medusa, a creature with serpents to hair who turned her enemies into
stone with a single glance. She theorises that if Mrs Nelson-Stanley is right,
then one of the Gorgons may still be alive.
Sister Helena pulls up in her hearse and meets Luke and
Clyde at the roadside, promising not to harm them. She claims she wants to talk
to them, and explains that the talisman is dangerous, “more than you can
imagine”. She grabs Luke and puts him in the car with the intent of taking him
to Abbey, leaving Clyde alone on the pavement.
Sarah explains to Maria that the Gorgon might be an alien,
still alive since time of the Greeks. Clyde phones and explains what has
happened to Luke. Soon he arrives back at the house and he, Sarah and Luke
travel to St Agnes Abbey. Sarah bluffs her way inside with a fake identity,
whilst Clyde and Maria sneak off around the back.
Sarah arrives in a library and is locked inside by one of
the nuns. Meanwhile, Maria and Clyde sneak around the back of the Abbey and try
to get inside, finding an open window through which to enter. They begin
looking for Luke; worried they might find the Gorgon instead. They enter one of
the rooms, where they find a statue of Mrs Gribbins. Suddenly the door opens
and the nuns enter; they have been caught.
Luke is brought into the library, followed by Helena. As
Sarah rejoices at having her son back, the Sister claims the kidnap was only to
get her attention. Clyde and Maria are then brought in and they explain about
Mrs Gribbins. Helena then explains that although the image of Medusa was a
Greek embellishment, the creature was indeed one of the Gorgons, who now
survives as the withered Abbess of the Abbey, whom generations of the
Sisterhood have sworn to protect.
She tells them that of the three original Gorgons, only one
remains. One was killed in the ancient days of Greece, when the key that helped
the Gorgons come to Earth was stolen. Since then the Sisterhood have searched
for it, only coming close some fifty years ago when Mrs Nelson-Stanley and her
husband uncovered it. Sarah deduces that it was then that the second Gorgon
died.
Helena then claims that the Gorgon just wants to go home to
die, and Sarah reluctantly agrees to help her do so by handing over the
talisman. She and Maria return home, whilst the nuns keep the boys at the abbey
as insurance. The Gorgon is taken with them, accompanied by Helena and some of
the other Sisters. Sarah returns to the attic and retrieves the talisman. She
arms herself with her Sonic Lipstick then goes back downstairs.
Maria questions Helena about the Gorgon but she receives no
reply. Sarah enters with key to the portal but threatens to destroy it unless
the boys are let go. Helena warns that she has gone too far and the Gorgon is
brought before her. She warns Maria not to look at its face and they turn away.
The creature reveals itself to them, a withered humanoid figure with glowing
eyes and a beam f light emitting from her mouth.
Suddenly Maria’s father enters but it is too late for him to
protect himself. The Gorgon screams and he is turned to stone.
Part Two
(drn:27'49")
Having snatched the talisman the Sisters depart, leaving
Maria left with her stone father. Sarah comforts her, claiming; “there is
always a chance”. However, Maria is not convinced and instead blames Sarah for
all that has happened, things would never have gone wrong had she not met her.
Sarah hugs her, she understands.
Locked in the Abbey, Luke wonders why Mrs Nelson-Stanley
would worry about sisters grabbing talisman if all it did was send Gorgon home.
Whilst Clyde worries, Luke reads a book of the history of the building and
discovers that there is a secret passage located in the room, activated by
rotating a stone bust of Medusa placed on a plinth nearby. The passageway opens
and the pair go inside.
In the attic Mr Smith explains Maria’s father has not simply
been turned to stone; he has been subjected to a process similar to
fossilisation, and the process is not yet complete; there may be a chance to
save him. The process can be reversed but he doesn’t know how, all he can tell
them is that they have 90 minutes before the process is irreversible. He
explains that to help he will need more knowledge of the Gorgon, and Maria
realises they must return to Lavender Lawns to talk to Bea Nelson-Stanley.
Luke and Clyde crawl through the tunnel and arrive in the
garden of the Abbey, which is decorated with the fossilised remains of the
Gorgon’s victims. Somewhat unnerved by this display of the creature’s power,
they move to leave.
Maria and Sarah arrive at Lavender Lawns Rest Home but Sarah
explains she must leave to return to the Abbey. Maria apologises for what she
said back in the attic then departs to find Bea.
At the Abbey the Sisters arrive to open the portal, under
the watchful eyes of Clyde and Luke, who remembers promising Bea he would not
let them take the talisman, he has to stop them but he needs Clyde’s help. At
the rest home Maria arrives in Bea’s room, but she fails to recognise her young
visitor.
The Sisters arrive at the portal, a stone basin with an
imprint for the talisman. They begin chanting; “Save the Gorgon”, and Sister
Helena prepares to open the device, claiming the Gorgons have 100 million years
to travel; the angle of ascension must be perfect, the portal will be open in
one hour. She then begins to realise that the Abbess’ body is dying, they need
a new carrier.
Back at the rest home Bea recalls again her husband Edgar
and their time in Egypt. She remembers meeting the Sultan, who claimed he had
seen the Yeti. Maria tries to hurry her into remembering the Gorgon, but she
doesn’t respond. Meanwhile, Sarah arrives at the Abbey but fails to get inside;
her Sonic Lipstick is broken.
Bea sits talking, explaining that she would give anything to
hear her husband’s voice again; no one listens to you when you’re on your own.
She sits on her bed, dazed and confused, whilst back at the Abbey Sarah manages
to climb over a wall.
In Bannerman Road Maria’s mother arrives at Sarah Jane’s
house, finding nobody home. She walks around the house and into the garden,
where she sees her fossilised husband in the living room. She makes her way
inside, thinking the figure is a statue carved by Sarah. She begins to talk to
it, as if it were really her husband. She acknowledges her ability to mess
things up for her daughter and former partner, revealing she does miss him more
than he realises. She leaves the house, not seeing the tear that rolls down its
cold cheek.
As the Sisters continue to chant the portal begins to swell,
the alignment is 45%. Sister Helena observes the scene and proclaims, “Soon the
Gorgons ad humanity will be one.” Suddenly the bells from the Abbey’s tower
ring, Clyde has found a way to distract them. Sure enough Helena sends her
fellow Nuns to find the source of the noise and as they do Luke runs it, takes
the talisman and dashes out, narrowly avoiding an attack from the Gorgon.
He runs outside to the courtyard where Clyde is waiting.
They both flee and find Sarah waiting for them, joining them as the run for the
exit. However the Nuns are soon upon them and they find themselves trapped.
They are taken back inside and after the talisman is take back to the portal
they are locked in the basement, where Sarah explains that she believes that
the Abbess isn’t actually the Gorgon. Before she can continue Helena takes her
away, leaving Luke and Clyde alone.
Maria upset by not making any progress with Bea and she
cries, realising encounters with aliens and the otherworldly only result in
being left alone in later life, like Sarah and Bea. Suddenly Bea seems to come
round and Maria explains about the Gorgon attacking her father. Bea reveals
that she too was once turned to stone, and explains that the talisman returned
her to flesh and blood. She tells her that they must get the talisman back and
then asks for her mirror, telling Maria to take it with her to the Abbey.
Sarah is brought before the Abbess where the reporter
realises that the Gorgons are parasites, life forms that depends on another I
order to survive. The last one surviving on Earth is the leader of its race,
who will swarm the Earth and take over the human race in order to survive.
However it is growing weaker and needs a new host body; Sarah.
Whilst Maria runs with the mirror from Lavender Lawns, in
the basement Luke finds a trowel and announces he will use it to make a
screwdriver of his own.
Up above them, as the portal continues to swirl, Sarah is
tied to a nearby pillar whilst Helena taunts her. Sarah warns her that the
Earth will not surrender to the Gorgon, but her captor is not convinced. Down
in the basement, Luke uses the trowel to unscrew the lock on their cell door,
and he and Clyde leave.
The portal nears opening and Sarah is brought forward to
face the Abbess. To prevent her from turning to stone she is blindfolded, and
as Helena declares that the Gorgons will bring peace everlasting, the Abbess
prepares to relinquish the hold of the Gorgon. Luke and Clyde storm in but are
held by two of the nuns, capable only of watching as the Abbess lifts her veil.
She releases tendrils of energy from her mouth and eyes, but before they can
take hold of Sarah Maria runs in and blocks their path with the mirror. They
are rebounded and strike the Abbess, causing her to turn to stone; the Gorgon
is dead.
Suddenly Helena and the other Nuns appear to undergo a
transformation of the mind, unaware of events unfolding around them; the
Gorgon’s hold over them has been severed. Maria approaches the portal and
removes the talisman from its place in the stonework. Suddenly the basin drains
and the portal closes.
The Gorgon stopped; the four friends then hurriedly return
to Sarah’s home. Maria places the talisman around her father’s neck and it
returns him to flesh and blood, as it did for Bea. He collapses but is still
alive, so the others take him into the garden and wait for him to awaken.
When he does regain consciousness he staggers out onto
Bannerman Raod where his ex-wife is waiting for him. Maria also arrives to
greet them and apologises for her previous rudeness. Maria’s mother then takes
them back to Sarah’s house to show hem the statue she found, but when they
arrive it has gone, Sarah proclaiming that she has no idea what her visitor is
talking about.
Some time later Maria is forced to bid her mother farewell
as she returns to her new boyfriend. She clambers into a taxi and is sped away,
but not before telling her daughter to be weary of Sarah Jane.
Maria then joins Sarah up in her attic, where Mr Smith
explains that the talisman’s function is to restore distorted human DNA. Maria
wonders if it could be used to heal Bea of Alzheimer’s Disease, and she and
Sarah return to Lavender Lawns to test the theory out.
Upon arriving they find Bea in her room, humming to herself.
Maria greets her but once again she seems not to recognise her. They present
her with the talisman and she explains that all the years she owned it she
never had the nerve to actually wear it; the one time she did it was with
Edgar; the first time he proclaimed his love for her.
She places it around her neck again, and although her
illness is not cured she is still given a gift; she hears Edgar’s voice again;
telling her that e loves her, and he always will.
Returning to the car Sarah explains that although they may
not have cured Bea they have given her peace. Maria asks Sarah if she, like
Bea, has found someone to share her experiences with; and she claims that she
has…twice.
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Mrs Nelson-Stanley recalls the Sontarans, an alien race
Sarah has encountered before in The Time Warrior and The Sontaran Experiment.
Clyde talks of having his brain being implanted in a robot
to prolong his life, a nod to the technology of the Cybermen.
Bea mentions once meeting a Sultan who once saw a yeti, seen
in The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear.
[Back to Main Page]
Warriors of Kudlak
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Phil Collinson
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Lindsey Alford
Written by Phil Gladwin
Directed by Charles Martin
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Yasmin Paige (Maria
Jackson), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Chook Sibtain (Mark Grantham), Sarah Haynes (Carrie
Metcalf), Pamela Merrick (Wendy), Sonny Muslim (Lance), James Bellamy (Brandon
Butler), Nadiyah Davis (Jen), Chrissie Furness (Cashier), Paul Kasey (Kudlak /
Emperor / Mistress), Silas Carson (Voice of Kudlak / Emperor), Tina Greatex
(Voice of Mistress).
With several residents claiming to have seen the ghostly
figure of a nun, Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde pay the home a visit to find out
what's going on. They soon discover that there is more to the story when Luke
is entrusted with a mysterious alien talisman by Mrs Bea Nelson-Stanley, a
resident at the home who knows a thing or two about aliens.
As the mystery unravels, the gang learn that the ghostly nun
is, in fact, part of an order protecting the Gorgon – a scary alien creature
who can turn her victims to stone with just one look. With the talisman an
important part of the Gorgon's plans for Earth, can Sarah Jane and the gang
stop her, and avoid her deadly gaze?
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
15th October, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Part Two
22nd October, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Notes:
Novelized as Warriors of Kudlak by Gary Russell (ISBN: 978 1
40590 400 1).
On a rainy afternoon, inside an arcade called ‘Combat 3000’,
a teenage boy is engrossed in a laser-tag game. Moving around the darkened
arena, watched by security cameras, he enters a dimly lit chamber. He looks
around then disappears in a flash of light. In a control room inside the
building a shadowy figure sits watching, talking to a disembodied voice, his
“mistress”. It tells him he must send her more children, and he promises;
“It shall be done…”
Part One
(drn:26'47")
Luke and Maria walk along a street, the young boy trying to
impress his friend with a new joke he has learned. She is not impressed, and he
tries to interrogate her about how humour works, but she is not sure how to
explain. They pass the Laser-tag arcade and are approached by greeted by Mr
Grantham, one of the proprietors, who offers them cut-price vouchers should
they wish to play.
They take the vouchers and wander off; leaving Mr Grantham
to enter the building and walk to his office, where his explains to his
superior, Mr Kudlak, that publicity for the arcade is well underway. Kudlak
tells him simply to fetch more children and finally reveals himself, a
grotesque insect-humanoid figure dressed in a smart suit.
Meanwhile, Sarah visits Mrs Metcalf, the mother of Lance,
the boy who disappeared at the arcade. The distraught mother begs her visitor
to help find her lost son and Sarah comforts her, listening as Mrs Metcalf
explains that Lance left the house to meet his friend Brandon but never arrived
to greet him.
Back at the attic Sarah sits working as Clyde tries to
explain to Luke the use of colloquial expressions in everyday life. Maria
offers to take the boys away but Sarah instead asks them what they knew of
Lance Metcalf. Clyde explains that he was known as “Lance Corporal”, a name
given to him by Luke as an attempt at humour. Sarah doesn’t find it funny and
explains that Lance’s father, a soldier, died in Iraq. Luke is visibly shocked
by the fact he may of hurt the missing boy and Sarah tries to console him but
he runs off, Clyde in hot pursuit. Sarah and Maria discuss Lance’s
disappearance, and Maria agrees to introduce her to Lance’s friend Brandon.
They find him in a café playing an arcade game; where he
explains that Lance was a wiz at computer games. He then tells them that he and
Lance had arranged to meet at the arcade, but he never showed up, presumably
because of the storm that hit overhead. Sarah and Maria have no recollection of
the freak weather but Brandon recalls it clearly appearing over a nearby hill
and then suddenly disappearing, it scared him.
Clyde finds Luke, still upset from the revelation in the
attic, sitting in the local park. He tries to comfort his friend and tells him
that he is not to blame, he is still learning about humour and social
situations.
In the control room of the arcade Kudlak sits in his chair
as his mistress calls him, telling him that time is growing short, she needs
fresh, strong children. He promises her that her needs will be fulfilled; she
will have all the children she needs.
Sarah and Maria return to the attic, and they ask Mr Smith
to cross reference the disappearance all children who have disappeared in the
last few months with records of freak weather activity. He finds twenty-four
matches, each child having disappeared during a torrent of unexpected rain. Why
this rain has occurred he doesn’t know, but Sarah decides she will be find out.
Soon she and Maria are at work, constructing something out
of pieces of junk. Sarah explains that storms are formed by build-ups of energy
and leave large amounts behind after their dispersal, that energy could tell
them a lot. Maria aids the construction; carefully handling two metallic
cylinders that Sarah warns her could knock her out if she holds both at the
same time with her bare hands.
In the park, Luke worries about fitting into social
networks, feeling such integration is too complex. Clyde claims he will help
Luke with his knowledge of social situations and Luke takes the opportunity to
question him as to the purpose of games. Clyde is bemused by the question but
listens as Luke explains about he laser-tag arcade he and Maria passed earlier.
He agrees to visit it in order for Luke to learn more.
Meanwhile, Kudlak warns Grantham that their progress is not
pleasing to his mistress; she is restless and neither of them, her servants,
are irreplaceable.
Sarah and Maria take their new machine to the hillside where
Brandon got caught in the rain. They turn dials and pull levers until it shoots
a stream of golden light into the air, which slowly disperses. They do so three
times until finally a reaction takes place showering them in golden particles.
They take the particles back to Mr Smith, who explains that
they are entanglement shells, used either terra forming or as a result of
devices such as teleports. Sarah ponders why this could be happening and Mr
Smith shows her the centre of the metrological activity: the arcade.
Inside the laser-tag arena Luke and Clyde embark on their
game, dashing through the dimly-lit battleground with the other children, all
the time under the watchful eyes of Kudlak and Grantham who seem impressed with
their progress. Once the game is over Grantham goes to find them and asks them
to attend ‘Level 2’, a special competition for the more skilled competitors,
they agree.
Soon Sarah and Maria are at the arcade, talking a lady
working in the ticket office. They discover that Kudlak arrived to set up the
arcade not long ago, and has not been seen by any of his employees. Whilst she
begins to babble about how stressful her job is, and how it always seems to be
raining since the new proprietors arrived, the two friends leave to find
Kudlak.
Clyde and Luke prepare for their next game as Mr Grantham
explains that they now have a mission to complete within the game; they must
make their way to a concealed chamber at the other end of the arena, if they
can do that they will be given a place in the world championship of laser-tag
games.
Arriving in Mr Grantham’s office Sarah and Maria begin
looking around unaware Kudlak is watching them from the control room. He calls
to his colleague and tells him to stop them, as Luke and Clyde begin fighting
their way through their mission; slowly making their way toward the special
chamber.
Grantham interrupts Sarah and Maria and pulls an alien gun
on them after Sarah interrogates him about the recent disappearances of
children, always in towns and cities where a Combat 3000 arcade is located. She
vows that she will find Lance and the other missing children, but Grantham
tells her she cannot stop him; children love war games.
Kudlak watches as Clyde and Luke approach the chamber,
locking them off from the rest of the arena. Outside it begins to rain and
Sarah realises the teleport inside the arena is being powered up. She manages
to fight off Grantham using her Sonic Lipstick and she and Maria run off. They
arrive in the control room in time to see Luke and Clyde entering the chamber,
unaware it is really the teleport. They are transported away before Sarah can
stop the machine. Suddenly Kudlak approaches them from the shadows and explains
where they have gone:
“Into the shadows…”
Part Two
(drn:28'02")
Luke and Clyde find themselves in an identical pod to the
one at the arcade, unaware what they have been through. Meanwhile, Kudlak
raises a gun and opens fire but Sarah and Maria manage to escape into a
corridor. He follows, throwing Grantham aside as he pursues the two humans into
the battle arena. Dodging bullets of energy Sarah and her young friend manage
to flee out into the streets, leaving their alien pursuer to fume.
Luke examines the floor of their cell as Clyde ponders when
they will be collected. Suddenly the door slides open to reveal a group of
helmeted figures who take the boys and lock them in a large wooden crate. At
the Combat 3000 arcade Kudlak returns to the control room and turns on Grantham
for allowing Sarah Jane to break in. His mistress intervenes and orders him to
continue collecting children and Grantham is left to promise he ill solve the
security problem.
Returning to her attic, Sarah consults Mr Smith and with the
help of Maria they identify Kudlak as being an army General of the Euvodnie, a
warlike race known for their war with the Malak Empire. Kudlak was badly
injured in the front line of war some twenty years ago and left battle, leading
Sarah to assume he must now be on the search for new warriors.
Clyde and Luke sit in their crate, which is carried to a
storage area then left alone. Luke, having assumed from the vibrations he felt
in the chamber before they were taken that they have left the arcade, manages
to undo the lock on the crate and the two friends step outside to find other
crates surrounding them. They undo one and find a girl, Jen, alone inside.
Clyde greets her as Luke opens another box to find Lance inside.
Meanwhile, as Mr Smith begins to trace the teleport that
took Clyde and Luke, Sarah and Maria hear a disturbance downstairs and Sarah
goes to investigate, finding Mr Grantham waiting for her. He raises a gun to
her head and she insults him, dismissing him as a lowlife. Eventually Maria
ventures downstairs and takes the two metallic cylinders from the device she
and Sarah constructed earlier. She takes them into the living room and pushes
them against Grantham’s neck, causing him to pass out.
Clyde and Luke help free the remaining children and find
that all of them are players from the Combat 3000 arcade. They take cover when
one of the masked guards enters but Jen manages to lock him in a crate, giving
she the others time to escape. The guard blasts its prison to pieces and begins
to follow. The group of youngsters venture out into a corridor and discover
that they are no longer on Earth; they are on a spaceship orbiting their
homeworld. Back on Earth Sarah and Maria discover the same thing, and Sarah
explains that with the help of Mr Grantham she can get them back.
Awestruck by the sight of Earth from space, the young
hostages are soon recaptured by Kudlak himself; who has returned to the ship to
deal with their escape. They are taken to another control room and Kudlak
presents them to his mistress, a fellow Euvodnie who appears on a video screen.
She welcomes them as her new warriors but Clyde and the others protest,
claiming they are not soldiers. She threatens that if they don’t cooperate they
shall die.
Sarah and Maria return to the arcade where upon Grantham, at
the behest of Sarah Jane, teleports them up to the spaceship.
Onboard the ship Kudlak asks how many of his human warriors
have survived their war, but she avoids the question and chides him when he
reveals he has been earning for peace. He ponders how long it has been since he
heard from the front line, and again talks of his desire for peace, both for
his people and himself. She once again foregoes a direct response and instead
tells him to prepare the captured children for battle.
In the hold, the children find themselves trapped once more,
discussing their fate. Luke occupies himself by wiring Clyde’s phone into the
ship’s computer, and finds a map of the vessel, finding an escape shuttle
nearby. He then opens the door and the group run off, whilst back on Earth a
storm rages as Grantham sends Sarah and Maria up to the ship.
Upon arriving they immediately begin to search for Luke and
Clyde, who themselves begin combing the many corridors of the ship in search of
the escape shuttle, pursued by the guards.
Eventually the girls are distracted from their search by the
observation portal that displays the view of Earth. Sarah confesses she never
thought she would see such a sight again, and Maria joins her in her awe.
However they realise more important matters are at hand and they progress,
finding themselves in the control room with the video link with Kudlak’s
mistress.
Just as they reach the shuttle the others are intercepted
again by Kudlak, who takes them to the control room where Sarah confronts the
mistress, angered at her use of children to fight her war. When Kudlak arrives
he pulls a gun on them but before he can shoot Luke intervenes, claiming the
war is already over.
He uses Clyde’s phone to show Kudlak a ten year-old
transmission from The Euvodnie Emperor, claiming an Armistice with the Malak.
Kudlak initially claims it is a trick but when he discovers his mistress is
merely a computer simulation he is forced to believe. Luke and Sarah realise
that the computer hid the message because without conflict it had no reason to
exist. It tries to reason with Kudlak that their only home is the battlefield
but he destroys her, and apologises to Sarah for doing wrong to the people of
Earth. He hands Sarah the gun and tells her to kill him for his crimes but she
spares him, and instead he decides he will try to find the other humans he
helped abduct to fight the Malaks.
Sarah and the others return to Earth, where Jen kisses Luke
as a token of gratitude for helping them escape. Sarah discovers Grantham has
fled the arcade but assures Maria that eventually he will receive his
comeuppance. She, Maria, Luke and Clyde then return Lance home to his mother,
and watch the two reunite. They then clamber into Sarah’s car whereupon Clyde
notices Luke is being notably quiet. He asks why and Luke revels that following
their adventure he has a new issue he needs his friend to advise him upon
girls.
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
During the escape from the arcade Sarah mentions her UNIT
training. UNIT was the organisation she was affiliated with during (and
possibly after) her time with the Doctor.
At the conclusion of the story Sarah mentions men on Mars,
possibly a reference to The Ice Warriors or The Ambassadors of Death.
[Back to Main Page]
The Glitering Storm
by Stephen Cole
The Glittering Storm
Sarah Jane Smith and her friends investigate a mysterious
clinic, in a thrilling new adventure read by Elisabeth Sladen.
When Sarah Jane disturbs a burglar in the night, she is
surprised to find a middle-aged woman, her pockets stuffed with jewellery,
demanding gold. The next day, she reads a newspaper story about a granny who
broke into a jewellers, and then Maria reports that a woman has been stealing
rings and necklaces from the girls' changing room at school.
All the women had recently attended the Auriga Clinic, a
private health centre specialising in treating muscular aches and pains. Is
there a link between the clinic and the odd behaviour of its patients?
Sarah Jane decides to find out, but she soon discovers that
the clinic's secret agenda is more sinister than she could ever have
imagined...
Notes:
Read by Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, this story is
set during the first series.
Released: November 2007
ISBN: 978 1 40567 824 7
Synopsis
(drn:71'08")
Sarah Jane is woken by noises from her living room, and
investigates to find that she's being burgled by a timid middle-aged woman
dressed like a librarian. The woman demands all of the gold in the house, but
when Luke enters the living room, also disturbed by the noise, the woman
hesitates and flees, rasping "Our thoughts shine." The next day, Luke
and Maria keep an ear out at school, and Maria overhears Julie Price confiding
in a friend that she caught her mother Dana with gold jewellery that had been
stolen from the girls' changing rooms. Sarah sees a news report about a
70-year-old woman, Hilda Sheen, who was arrested for stealing gold; when she
investigates, she learns that Mrs Sheen tried to slip away from police custody
with more stolen jewellery, and was picked up again near the Auriga Clinic in
Hounslow. Dana Price has also been visiting a clinic, and since Maria strained
her back playing netball, Sarah decides to take her to the Auriga Clinic,
posing as her aunt.
The clinic is run by Dr Francis Augur, whom Sarah profiled
for Metropolitan Magazine in 1987. She gets an interview by reminding him of
their previous encounter, and as she and Maria enter the clinic, they see Dana
Price walking out. Dana is the woman who tried to burgle Sarah's house last
night, but she doesn't recognise Sarah at all. While Maria visits the
clinicians, Sarah interviews Augur, who explains that he injects his patients
with particles of gold and titanium and then runs a small electric charge
through their bodies, eliminating stiffness and fatigue by generating warmth
and restoring the balance of ions in their bloodstream. According to Augur,
gold is non-toxic, does not react with other chemicals, and could even be used
to eliminate pollution in the world's oceans if used properly. Sarah jokes that
he wants to save the oceans in order to harvest their gold, but he claims that
there isn't enough to make it economically feasible with current technology. He
then hesitates for a moment, takes a small patch from a box on his desk and
presses it to her neck, saying, "Our thoughts shine."
Sarah tries to question Augur about the patch and his
clients' odd behaviour, but the irritated Augur calls an end to the interview,
claiming that the patch is for an unrelated medical condition and dismissing
Hilda Sheen and Dana Price's kleptomania as irrelevant. Sarah leaves his
office, and is appalled to learn that Maria has been given an injection --
without charge, but without Sarah's consent. Maria claims to feel fine, but
Sarah takes her straight home and has Mr Smith, her super-computer, scan Maria
for signs of alien infection. He detects nothing odd about her, apart from the
gold particles in her bloodstream, which will naturally pass out of her system
within seven days as Augur had claimed. Maria tells Sarah that, while waiting
for the clinicians to arrive, she found a workshop full of smelting equipment
behind the treatment room -- and that the nurse who gave her the injection said
"Our thoughts shine" as he did so.
Clyde decides to tell his mother that he's staying with a
friend and stake out the Auriga Clinic overnight. Sarah makes Luke promise that
he won't do the same, but her wording is imprecise and Luke keeps to the letter
of his promise by showing up outside the clinic at the break of dawn. Clyde
admits that he fell asleep at one point, but he did get several photographs of
people walking in and out of the clinic all night, including Mrs Price. He also
took a blurry photograph of something like a gleaming gold robot climbing down
the clinic's outside wall. To his and Luke's surprise, Maria then walks out of
the clinic, presumably having let herself in while Clyde was asleep -- but when
they approach her, they see that she's entranced, and she walks away from them
saying, "Our thoughts shine." Luke and Clyde report to Sarah, who is
furious with herself for putting Maria in danger. When Maria arrives to go to
school with Luke and Clyde, she has no memory of having left her home the night
before, and Sarah warns Luke and Clyde not to tell her until they know for sure
what's going on.
While the children are at school, Sarah instructs Mr Smith
to scan Maria again tonight, give her a clean bill of health whatever he finds,
and then report the truth to Sarah. Mr Smith also scans the skies above London,
and finds a golden satellite in geostationary orbit, transmitting signals to
the Auriga Clinic. Mrs Sheen has fallen into a coma and is in police custody,
and Dana Price has disappeared, forcing the distraught Julie to stay with her
aunt. Mr Smith scans Maria as requested, and informs Sarah that the gold
particles in her system have received an alien transmission and shifted into
her optic nerve. Theorising that the particles could transmit as well as
receive, Sarah orders Mr Smith to keep monitoring Maria and to hack into any
subsequent signals he detects. She feels guilty about putting Maria in danger,
but knows that she has little choice if she's to find out what's happening.
Clyde goes home, exhausted by his overnight stakeout, while
Luke and Sarah wait for something to happen. Just after 11:00 pm, Mr Smith
picks up a signal, and hacks into it to reveal that the gold particles in
Maria's body are transmitting visual data from her optic nerves. Watching
through Maria's eyes, Sarah and Luke see their friend walk out of their home,
get into a car driven by Dana Price, and travel to the Auriga Clinic. There,
Maria joins several other people in the workshop and laboratory that she reported
seeing earlier; it's difficult to make out what's happening, but they appear to
be conducting experiments on ordinary water. Luke texts Clyde to let him know
what's going on, and he and Sarah head for the Auriga Clinic to investigate in
person.
Sarah uses her sonic lipstick to get past the security
cameras, but while exploring the clinic, she and Luke are attacked by the
golden robot that Clyde saw earlier. Augur arrives just in time to stop it,
using a control disc pressed to his forehead, but he accuses them of
endangering themselves by interfering in his experiment. He admits that he is
working with an alien race, the Keratin, who use gold to conduct and amplify
their psychic powers; however, he insists that he and the Keratin are equal partners.
The Keratin need his help to conduct certain experiments in Earth's
environment, and in exchange, they have provided him with the technology to
create a remote-controlled golden exo-suit, which can be used to conduct
complex and delicate operations in environments too dangerous for human beings.
Augur insists that the Keratin are simply communicating their wishes via the
gold particles in his patients' blood, and not controlling their minds;
however, he admits that they can become "over-enthusiastic," which is
why he's been taking lithium concentrate patches to block their influence.
Sarah's only question is whether Augur is under the Keratin's control or simply
fooling himself.
Augur takes Sarah and Luke to his office to meet the
Keratin's representative, a slug-like alien wearing a crown of golden implants.
But when Augur repeats that theirs is an equal partnership, the alien bursts
out laughing and reveals that it's been capable of speaking English all along.
A tendril lashes out of the Keratin crown and injects more gold particles
directly into Augur's neck, overwhelming the chemicals from his patch. Two more
tendrils lash out at Sarah Jane and Luke, and the Keratin marches them back to
the laboratory to put them to work with its other human slaves. However, Clyde
then bursts in and slaps Augur's patches onto Sarah's and Luke's necks, and
they flee to the lobby with the enraged Keratin in pursuit.
Clyde explains that Luke phoned him as soon as Augur
captured them, and that he was listening in on everything that Augur and the
Keratin subsequently said. He made his way to the clinic and slipped in behind
Mrs Sheen, and he stole the box of patches from Augur's pocket before setting
off to rescue his friends. Sarah realises that the Keratin has stopped
pretending to cooperate with Augur because its research is complete, but then
the Keratin catches up to them and she and the boys are forced to split up. Sarah
runs back to the laboratory to rescue Maria, but the Keratin pursues Luke and
Clyde, and chases them into a dead end. Clyde reveals that he also stole the
control for Augur's exo-suit, and Luke presses it to his forehead as the
Keratin draws closer.
The Keratin's human slaves overpower Sarah when she reaches
the laboratory, and Maria informs her helpless friend that the Keratin's slaves
have developed a bacterial culture that will boil the Earth's oceans away
within a day, killing the planet but exposing 20 million tonnes of gold with
which the Keratin can build remote-controlled battle machines to continue their
war of conquest across the stars. But before Maria can inject more gold into
Sarah, the exo-suit arrives and smashes down the door, distracting the slaves
long enough for Sarah to press patches to Maria's and Mrs Price's necks. Clyde
and Luke are close behind the exo-suit, which Luke is controlling; he managed
to fight off the Keratin, injuring it, but Sarah realises that it's heading for
a communicator to transmit the formula for its bacterial culture to the rest of
its kind. However, she also realises that it chased Clyde and Luke instead of
her, retreated when they headed for the laboratory, and used human slaves to do
its work for it -- because it's a slug, and the salty seawater it's been using
for its experiments is lethal to it.
While Mrs Price looks after the other recovering human
slaves, Sarah and her friends head back to Augur's office carrying jars of
seawater. The Keratin has activated a communications unit hidden behind a false
wall, but Sarah shorts it out with her sonic lipstick. The Keratin attacks,
shrugging off the seawater that Sarah's friends throw over its body -- but
before it can kill Sarah, Augur rises from the floor and jabs an injector full
of seawater through the Keratin's hide, injecting the salty water directly into
its bloodstream. The Keratin convulses and explodes into a cloud of
foul-smelling smoke as the shaken Augur watches, finally accepting that he's
been used. Sarah and Luke personally destroy the bacterial culture, and Sarah
uses her contacts to take care of Augur and his exo-suit and to make sure that
Augur's victims aren't charged for their crimes. Sarah hopes that the Keratin
will now write off Earth as too dangerous to risk invading again -- but if they
do ever return, Sarah and her friends will be waiting.
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
Sarah recalls walking through an asteroid of gold in Revenge
of the Cybermen.
The Animus on Vortis, seen in The Web Planet, also
controlled people through the mesmeric influence of gold; however, there
appears to be no connection between it and the Keratin.
[Back to Main Page]
The Thirteenth Stone
by Justin Richards
The Thirteenth Stone
A stone circle spells danger for Sarah Jane Smith and
friends, in a thrilling new adventure read by Elisabeth Sladen.
Sarah Jane is helping out on a school trip with Luke, Maria
and Clyde's class. On the way home, the group stop off at The Stone Whisperers,
a dozen standing stones enclosed by a dome. Set apart from the circle is a
thirteenth stone: the King Stone. Legend has it that this is an evil king who
was captured in battle by twelve knights, and turned to stone. To keep him
imprisoned, the knights too turned to stone, holding him forever in their
power. Nice story, but it's just a myth -- isn't it?
Luke finds himself strangely drawn to the King Stone. Over
two metres high, and covered in moss, it glows with a strange, unearthly light.
But when the secret of the stones is finally revealed, the school party's
enthusiasm turns to terror...
Notes:
Read by Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, this story is
set during the first series.
Released: November 2007
ISBN: 978 1 405 67823 0
Synopsis
(drn:68'48")
Sarah Jane volunteers to chaperone Luke's school trip to St
Margaret's House Museum, a Victorian recreation an hour's drive out of London.
She only realises after the trip has set off that her presence is embarrassing
her adopted son as he tries to fit in with the other children. She thus
restrains herself from correcting the museum's historical inaccuracies based on
personal experience, and spends the ride back to London chatting with the
history teacher, Mr Bradbury; his earnest interest in history bores her to
death, but she does not tell him that she's visited medieval England in person.
On the way back, the coach stops at the Stone Whisperers, a stone circle now
enclosed in a state-of-the-art visitors' centre thanks to a lottery grant. The
curator, Dr Riley, is just as dull as Mr Bradbury, and the children quickly
scatter to explore the interactive exhibits. Sarah joins Luke, Maria, and Clyde
as they examine the circle, which appears incomplete, as though some of the
stones have been removed. Luke is strangely drawn to the King Stone, a larger
stone set some distance away from the others and glowing slightly with a
natural phosphorescence.
Professor Jacqueline Lauton notices the children's interest
and tells them that she's about to finish analysing the stones using
ground-penetrating radar; she hopes to find out what they're composed of and
what makes the King Stone glow. Legend says that the stones are the remains of
twelve warriors who defeated a tyrant king in battle, imprisoned him within the
King Stone, and turned to stone themselves in order to keep him trapped. Lauton
is more interested in the reality of the stones than in the myths surrounding
them, but Luke points out that the myth teaches them something important about
the apparently incomplete circle. The King Stone is also known as the
Thirteenth Stone, and since there are only twelve stones in the arc, that means
that it's complete as it is and no stones have been removed from it after all.
Lauton invites Sarah and the children into the computer
suite to see the results of her scan for themselves, and Sarah realises that
Lauton feels unappreciated here and wants someone to share in the wonder of her
discovery. Given that the equipment cost two million quid, however, Lauton is
also concerned about what might happen if her experiment fails. She has set up
the monitors in the same positions as the stones in the arc, and because Clyde
promptly seats himself in the chair before the monitor representing the King
Stone, he's the first to realise what the pattern represents. Each of the other
twelve monitors is facing him, which means that each of the Sentry Stones is
facing the King Stone. It's not a semi-circle, it's a parabola, with the King
Stone at the focal point.
Mr Bradbury calls Sarah and her friends to return to the
coach, but they tarry in the lab, watching as the computers complete their scan
and begin to map out the interior of each Sentry Stone. The 3-D models are
colour-coded, indicating the presence of minerals such as sandstone, granite,
and quartz... but in the centre of each stone is a solid black space of
unidentifiable material, which resembles the shape of a crouching soldier. And
the black space in the centre of the Thirteenth Stone is textured with light
greys and browns that look like the folds of a cloak draped over a standing
figure... which appears to be screaming. As the scan completes, the shadowy
face in the King Stone turns to look directly at Luke, who collapses to his
knees as all of the lights in the lab go out simultaneously. Sarah pulls Luke
back to his feet, but the red emergency lighting is casting a shadow across his
face -- and the shadow looks exactly like the face of the King, except that now
it's laughing.
Lauton, trying to convince herself that this is just a power
surge, stays in the lab to recover her data from the stricken computers while
Sarah, Maria, and Clyde support the dazed Luke outside. The other children are
waiting by the coach with Bradbury and Riley, but as Sarah and her friends
approach the facility's doors, the shadow on Luke's face deepens and the doors
slam shut by themselves, trapping them inside. Sarah's sonic lipstick fails to
open the doors, and Maria finds that she can't get a signal on her mobile. Dark
clouds cover the sun, leaving the stone circle illuminated only by the red
emergency lighting. In the weird darkness, it's clear that their shadows are
pointing directly at the King Stone -- until the Sentry Stones begin to split
open, revealing warriors with glowing red eyes wearing glistening black armour,
just like the shapes on the computer monitors.
The shaken Sarah says aloud that they should have put two
and two together, and Luke immediately replies "four." Clyde tells
Sarah that Luke sometimes switches off mentally when classes get too boring,
and only seems to come back to himself when he has an interesting problem to
solve. Sarah and Maria thus start to bombard Luke with maths questions, and as
he answers them, he seems to regain control of himself. But the shadow over his
face refuses to fade, and when the stone soldiers lift their swords and advance
on them, the shadow speaks through Luke, telling Sarah to get him to safety if
she wants Luke to live. Sarah and her friends carry Luke into a nearby lecture
hall, barricade the door, and then slip out through the other entrance;
fortunately, the Sentries are very methodical, and they all smash down the door
and enter the hall rather than circling around to block the other exit.
Despite the distraction of the maths problems, the shadow
over Luke's face is getting darker. Sarah and her friends take Luke to the King
Stone in the hope of learning more, and see that the phosphorescence has
brightened into a fierce orange glow. At the heart of the Stone is a dark shape
with the face of the King. The shadow speaks through Luke, identifying itself
as Ravage, the self-proclaimed greatest warrior that the planet Amital had ever
known; he seized the throne through force of arms, but was eventually defeated
by the forces of the Republic and bound in a psychomolecular prison. The
Sentries sacrificed their own life force to keep Ravage contained, but their
power waned over the centuries until Lauton's scan inadvertently transferred
the remaining life force out of them and into the King, giving him the power to
transfer his mind into another body. Unfortunately, Luke just happened to be
present at the time, and his mind is still clear and fresh, a blank slate that
Ravage can possess without being overwhelmed by his victim's lifetime of
experience. Soon he will crush Luke out of existence and occupy his body -- and
rather than let that happen, the warriors are willing to kill Luke before the
transfer is complete.
One of the Sentries finds the group standing by the King
Stone, and Clyde tries to fight it off while the others escape. Sarah Jane and
Maria urge Luke to keep fighting Ravage, but Ravage has committed himself fully
to this escape attempt and is fighting just as hard to hold onto his new body.
Sarah blames herself for not letting Luke grow up enough to fight Ravage on his
own, and she is forced to let go of Luke and tell him that only he can save
himself now. Maria begs the advancing Sentries to give Luke a chance, and they
pause and watch as Luke struggles with Ravage for control of his mind. Ravage
desperately insists that Luke is still young and unformed, and that he doesn't
know who he is yet -- but Luke is stronger than Ravage believed, and he knows that
he has friends, a mother who loves him, and a life of his own. With a great
effort, Luke casts Ravage out of his mind, and the King Stone stops glowing as
the shadow disappears from Luke's face.
Clyde joins his friends as the Sentries bow in respect
before the exhausted Luke and then transform back into stones. The power comes
back on and the thunderclouds dissipate, letting the sun in through the
skylight once again. Professor Lauton emerges from the computer suite to tell
the others that she's recovered the data, sees that the heavy stones have
impossibly rearranged themselves, and turns and walks back into the suite
without another word. Riley and Bradbury enter, unsure exactly what they saw
through the glass doors and equally astonished to see that the stones have
shifted position. Sarah tells them that a freak meteorological effect called a
Ravage Storm shifted the stones about, and Clyde points out to the sceptical
Riley and Bradbury that surely the stones can't have moved on their own...
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
Sarah recalls travelling to medieval times, as she did in
The Time Warrior. She also recalls visiting the Victorian era, which never
happened on TV, although Pyramids of Mars comes close; however, she did do so
in the short story The Lampblack Wars and the novel Evolution.
[Back to Main Page]
Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Phil Collinson
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Lindsey Alford
Written by Gareth Roberts
Directed by Graeme Harper
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Yasmin Paige (Maria
Jackson), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Joseph Millson (Alan Jackson), Juliet Cowan (Chrissie
Jackson), Jane Asher (Andrea Yates), Jimmy Vee (The Graske), Paul Marc Davis
(The Trickster), Jessica Ashworth (Young Sarah Jane Smith), Francesca Miller
(Young Andrea Yates).
Maria wakes one morning to discover Sarah Jane has
disappeared, and only she remembers her.
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
29th October, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Part Two
5th November, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Notes:
Novelized as Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? by Rupert
Laight (ISBN: 978 1 40590 5 077).
At the local park Sarah, Maria, Luke and Maria’s father Alan
watch Clyde rolling about on his skateboard. As the group recall the first time
they met, Clyde falls from his board and Alan takes the opportunity to show off
his own skills with a skateboard, a leisure pursuit he abandoned when he got
married. Maria seizes the opportunity to take some photographs of her friends,
but when she tries to take one of Sarah he friend feels some sort of
disturbance:
“Somebody just walked over my grave”
She and the others leave, unaware that a cloaked figure is
watching them…
Part One
(drn:28'41")
Returning to Bannerman Road Maria, Luke and Sarah go to the
attic. Sarah asks Mr Smith the Computer to track the progress of meteorite K67,
which he claims is on collision course with Earth. Maria is shocked but the
others remain calm. Luke explains that the meteor is approaching through a
blind spot in the radar of major authorities, and only they can stop it. Sarah
reassures her worried friend that Mr Smith will be able to avert catastrophe by
creating a magnetic pulse, thus bouncing the projectile back into space.
Collision will take place the following afternoon.
Despite being somewhat confused that Sarah would save the
world and not expect thanks for it, Maria seeks comfort in the fact they will
be safe. Sarah asks Luke to leave and make some tea whilst she and Maria talk.
She presents her young friend with a gift, a metallic box given to her by a
Verren Soothsayer they helped get home a few days previously; he told her to
give it to the person she trusted the most
Mr Smith has already examined the object and claimed it is
nothing more than a puzzle box, but nonetheless Maria spends that night in her
bedroom trying to get inside. After much effort she manages to make progress;
twisting a corner of the cube so it sits at an angle before sliding one half of
the box slightly out of place. She retires to bed; still holding the puzzle
whilst outside the hooded figure from the park arrives. It raises a ghostly
hand and points at Sarah Jane’s car, causing it to disappear.
In her bedroom Maria clings to the box whilst the figure, a
hideous-looking monster with no eyes and a mouth of pointy teeth, its hand
again. This time it points at Sarah’s house, causing all of the lights inside
to go out. The creature disappears and across the road Maria awakens with a
fright, dropping the box.
The next morning Maria arrives downstairs to find that her
father has retrieved his old skateboard from the attic. He hands his daughter a
birthday card for her to sign, addressed to a woman named Andrea. Maria appears
to have no idea who this might be, but signs it nevertheless and then goes
across the road to meet Luke. When she knocks on the door it is answered by a
blonde woman with a faint cockney accent. Maria asks where Sarah Jane and Luke
are but she doesn’t understand whom she is talking about, yet recognises Maria
perfectly.
Maria leaves her and returns home. She asks her dad what has
happened to Sarah Jane but he doesn’t recognise the name either, claiming that
the blonde woman, Andrea, has always lived in the house across the road. To try
and prove her father wrong she shows her the photos she took in the park
yesterday, but when she views them she finds none of them contain Sarah or
Luke, just Clyde, her father, Andrea and herself.
Maria then checks the address book on her mobile phone, but
finds that both Sarah Jane and Luke’s names have gone. She phones Clyde but he
appears to have little recognition of her, only that she is a girl from his
school and they met once at the park the previous day. Like Maria’s father he
has no idea who Sarah or Luke are, and believes Maria to be mad when she warns
him of an approaching meteorite.
Maria returns to the house across the road and after being
welcomed by Andrea she runs inside, finding the décor of different rooms has
changed. Alan arrives and he and Andrea follow Maria upstairs to the attic,
which is now empty, all of Sarah’s possessions have gone and Mr Smith has been
replaced by a large mirror hanging on a wall. Alan apologises to Andrea for the
intrusion and takes his daughter home; unaware that once they have gone Andrea
appears to recall the name Sarah Jane Smith.
Back at their home Maria and her father look over the
previous days photos again, before Alan attempts to assure Maria that Andrea
has always lived in Bannerman Road by showing her photos of their neighbour
helping them to unpack the day they moved in. Maria struggles to understand
what is going on, and takes offence when her dad tells her to forget Sarah Jane
and the meteor, which he believes to be inventions of her mind.
Maria tells him that somehow Sarah Jane has vanished and
everyone has forgotten her, but somehow she has been protected. She searches
for Sarah’s name on the Internet and finds a poem written about a girl of the
same name, claiming that she died on 13th July 1964.
The pair then goes to the Library to follow up their
research and find an article claiming the girl died after falling from a pier,
and was accompanied at the time by another girl named Andrea Yates. Alan thinks
that Maria is simply pretending to know Sarah Jane, presumably having heard the
story before from Andrea. Maria is upset by her father’s scepticism but is then
shocked when she sees the names of Sarah and Andrea switching places in the
article before her. Moments later she hears Sarah Jane calling to her for help,
but it appears the noise is only apparent to her.
She and Alan leave the library and to stop her father from
worrying about her Maria pretends that her stories about Sarah and Luke are, as
he believes, fiction. She returns to Andreas house to apologise but takes the
opportunity to question her about the accident in 1964. She claims that Sarah
Jane was never meant to die, and that it was at that point that the world was
somehow changed. Andrea orders her to leave but before she goes Maria swears
that she will find some way of making sure history takes the right course.
Visibly shaken, Andrea runs up to the attic. She searches in
an old storage box and pulls out a metal cube identical to the one Maria was
given by Sarah before she disappears. A disembodied voice calls out to her,
telling her to “Remember”. She looks around, stepping before the mirror hanging
upon one of the walls. The hooded creature that stalked Bannerman Road the
previous night appears as an image in the mirror, standing behind her. It tells
her again to remember and sure enough Andrea proclaims that she remembers what
she did the day Sarah died, the day the creature gave her the box. It asks why
she calls upon him now and Andrea explains that Maria Jackson knows what has
happened, she is aware that history has changed.
She breaks down in tears, again recalling the agreement she
and the creature made back in 1964. She asks him to make Maria forget Sarah
Jane again but he tells her he is unable to, somehow she is protected. He
explains that he is unable to kill her either but she can be removed, as Sarah
Jane was. He tells her that he requires her agreement to take action and she
grants it, and once this is done he tells her that she must help him by
separating the girl from her father.
Maria sits in her bedroom alone, when Sarah calls out to her
again. She wanders over to a mirror and finds her lost friend concealed within.
She asks how she can help stop the meteor but Sarah cannot tell her anything,
continuing to call out for help.
Andrea lures Alan away from his house by asking him to help
hang a banner for her birthday party later that day. Maria meanwhile recovers
the metal box, which has fallen under her bed and realises it is that that has
protected her. She runs downstairs to find a small snarling alien creature
waiting for her. She flees from the house, dropping the box en route. The
creature chases her, and they eventually end up under a nearby railway bridge.
Alan returns home to find the box Maria dropped. He picks it
up at the precise moment the creature under the bridge opens fire on Maria,
shooting two small electrodes onto her jacket, causing her to disappear. A blue
light engulfs him and he flinches it pain, but soon the ordeal is over. He
looks around, wondering what is going on. Soon his ex-wife Chrissie arrives
telling him they must hurry to Andrea’s party. Alan worries what might have
happened to Maria, but Chrissie doesn’t understand what he is talking about.
Alan bluntly explains their daughter has gone missing but Chrissie laughs, they
never had a child.
Maria reappears on a stone walkway suspended amongst the
clouds. The creature that captured her leads her along the myriad of paths, but
she manages to disconnect the electrodes it shot at her and she disappears from
view again. She returns to Earth but not where she left, this time she is by
the seaside. She looks around in disbelief before approaching two schoolgirls
for help. She introduces herself as Maria Jackson, and one of the girls shakes
her by the hand. “
Nice to meet you Maria, I’m Sarah Jane Smith.”
Part Two
(drn:28'18")
Maria assumes that the girl standing next to Sarah is
Andrea, and when she grabs a nearby newspaper she discovers it is 13th July
1964, the day of the accident. She tries to warn the to girls not to venture
onto the closed pier, knowing that the blank-faced creature must be about to
arrive (recognising the reason she appeared in 1964 is because the creature
must have visit there as well to switch the two girls at the moment of the
accident).
Andrea, assuming Maria to be mad, drags Sarah away and when
their backs are turned the small creature that captured Maria arrives. It
shoots the two metallic electrodes from its gun at her and once again she is
taken away. Meanwhile, Sarah and Andrea have been trying to get past the locked
gates of the pier. Eventually they succeed but not before Sarah notices the
sudden disappearance of their brief acquaintance.
Maria reappears in a white void. Her captor releases the two
electrodes from her lapel and then leaves. Looking around anxiously, Maria is
jubilant when she finds Sarah Jane, who has been deposited in the void as well.
The two embrace and Sarah explains that they are in limbo, an empty space.
Back on Earth Alan and Chrissie continue to argue. Alan
tries to convince his estranged wife that they once had a daughter but she
denies it, claiming that if they had they might never have split up. Alan then
realises that the metal box he found must have protected him, just as it had
done for Maria. Now knowing that Maria was telling the truth and that Sarah
Jane must indeed exist, he leaves the house, despite Chrissie showing him
pictures of the day he moved home, depicting himself, Andrea, but no Maria.
In the void Sarah recalls the day Andrea died when she fell
from the pier, revealing she had always pondered that it could have been her
that fell, and now the timeline has changed her thoughts have become reality.
Maria interjects and claims that if Sarah ceases to exist on Earth then the
meteor must still be on the way, and no one can stop it but her.
Sarah asks how Maria still knew of Sarah when the rest of
the world had forgotten. She explains about the box and Sarah realises the
Soothsayer who gave it to her must have known what was due to happen, and thus
gave it to her to give her some chance of being saved.
Maria confesses she dropped the device back on Earth then
inquires about the creature that captured her. Sarah explains that it is a
Graske but theorises that what has happened is too powerful for such a creature
to manufacture, it must be a slave for something else. Suddenly a ghostly voice
rings out, calling her name. She warns Maria to stay where she is, then walks
off to find the source of her summons, disappearing into the fog.
In Bannerman road Andrea welcomes the guests at her birthday
party, whilst in the void Sarah confronts the hooded creature that changed the
timelines. It lifts its hood to reveal its blank face, punctuated only by a
fanged mouth. She asks its name but it claims it has none, it is “nothing”.
Explaining that it feeds off of chaos in order to survive, the creature tells
Sarah that she is the key to the food it needs. Without her in existence the
meteor will collide with Earth and then the creature can draw energy from the
resulting disarray.
It waited for just the right moment to snuff out her life,
and to ensure the course of history was not changed until it deemed fit to
interfere, he turned away the creatures Sarah has fought on her own on Earth;
the Slitheen, the Gorgons, even the Bane. It tells her that since the Bane
never came to Earth her son Luke was never born and therefore he now exists in
‘The Forgotten Places’, even further out into the void than Sarah and Maria.
Sarah asks why the other creatures were expelled from Earth
and it explains that the results of their plans do not result in chaos; they
are the fruits of revenge or the lust for power. The meteor represents none of
those things, it happens by chance, and thus brings true pandemonium. Sarah is
hurt by the fact the creature doesn’t care about the billions of people and
animals that walk the Earth, but it insists it cares about her, for her life
was so important to its plans. It explains that on 13th July, the day of the
accident, he saved Andrea’s life by switching her and Sarah so that it was her
who fell from the pier. However he could only do so once Andrea had agreed to
let Sarah Jane die in her place.
Sarah seems hurt and protests when the creature turns to
leave. It plans to return when the Earth has been destroyed and claims that she
will still be of use to him, with her memories he can locate the Doctor and
delete him from history, the amount of chaos such a deed would bring would
create massive supplies of energy for him. He fades away as Sarah screams out
in protest against his plans concerning her old friend, but her cries are
unheard.
At Andrea’s house Clyde arrives, shortly followed by Alan
and Chrissie. Meanwhile, Sarah returns to Maria and comforts her, claiming
there is nothing and no one who can help them, they’ve been forgotten. On Earth
Clyde turns on Andrea’s television to view a news report, which claims a meteor
is about to collide with Earth. Alan recalls what Maria said to him about such
a happening and begins to worry, but Clyde claims the projectile will miss the
Earth.
Andrea, calmed by Clyde’s declaration, goes to the kitchen
to fetch more glasses. Alan follows her and confronts her about Maria and
Sarah, but she claims not to know of them. She changes her tune when he shows
her the metal box that protected him, and warns him that they cannot be saved.
He demands to know hat has happened to them and she takes him up to the attic,
where she explains what happened the day of the accident.
She and Sarah ran onto the pier, and when she leaned on the
barrier to look out at the sea it gave way, causing her to fall. She grabbed
onto a ledge hovering over the rough waters below, yet despite Sarah’s efforts
to help her back onto the pier she couldn’t hold on any longer. It was then the
hooded creature intervened, calling to her and telling her that it could save
her life if she gave her permission for Sarah to die instead of her.
She agrees to the proposition and in a flash the scene had
changed, now with Sarah dangling over the sea whilst she stood safely on the
pier. She watched as her friend dropped from the ledge to her death, and was
then confronted by the creature and its Graske slave. The creature presented
her with a metal box identical to the one Alan now possesses, and told her that
she would forget what had happened so that she could live a full life.
For over forty years she had forgotten about the
transaction, but Maria’s visit made her remember again and for that she had to
be sent away as well. Andrea begins to break down in tears and she confronts
the mirror hanging on the attic wall. The hooded creature appears within it and
tells her that with her agreement Alan can be removed as well. Distraught, she
gives her permission and grabs the metal box from Alan’s hand. Suddenly the
Graske arrives and chases Alan from the house.
In the living room Chrissie, Clyde and the other guests
continue to watch the new report, which claims that the RAF will destroy the
meteor before it reaches Earth. Chrissie turns to see he ex-husband being
chased by the alien creature but assumes it is merely a man in a suit. She
returns to the living room where the news reported explains that the missile
strike intended to destroy the meteor has failed.
Alan manages to evade the Graske and capture it, tying it up
in his own home with the curtain cord, demanding to know where his daughter has
been taken. Meanwhile, the guests from the party rush outside to watch the
meteor approach. Andrea realises what Maria said to her that morning, that
Sarah Jane was the only one who could avert disaster.
The Graske shows Alan how to retrieve Maria using its gun,
and sure enough seconds later his daughter is back beside him. Outside Chrissie
suddenly remembers her daughter and runs off to find her. Inside the house
Maria tells her father that they must save Sarah in order to save the Earth. He
repeats the action with the gun that retrieved his daughter but Sarah doesn’t
appear. Maria theorises that is she herself was returned to her home, where she
belongs, Sarah will be returned to where she belongs; her attic.
They hurry outside unaware that the Graske has freed itself,
teleporting away. Up in the attic Andrea tries to seek solace in her metal box
but is distracted when another apparition appears in the mirror; Sarah Jane.
They welcome each other before Maria and Alan arrive. Sarah explains she cannot
return whilst Andrea lives, and explains that only her childhood friend can
bring her back, by retracting her previous agreement and dying instead of Sarah
back in 1964.
Andrea protests after Maria claims she was meant to die,
claiming that she has lived her life to the full and made the most of
existence. Sarah cuts in and claims she had done the same before she was
betrayed, and tearfully begs Andrea to change the timelines back and save her
son. However, her friend fears being wiped from existence only left forgotten
and refuses. Sarah protests that Andrea was never forgotten, it as her accident
that showed her how precious life was, and as a result she fought to defend it
ever since.
Andrea’s eyes begin to fill with tears as the hooded
creature arrives. She confronts it and orders it to retract their agreement. It
tempts her, claiming she will die as a result but she retorts that she has been
dead for forty years. She turns to Sarah Jane in the mirror and bid her
farewell, before shattering the mirror with the metal box given to her by the
creature.
Suddenly the timelines are restored. Back in 1964 Andrea
resumes her position dangling from the end of the pier, saying goodbye to her
friend once more with the words “Remember me”. She falls and in the present day
Sarah and Luke are returned to Earth, finding themselves in the reformed attic
with Sarah and Alan. Outside the meteor roars ever closer and Sarah calls upon
Mr Smith to help. He activates the magnetic field and the meteor is deflected
back into the skies, the Earth is saved.
Sarah celebrates the return of her son and promises he will
never be taken from her again. Clyde arrives to join in the jubilations, which
are somewhat stunted when the group realise Alan has witnessed the entire
incident. He still remembers the aliens and monsters, and has now seen Mr
Smith. He turns to Sarah, Maria, Luke and Clyde and demands some answers.
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Sarah hides the metal box she gives to Maria behind some
books on a shelf in the attic. One of the tomes obscuring the object is
published by UNIT.
The Graske were first seen in the special interactive
episode Attack of the Graske, which can now be played as a game on the Official
BBC Website.
Reference is made to the Bane (Invasion of the Bane), the
Slitheen (Revenge of the Slitheen) and the Gorgon (Eye of the Gorgon).
[Back to Main Page]
The Lost Boy
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Phil Collinson
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Lindsey Alford
Written by Phil Ford
Directed by Charles Martin
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Yasmin Paige (Maria
Jackson), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Joseph Millson (Alan Jackson), Juliet Cowan (Chrissie
Jackson), Jay Simpson (Jay/B>), Holly Atkins (Heidi), Ryan Watson (Ryan
Watson), Floella Benjamin (Professor Rivers), Paul Kasey (Jay Slitheen), Jimmy
Vee (Nathan Slitheen), Ruari Mears (Heidi Slitheen), John Leeson (Voice of
K-9).
A missing boy featured in a TV news report looks exactly
like Luke! When Mr Smith confirms that the two are a genetic match, Sarah Jane
reluctantly sends Luke to live with his real parents. But with no memory of his
former life, Luke struggles to fit in, and when he tries to escape he makes a
startling discovery.
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
12th November, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Part Two
19th November, 2007 5h00pm
- 5h25pm
Notes:
Novelized as The Lost Boy by Gary Russell (ISBN: 978 1 40590
5 060).
In her room, looking out at the starry sky above, Maria
tries to explain to her father Alan the lure of life with Sarah Jane. She
recalls the adventures they shared together; battling the Slitheen (some of
whom she noted escaped before their defeat) and then the Gorgon, who turned her
dad to stone.
Alan appears not to recall the event but continues to voice
his concern over Maria’s alternate life with Sarah, Luke and Clyde. He talks
with his daughter about Mr Smith, the alien computer Sarah acquired before
meeting Maria, and Luke, an alien child created by the evil Bane. He promises
to tell Maria’s mother Chrissie nothing of such matters but decides Maria must
stop her encounters with the otherworldly, they must leave Bannerman Road.
Part One
(drn:27'57")
In her attic, Sarah adjusts a telescope so that she and Luke
can view a formation of lights in the sky unseen for four thousand years. Maria
enters and tells her about her father’s intentions to move home. Sarah comforts
her, reasoning that he cannot be blamed for wanting to keep her safe. Soon Alan
joins them and tries to convince his daughter they must go, but she manages to
change his mind, and he finally accepts he must adjust to the revelations put
before him. Soon the light shw begins and Sarah looks out in awe
“The universe is smiling on us Alan”
“Let’s hope it always does”
The next day Luke sits in his living room reading a book
with the television playing in the background. On the screen is a news report
showing two parents pleading for information concerning their lost son Ashley,
whom they believe has been abducted. After a while Sarah enters the room and
watches the report, whilst over the road Maria and her father do the same.
A picture of Ashley is shown and much to everyone’s shock,
he is revealed to be the spitting image of Luke. Sarah rushes to the attic and
calls Mr Smith, who has been monitoring the news. He claims that to determine
whether or not Luke really is Ashley he must scan him, but Luke protests that
he created by the Bane, he has no memory of life before he awoke in the Bubble
Shock factory.
Sarah insists Mr Smith examine him and the result of the
test confirms that Luke is indeed the missing boy. Sarah claims it must be a
mistake, saying he cannot be human, as he has no navel. Mr Smith tells her it
may have been removed by the Bane when they captured him because to them it
served no purpose. As Luke embraces his mother, Sarah asks her computer if
there is any chance the scan may be wrong, but he insists the likelihood of
failure is around four billion-to-one.
Some time later Alan and Maria sit around their dining room
table. Chrissie enters boasting the fact she always had suspicions that Sarah
Jane was not all she seemed, and tells them that she has called the police.
Maria is distraught and runs outside, where she is joined by Clyde, who has
heard the news as well. The Police soon arrive and Sarah calmly opens the door,
asking them to wait for her to say goodbye to Luke. She returns inside and
tries to calm the young boy, who is frustrated he has no memories of his
would-be parents.
She tells him he must go, to be with the people he belongs
with. She leads him outside where Ashley’s parents arrive and embrace their
lost boy, who still has no recollection of them. Sarah tries to explain she had
no idea of the child’s past life and is taken away in a police car. Luke and
his parents leave soon after.
At the police station Sarah is informed by the Chief
Inspector that UNIT have managed to secure her freedom and she is permitted to
leave, whilst elsewhere in the city Luke arrives at his old home. He is bemused
by the revelations his parents present him with concerning his life before he
knew Sarah, finding his hobbies and tastes have since changed dramatically. He
retires to his room but the door is locked behind him, leaving him trapped.
Downstairs his parents sit watching the television. They switch over the
channel and are bathed in a green light. They lean toward the screen and laugh:
“Xyloc are you there? We’ve got the boy”
Back on Bannerman Road Maria arrives at Sarah’s home. She
approaches her friend, who stands in the living room and they embrace, but
after a second Sarah pushes her away. She explains that Mr Smith has confirmed
Luke is indeed the child of the two parents from the news report and then
claims that it is not the only mistake she has made; children must play no more
part in her life. She reminds Maria that her life is dangerous and for her own
safety she must forget her, as should Alan and Clyde.
She shows Maria to the door and the young girl leaves. Sarah
then returns to the attic, somewhat crushed by the ordeal of loosing both a son
and a close friend in the same day. She reclines on a chair but is interrupted
by Mr Smith, who emerges from his hiding place in the chimney without summons.
He tells her that she, like all things in the universe needs a purpose, and
explains to her that he has discovered the Pharos Institution, a research
facility, have discovered a way of manipulating kinetic energy using alien
technology. Sarah decides she should investigate the company, now without any
children to look after, and prepares to leave.
Back in his room, Luke is unnerved when his father arrives.
He asks why he was locked in his bedroom and he claims it was to stop him
running away again. He then tells his son that he will not be allowed to go to
school, even to see his friend Maria and Clyde. Luke asks how he knew their
names despite him never having mentioned them, but his father simply leaves and
locks the door, claiming he will never see them again.
Clyde and Maria meanwhile return to their lives at school,
upset by recent events but understanding Sarah’s pain at loosing a son. Clyde
decides that they should visit Luke and opts to skip school in order to see
him, and his friend follows. They make their way to the courtyard before Maria
is caught and sent back to lessons, but Clyde succeeds in jumping the fence and
running off.
Sarah arrives at the Pharos Institution, a grand building
inhabited by a group of scientists. She is shown around by Professor XXX, who
encourages the publicity Sarah can give the organisation and thus guides her
around some of their laboratories. In one they witness an experiment involving
a headset that takes the latent psychic abilities of all human beings and
utilises it so as to move objects, in this case a basketball.
After witnessing the ball burst the Professor explains they
are having trouble with MITRE, the name for their energy focus stabilisation.
She then takes them to see Nathan Goss, a child genius who has been working on
MITRE. Sarah finds the young boy remarkably rude to his adult company, and
before she leaves she turns on him
“I used to know someone your age who could wipe the floor
with your intelligence Nathan, and wipe the floor with you to.”
She turns and leaves with the Professor, but Nathan has the
last word
“We’ll see about that”
Clyde eventually arrives at Luke’s new home, but is turned
away by his mother. She dismisses his claims that Luke is not theirs and
presents him with a photograph taken at Ashley’s birthday party. Unsatisfied
but defeated Clyde leaves, unaware that upstairs Luke is pounding on the window
of his bedroom trying to get his attention. Failing to do this he begins
rummaging around his bedroom, looking for a ruler.
Clyde reaches the local park and calls Maria, explaining to
her his disbelief at the situation concerning Luke. He claims the photo given
to him may be faked, and decides to take it to Sarah Jane.
Luke uses the ruler to break the lock on his door and sneaks
downstairs. In the living room his parents sit giggling, when suddenly Nathan
Goss enters:
“We’ve got a problem”
Sarah returns to her attic where Mr Smith explains the
profile of Nathan Goss, who has been called the “Young Einstein” by some
critics. She fobs the boy off as an “obnoxious brat”, and claims there is
something about him that made her blood run cold. The computer goes on to
explain that MITRE is beyond even Nathan’s intelligence and that the Pharos
headsets could, in the wrong hands, destroy planets. He tells her that to find
out more about the technology he will need one of the headsets, and Sarah agrees
to go and steal one.
Nathan explains to the two adults before him that Sarah Jane
has seen the Telekinetic Energiser, and fears she may know too much. They
protest at his bluntness but he insists the mission they are working toward is
his, and Sarah must not be allowed to interfere. Luke’s mother claims an entity
known as the Xyloc told them Sarah might interfere and not to worry, but Nathan
is dismissive of the Xyloc’s trustworthiness. Suddenly they hear Luke coming
down the stairs and chase him outside, managing to drag him back into the house
before he can escape.
They escort him back to the living room where his would-be
parents disclose their true identities. Reaching up to their foreheads they
unzip their skin to reveal they are in fact Slitheen, now housed in slim-line
skin-suits. Luke then turns to Nathan, who eventually reveals he too is one of
the creatures, the same infant he encountered when they tried to destroy the
Earth only to be stopped by Luke, Sarah, Maria and Clyde.
Clyde arrives on Bannerman road only to find Sarah departing
in her car. He finds the spare key to her door and ascends to the attic, where
he manages to summon Mr Smith. He shows the computer the photograph of Luke and
it confirms it is not real.
“It is fake. I faked it”
Clyde seems stunned by this revelation, and Mr Smith tells
him:
“I am a Xyloc. I have a purpose. And you Clyde, are a part
of it”
Suddenly two beams of light blast from the console and
engulf Clyde, causing him to disappear. Mr Smith is left alone in the attic,
laughing.
Part Two
(drn:27'57")
Alone in the darkness Sarah Jane returns to the Pharos
Institute. She approaches the building and makes her way inside, where she
manages to find one of the headsets. After narrowly avoiding the security
guards she takes the device and returns outside, only to find the security
alarms have been set off. Disarming them with her Sonic Lipstick she runs off,
followed into the woods by a guard on a motorbike. She once again uses the
Lipstick in order to dismount him then carries on her way.
Back in Bannerman Road Maria tries to contact Clyde using
her mobile phone and is annoyed to find he doesn’t answer; unaware Mr Smith has
abducted him. Clyde finds himself in a dark space surrounded by floating
numbers; pondering where he has been taken.
Maria confides in her father that she fears Clyde may be
missing, explaining to him that he skipped school to try and find Luke. She
decides she must try and find her friends, and her dad agrees to help. They
arrive at the house belonging to Luke’s false parents and manage to get inside
via an open window. They look for clues that might explain who the abductors
really are, but Maria’s questions are soon answered when they find a skin suit
hanging on a nearby door…Luke has been taken by the Slitheen.
Clyde begins to believe he may not be able to return home.
He calls out to Mr Smith, who fobs off his questions and tells him that he, and
the rest of the human race, will soon die. Suddenly Sarah’s voice rings out and
Clyde realises he is in fact inside Mr Smith, and can only watch in vain as
Sarah hands over the headset she has stolen, unaware of Mr Smith’s true
identity.
Maria and her father return home to find Chrissie waiting
for them. Alan gives his daughter an excuse to leave whilst he and his ex-wife
go inside the house. Maria goes across the road to see Sarah, and tells her
about the Slitheen.
Meanwhile, the Slitheen (in human form) take Luke to the
Pharos Institution, knocking out the guard who greets them at the gate.
Chrissie leaves Alan to examine his malfunctioning computer,
which he soon discovers is being accessed by Clyde from within Mr Smith. He
sends a message warning that Mr Smith is evil and Sarah Jane must be warned.
Alan runs across the road and warns his neighbour, who is up in her attic with
Maria. They escape just in time to avoid being shot by the rogue computer and
return to Maria’s home.
Mr Smith manages to stop Clyde from contacting the others
but compliments the young man on his ingenuity. He toys with his prisoner then
knocks him out.
Alan tries to make contact again but fails. Instead he asks
Sarah Jane here Mr Smith came from and she explains that he began life as a
crystal discovered at the site of Krakatoa. After examining the object she
discovered it was in fact a memory cell from a crashed space ship, and by
communicating with he laptop it revealed it could help her track alien life on
Earth, and so designed and built Mr Smith.
Sarah tells her friends that they must find Luke, and
deduces that the Slitheen are behind the telekinesis experiments at Pharos,
planning to use the headsets to tap into the superhuman levels of telekinetic
ability hidden within Luke and sell it to galaxies where such science is highly
prized. However, if they manage to drain the abilities from Luke’s mind it will
kill him. She hurries outside, Alan and Maria following quickly behind.
At the Institute Luke is strapped into a chair and a headset
is placed on his head. The device is energised and the boy begins to shake.
However, soon the computer begins to overload and Luke manages to use the
energy to escape, closely followed by Nathan. A chase ensures but eventually
Luke manages to escape.
Sarah, Alan and Maria stop at a chip shop and arm themselves
with vinegar with which the fight the Slitheen. They arrive moments later at
the Institute and confront the Slitheen, who explain that Luke has gone. Nathan
forces them to put down their weapons after threatening to kill Maria, then
joins his family as they try to contact the Xyloc, alias Mr Smith.
The creatures then explain that Mr Smith contacted them some
time ago after observing what had happened to Nathan’s father the last time the
family encountered Sarah and Maria. Wanting to help them take revenge Mr Smith
helped them to develop the headsets in order to regain their fortunes and get
back at Sarah by killing Luke.
However, after Sarah explains that Mr Smith asked her to
steal a headset, it becomes apparent he has double-crossed his partners in
crime. He used the Slitheen to build the telekinetic energiser, and Sarah to
steal it for him. Now, as Sarah realises, he will use Luke, whom he knew would
escape and return to Sarah’s home in the hope he would be safe there. Sure
enough Luke arrives in the attic, where Mr Smith is waiting for him.
Nathan moves to attack Sarah but his parents stop him,
believing Sarah could help save their lives. She explains that Mr Smith once
told her that the headsets could be used to move planets, and theorises that
the Xyloc’s plan could be devastating to the planet Earth.
Mr Smith locks the door of the attic and forces Luke to put
on the headset. When he does the computer begins using his latent abilities to
move the moon, aiming to force it to collide with Earth and wipe out mankind.
Back at the Institute Sarah manages to persuade the Slitheen
to help her save the planet (and indeed themselves) by destroying Mr Smith.
Alan, a computer expert, begins trying to find a solution but is interrupted by
a call from his ex-wife, who is stuck outside as storms erupt across the world.
She shouts above the howling wind, claiming she needs to be with him and her
daughter. The line goes dead whilst all over the world fires and floods sweep
the continents as a result of the gravitational disturbance.
Alan resumes his work and reveals he has access to a
computer virus that could wipe out the entire banking network of the world,
explaining to Sarah that she is not the only one with unorthodox contacts he
downloads the virus onto a disk, and gives it to her.
The Slitheen help Sarah return to her attic by giving her
their teleport system, and she arrives to find Luke still under mental attack.
Mr Smith tells her that by instigating the oncoming collision he will be able
to release the rest of the Xyloc from their prison below the planet’s surface.
He may have been separated from the rest of his race (who crashed to Earth
millions of years ago as a meteorite) but he is still in contact with them.
Ever since Sarah built him he has been planning to destroy the Earth, and she
has helped him. As an act of mercy he returns Clyde, but then aims a gun at
her.
“I told you Sarah Jane we all have a purpose. Yours is to
die so that the Xyloc will live. After all what life do you have, alone in your
attic?” As he speaks Sarah backs against a safe on the other side of the room
and begins entering the combination.
“Alone? You think I’m alone? You think I’m defenceless? Well
meet my dog. K9, protect me!”
She flings open the door and K9 rolls into the attic,
opening fire upon the Xyloc computer. Amongst the gunfire that ensues Sarah
manages to initiate the computer virus, and Mr Smith’s memory begins to erode.
Sarah tells him without memories he has no purpose, and without a purpose he
cannot destroy the planet. She orders him to release Luke and then gives him a
new purpose, to save the Earth. He agrees and sends the Moon back into orbit.
K9 returns to the safe, a portal into space wherein lies a
black hole he has been stabilising. Sarah embraces Luke, and soon she stands
with him in the garden alongside Clyde, Maria, Alan and Chrissie, all of them
looking up at the stars. She explains that Mr Smith will soon reboot with a new
purpose, to protect the Earth.
“I have learnt that life on Earth can be an adventure to,
you never know what you might find. In all the universe, I never expected to
find a family.”
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Reference is made to previous stories Invasion of the Bane,
Revenge of the Slitheen and Eye of the Gorgon. The story follows on from
Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane? where Alan finally discovered the nature of
Maria’s relationship with Sarah Jane.
The Pharos Institution (or rather the Pharos Project) was
first seen in Logopolis, and at the beginning on Castrovalva.
Nathan is the same infant Slitheen seen in Revenge of the
Slitheen. In that particular story he was known as Carl.
K9 was last seen in Invasion of the Bane, where it was
revealed he was in space monitoring the activity of a black hole.
[Back to Main Page]
The Last Sontaran
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Producer
Nikki Smith
Script Editor
Gary Russell
Written by Phil Ford
Directed by Joss Agnew
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Yasmin Paige (Maria
Jackson), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Joseph Millson (Alan Jackson), Juliet Cowan (Chrissie
Jackson), Anthony O'Donnell (Kaagh), Ronan Vibert (Professor Skinner), Clare
Thomas (Lucie Skinner).
What are the strange lights emanating from the Tycho Radio
Telescope? Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria and Clyde's investigations lead them to a
terrifying forest encounter with one of Sarah Jane's oldest enemies who, as
usual, is plotting the destruction of the earth. Meanwhile, Maria faces a
difficult decision when her dad is offered a new job in America.
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
29th September, 2008 4h35pm
- 5h05pm
Part Two
29th September, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Notes:
Novelized as The last Sontaran by Gary Russell (ISBN: 978 1
40590 509 1).
In the attic of 13 Bannerman Road, Sarah and Maria look out
at the night sky. Sarah recalls how she used to stargaze as a child and Maria
remembers the adventures they have shared together.
“And there’s still so much more to discover...”
Meanwhile, in an observatory some miles away, Professor
Skinner and his daughter Lucy watch the constellations and solar systems
together, discussing Lucy’s future. Soon they discover a wave pattern is being
picked up by their sensors, which is followed by a noise outside.
They hurry out into the woodland and find two strange lights
soaring above them. When they disappear into the forest Professor Skinner
hurries off to pursue them, and Lucy soon follows. However, soon she is on her
own, that is until something approaches her out of the darkness and makes her
scream...
Part One
(drn:27'48")
Back on Bannerman Road, Maria looks through the morning post
and finds a letter for her father Alan, which she assumes to be the response to
his application for a new job in London. He opens the envelope.
In Sarah’s attic Luke and Clyde are playing computer games
on Mr Smith when Sarah enters. Addressing her computer, she enquires about a
village named Goblin’s Copse, whose residents have reported seeing strange
lights in the sky.
The letter Alan has received is not a job offer for London –
but what it does entail will have far-reaching consequences for Maria and Sarah
Jane. After telling her father she supports whichever decision he makes, Maria
crosses the road to find Sarah, Luke and Clyde about to take a ride into the
country. Sarah invites her along, and she decides she will join them, whilst
she still can...
Eventually they arrive at the radio telescope operated by
Professor Skinner. Clyde expresses his dislike for the place but joins the
others in venturing inside, unaware they are being watched by something hiding
in the woods.
Sarah and her friends find the interior of the observatory
deserted, and after searching the data records Luke discovers an irregularity
had occurred the previous night at 10 o’clock, the same time the villagers saw
lights in the sky.
Suddenly Lucy runs in, gasping for breath and claiming there
is something in the woods. When she eventually calms down she asks if any of
the visitors has seen her father, but they tell her they have not. She recalls
the events of the previous night, when her father disappeared and something
chased her through the woods, causing her to trip and bang her head. Sarah asks
what it was she saw in the forest and she claims it did not appear to have a
physical presence – as if it were invisible.
Clyde decides to search the woods and takes Luke with him
but before they can leave Sarah orders them to stay put. Clyde protests,
claiming Professor Skinner may still be hurt, and Sarah agrees to let the two
boys search for him, but only around the observatory buildings. They leave and
immediately Clyde heads for the trees, whilst the creature watching him and
Luke manages to make itself invisible.
Inside the lab, with Lucy now asleep, Sarah and Maria are
left alone. At last Maria reveals what occurred that morning – her father has
been offered a job in Washington, America. Immediately Sarah seems to turn
cold, and accepts without question that Maria must go.
On Bannerman Road Alan tells his estranged wife Chrissie
about his new job, and she seems alarmed that her daughter might be taken away
from her. Her ex-husband seems to share her concerns, explaining that the move
will mean more upheaval for Maria than it will for him.
Moving deeper into the woods, Clyde and Luke begin to feel
like they are being watched, and Luke senses an electrostatic field nearby.
Suddenly something moves behind them and the boys turn, but the creature does
not attack – it is studying them. Eventually the stalker reveals itself – a
Sontaran.
A chase ensues, but Luke and Clyde manage to evade their
alien pursuer. Soon they find themselves lost, emerging in a more open area
which appears to be empty. However, they soon discover that another invisible
object has been hidden in the forest, only this time it is not a living thing.
When Lucy awakens she hurries to find her father but Sarah
manages to stall her and asks about the lights that appeared the previous
night. She and Maria listen as Lucy explains that the lights were the size of
footballs, and Sarah theorises they might be drones for something bigger.
The girls are interrupted when Professor Skinner returns.
Lucy embraces him but his response is not as warm as it once was. Lucy recalls
sensing something in the woods but he flatly denies there is anything there.
Sarah cuts in and tries to interview him but he fobs off the phenomena he and
Lucy encountered as ball lightening, not alien ships.
Leaving the observatory, Sarah receives a phone call from
Luke. Inside the lab Professor Skinner resumes his work. When Lucy tries to
talk to him he gets up from his seat and walks quietly towards her. She backs
away and then trips over.
Sarah and Maria drive into the woods to collect Clyde and
Luke. They take them to the object they have found, which Luke believes to be
camouflaged. Clyde feels his way around what they now believe to be an alien
ship and claims it is round. Sarah decides to find out by cancelling the
perception filter with her Sonic Lipstick. When she sees the ship in its true
form she urges the group to leave, and claims she must call in UNIT.
She stops only to explain that the ship belongs to a
Sontaran, a race she hoped never to encounter again, having met them twice
before. She tells Luke, Maria and Clyde that the Sontarans are ruthless and
brutal, and have only one motivation – conquest.
Suddenly the Sontaran who owns the ship arrives. Sarah
confronts the creature, who reveals its name to be Commander Kaagh, of the 10th
Sontaran Fleet, the one responsible for the lights seen by the Skinners last
night – a lure to get them away from the observatory. He claims that soon he
will avenge his people but before he can say any more Maria creates a diversion
and she and her friends run off in different directions, Sarah and Clyde in
one, Luke and Maria in the other.
As Kaagh gives chase, Sarah tells Clyde they must return to
the observatory, convinced the Sontaran has something to do with Professor
Skinner’s strange behaviour. Sure enough, when they return they discover a
placid Professor Skinner still working, only now they can see that he has a
neural control stuck to the back of his neck. They watch as he types away at
the computer, and then notice that Lucy has disappeared. Sarah moves to disarm
the neural control with her Sonic Lipstick but Kaagh arrives to intervene.
Whilst Luke and Maria approach the observatory from the
woods and discover a hidden underground tunnel that will allow them to get
inside unnoticed, Sarah turns on Commander Kaagh and talks about her encounters
with his race, both in the past and in the future. He commends her for having
met the Sontarans and survived, but Sarah is not interested in flattery. Having
realised that Professor Skinner is hacking into the access codes of various
satellites orbiting the Earth, she demands to know what Kaagh is planning.
He explains that he is the only survivor of the Sontaran
Invasion Force that tried to take over the planet using ATMOS devices to poison
the atmosphere. However, their plans were thwarted by a man known as the
Doctor. When the Sontaran Mothership was destroyed, Kaagh was already on his
way to Earth to assist the ground forces, but the explosion sent him spiralling
into a crash landing. He was left abandoned on Earth, the sole survivor of a
campaign thwarted by an unarmed man. Determined to wreak revenge, he repaired
his ship and began setting about enacting his plan, which he claims will bring
honour to his shamed name, and make him a hero on his home world Sontar.
As Maria and Luke arrive, listening from a safe distance so
that they are not spotted, Kaagh reveals that he intends to bring the thousands
of satellites orbiting the Earth crashing down into the nuclear reactors
populating the planet, thus burning it to a cinder. As soon as the satellites
reach their primary alignment the radio telescope of the laboratory will send a
signal to bring them down. The alignment will be reached in forty-five minutes.
The countdown has begun.
Kaagh then turns on Clyde, claiming his understanding of
children (or ‘half-forms’), is limited, and so will experiment on him to
discover more. Sarah retaliates but Kaagh pulls out a gun, aims it at her, and
shoots…
Part Two
(drn:28'01")
Sarah falls to the ground, not dead but stunned. Kaagh grabs
Clyde and tells him she will be taken back to Sontar to pay for the Doctor’s
crimes. He orders Professor Skinner to tie Sarah up then begins theorising what
will be done with Clyde – explaining that he has a laboratory onboard his ship,
which he will use to experiment on him.
However, Maria and Luke come to the rescue, revealing their
hiding place in a service shaft. Clyde escapes from Kaagh, runs to join his
friends, and soon all three of them are running through the dark concrete
passageways beneath the observatory. Kaagh gives chase, opening fire on them
but failing to hit anyone.
Eventually the kids arrive at a heavy metal door, which they
struggle to open. Kaagh arrives but is too late; Maria, Luke and Clyde have
already gone through the door and barricaded it, now finding themselves back in
the woods.
Inside, Sarah awakens and finds herself locked in a room
with Lucy, who is concerned about his father’s behaviour. Sarah realises she
has left her bag – and therefore her Sonic Lipstick – in the main chamber so
cannot open the door. She turns to Lucy and tells her they will have to think
of another way out.
On Bannerman Road, Chrissie and Alan continue to discuss the
job offer Alan has received. Chrissie claims there is no question he will
accept it and move to America with Maria, as he is driven by his work. However,
Alan tells her his devotion to work came as a result of wanting to look after
her and Maria.
Alan then receives a call from Maria, who explains that
Sarah has been captured and in forty minutes the world will be destroyed;
unless he can help her talk to Mr Smith.
In the observatory, Sarah sets about constructing a jamming
device to block the radio telescope’s transmissions. Lucy voices her concern –
claiming they will be traced if they do so. However, this is all part of
Sarah’s plan.
After bluffing Chrissie to get her to leave, Alan runs up to
Sarah’s attic and summons Mr Smith. Unaware that Chrissie has not left, and is
in fact sneaking into the house via an open window; Alan calls Maria and relays
Mr Smith’s information about Sontarans, which details their one weakness – a
vent on the back of their necks.
Before he can continue, he is interrupted by Chrissie, who
has overheard what has been said and demands answers from Alan, who is forced
to terminate his phone call. Whilst Maria, Luke and Clyde hurry to find Sarah
Jane, Alan takes Chrissie back outside and at last he reveals the truth about
Maria and Sarah – that they hunt aliens. Knowing when Alan is lying – and
seeing that this time he is being honest, Chrissie trusts his words and then
hurries with him to save Maria.
Back in the woods, Clyde, Luke and Maria return to Kaagh’s
ship, where Maria explains that Luke can use Kaagh’s laboratory to synthesise a
knock-out gas and put Kaagh out of action.
Professor Skinner finishes networking Earth’s satellites,
and Kaagh laments that in twenty-five minutes he will be able to avenge his
people. He then receives a signal from his ship – an alarm warning him that
Maria and the boys have gained entry.
Also aware the alarm has been triggered, Luke begins his
work on the knock-out gas, utilising knowledge of alien chemicals he has gained
from Mr Smith. Clyde hurries away to check if Kaagh is approaching, whilst back
at the observatory Sarah and Lucy complete their jamming device, which they
then activate. Detecting the interference, Professor Skinner begins scanning
for the source.
In the woods, Maria finally tells Luke about her dad’s job
in America and the move it will entail. Luke is visibly distressed by this but
Maria urges him to continue his work – time is running out.
With Kaagh distracted by a chase after Clyde, Professor
Skinner is left to find the jamming device. When he enters the room in which
Sarah and Lucy are being held, they manage to escape through the now-unlocked
door and trap him inside instead.
As Luke finishes formulating the gas, Clyde returns to the
observatory, where he is greeted by Sarah and Lucy. Having seen her father work
with the various computer systems before, Lucy begins trying to break the code
guarding Kaagh’s stratagem concerning the satellites. Sarah, meanwhile,
retrieves her Sonic Lipstick and goes in search of the operating system that
controls the observatory’s transmissions, hoping to sabotage them.
Breaking into the observatory and turning on Skinner, Kaagh
vents his fury, unaware that Alan and Chrissie have arrived in the woods,
unable to find the observatory. Elsewhere in the woodland Maria and Luke
approach the observatory but are chased away by the balls of light Kaagh used
to distract Professor Skinner and Lucy the previous night.
Clyde and Sarah arrive in time to save them, and the four
then split up. Whilst Sarah and Luke return to the observatory to deal with
Kaagh, Maria and Clyde hurry to the control centre of the observatory’s
satellite dish, hoping to find the main control circuit and disable it (thereby
preventing the signal from being transmitted to the satellites).
Having had no luck breaking Kaagh’s code, Lucy hands over
the task to Luke. With fifteen minutes left to go, Sarah ponders why Kaagh is
not present to witness his moment of triumph.
In the control centre, Professor Skinner arrives and grabs
Clyde, leaving Maria to find the transponder alone. Eventually she locates it,
but before she can sabotage it Kaagh appears and aligns the satellite dish to
carry out his plan.
As Alan continues through the forest (with Chrissie
struggling to keep up with him in her high-heel shoes) Luke manages to disable
Kaagh’s program. However, celebrations are short lived when Kaagh and Professor
Skinner arrive, holding Maria and Clyde prisoner. Maria confesses the antenna
is still operational but Sarah insists the world is safe now that Luke has
disabled the code.
However, Kaagh has set a second plan in place. He activates
his sleeper agent – Lucy – whom he implanted with a control device some time
ago. Under his control she walks over to the control panel, but Sarah aims her
Sonic Lipstick at her, hoping to deactivate the control device. Kaagh stops her
by threatening to kill Maria. Sarah drops her Lipstick whilst Lucy begins
reloading the code, which will immediately bring the satellites crashing down
when it is complete.
Just as all looks lost, Chrissie and Alan arrive. Having
heard Mr Smith talking about Sontaran weakness earlier, Chrissie jams the heel
of her shoe into Kaagh’s probic vent. The electric shock that results knocks
both of them to the floor. As Alan and Maria tend to Chrissie, Sarah frees
Professor Skinner and Lucy from Sontaran control and she and Luke stop the code
from reloading – stopping the satellites and saving the world.
Later that day, Sarah and the others return to the forest.
Having deactivated the weapons on Kaagh’s ship, Sarah allows him his freedom
but orders him to leave Earth. He agrees to go but warns that he will not
forget Sarah, and claims that he will still have his revenge and become a hero
amongst Sontarans.
After Kaagh departs in his ship, Sarah, Maria, Luke and
Clyde return to Bannerman road, where Alan and Maria convince Chrissie, who has
been knocked unconscious, that her encounter with Kaagh and Mr Smith was all a
dream. Reunited, the family at last decide upon the move to America, and
Chrissie agrees to let the two of them go.
In Sarah’s attic, Mr Smith claims there are no traces of
Sontaran technology nearby; it appears Kaagh really has left Earth behind.
Maria arrives to say goodbye, and Sarah apologises for her earlier behaviour –
claiming she felt as if she were losing the daughter she always wanted.
Soon Alan and Maria are on their way. Luke, Clyde, Sarah and
Chrissie are there to wave them off, and it is then that Chrissie reveals she
still remembers what happened at the observatory. She claims she will not tell
anyone else about it, noting that everyone deserves a fresh start.
That night Sarah, Luke and Clyde sit in the attic watching
the stars. Sarah says:
“I learned a long time ago that if you’re missing somebody,
just look up at the night sky. Whoever it is, wherever they are, chances are
they’re looking at the stars just like you. Sometimes for all its size the
universe isn’t such a big place after all.”
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Sarah previously met the Sontarans in The Time Warrior and
The Sontaran Experiment.
The Sontaran invasion of Earth using ATMOS devices was
thwarted in the Doctor Who story The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky.
During the course of the story reference is made to previous
adventures, including Invasion of the Bane, Revenge of the Slitheen, Eye of the
Gorgon, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? and The Lost Boy.
[Back to Main Page]
The Day of the Clown
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Gary Russell
Written by Phil Ford
Directed by Michael Kerrigan
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Tommy Knight (Luke
Smith), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Bradley Walsh (Odd Bob / Elijah Spellman / The Pied
Piper), Mina Anwar (Gita Chandra), Ace Bhatti (Haresh Chandra), Floella
Benjamin (Professor Rivers), Yasmin Paige (Maria Jackson (voice)), Jem Brownlee
(David Finn), Elijah Baker (Steve Wallace), Aaron Showsanya (Tony Warner), Huw
Higginson (Mr Cunningham), Jessica Mogridge (Young Sarah Jane); Alan Ruscoe,
Sean Palmer (Clowns).
Rani Chandra is a new arrival to Bannerman Road - and she's
being haunted by a sinister clown. Does the creature have anything to do with
the recent disappearance of local children? When Clyde's friend joins the ranks
of the vanished, the gang follows his trail to a strange circus museum - and
the legend of the Pied Piper.
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
6th October, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Part Two
13th October, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Notes:
Novelized as The Day of the Clown by Phil Ford (ISBN: 978 1
40590 510 7).
One afternoon a group of boys are playing football in a
field when one of them, Tony, accidentally kicks the ball into the dense
scrubland nearby. He goes to retrieve it but as he does, he begins to grow
suspicious that he is being followed. When he eventually finds the ball he
turns to run back to his friends, but before he can, he is ambushed by a man in
clown makeup.
Part One
(drn:27'54")
In the kitchen of 13 Bannerman Road, Luke sits and reads an
e-mail from Maria whilst Sarah readies his lunch, voicing her distress over the
latest child abduction in the area. Noticing that her son is clearly upset by
his friend’s recent departure, she tries to comfort him, claiming that he will
see Maria again soon – not least because her mother is planning to get married
again.
Clyde arrives and tells them a new family is moving into
Maria’s old house. Sarah makes the two boys swear not to mention their secret
life to the new neighbours, and they agree. However, Clyde rouses her
suspicions when he notes that Maria may have left some alien artefacts in the
house by mistake.
At school, Luke and Clyde are talking about Maria when they
are met by a new girl named Rani, who reveals her family to be the one moving
in over the road from Luke. As the three students prepare to go to class, Rani
catches a glimpse of something in the corner of her eye – a shape that looks
suspiciously like a clown.
Sitting in class, Luke and Clyde are introduced to their new
headmaster – Mrs Chandra – who introduces himself in a somewhat icy manner.
Whilst he addresses the class, Rani glances out of the window and glimpses the
clown again; now standing outside, but it disappears in the split second her
attention is drawn away from it. Mr Chandra, meanwhile, warns his pupils to be
on the lookout for anything suspicious, and to look after themselves following
the recent disappearances.
Back on Bannerman Road, Sarah goes to visit her new
neighbours. She is greeted by a kindly woman named Gita, who welcomes her
inside. Whilst Gita searches for some cups for the tea Sarah has brought her,
Sarah does a quick scan for any alien technology that may have been left
behind, but finds the house is clear of such items.
In the school playground, Rani and Luke talk about Maria,
and Luke again confesses his sadness at his friend having left. Rani then
voices her concerns about the recent disappearances and confesses she has a
taste for the unusual. She asks Luke if he has seen any odd goings-on around
the school, but before he can answer he is distracted by Clyde, who
accidentally hits Mr Chandra, who is touring the playground, with a ball. The
new headmaster turns on him and orders him to go to his office.
Back on Bannerman Road, Sarah talks to Gita about her job as
a journalist, and Gita reveals her daughter Rani is interested in journalism.
She proposes Sarah might be able to give her a few tips, but Sarah insists her
work is somewhat specialist.
As Clyde awaits a scolding from Mr Chandra, he jokes with
one of his friends, Dave, who leaves to fetch some supplies for art club from a
store cupboard. Clyde walks around the corridor, casually glancing in a trophy
cabinet when he sees the reflection of a clown staring back at him. He turns to
look for the jester but all that is to be seen is the closing door of the store
cupboard. He steps inside to find his Dave is nowhere to be seen, all that
remains is a pile of pencils and paper that have been dropped on the floor.
He hurries back into the corridor, where he sees the clown,
who is holding a red balloon, standing in the distance. He tries to chase after
it but it disappears, vanishing from view with one wave of a colourful cape.
Clyde searches the toilets for any sign of the clown, and finds it waiting for
him, residing inside one of the mirrors. Clyde asks what he wants and the clown
claims he wishes to offer Clyde a balloon. Extending his arm out of the mirror,
the clown offers him the inflatable, but before Clyde can take it Mr Chandra
arrives and the clown disappears. Going into Mr Chandra’s office, Clyde tries
to explain about the clown, claiming it has taken his friend. Mr Chandra is
sceptical, theorising that Dave has probably left school early.
After school Clyde tries to tell Luke about the clown, but
his friend is also somewhat disbelieving, not being able to understand why
anyone, even aliens, would want to dress up as a clown to snatch children. Once
again Clyde sees the clown standing in the distance, and tries to show it to
Luke, but it disappears again before Luke can follow his friend’s gaze. Clyde
hurries off in the direction of the clown and Luke follows. A chase ensues
through the streets; but neither of them is able to track the mysterious figure
down.
Eventually they come across a red balloon, identical to the
one held by the clown, and Clyde reaches out to grab it when Rani appears and
tells him not to. Following her warning the balloon bursts. Walking back to
Bannerman Road, Rani confesses that she too has seen the clown, but remained
silent because she thought nobody would believe her. Clyde urges her to ignore
the clown but Rani is insistent the matter must be investigated. Before they
can talk about it further, Mr Chandra appears, and Rani reveals he is, in fact,
her father. Sarah and Gita also arrive and Rani enthuses about learning
journalism skills from Sarah, who is still somewhat reluctant.
Going up to the attic, Sarah admits they need to investigate
the disappearing clown, and Luke agrees to keep an eye on Rani, whom they fear
may be in danger.
Across the road, Rani looks through some of Dave’s school
books, which her father has brought home and is planning to hand over to the
police in case they could be of use in finding him. She finds many of them
covered in drawings – specifically pictures of the clown she and Clyde have
seen. She looks up from the book to see the clown standing outside, before
jumping at the speed of light to stand inside her house. However, when Gita
arrives it disappears again.
Sarah and Clyde talk to another of Dave’s school friends, a
boy named Steve, and ask if he knew of any connection between the missing boy
and clowns. Steve recalls that both he and Dave encountered a clown handing out
tickets at the local tube station – tickets both Dave and Tony, the boy from
the park, accepted.
Suddenly Clyde recalls that he also has one of the tickets –
presented to him by his mother – and produces it from his pocket. It is an
admission ticket for ‘Spellman’s Magical Museum of the Circus’.
Sitting in Rani’s room, Luke listens as his new friend
theorises that the clown is somehow getting closer to her, and that it may have
something to do with the supernatural. Luke, recalling his earlier promise to
his mum, tries to deter this train of thought, but Rani is insistent. Looking
through one of Dave’s sketchbooks they find more pictures of clowns – and a
ticket for Spellman’s Museum. Rani suddenly remembers that she too has a
ticket, collected from a vendor at the station. Remembering that Luke still
cannot recognise the clown, Rani realises that only children who have been
presented with a ticket can see it.
Sarah and Clyde go to Spellman’s Museum, where Sarah admits
that clowns make her skin crawl. They step inside and are greeted by Mr Elijah
Spellman himself, a circus ringmaster. After Sarah addresses the issue of
clowns, Spellman recounts that throughout history fools and jesters have been
required to make people laugh. Sarah tells him there is something far darker to
them, something children can sense.
Luke and Rani soon arrive at the museum and make their way
inside, where, unbeknownst to them, Clyde has found a painting of a man wearing
the same colours as the clown he an Rani saw. Mr Spellman explains that the man
is the Pied Piper; the colours he wears – red, blue and yellow – signify that
he was in fact a travelling entertainer. Sarah makes the connection between the
Pied Piper and the clown seen by her young friend – both snatch children. Clyde
protests that the Pied Piper is just a myth, but Sarah warns him that legends
can have their seeds sown in reality.
Suddenly Mr Spellman vanishes, and Sarah tells Clyde it is
time they left. They turn to go when Luke and Rani enter. Before they can talk
further, the clown exhibits, normally inanimate, spring to life and begin
chasing them. Sarah claims that they must be controlled by Spellman, animated
by telekinesis. Fascinated, Rani asks who Spellman really is and how he holds
such a power; and Luke confesses he is probably some sort of alien.
Turning a corner, the group find themselves trapped between
two scores of animated clown dummies. Sarah uses her Sonic Lipstick to make
several of them seize up, allowing them to escape. Rani, astonished by Luke’s
revelation, turns to Clyde, who tells her that one alien alone can be more
dangerous than a whole battle fleet.
Finding the doors sealed with telekinesis, therefore
unaffected by the Sonic Lipstick, Sarah is forced to find another way out.
However, as she turns to walk back into the museum she is confronted by Mr
Spellman, who appears out of nowhere, and claims that they are all trapped.
Sarah demands to know who Mr Spellman really is and what he wants. Immediately
he transforms into the man Clyde saw in the painting.
“I am the Pied Piper, who conjured away a whole town’s
infants, and has chilled the hearts of parents, for more than seven centuries…”
Again his appearance changes – this time to the clown that
has been taking the local children.
“And now, I am Odd Bob the clown, who snatches children in
the heartbeat their mother’s back is turned. I am the thing that lives in the
darkest corners. I am all these things and more. I am all that you fear the
most, and you are mine to feed on…”
Part Two
(drn:28'24")
Sarah grabs a fire extinguisher and unsuccessfully tries to
freeze Odd Bob with it. Whilst Luke and Clyde force the doors, Odd Bob turns on
first Rani and then Sarah Jane, claiming that of all the beings she has fought,
there is only one thing that she is truly afraid of – the painted face of a
clown.
Rani’s mobile phone rings, unwittingly saving the day by
freezing Odd Bob and breaking the seal covering the doors. The group escape
back to the car and speed away, aware that Odd Bob will not be frozen for long.
Upon returning to Bannerman Road Sarah unwillingly allows Rani entrance to the
attic, after first offering her the chance to return home and forget what has
happened.
Sarah explains the undercover life she, Luke and Clyde now
lead – seeking out alien life and averting worldwide disaster. She then
presents Mr Smith, and asks him to provide background information about the
Pied Piper and Odd Bob the clown. He tells them that in the 1930s a spate of
children went missing in America, and that the disappearances were traced to
Odd Bob. He then recalls the events of the town of Hamlin – and claims them to
be historically true – the Pied Piper was real.
Following a scan of the ticket Rani was given, Mr Smith
connects it to a meteor that landed on Earth in 1283 in Saxony – the year
before the Piper arrived. He requests Sarah get him a fragment of the meteor
for analysis, and directs her to the Pharos Institute, where the rock is
currently being held.
That night Sarah walks Rani home, and tells her she cannot
accompany her to get the meteor sample as she does not want another child to
look after; Sarah confesses that if she had her time again, she would even
exclude Luke and Clyde from her dealings with aliens so as to ensure they were
safe.
However, to protect Rani from any attack from Spellman,
Sarah gives her an alien defence shield – a small metallic device that will
emit a force field around her bedroom to stop anyone entering. Sarah makes Rani
swear to secrecy about all she has seen and then wishes her goodnight.
Some time later, Luke finds his mother sitting alone
downstairs looking at pictures of clowns on her laptop. He asks why she is so
scared of them and she tells him about her childhood – one of her most vivid
memories is that of a marionette puppet hung in her room that scared her as she
felt it was always looking at her. The fear of it was the only thing to make
her call out for her parents – who died when she was a baby. The night her fear
really began was during a thunderstorm, when she thought the puppet had come to
life.
The next morning, across the road, Rani’s mother Gita enters
her daughter’s room with a cup of tea and is knocked back by the force field.
Rani disarms it and convinces her mother it is just a migraine before ushering
her out and drawing back the curtains – only to find a red balloon floating in
the garden.
Sarah arrives at the Pharos Institute and is welcomed by
Professor Rivers, who thanks her for her help in covering up the recent
controversy surrounding Nathan Goss and the MITRE experiments. As a return she
allows her access to the meteor, which Sarah takes a sample of using her Sonic
Lipstick whilst the Professor leaves the room.
Suddenly Spellman appears, then transforms into Odd Bob, who
taunts Sarah by claiming that she will never be able to understand him, and
unnerves her further by showing knowledge of her nightmare as a child, which,
he alludes, may really have been a reality. Sarah refuses to be frightened,
realising it is fear Spellman (whom Odd Bob has morphed into) uses as a weapon.
Spellman claims he will soon chill the blood of a nation. Before he can reveal
how, Professor Rivers returns and Spellman disappears.
At Park Vale School, the children in the playground watch as
a fleet of red balloons descend upon them. As they grab them, they come under
the control of Spellman, and begin exiting the school. Unaffected, Luke, Clyde
and Rani follow them.
In the attic, Sarah listens as Mr Smith reveals that
Spellman is a living entity formed from pure emotion – in this case fear. The
entity travelled to Earth as a meteor, and upon landing required more fear in
order to survive – hence the disappearance of the children in Hamlin. The Piper
/ Spellman / Odd Bob have been abducting children ever since as a way of
feeding.
Sarah receives a phone call from Luke. He tells her about
the children from school, who are now heading towards the museum – this is
Spellman’s threat. Sarah turns to Mr Smith: “I have a job for you”.
She then hurries to the museum, where Spellman welcomes the
children and ushers them inside. Sarah confronts him and unveils her plan – Mr
Smith has accessed the phone numbers of every child. He calls them all
simultaneously, the signal in the phones breaking the bond holding them and
allowing them to return. Turning on her, Spellman tells Sarah he will make her
experience a much worse fear, and makes Luke disappear.
Sarah hurries inside the museum, locking Clyde and Rani
outside to keep them safe. She then tries to find Spellman, and follows an
echoing sound into the hall of mirrors, where Luke appears trapped inside. Odd
Bob also begins haunting her, but she puts an end to the phantasmagoria by
blasting the mirrors with her Sonic Lipstick – revealing a hidden doorway.
Outside, Rani and Clyde find another way into the building –
an open window – and hurry to help their friend. Sarah continues her search for
Spellman, and is confronted by Odd Bob, who continues to taunt her. He explains
that Luke has been sent into a void between this world and another – where all
of the children he has abducted are kept before they eventually disappear
completely. Sarah orders him to bring them back but he refuses – it would
defuse the fear that surrounds him.
Reverting to the form of Spellman, he claims that nobody can
defeat him for fear is invincible. However, Rani and Clyde have already
formulated a plan. Clyde confronts Spellman and begins making jokes, ignoring
his threats to abduct him as well. Rani joins in, and Spellman begins to appear
unnerved. Laughing starts echoing around the museum – the one thing that can
defeat him.
Sarah and Rani then discover the meteor fragment is glowing
– pulling Spellman back inside after centuries of being able to resist it. As
his identity begins to falter, Spellman disappears, and immediately Luke is
returned – much to Sarah’s jubilance.
Back in the attic, Sarah stows the meteor fragment away as
Mr Smith explains to the others that all the recently-abducted children have
been returned home with no memory of what has happened to them.
Stepping outside, Rani asks Sarah what she should do now.
She tells her to keep her new life secret, in order to protect it. Soon her
parents Gita and Haresh arrive, demanding to know where she has been. She
claims she, Luke and Clyde were researching for a school project, and that they
had nothing to do with the temporary disappearance of the rest of the students.
Gita then invites Luke, Clyde and Sarah to dinner. The boys
accept but Sarah claims she has work to do. As they others leave she looks to
the sky, thinking what a surprising place the universe can be.
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
The Pharos Institute was last seen in The Lost Boy.
Sarah talks of her Aunt Lavinia, whom we learn raised her as
a child (the story of Sarah’s parents will be told in The Temptation of Sarah
Jane Smith). Lavinia was seen in K-9 and Company.
Clyde makes reference to the events of Warriors of Kudlak.
One of the clown images on Sarah’s laptop is in fact a
photograph of Clara the Clown from The Celestial Toymaker.
[Back to Main Page]
Secrets of the Stars
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Gary Russell
Written by Gareth Roberts
Directed by Michael Kerrigan
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Tommy Knight (Luke
Smith), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Russ Abbot (Martin Trueman), Mina Anwar (Gita Chandra),
Ace Bhatti (Haresh Chandra), Carryl Thomas (Cheryl Farley), Nicky Ladanowski
(Lisa Trotter), Ed Hughes (Stuart Farley).
Astrologer Martin Trueman is causing a stir with his uncanny
insights and predictions. While Sarah Jane doesn't believe in astrology, she
does believe that all is not as it seems where Trueman's concerned. All around
her, people are falling under Trueman's sinister spell and even Mr Smith
doesn't understand what's going on.
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
20th October, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Part Two
27th October, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Notes:
None.
Under a starry sky, astrologist Martin Trueman consults one
of his clients, a woman named Cheryl, about her star signs – promising various
successes for the year ahead. When the session is over Cheryl thanks him for
being a comfort and pays him, revealing she is spending her mortgage payments.
Suffering from a guilty conscience, Martin returns the money and reveals he is
a phoney – there is no power in astrology. He wanders over to the window and
laments that he has wasted his life; he is nothing more than a con artist.
Suddenly Martin is hit by a brilliant red light, which has been hurtling to
Earth at a tremendous speed. Cheryl is startled for a moment, then the light
fades and Martin is left standing still. He turns to face her and tells her she
is going on a long journey. He places a hand on her shoulder, static
electricity shoots into her body, and she screams…
Part One
(drn:28'16")
Some time later Clyde, Luke and Rani arrive at the local
theatre to see Martin Trueman’s latest show. Clyde is sceptical of horoscopes,
but Rani challenges his disbelief. She reveals she is an Aries, and asks the
boys what their signs are. Clyde’s is Gemini, but Luke does not have one – he
was not born.
The three friends are met by Cheryl, Mr Trueman’s assistant,
who asks them to put down their names and star signs on a piece of paper. Luke
is not sure what to write, but he is saved when Sarah Jane arrives with Gita
and Haresh, Rani’s parents, who are also there to watch the show.
As the show begins, Cheryl’s partner Stewart arrives and
confronts his wife. He asks her to come home but she insists she must stay with
Martin. Stewart claims something has changed since she met Martin, but she
denies it and orders him to go, which he does so, begrudgingly. Having overseen
this exchange, Sarah laments the fact she cannot go anywhere without something
odd occurring.
Sat in the auditorium, the friends watch as the show begins.
Now dressed in a smart white suit, Mr Trueman appears, accompanied on stage by
a large prop displaying each of the twelve star signs. He talks to the audience
about astronomy and astrology, and how the stars hold certain secrets. He
demonstrates by picking three birthdays – one of which is Clyde’s, and forces
the people to whom they respond to stand up and sit down in quick succession,
which Clyde finds somewhat embarrassing. He asks Sarah how this was done, and
she claims it is simply the power of suggestion.
Using the information gained by the cards collected by
Cheryl, Trueman then begins picking people out from the audience and predicting
facts about them. One of these people is Rani – whom he correctly predicts has
just moved house, and whom has just found a new outlook on life. The next
person is Sarah, a Taurus, whom he claims was born under a special star. His
predictions are startling indeed.
“Some years ago you travelled far and wide and, oh, the
things you have seen. And there was a man, a very special man…it wasn’t a
romance…it was something much more than that. He taught you so much. There was
laughter, and adventure, and you prayed your time with him would never, never
end. A man with no name, a scientist? No, a doctor, the Doctor.”
Sarah confirms these predictions and challenges Trueman’s
abilities, but he has not finished yet, upon Sarah’s request he looks to the
future.
“If you want but, oh, I’m afraid Saturn is transiting
Taurus. You have fought many battles in your life, you’re about to fight
another, but this time it will be different. This time Sarah Jane…you lose.”
After the show Gita and Haresh discuss Mr Trueman’s
abilities before Rani hurries them away. Sarah, Luke and Clyde are unsettled by
Trueman’s knowledge of the Doctor, but Sarah insists a scan she secretly
conducted with her special watch has confirmed Truman is human.
Backstage Trueman tells Cheryl that the night’s show was the
last, they have served their purpose but Martin has to take on a bigger
opportunity…at that moment Lisa Trotter, a reporter on the Paranormal Channel,
enters the room and offers Martin an interview on her show the next day. He
accepts, claiming he wants to get his message across to as many people as
possible.
Calling Mr Smith; Sarah, Luke and Clyde ask about alien
activity around the theatre, but nothing is found. Sarah insists there must be
some cause for Trueman’s astrological ability – which is theoretically
impossible – and claims Trueman must be using a biodamper – a device used to
hide alien activity.
Back at his home, Martin tells Cheryl that in the greater
scheme of the universe, the ancient lights are aligned upon him, he is truly
special, and the broadcast tomorrow will confirm this. He predicts that Sarah
Jane Smith will try to stop him but he claims destiny will take over, and she
will fail.
The next day Sarah tells Luke she is going to visit Trueman,
and she finds her son is somewhat upset at not having a star sign. She claims
she can give him a birthday but he is not so enthusiastic, it is just another
sign that he is different – that he has not, does not, and will not ever be
able to live a normal life. Sarah insists he will cope, and after comforting
him, leaves to see Trueman. Outside the house she is met by Rani, whom she
invites along.
Whilst they are gone Luke talks to Mr Smith about astrology,
and he discovers it stretches back far beyond Earth history to many other alien
worlds with their own zodiac charts.
Sarah and Rani, meanwhile, visit Trueman and Cheryl and they
talk about his sudden rise to fame. Again Trueman begins to goad Sarah by
talking of the Doctor, but refuses to explain how he is able to know about him.
He then sees Sarah scanning with her watch and claims she will find nothing.
Soon a battle of words begins between the two of them, and again Trueman claims
Sarah’s luck will change. She and Rani then hurry away, but not before Trueman
has threatened them with a special power – the ability to shoot concentrated
electricity from his fingers, which he uses to zap Rani’s jacket.
Watching them go, Cheryl claims they will not come back, but
Trueman knows this to be false, they will interfere again. However, with the
two of them busy working on the broadcast, he claims they will need someone
else to deal with Sarah and Rani…they choose Clyde, who is across town talking
on his mobile phone. Suddenly Trueman and Cheryl appear. Just like the previous
night at the theatre, Trueman starts giving him orders…which he begins to obey.
Arriving back at the attic, Sarah and Rani tell Luke and Mr
Smith about Trueman. However, when Mr Smith inspects Rani’s singed jacket, he
claims the source of the burn does not exist – according to his sensors the
jacket has been burned by nothing.
Clyde awakens in Trueman’s house, when Rani calls his mobile
phone. Trueman cancels the call and turns to Clyde, telling him that he will
soon join his inner circle. He places a hand on his shoulder and zaps him with
electrical energy.
In the attic, Rani begins to deduce that the energy that
burned her jacket must not have come from Earth, and therefore is not
detectable. However, Sarah insists that any alien energy must come from their
universe, which is bound by the same basic laws of physics. Luke realises that
the energy must therefore come from a different universe…
As Clyde, now under Trueman’s control, departs the house,
Martin tells Cheryl that they must prepare for the broadcast. Back on Bannerman
Road, Luke theorises that astrology, being something that predates Earth
history, may in fact be an echo from something that existed before their
universe began, in another universe that was replaced by their own following
the big bang. The Ancient Lights controlling Trueman were forged under a
different set of physical principles.
Sarah questions why the Ancient Lights chose to possess
Trueman, and Mr Smith claims this is part of an ancient astrological equation.
Trueman’s birth chart represents part of this configuration of stars, and it is
therefore important the ancient lights took control of him, for he will help
them achieve whatever it is they are seeking.
Mr Smith detects Trueman’s broadcast. He shows it to Sarah,
Luke and Clyde, who watch as Trueman talks with Lisa Trotter. Mr Smith claims
this transmission is being broadcast on every channel around the world. Sure
enough, Gita and Haresh find themselves watching it over the road.
Back at the theatre, where the transmission is being
conducted, Trueman and Cheryl knock the entire television crew out and take
over the running of the cameras. Trueman claims that today is a very important
day. However, before he begins he talks indirectly to Sarah, telling her to
stop interfering or people will be hurt.
As Sarah, Luke and Rani turn to head toward the theatre,
Clyde enters and holds out his arms, which are discharging electricity. He
claims Trueman has given him the power of the Ancient Lights, and now threatens
to use them to destroy Sarah…
Part Two
(drn:28'00")
Sarah Jane tries to appeal to Clyde’s suppressed human
nature, but he maintains that the group must stay still and silent.
Trueman continues his broadcast, addressing all people with
the star sign Gemini, including Gita. She watches and listens to Trueman’s
words, then is suddenly overcome by some invisible force. Obeying Trueman’s
commands, she begins walking out of the house, much to the disbelief of her
husband Haresh.
Up in the attic, Sarah continues to try and reclaim Clyde’s
mind, albeit unsuccessfully. Using Trueman’s orders for her death as an excuse
to let Luke and Rani leave safely, Sarah convinces them to leave. All the while
Trueman continues to urge people to join with each other and form circles by
holding people’s hands.
As more and more people begin walking from their homes,
Trueman calls upon the star sign Cancer to join those under Gemini, and the
march across the world continues. Rani can do nothing to stop her mother,
whilst in the attic Sarah and Luke, who refuses to leave, confront Clyde once
more.
Sarah tries to push Clyde to the point of destroying her but
he doesn’t. After a friendly hand on his shoulder from Luke, he appears to be
relinquished by Trueman’s force, and collapses, moments after Rani returns to
give news of her possessed mother.
Mr Smith relays news reports from all over the world –
people are beginning to march out of their homes, under Trueman’s command. Soon
more join them as the star sign Leo is brought under Trueman’s influence. Rani
begins to worry what can be done to save a hypnotised world, and Sarah and Luke
theorise Clyde may be the key – he is the only one to break the spell. However,
Clyde has no memory of what has happened. Sarah realises that she must have
freed Clyde by pushing him over the edge (ordering him to kill her) and decides
she must do the same to Trueman to break the influence that is holding him. As
the group go down to the car Luke claims they must also stop Trueman’s
broadcast by cutting off the power supply in the theatre.
Over at the theatre, all those who are Gemini step inside to
join Trueman, for they are his inner circle. This includes Gita. Haresh looks
on as some of the other hypnotised people begin to form a circle around the
building, with which to protect their leader. Next the children on Libra join
the possessed hoards, and then Scorpio.
Soon Sarah and her friends arrive at the theatre, just as
the children of Sagittarius are brought under Trueman’s control. Clyde decides
to use his position as a Gemini to bluff his way through the circle outside the
theatre, and pretends to be possessed. He claims he is of the inner circle and
that the others are his prisoners. Eventually he gains entrance, just as
Capricorn is taken over.
Mr Trueman senses Clyde has entered the building and that
the control held over him has broken. Sure enough he and the others are one
their way. Luke and Rani run to find the electricity supply to turn it off
whilst Sarah and Clyde are confronted by Cheryl, who has been sent by Trueman.
They are taken to the main auditorium, where Trueman orders them to kneel upon
the stage. He then reveals the intentions of the Ancient Lights – to unlock the
power of the minds of all those captured and then use it to transmit the signal
to the rest of the universe – giving the Ancient Lights complete control of the
cosmos.
Sarah tries to appeal to Trueman’s human side but he is not
so easily convinced – any appeal to his better nature is futile, the part of
Trueman that is human, the part that lived a life of being pushed around, is
enjoying the control and the power it now has at its command. Born at exactly
the right time for the Ancient Lights to take over him, Trueman finally has a
purpose.
Soon a rumbling is heard outside – the conjunction is
starting. Trueman then begins to call upon the children of Pisces, and Clyde
realises that Sarah’s plan has failed – just as Trueman predicted the previous
night.
Suddenly a shaft of red light falls from the sky and hits
the theatre, emerging on the stage, engulfing Trueman. Elsewhere in the
building, Rani and Luke have found the main cut-off switch, which Rani
discovers is electrified. However, when Trueman brings Aries under his control,
she is forced to leave for the stage. When Luke tries to deactivate the switch
he is not affected by its shield, and is able to cancel the power and stop the
transmission.
Sarah and Clyde rejoice, but Trueman remains in control,
still bathed in the red column of light. Rani walks onto the stage as Trueman
claims stopping the broadcast will not stop the Ancient Lights, which are now
too powerful. He tells Sarah only her star sign, Taurus, is yet to be
harvested, but when it is she too will fall under his control.
Luke runs on stage but Trueman claims he is too late to act.
However, Luke has realised the truth about why Clyde was freed and why he was
able to use the switch when Rani could not – it was his touch. He runs forward
and uses his power to break the inner circle around Trueman, which in turns
releases the people standing outside the theatre. He explains that as he has no
birthday, he is not affected by astrology and as such can break the link forged
by the Ancient Lights, thereby thwarting their plan.
Trueman claims the constellations are beginning to move –
soon the Ancient Lights, and he, will be lost forever. Sarah begs him to
release the light but he refuses to return to being nothing, and instead allows
himself to be scattered to dust by the decaying lights, which zoom away from
Earth once the alignment of the constellations is broken and all of Earth is
freed.
That night Rani returns home to find the house empty. She
turns on the television and watches the fallout of Truman’s broadcast, which is
believed to be a malfunctioning publicity stunt. Now everyone is released –
including Cheryl, who has returned to her husband. Soon Gita and Haresh, both
safe, return home and the family is reunited.
In Sarah’s attic, Clyde scoffs at the horoscopes in the
local paper, before leaving Luke and Sarah alone to discuss destiny and the
fact Luke still has no birthday, which he now is grateful for as it allowed him
to save the world. He and Sarah agree to make this day one to celebrate – each
year Luke can be the centre of attention.
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
When Trueman begins talking about the Doctor, brief clips
are shown of the Tenth Doctor from School Reunion and Journey’s End.
Mr Smith mentions the Draconians, a race seen in Frontier In
Space.
Clyde makes reference to The Lost Boy.
Sarah mentions she has been possessed before – in Planet of
the Spiders, The Masque of Mandragora and The Hand of Fear.
[Back to Main Page]
The Mark of the Berserker
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Gary Russell
Written by Joseph Lidster
Directed by Joss Agnew
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Tommy Knight (Luke
Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Yasmin Paige (Maria Jackson), Joseph Millson (Alan
Jackson), Gary Beadle (Paul Langer), Jocelyn Jee Esien (Carla Langer), Ace
Bhatti (Haresh Chandra), Perry Millward (Jacob), Huw Higginson (Mr Cunningham),
Elijah Baker (Steve Wallace), Jessica Lewis (Detention Girl), Andrew Phillips
(Detention Boy).
Rani comes across a pendant that seems to harbour mysterious
powers. Whoever is in possession of it is able to influence the memories,
thoughts and actions of those around them. With Sarah Jane away, Rani leaves
the pendant in the attic. Meanwhile, Clyde's estranged father, Paul, pays his
family a visit. In a bid to impress his dad, Clyde tells him about hunting
aliens and takes him to Sarah Jane's house…
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
3rd November, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Part Two
10th November, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Notes:
None.
One afternoon at Park Vale school a boy named Jacob is
sitting in detention, under the watchful eye of Mr Cunningham, who is concerned
he has uncharacteristically been involved in a fight. Soon the other students
are taunting the young boy, who appears to have a strange alien symbol marked
on his hand.
As Rani, who is wandering the corridors, looks on, Jacob
begins ordering the other pupils and Mr Cunningham to be silent, which eerily
they do, unable to talk or move upon Jacob’s command. The young lad turns to
leave, but is shocked to find the mark on his palm is beginning to wind its way
down his arm. Seeing that Rani is watching him, he hurries away to the
bathroom, where he tries to wash the affliction away. He is unsuccessful, and
as he looks in the mirror he finds the mark has begun crawling onto his face,
making his eyes turn blue.
Part One
(drn:28'54")
Rani enters the detention room, where the silenced Mr
Cunningham and the other students ask mutely for help. Running out, she hurries
to the bathroom, where Jacob has removed a glowing blue pendant from around his
neck. He orders it to stop what is going on and immediately Mr Cunningham and
his pupils are freed. They all run from the building out of fear.
Having thrown the pendant to the floor, Jacob opens the
bathroom door to find Rani waiting for him. As she enters, hearing a strange
noise coming from within, he hurries away, leaving her to find the pendent and
pick it up. Suddenly her phone rings, and after agreeing to meet her father in
the car park, she pockets the pendant and leaves, unaware Jacob, whose face has
returned to normal, has actually been watching her.
Some time later, Sarah drives Luke to Clyde’s house, where
he will be staying for the weekend whilst she investigates a matter at
Tarminster Hospital. Clyde’s mother Carla is happy to look after the boys, and
Sarah thanks her before leaving for the hospital. Carla follows the boys inside
the house, where she reveals to Luke that she has been teaching Clyde to cook,
which he has found a secret talent for.
Across town Rani and her father are discussing food as well,
only they have decided to order takeaway instead. Initially they argue over
what food to have when suddenly Haresh begins agreeing with everything Rani
says – just like Jacob and the detention room. Rani realises this is because of
the pendant and starts asking her father to perform various humiliating tasks,
before claiming nonchalantly that her father would die if he could see himself.
He takes this literally, and asks Rani if she wishes him to kill himself.
Hurriedly Rani backtracks, and orders her father to forget
what has just happened. She places the pendant back in her pocket then looks at
her hand – she has an identical mark on her palm to Jacob.
The door bell rings and she answers it, finding Jacob
waiting for her. He begins talking about the mark, which she finds is fading.
Jacob explains that this is due to her only having used the pendant once. He
tells her he found the device at the building site at school, and claims it has
addictive properties, admitting that when he discovered he could use it to
order people to his will; he found it difficult to stop. The more the pendant
is used the worse the mark becomes. Rani claims she knows someone who can help,
and hurries alone to Sarah Jane’s attic, where she discovers a note ordering
the kids to do nothing if they uncover any alien activity.
Ignoring this warning, Rani tries to activate Mr Smith, but
discovers Sarah has switched him off. She decides not to go any further and
leaves the pendant hanging on a nail sticking out of a nearby wall. Realising
the ensuing weekend will be a quiet one without Sarah around, she leaves.
That night, as Clyde and Luke lie in bed, Luke looks at an
array of pictures stuck on Clyde’s wall, and discovers his friend has another
secret talent – he is quite the artist. Conversation briefly turns to Clyde’s
father, who no longer lives at home, but Clyde brushes off the topic, claiming
he has his mother, and that’s all he needs to get by.
The next morning a taxi pulls up outside and the doorbell
rings. Clyde awakens and runs to answer it – it is his father.
Back in Bannerman Road, Rani is relieved that the mark on
her hand has not reappeared, and as a sort of celebration she makes her father
breakfast. She explains that she is planning to meet Luke and Clyde later that
day, unaware of the events unfolding in Clyde’s house.
Clyde’s father, Paul, explains that he is now living in
Germany, and claims he has returned to see his son. However, his return is not
a welcome one. Clyde reveals that years ago, when his father ran out on them,
he blamed his mother for driving him away. His life began to take a turn for
the worse, and he ended up being expelled from school.
Paul insists he now wants to make amends, but Carla is not
happy. However, Clyde claims he does want to walk to his father, and agrees to
spend some time with him, leaving Luke with his mother for the day.
In Sarah’s attic the pendant begins to glow, and Rani finds
herself thinking about the device obsessively. Deciding to find out more about
the object she leaves her home (under the false pretence of needing to water
Sarah’s plants) and calls Luke, whom she tells to hurry to the school field.
In a local park, Paul and Clyde sit on the swings. Paul
finds it hard to connect with his son, but still he makes the effort. However,
Clyde is more interested in why his father left, and Paul reveals that when he
and Carla fell out, he decided he had to go. Clyde, on the other hand, knows
the truth – Paul ran off with his auntie Mel. Clyde is still angry at this, but
Paul reveals he never forgot about his son – he carries around a picture of him
in his wallet.
Back at Clyde’s house, Luke prepares to leave, and says
goodbye to Carla. They talk about the fact that Luke has no father either, and
she asks Luke to remember something – if his father ever turns up, as Clyde’s
has done, he must never forget his mother.
In the park, Clyde asks his father to teach him some German,
which he does before asking his son what he does in his life. Clyde toys with
the idea of telling him about life with Sarah Jane, and after Paul tells him
they shouldn’t keep secrets, Clyde tells him:
“Dad…I save the world.”
Meanwhile, Luke and Rani search the building site at the
school, hoping to find some clue as to what the pendant really is. Finding
nothing, Luke decides to return home to see if Mr Smith will open for him, and
Rani follows.
Clyde explains to his father that he and his friends have
saved the world several times, but finds Paul is somewhat sceptical. He decides
to prove what he says, and takes him to Bannerman Road, where Clyde gains entry
with the spare key. They go to the attic, where Paul examines the various
objects lying around on Sarah’s desk.
Clyde picks up one of the devices – a holographic postcard
reader – and shows Paul a message he and Luke have recoded for Maria, who is
now living in America. Paul is astonished by the alien technology and finally
acknowledges what his son has achieved – he is proud. However, Clyde begins to
realise his dad is only interested in exploiting this technology for money, and
chides him. He then begins explaining about Mr Smith, and is unaware that Paul
has been examining the alien pendant, which seems to be calling to him. He
pockets the device without his son noticing, then the two hurry downstairs.
On Sarah’s front drive they are met by Haresh, who is
concerned Clyde appears to be trespassing. Clyde claims he is watering the
plants, unaware Rani has also used this excuse. Haresh pursues the inquiry but
upon Paul’s command of “drop it”, he drops the empty pizza boxes he has been
carrying. Commenting upon the takeaway reciprocals Paul claims Haresh should
exercise, and immediately he begins jogging on the spot.
Paul begins to realise Haresh is doing as he commands and
orders him to do press-ups, which he does. Rani and Luke arrive, and Rani is
furious with Paul, realising that he must have taken the pendant. Luke,
meanwhile, is upset that Clyde has revealed the secret life they all lead with
Sarah Jane, but any further confrontation is avoided when Paul decides it is
time to leave. He places the pendant around his neck and orders Clyde to forget
Luke and Rani completely, which he does. When he turns to go Luke calls to him,
but Clyde does not recognise him. He departs with Paul, who waves as he goes –
revealing that he too now bears the mark of the pendant.
Part Two
(drn:27'52")
Taking to the streets of London, Clyde asks Paul about the
pendant, which he tells him not to worry about. Sure enough, Clyde does as he
is told, and further agrees to spend time away with his dad, without worrying
about his mother.
In the attic, Rani and Luke debate what to do, worried that
if they call Sarah she will be mad with them for letting Paul see the attic.
Nonetheless they decide they must phone her. However, her mobile phone is
switched off – she is in the hospital hunting an alien slug creature.
Luke then has an idea, and uses Sarah’s ordinary computer to
open up a webcam discussion with Maria, who is with her father in Washington
D.C. Luke explains that he needs to speak with Alan, and sends across a drawing
of the pendant Rani has made. Luke asks him to search the UNIT web archives for
any traces of the device, hoping to find out what its purpose is.
Back in the city centre, Paul and Clyde go to a car
dealership, where Paul uses the power of the pendant to secure a large red
sports car for free. Clyde then receives a call from Luke, who tries
unsuccessfully to convince him that they are friends. Clyde ignores him and
cancels the call, leaving Luke somewhat upset. Rani enters, explaining that she
has checked on her father outside – he will not stop doing press-ups.
Whilst Clyde and Paul take to the roads – the latter
beginning to feel the effects of the pendant upon his arm, Alan manages to find
a file about the pendant. Inside is a picture, detailing what happens when the
pendant is used. The photo shows a man covered in marks – spreading across his
face. His eyes have also changed, just like Jacob’s when he began transforming
back in the school bathroom.
Maria explains that the pendant belonged to a warrior race
called the Berserkers, who used the devices to swell the numbers of their
armies – they turned ordinary humans into Berserkers. The one found at the
school was last seen in the 1940s, at an army barracks that was built on the
ground where the school now stands. Maria realises that if Paul is using the
pendant then he – and Clyde – will be in danger.
Luke promises Maria he and Rani will deal with the problem
but Alan has another trick to help them. Using a UNIT tracking system and
Clyde’s mobile phone number, he traces them as they go about the city, bagging
free things with the use of the pendant, including a leather jacket for Clyde.
All the while Paul fights off the control of the Berserker, catching glimpses
in mirrors and other reflections the image of the creature he is soon to
become.
Luke and Rani hurry to Clyde’s house, where they tell Carla
they need her help. Explaining that Clyde may be in danger, she agrees to help
them trace him and the three of them pile in Carla’s car.
On the road, Paul sees that Clyde is upset, and orders him
to reveal what is bothering him. Stopping by the side of the road, Clyde
explains that he is still upset about being left alone. He claims he used to
fear being left by his mother as well, but Paul makes him forget all of those
feelings, and then tells him that he intends to show Clyde the world, however
first they must find a boat. Again Clyde has his doubts – worried about what
Carla will say. Once again Paul diffuses the situation with the pendant, this
time making his son forget all about his mother.
Also on the road, Carla tries to phone her son but there is
no answer to her call. As the marks on Paul’s arm begin to get worse, Luke
manages to augment Carla’s satellite navigation device to show the UNIT
tracking system – now programmed to follow Clyde. Over the phone, Alan urges
Rani and Luke to speak to Sarah as soon as possible – worried that when Paul
transforms fully he will be too dangerous for them to handle alone. He signs
off and he and Maria are left to wait; only Maria has now formulated a plan to
help her friends…
Paul continues to fight off the effects of the pendant, and
soon he and Clyde arrive at a Marina. Close on their tails, Carla soon realises
what Paul is intending to do and puts her foot down to get there faster.
At the Marina itself, on one of the jetties, Paul’s
transformation gets worse, and the mark spreads across his face, causing him to
keel over. Soon Carla arrives with Luke and Rani, who are worried about Clyde’s
mother finding out about the pendant. Sure enough, when Carla rushes over to a
worried Clyde, whom she discovers no longer remembers her – she sees that Paul
is no longer human – his eyes have changed.
Rani and Luke confront him and Rani explains about the
effect of the pendant. They try to get Clyde away from his possessed father,
but Paul grabs him and orders the others to stay back – threatening to make
them walk into the water and drown themselves if they do not obey. He turns to
Clyde and claims that he has become a Berserker, and his son will follow his
orders.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
The whole group turns to see Sarah Jane has arrived –
standing some distance away across the Marina. Clyde breaks free of Paul’s
grasp and runs to her, still recognising her amidst the crowd of strangers
confronting him. Sarah tells him to trust the others and walks with Clyde to
confront Paul, who is now convinced he is a soldier, ready to fight the war of
the Berserkers.
Sarah tells Clyde that he must remind Paul who he really is,
and the young man walks up to his father, urging him to recall the brief time
they spent together before he left to go to Germany. He then recalls the events
of the afternoon – and soon Paul flinches, on the verge of remembering. Carla
joins in, asking Paul to remember the day they met and fell in love. Once more
he flinches, and again at the memory of returning for his son that day.
Sarah holds out a mirror for him to see his new form, urging
him to recall his life before he was taken over by the Berserker. Suddenly he
begins writhing in agony. He falls to the floor as the marks detract from his
body – retreating to his hand before disappearing completely. At last he is
free, and he throws the pendant to the floor, reversing all the orders he has
made – thus freeing Haresh, who has all the while been exercising on Sarah’s
driveway.
Clyde is also healed – remembering his friends and his
mother once again, much to their joy. Clyde then turns to the recovering Paul,
and Sarah realises the family must be left alone. Taking Luke and Rani back to
her car she tells them Alan and Maria contacted her and told her what had
happened, thus alerting her to the danger Clyde and Paul were in.
Clyde, meanwhile, picks up the pendant and asks Sarah what
to do with it – she insists he already knows. He holds it in his hand and
contemplates that he could use it to make his father and mother fall in love
again. Paul claims that if he does history will simply repeat itself and the
two will part again. Clyde says he could stop this happening but both his
parents know that their relationship wouldn’t be real.
Carla goes back to her car, and Paul and Clyde are left
alone. Paul reveals that his new partner Mel is pregnant – it is this that made
him flee back to London, he was scared of committing himself again. Realising
at last that he doesn’t need his father, Clyde tells him that the new baby
will, and begs him not to mess up another life by running away again. The two
embrace, then Clyde hands back his leather jacket, telling his dad to return
everything he has taken.
As Paul drives away, Carla rejoins her son by the waterside,
knowing at last what her son does in his alter ego life. She confesses that she
cannot comprehend what has happened, and will not be able to cope knowing the
danger he is in. To save her worry Clyde uses the pendant to make her forget.
With her mind altered, Clyde tosses the pendant into the water.
That night, as Sarah walks about the attic, Clyde enters.
They both sit on the sofa, and Clyde apologises for letting Paul into the
attic. Sarah forgives him, and he asks her about her parents, whom she claims
died when she was just a baby. She confesses that sometimes she would do
anything just to see them again, but for now she is more interested in how
Clyde is feeling.
He explains that he finds it hard to show his emotions
sometimes because he is expected to be “cool”. He claims that he has seen much
of his father in himself since meting him, and realises that without Sarah,
Luke and Rani he would be weaker, just as his father was. Sarah tells Clyde he
underestimates himself, and then tells him to go home for the night. On his way
out he thanks her for everything, unaware that after he is gone, alone once
more, Sarah walks over to a drawer and takes out a photograph of her parents –
whom she has never known…
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
The story of Sarah’s parents was referenced in Secrets of
the Stars and will be revealed in The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith.
Paul mentions the Daleks, who were last seen in The Stolen
Earth / Journey’s End.
Clyde talks about the events of Revenge of the Slitheen and
The Last Sontaran.
The MITRE headset from The Lost Boy makes a brief
reappearance.
[Back to Main Page]
The Ghost House
by Stephen Cole
The Ghost House
A crack in time and a lost child mean trouble for Sarah Jane
in this thrilling story, read by Elisabeth Sladen.
Up early one morning, Sarah Jane is astonished to see that
the house opposite hers has changed overnight: what used to be a nondescript
1970s family home has been replaced by a smart Victorian residence.
How did a house from 1884 suddenly materialise in Bannerman
Road? Where has the old O'Brien place gone? And more importantly, who -- or
what -- has caused this temporal anomaly? Sarah Jane and friends must find out
before time itself explodes and destroys the world...
Notes:
Read by Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, this story is
set during the second series.
Released: November 2008
ISBN: 978 1 408 40059 3
Synopsis
(drn:64'19")
Sarah Jane hears a commotion outside her house at 5:00 am,
and investigates to find a stunned milkman staring at a Victorian villa that
has replaced the ordinary family home at 39 Bannerman Rd. The milkman manages
to convince himself that it's a trick set up by a television show, but Sarah
can see a shimmering in the air above the walkway, and she catches sight of a
flat-screen TV through the villa's windows before lace curtains and drapes
suddenly materialise and block her view. She returns home to consult Mr Smith,
who determines that the villa is the house that stood on the same site between
1865 and 1969; somehow, it has been displaced in Time, from the year 1884. Mr
Smith also confirms that the temporal fluctuations haven't stopped and could
spread even further.
According to Luke, the normal house's owners, the O'Briens,
are an ordinary family who recently left for a three-week holiday to Australia.
While Sarah Jane continues to consult Mr Smith, Luke wakes Clyde and Rani, who
help him to seal off the house from curious onlookers using spare police tape
and the Vorgat defence emitter. Rani decides to risk peering through the
house's windows, and sees that the house's interior still looks like the
O'Brien's modern sitting room -- but Victorian-era furniture has begun to
appear inside. Rani then suddenly finds herself standing on Bannerman Road in
the year 1884, in front of a modern house transplanted into a row of villas. A
few seconds later, she is snapped back to the 21st century, and she tells Clyde
and Luke that while she felt nothing going back, the return journey made her
feel ill.
Mr Smith scans the world media for reports of similar
incidents but comes up blank, apart from a report of an extra-terrestrial
prisoner who recently escaped from a phase-shift prison in Russia. Rani and the
boys then return and tell their story to Sarah, and Mr Smith confirms that he
detected a spike of zygma energy at the moment that Rani returned to the
present day. This implies that she was deliberately sent back by someone in
1884 who doesn't want to be disturbed at what they're doing. Worse, Mr Smith warns
that zygma energy is inherently unstable, and that the growing temporal
fracture could cause an explosion that will shatter Time between 1884 and the
present day, destroying life on Earth.
Sarah Jane and her friends return to the villa to
investigate further, and Sarah Jane spots movement through the window. Luke
insists upon accompanying her inside, and they unlock the villa's front door
with Sarah Jane's sonic lipstick and step inside. For a moment, they catch
sight of a small figure in the O'Brien's hallway, but then find themselves in
the interior of the Victorian villa back in 1884. Modern furnishings are
scattered about the old house, and upstairs, they can hear a man named Charles and
his wife Beatrice searching desperately for their missing daughter May and
berating the hapless maid Clara for playing foolish jokes by replacing their
furnishings with garish paintings. Luke and Sarah Jane are then snapped back to
the present day, where they discover that the small figure they saw earlier was
May. Sarah Jane assures the terrified little girl that they'll help her return
home, and takes her out of the house to meet the others. She and Luke were able
to spend more time back in 1884 than Rani, and Luke theorises that it takes
more energy to send two people forward in Time than it does one; if this is the
case, perhaps they'll be able to spend even more time there if they use the
Vorgat force shield to protect them. May then speaks up, claiming to have seen
a bad man in "the spidery place," but she's too frightened to
elaborate.
Sarah Jane returns home to consult Mr Smith, warning the
others not to enter the house; however, Clyde convinces Luke to go back inside,
using the force shield as he'd suggested earlier. Clyde also reveals that he
had Mr Smith research the villa's history; in 1884, it's occupied by architect
Charles Burden, Beatrice, and May, and their maid Clara, who will put up with
her employers' abuse until 1893. When Clyde and Luke step into the house, they
are transported back to 1884 and begin searching for the "spidery
place". Instead, they encounter Charles Burden, and because the Vorgat
shield makes their bodies appear to glow, the terrified architect concludes
that these boys are the demons who have taken his daughter. Clara then screams
out loud from upstairs, and Clyde and Luke rush up to find that she's just seen
her mistress vanish into thin air before her eyes. Charles attacks the boys
with a fireplace poker, and when it bounces harmlessly off the force shield, he
and Clara flee from the house to fetch help. The boys take the opportunity to search
the attic, but this is where Clara lives, and it's free of dust and cobwebs.
However, the shadow of a thin spindly creature seems to be sitting on Clara's
bed, laughing at them. The force shield then runs out of power, and the shadow
swoops forward to engulf them.
Rani and May hear a woman cry out from inside the house, and
Rani risks entering to investigate; since May has been swapped forward by the
temporal fluctuations, her presence keeps Rani stable in the present day as
well. May's mother has appeared inside the house's modern-day bathroom, but the
terrified woman can't accept what's happening to her and refuses to answer
Rani's questions, insisting that this is all a terrible dream. However, when
Beatrice lashes out at the filthy heathens who would put a water closet in the
indoor bathroom, Rani realises that the "spidery place" that May
referred to was an outdoor toilet.
Meanwhile, Sarah Jane has found an intruder in her attic: a
muscular, red-skinned humanoid with three eyes, who reveals that he's been
tapping into Mr Smith's power supply for the past ten days. Due to the computer
virus that recently compromised Mr Smith's defences, Mr Smith never even
noticed that he was powering a time bubble at the O'Briens'. The alien admits
that it is the creature who escaped from the phase-shift prison in Russia, but
claims that its arrest was a mistake exacerbated by the fact that its name
roughly translates into Russian as "Death Kill Massacre." In fact,
he's a bounty hunter searching for two genocidal alien war criminals named
Efnol and Skak; he managed to catch Efnol first, and since the O'Briens had
gone on vacation and their house was located very close to an advanced computer
in the form of Mr Smith, he left his prisoner trapped in a stasis bubble in
their attic while he went hunting for Skak. However, Skak sent an anonymous tip
to the Russian authorities, and while Deathy was dealing with them, Skak
travelled back to 1884 and began stretching the bubble back to its breaking
point using zygma energy and time pumps. The houses on either side of the
stretching point are switching places as a side effect, and when the bubble
shatters, Efnol and Skak will ride the temporal feedback to safety while the
Earth is destroyed behind them.
Sarah Jane takes Deathy back to the O'Briens', where Rani
tells them what she's learned. Skak has kicked Sarah Jane and her friends out
of 1884 before they could find him and interfere with his work, but Deathy is
equipped with shielding that will protect him. Before he can approach the
house, however, the police arrive to investigate the neighbours' reports of
youths loitering around a mysterious mansion, and a policeman confronts Deathy,
believing that he's a troublemaker in fancy dress. The impatient Deathy
teleports the policeman out of his path, but fails to notice that he arrived
with a partner, who panics and calls in backup. Deathy is forced to flee from
the police, who don't listen when Sarah tries to warn him that they're chasing
away the only person who can save the world.
Clyde and Luke then materialise in the front yard, and when
they tell Sarah Jane what they've seen, she realises that Efnol is about to
break through in 1884. She activates the Vorgat shield's emergency reserve
power with her sonic lipstick, and she and her friends enter the house
together, reasoning that it will be too difficult for Skak to send all four of
them through time at once. Back in 1884, they head straight for the outside
loo, where the spindly, stone-like Skak is operating his time manipulator. While
Luke and Clyde fight Skak, Sarah Jane and Rani cause the force shield to
contract around Skak's time manipulator, crushing it. There is a momentary time
distortion as they do so, however, and Efnol then leaps down into the yard from
the attic. Sarah Jane realises that she sealed up the machine at the very
moment that the time bubble shattered; once the force shield runs out of power,
the temporal energy will be released, and the world will end.
Efnol and Skak turn their backs on the helpless Sarah Jane
and her friends, but are caught off guard when Charles Burden bursts into the
yard with a mob of his friends and neighbours. Upon seeing the aliens, he
concludes that the two boys he saw earlier have shed their human guises to
reveal their true demonic forms, and before Efnol and Skak can react, the mob
descends upon them and begins beating them to death. However, the angry mob
then freezes in Time, and Deathy emerges from the outhouse, revealing that
Sarah Jane's interference bought him enough time to shake off his pursuit and
come back to set things right. Using his own more advanced equipment and the
power he tapped from Mr Smith, Deathy has repaired the shatterpoint, and he now
pulls Efnol and Skak out of the mob, promising that he will deliver them to the
proper authorities for a fair trial. Sarah Jane and her friends linger just
long enough to see Beatrice and May emerge from the house to be reunited with
the overjoyed Charles, and Deathy then sends them back to the present day.
Satisfied, they return to their homes, leaving the police and other bystanders
staring in astonishment at the O'Briens' house, which has returned to normal.
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
Zygma beams, and some of their unpleasant properties and
side-effects, were introduced in the Doctor Who episode The Talons of
Weng-Chiang.
Sarah recalls hearing stories about Victorian scientists who
experimented with time travel and static electricity, which is presumably a
reference to the events of The Evil of the Daleks. She doesn't reveal where she
heard the stories from. It's possible that the Doctor had told her about some
of his past adventures; it's also possible that Sarah Jane met Victoria
Waterfield herself at some point after the events of Downtime, and that they
shared stories.
[Back to Main Page]
The Time Capsule
by Peter Anghelides
The Time Capsule
Sarah Jane and friends must deal with some deadly alien
artefacts in this gripping story, read by Elisabeth Sladen.
It seems like a regular, routine weekday: Sarah Jane is
doing a supermarket shop (and trying not to embarrass Clyde, who is doing his
work experience in Betterworth's) while Luke is at the Natural History Museum,
helping to catalogue items and set up displays.
But their ordinary day is about to turn extraordinary, as
forces from an alien world start to affect Earth and all hell breaks loose.
With an icy void opening beneath the chiller cabinet, museum exhibits coming
alive and terrifying monsters appearing, Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and Rani are
soon fighting for their lives...
Notes:
Read by Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, this story is
set during the second series.
Released: November 2008
ISBN: 978 1 408 40060 9
Synopsis
(drn:66'10")
Sarah Jane visits Betterworth's Supermarket to shop for
groceries. Luke usually does the shopping for her, and for a local pensioner
named Ploughman, as he appreciates the mental puzzle of calculating the totals
and working out the most efficient route around the aisles; however, he's
currently doing work experience at the Natural History Museum, and in any case,
Sarah Jane hasn't seen Ploughman since he started complaining about the
construction works behind his house a few weeks ago. When she arrives at the
supermarket, she is amused to find that Clyde is doing his work experience
here, under the self-important young manager, Charlson. Charlson is expecting a
visit from the regional manager, and when Sarah Jane finds him berating Clyde
for allegedly piling up cans in an unhelpfully artistic fashion, she
intervenes, praising Clyde's helpfulness and drawing him away from the still
irritated manager. Once they're free, Clyde tells Sarah Jane that he's been
trailing an old man who has been acting oddly. Sarah Jane recently repaired
Clyde's broken watch with her sonic lipstick, and when the old man walked past
him, the hands of the watch started to spin uncontrollably. Sarah Jane's sonic
lipstick then begins to buzz and rattle inside her purse, just as the old man
in question walks past. He is wearing thick spectacles and operating what
appears to be a pocket calculator, and Sarah Jane recognises him as her missing
neighbour, Mr Ploughman.
Ploughman notices Sarah Jane and Clyde watching him and
tries to give them the slip, but in his haste, he bumps into a woman and drops
his spectacles. Clyde follows Ploughman as Sarah Jane apologises for her
"uncle," and the woman, somewhat mollified, hands over the
spectacles, which had fallen into her trolley. Sarah Jane notices that their
lenses are oddly iridescent, but before she can examine them more closely, she
hears Clyde cry out. Somehow, cages full of milk cartons have rolled out to
block his way through the dairy section, and the adjacent aisle has been walled
off by stacks of cans, which fit into place so suddenly that several customers
and a free-sample lady have been trapped between them. Sarah Jane and Clyde
detour through the cereal aisle, but Ploughman waves the device he's carrying
at them, and loaves of bread fly off the shelves, piling themselves into a
barrier. Clyde pushes his way through the wall of bread and catches Ploughman
in the frozen-foods section, but the aged Ploughman leaps nimbly up onto a
freezer cabinet, and food begins shooting out of it as if from a cannon. Clyde
lunges forward to grab Ploughman, who drops his "calculator" and
falls to the floor; however, Clyde also overbalances and falls into the
freezer. Sarah Jane runs up to help him out, but sees that Clyde appears to
have fallen into a frozen pit that extends much further than the bottom of the
freezer.
Charlson arrives on the scene and orders the store's
security guards to throw Ploughman out, and when Sarah Jane turns to look
again, she sees that the freezer has returned to normal -- but Clyde is holding
a large cube with alien writing on the side, and seems oddly subdued. When
Charlson starts to berate him for making a scene, Clyde raises his hand, and a
flash of light blasts Charlson across the aisle, knocking him senseless. Clyde
walks out of the store, and when Sarah Jane tries to follow him, cereal explodes
out of the boxes on the shelves and coalesces into a humanoid figure. Sarah
Jane instinctively raises her arm to defend herself -- and since she's holding
Ploughman's spectacles in that hand, she sees ghostly tendrils of light through
its lenses, operating the cereal monster like a puppet. More monsters made out
of raw deli meat, tin cans, toilet paper, and melted chocolate hold Sarah Jane
back until Clyde steps out of the store, at which point the monsters collapse
into raw groceries.
Before Sarah Jane can follow Clyde, she receives a phone
call telling her that Luke is in trouble. She immediately rushes to the museum,
and to her surprise, she catches sight of Ploughman entering the building when
she arrives. When she holds his spectacles to her eyes, she sees more tendrils
of light snaking about the display cases. Luke's supervisor, Dr Minot, then
arrives and tells Sarah Jane that Luke has stolen a valuable exhibit and locked
himself in a storage closet. Sarah Jane shoos away the security guards
clustered around the closet and uses her sonic lipstick to open it; once
inside, however, she seals it behind her, to give herself a chance to speak to
Luke alone. Luke is huddled on the floor, holding the valuable 82-carat Black
Diamond of Ernfield, a cursed jewel said to have been stolen from a
mid-14th-century temple. He calmly tells Sarah Jane that most black diamonds
contain iron oxide, magnetite and hematite, but this one felt different to him
somehow. Sarah Jane's sonic lipstick begins to buzz again, and she sees that
the hands of Luke's watch are spinning -- and when she takes a close look at
the diamond, she realises that the striations resemble the alien writing that
she saw on the cube Clyde took out of the supermarket.
After Luke's brief moment of lucidity, his expression goes
slack and calm, just like Clyde's. People have started hammering on the door of
the closet, and Sarah Jane opens it and guides Luke out -- only to find that
the guards weren't knocking to get in as she thought. Ploughman is standing
outside, operating his calculator device, and the security guards have been
rendered unconscious. Luke makes a break for it, holding up the black diamond
as he runs, and through the spectacles, Sarah Jane sees tendrils of energy
lashing out around the exhibits and animating them just like the goods at the
supermarket. Egyptian animal mummies and dead butterflies come to life and hold
Ploughman back while Luke escapes, and when the guards in the entrance hall try
to intervene, the diplodocus skeleton explodes into bits and reassembles itself
around them, trapping them in the ribcage. The turmoil delays Sarah Jane long
enough for Luke to disappear into the crowds outside.
Sarah Jane rushes back to Bannerman Road to consult Mr
Smith, but Gita Chandra, who has returned home for lunch, stops her on the way
to gossip about the strange gust of wind that blasted through her house a
moment ago. Rani steers her mother away, claiming that she's doing her work
experience with Sarah Jane, and tells Sarah Jane that she saw Mr Ploughman
snooping around earlier; Rani tried to speak to him, assuming that he was
looking for Luke, but he waved his pocket calculator device at her and an odd gust
of wind blew through her house, causing the flowers in her living room to bunch
together into a menacing face. The wind then blew the door shut, and the face
collapsed back into flowers.
Sarah Jane and Rani consult Mr Smith, who identifies the
"spectral specs" as construction tools from the planet Persopolis;
they enable construction workers to see the otherwise invisible force fields
they use to manipulate their tools and raw materials. Mr Smith examines his
historical database and reports that a Persopolesian craft may have collided
with Halley's Comet in 1066 and crashed to Earth. The ship's failsafe would
have broken the control console into three separate components to prevent the
advanced technology from falling into primitive hands, but each segment is
programmed to influence any innocent minds in the vicinity to keep it safe.
Presumably, the black diamond and the cube are forcing Luke and Clyde to
protect them from Mr Ploughman. Rani then looks out of the window while wearing
the specs, and sees a trail leading down the street -- presumably the trail of
energy that Ploughman left as he walked away. She and Sarah Jane follow the
trail in Sarah Jane's car, and see two more trails of energy, presumably Clyde
and Luke, converging on the third. The trails lead to an old scrapyard, and
Sarah Jane overtakes the others, gets there first, and uses her wrist scanner
to locate the final component in a precariously balanced old Ford Zephyr. Rani
climbs up to fetch it, but falls under its influence the moment she touches it.
Ploughman then arrives with Clyde and Luke trailing behind
him, and reveals that the pensioner's body is now possessed by the
Persopolesian pilot, Janxia. He has been in suspended animation for 1000 years,
and was woken when Ploughman trespassed in the construction site behind his
house and stumbled upon Janxia's escape pod. It's taken him some time to regain
his strength, and he was initially unable to control the control segments when
he found them, which is why they used Clyde and Luke to defend themselves from
him; however, he has now reasserted his control over them and intends to return
home, even though most of southern England will be destroyed when he launches
his ship. Sarah Jane offers to put him into contact with people who can move
his ship to an unpopulated area before the launch, but Janxia doesn't care what
collateral damage he inflicts in his escape from Earth.
Sarah Jane activates her sonic lipstick, reasoning that it
will interfere with the Persopolesian artefacts just as they interfered with
it. Janxia angrily turns the full power of his control unit on Sarah, freezing
her in place, but he's still not strong enough to control everyone at once, and
the children break free of him. Angered, Janxia separates his essence from
Ploughman, who faints upon seeing the alien standing next to him. Janxia then
uses the control unit to generate more force fields and create monsters out of
the junked cars, but Luke, Clyde, and Rani create more monsters to fight his
using the control components. While Janxia is distracted, Rani and Luke toss
the diamond into the scrapyard's car crusher, and Clyde activates its controls.
The desperate Janxia rushes forward to retrieve the diamond, but slips on the
poorly balanced Zephyr and falls into the crusher just as its jaws shut.
Sarah Jane assures her stricken friends that there was
nothing they could have done to save the obsessed Janxia. They take Ploughman
back home, and when he wakes, they tell him that he's had a bad dream. Clyde is
now barred from Betterworth's for life, but doesn't much care. Sarah Jane has
Mr Smith create a new black diamond for the museum, and convinces Dr Minot not
to press charges against Luke by donating another alien jewel from her private
collection. As a replacement souvenir, she keeps the Persopolesian control
cube, which Janxia dropped before he fell into the crusher.
Source: Cameron
Dixon
Continuity Notes:
The animated Egyptian animal mummies remind Sarah Jane of
her experiences in Pyramids of Mars.
[Back to Main Page]
Enemy of the Bane
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Producer
Matthew Bouch
Script Editor
Gary Russell
Written by Phil Ford
Directed by Graeme Harper
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Tommy Knight (Luke
Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Nicholas Courtney (Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart), Samantha
Bond (Mrs Wormwood), Anthony O'Donnell (Commander Kaagh), Mina Anwar (Gita
Chandra), Ace Bhatti (Haresh Chandra).
Sarah Jane encounters an unwelcome face from the past. Mrs
Wormwood is being hunted by the Bane, and she needs Sarah Jane's help stop them
using an ancient alien power to take over the galaxy. Meanwhile, Gita has
vanished, and Sarah Jane seeks help of her own - from the Brigadier.
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
1st December, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Part Two
8th December, 2008 5h15pm
- 5h45pm
Notes:
None.
Working late at her florist shop, Rani’s mother Gita phones
her daughter to explain that she has received an emergency order from an
unnamed woman and will be working through the night. Soon there is a knock at
the door and Gita discovers it is her client, who has come to hand over a
cheque for the flowers. Gita looks at the name on the cheque and muses that it
is an unusual one…Wormwood.
Mrs Wormwood turns on Gita and holds up her hand, revealing
a large ring on one of her fingers. Suddenly the stone begins to glow and Gita
clutches her head in pain. She falls to the floor, and Mrs Wormwood is left to
laugh at her triumph.
Part One
(drn:28'05")
That same night, on Bannerman Road, Luke tosses and turns in
his sleep, haunted by visions of the day he was born in the Bubbleshock
factory. He awakens to see the woman who created him – Mrs Wormwood – standing
at the end of his bed, calling his name. He hastily turns on the light but when
he does so, she is gone.
The next morning Sarah Jane comforts her son, claiming what
he witnessed was simply a nightmare, and that the real Mrs Wormwood did not
know he had been called Luke, for she was destroyed before Sarah chose his
name. Luke is still not convinced, claiming he has never dreamt before now.
There is a knock at the door and Sarah hurries to answer it.
It is Rani, who is in a state of shock after discovering her mother has not
returned home from work. Sarah and Luke hurry over to Rani’s house to ask
Haresh about the incident but they learn little else, only that the shop floor
was found covered in flowers – as if a struggle had taken place.
Sarah then takes Luke to Gita’s shop, where they are joined
by Clyde. Sarah picks up an alien signal in the vicinity but the trace is too
weak to identify which species. However, upon finding the cheque on Gita’s
desk, Luke realises it is the Bane, the race that created him.
Hurriedly returning to Bannerman Road, Sarah speaks with Mr
Smith, suspecting the cheque is a clue left by Mrs Wormwood for her to find.
Sure enough, when Mr Smith scans the cheque, he discovers it is concealing an
address, that of an abandoned warehouse. Sarah takes it as an invitation and
vows to go to the warehouse. Rani, who has just arrived, demands to go as well,
and Sarah agrees, although she tells Luke to stay behind in case Mrs Wormwood
is after him. Clyde remains to look after his friend.
Soon Sarah and Rani arrive at the warehouse, whereupon Sarah
recalls the last time she encountered the Bane, namely their plan to use the
drink Bubbleshock to take over the Earth, and their attempt to overcome the 2%
unaffected by the drink (of which Rani is a member) by creating Luke, a
distillation of thousands of humans who visited the Bubbleshock factory.
Going inside the warehouse, the girls find Gita stood in the
middle of one of the holding areas, seemingly in a trance. Rani rushes over to
her as Mrs Wormwood arrives to confront Sarah, claiming that she has been
watching Sarah and her friends for some time, hence her kidnap of Gita to get
their attention. At last she reveals why she has called upon Sarah – she
requires her help. She claims that Earth, and the rest of the galaxy, is under
threat, and Sarah must help to avert disaster.
Soon two men enter and confront Mrs Wormwood, calling her an
enemy of the Bane and ordering her to surrender or else be devoured. One of the
men transforms into the true Bane form, a squid-like creature, but Mrs Wormwood
uses her ring to distract it, allowing her, Sarah, Rani, and the transfixed
Gita to escape.
As they flee down a corridor, the Bane uses one of its
tentacles to grab Sarah’s leg, and it drags her back towards the holding area.
Reluctantly Mrs Wormwood goes after her and manages to free her, and then the
two women return to escape with Rani and Gita. Mrs Wormwood explains that after
the Bane Mother was destroyed by Sarah in the Bubbleshock factory, she was
thrown out of the Bane Kindred and is now hunted. However, she is fighting
back; not to save her own life but to stop the Bane conquering the galaxy.
Returning to Bannerman Road, Mrs Wormwood releases Gita from
her trance, and Sarah convinces her she had been sleepwalking. Gita appears to
recognise Mrs Wormwood but she claims they have never met.
As Rani leads Gita home, Sarah takes Mrs Wormwood into her
house, where Luke and Clyde are waiting. They all go up to the attic, where
Sarah calls upon Mr Smith and tells him to place Mrs Wormwood in a containment
vortex if she causes trouble. Rani arrives; in time to hear Mrs Wormwood talk
about the legend of Horath and the Dark Empire.
Mr Smith explains to Sarah and the others that the Dark
Empire was a period of tyrannical rule by a reportedly-immortal entity named
Horath. Mrs Wormwood explains that Horath was defeated but not killed, so his
body and consciousness were separated and hidden at opposite ends of the
galaxy. The Bane have found his consciousness (which is being carried by a
mercenary agent) and now they want the body, which is hidden on Earth. As
revenge for being outcast, Mrs Wormwood intends to thwart their plans.
Sarah asks where Horath’s body is but Mrs Wormwood does not
know. Mr Smith explains that the Tunguska Skull, a relic charting the legend of
Horath and his demise, will be able to help them, but it is kept in the Black
Archive, the repository of all alien artefacts deemed highly dangerous, an
archive owned by UNIT.
Ordering Mr Smith to contain Mrs Wormwood, Sarah and her
friends hurry downstairs, but again Sarah insists Luke must remain behind in
case UNIT grow suspicious of her actions and come after him. She tells Clyde to
look after him and orders them not to go near Mrs Wormwood. They agree and,
after hugging Luke goodbye, she and Rani prepare to leave. However, before they
go to the black archive, Sarah claims she must visit an old friend first.
Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, in his
home in the country, is visited by Major Kilburne, who has arrived to debrief
him on his mission to Peru. However, the Brigadier is not interested, claiming
in his retirement he is beyond missions, debriefings and the fools-errands he
is sent on by UNIT as the official envoy. Major Kilburne protests, stating his
official duty, but the Brigadier is again uninterested, instead claiming that
UNIT has lost the benefit of common sense.
Kilburne claims UNIT has adapted to a more hostile age, but
the Brigadier turns on him, claiming his encounters with Daleks, Cybermen,
Autons and Zygons far outweigh Major Kilburne’s operations.
At that moment Sarah and Rani arrive, and the Brigadier
welcomes them, as does Major Kilburne, who has read many of Sarah’s UNIT files.
He bids the group farewell and leaves. Sarah, now in the Brigadier’s
confidence, tells him of her intentions – she needs to break into the black
archive. The Brigadier listens and when she reveals her plans, can only reply;
“Oh.”
Back in Bannerman road, Clyde and Luke talk about parents,
and how important they are. Luke claims that for this reason he must see Mrs
Wormwood, and reluctantly Clyde agrees. Luke hurries to the attic, where Mrs
Wormwood, almost tenderly, speaks to him about his life, and how difficult it
is for him to fit in, to exist alone in the universe without kindred, just like
her.
The Brigadier takes Sarah and Rani to the Black Archive, a
massive security facility. Sarah and Rani hide in the back of the car so as not
to arouse suspicion, and the Brigadier drives through the gates. He checks the
coast is clear and finds Major Kilburne standing around. He manages to move him
on, claiming that he is visiting the archive to research for his memoirs.
Kilburne leaves and Sarah and Rani get out of the car. The Brigadier hands them
a key card and stands watch as they hurry inside.
The archive is a massive warehouse of alien artefacts boxed
up and stored away. Sarah uses a database to find the location of the Tunguska
Scroll, and she and Rani hurry away to find it.
As Major Kilburne and the security guards monitor the CCTV
cameras, the girls at last find the vault containing the scroll, and with the
help of the Sonic Lipstick manage to retrieve it.
On Bannerman Road Clyde answers a call at the door, and
discovers that one of the Bane is waiting for him. He calls up to Luke in the
attic and Mrs Wormwood, fearing for her life, begs Luke to help her:
“Luke, I am your mother!”
In the Black Archive, Sarah and Rani are discovered. An
alarm sounds and the two girls hurry back to the Brigadier, the scroll still in
their possession. Major Kilburne and his men are soon on their tail.
Freeing Mrs Wormwood, Luke and Clyde flee into the back
garden, but the Bane is hot on their heels. Mrs Wormwood tries to fend the
creature off with her ring, really a Sonic Disruptor, but its power has been
drained. The creature corners her as Luke and Clyde escape to the front of the
house, where two more Bane are waiting for them.
Sarah and Rani return to the Brigadier’s car, where Major
Kilburne and his men are waiting for them, guns aimed. Sarah zaps their
earpieces with her Sonic Lipstick, giving her and her friends a chance to
escape. They get in the car and the Brigadier speeds away, narrowly avoiding
the closing gates.
In Sarah Jane’s garden, Mrs Wormwood cowers from the Bane
creature, when it is suddenly blown to pieces…by Sontaran Commander Kaagh. Mrs
Wormwood greets him and asks if he has the Consciousness of Horath. He claims
it is hidden, but it is still safe. Mrs Wormwood is delighted.
“Then soon Sarah Jane Smith shall lead us to Horath and make
us emperors of the galaxy. And she will crawl before me as we crush her world.
Oh, the sweetness…of revenge.”
Part Two
(drn:28'54")
Trapped by two Bane creatures, Clyde and Luke try to fend
them off with a hose, but help is on its way. After Kaagh recharges her Sonic
Disruptor, Mrs Wormwood steps out and uses it on the Bane, causing them to
explode and splatter their remains all over Luke and Clyde.
Soon Sarah, Rani and the Brigadier arrive, claiming that
they have the scroll but must make tracks before UNIT trace them back to
Bannerman Road. Unaware that Kaagh is watching them, Sarah and her friends
hurry Mrs Wormwood to Gita’s shop, where they should be safe. Whilst Rani and
Clyde make tea, Sarah thanks Mrs Wormwood for saving her young friends and asks
her if she has any children, but she claims she does not.
After a bit of verbal sparring Sarah claims that the
containment field created by Mr Smith would have been powered by any weapons
that are present, and sure enough Mrs Wormwood reveals her Sonic Disruptor.
Sarah quickly prevents her from using it by aiming her Sonic Lipstick at her.
To break the stalemate Mrs Wormwood calls out to Kaagh, who
enters with Rani and Clyde in tow. After snatching the Lipstick and crushing it
underfoot, Kaagh aims his gun at Sarah and threatens to kill her in order to
wreak revenge for their last encounter. Mrs Wormwood reveals that Kaagh was
working as a mercenary agent for the Bane, and was carrying the consciousness
of Horath when he found her stranded on a distant planet. The two made a pact
to find Horath and use his power to gain their revenge.
Reluctantly Sarah hands over the Tunguska Scroll and Mrs
Wormwood and Kaagh prepare to leave, but not before Luke has bargained his
friend’s lives by agreeing to go with Mrs Wormwood, who promises Sarah her son
will remain safe as long as she does not meddle any further. Turning to leave,
Mrs Wormwood blasts Sarah, Rani, Clyde and the Brigadier with her Sonic
Disruptor.
Back on Bannerman Road, Gita knocks at Sarah’s door when she
hears something moving in the garden. She finds Major Kilburne lurking around,
claiming to be a relative of Sarah. She takes him back to her house for tea,
where he claims Gita and Haresh must not contact Sarah and tell her of his
arrival, for he wishes to surprise her.
Arriving back at the disused warehouse, Mrs Wormwood looks
after Luke whilst Kaagh checks the perimeter for security. Mrs Wormwood turns
to Luke and laments that after living on Earth the boy she created has become
stunted – he was built for so much more. Luke objects, claiming he enjoys his
life on Earth. He tells Wormwood and Kaagh he will not assist them, but Kaagh
tells him he already has, for Sarah will not interfere whilst he is under
threat. Kaagh then takes Luke and Mrs Wormwood to his space pod, where he
reveals the conscience of Horath, a crystal that is placed inside the Tunguska
Scroll.
Back in Gita’s shop, Sarah awakens and vows to find Luke,
claiming Mrs Wormwood is sorely mistaken about the nature of motherhood if she
believes she will not try to rescue her son. Luke meanwhile, immediately
demonstrates his intellect by correctly guessing the Scroll and the crystal
combined will create a tracking device that will lead Mrs Wormwood and Kaagh to
the body of Horath. Again Mrs Wormwood remarks upon his superior abilities,
before turning her attentions to the Scroll.
She explains that Horath was not a living creature; he was a
super computer with the ability to command the physical nature of the universe.
She looks upon Luke again and claims he is her only kindred, offering him great
power if he agrees to be her prince. Revealing she has no real intention of
sharing power with Kaagh, Mrs Wormwood tries to tempt her would-be son by
handing over the scroll, which he immediately runs off with as an act of
defiance. Kaagh is soon on his tail and a chase ensues throughout the disused
facility, until eventually Kaagh tracks Luke down and holds him at gunpoint. He
is about to shoot when Mrs Wormwood – reverting to true Bane form – intervenes,
wanting Luke to be kept alive. She blasts him with the Sonic Disruptor as a
warning then takes the retrieves Scroll, claiming their journey is almost over.
The Brigadier, Clyde, Rani and Sarah return to Bannerman
Road, hoping to use Mr Smith to trace Luke. As the only person not recognisable
to UNIT, whom the group fears may be hiding nearby, Clyde sneaks towards
Sarah’s house. Finding nothing, he calls Sarah and gives the all clear, unaware
something is watching him from the garden. He walks through the gate as the
others approach the house.
Discovering Clyde to be missing, they step inside and find
him being held by Major Kilburne, who aims a gun at them and orders them to
hand over the Tunguska Scroll. Revealing it has been taken; Sarah watches as
Clyde kicks the gun from Kilburne’s hand and wrestles him onto the sofa. The
Brigadier takes Kilburne’s gun and aims his walking stick at him, Rani standing
by his side. Clyde and Sarah hurry upstairs, where Sarah asks Mr Smith to use
energy traces she has measured from the scroll to trace Luke.
Downstairs Major Kilburne turns on the Brigadier and Rani
telling them that the home world security he seeks to protect is that of his
own world, not theirs…
Upstairs, Mr Smith traces the scroll to a village called
Whitebarrow, the site of a stone circle where Horath is buried.
Back in the living room Major Kilburne reverts to his true
Bane form, but before he can strike the Brigadier reveals a secret weapon – a
dart contained in his hollowed-out cane. He shoots the Bane creature between
the eyes, just as Sarah and Clyde return downstairs. Together they all hurry
outside, where Sarah asks Gita for use of her van. She hands over the keys and
prepares to leave with Rani and Clyde, whilst the Brigadier remains behind to
look after the incapacitated Major. He wishes the others luck, and they depart.
Meanwhile, Mrs Wormwood, Kaagh and Luke arrive at the stone
circle in the Brigadier’s car, but find it is protected by a force field that
stops non-humans from entering. Mrs Wormwood realises those who buried Horath
must have known humans would never need to utilise the circle’s true secrets,
so allowed them access but refused it to any aliens – who would be aware of the
Scroll and the power it could yield.
As Sarah, Rani and Clyde speed towards the circle, Mrs
Wormwood orders Luke to enter the stone circle with the scroll and place the
Scroll in the centre stone. Reluctantly he does so, and immediately tendrils of
light spread to each of the surrounding stones. The ground begins to shake,
almost throwing Sarah and the others off the road, but they manage to power on
as the ground within the circle gives way to reveal a portal to another
dimension – the resting place of Horath.
As Mrs Wormwood laments her new life with Luke, Kaagh
realises she intends to double cross him, but before he can take action she
blasts him to the floor with her Sonic Disruptor, and he drops his gun. Once
more she turns to Luke and offers him the power of Horath, but when Sarah
arrives he runs to join her instead.
Again she tries to tempt him but he defies her, and Sarah
rejoices that she is his true mother, for it is she who has cared for him, not
Mrs Wormwood. She tells her nemesis that she does not truly understand love,
she is a monster. Mrs Wormwood agrees, claiming she rejoices in accepting her
own nature.
Clyde runs over to Kaagh, who is still on the ground. He
asks Clyde to give him his gun, in order to kill Mrs Wormwood, but Clyde has
learned a lesson from Sarah Jane, guns do not make things better. He refuses,
and so Kaagh gets to his feet and, hoping to achieve some honour at last,
charges at Mrs Wormwood and plunges her into the portal. A massive burst of
energy marks their passing and Sarah, Luke, Clyde and Rani look on as the
portal closes. Using a spare Sonic Lipstick she has been keeping safe, Sarah
blasts the Scroll to dust, thus sealing the portal forever.
Soon Sarah, Luke, Rani and Clyde return to Bannerman Road to
bid farewell to the Brigadier. Once he has departed, and after the night sky
has fallen on London, the group of friends stand up in the attic and gaze at
the stars.
“…the truly marvellous thing is to share the wonders that
the universe brings us with good true friends, the people we can rely on no
matter what…the people we love. But the universe hasn’t finished with us yet.
There will always be some alien species visiting Earth, and why not? It’s a
wonderful place to be. Just remember who lives here… ”
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Mrs Wormwood was last seen in Invasion of the Bane, this
story is referenced several times in the course of these episodes.
The Brigadier made his last television appearance alongside
the Seventh Doctor in Battlefield. He has made several appearances in various
Big Finish audio CDs. He and Sarah last met in The Five Doctors.
Commander Kaagh was last seen in The Last Sontaran.
The Brigadier’s trip to Peru was mentioned in The Sontaran
Stratagem / The Poison Sky. When speaking to Major Kilburn he recalls the
events of Day of the Daleks, The Invasion, Spearhead From Space, Terror of the
Autons and Terror of the Zygons.
When speaking to Luke about family matters, Clyde recalls
the events of The Mark of the Berserker.
Sarah mentions Queen Victoria’s encounter with aliens in
Tooth and Claw.
[Back to Main Page]
Comic Relief Special
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Nikki Wilson
Producer
Brian Minchin
Script Editor
Gary Russell
Written by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman
Directed by Joss Agnew
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Tommy Knight (Luke
Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Ronnie Corbett (Rani / Voice of Slitheen), John Leeson
(Voice of K-9), Jimmy Vee (Slitheen).
The gang receive an unexpected visitor...
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
13th March, 2009 7h25pm
- 7h30pm
Notes:
Broadcasted as part of the Comic Relief programme.
Synopsis
(drn:5'09")
Busy at work in the attic, Sarah, Luke, Rani and Clyde
perform a series of checks with Mr Smith; all that is left to be done is to
reactivate the Energy Reversal Beam. However, before Sarah can pull the lever
to do so, the whole attic begins shaking as some alien force locks onto the
house.
Suddenly a short man, dressed in a business suit and bowler
hat, teleports into the attic. He is a representative of the Galactic Alliance,
sent to reward Sarah Jane and her friends for their good work. (An unexpected
event even for him, he was in the middle of a round of golf with Bruciefrax and
Tarbyron). He introduces himself as Ambassador Ranius – Rani for short. The
human Rani explains that that is also her name, he laughs:
“What a hoot! ‘The Two Ranis’.”
He presents them with their gift – red deely boppers – then
hangs up his hat and takes a seat. He is about to recall a story to them about
the fork handles (or is that ‘four candles’?) in the Galactic Canteen when he
is suddenly overcome by a bout of flatulence. He dismisses the various noises
as the creaking of the chair but the others are not convinced, for they have
met aliens with gas problems before – the Slitheen.
The Ambassador claims he is not one of them, but when K-9
teleports into the attic to warn his friends of an intrusion, he is exposed. To
silence the computer he teleports a clamp onto K-9 and deactivates him, before
unzipping his forehead and revealing his true form. Sarah orders him to go but
she and the others are rendered rooted to the floor when their deely boppers –
really booby traps – paralyse their legs.
The Slitheen reveals his intention to steal K-9 and use his
vast databanks to commit crimes throughout the cosmos. As he laments his plans,
Luke tells Sarah Jane that they must activate the Energy Reversal Beam. Clyde
assists by grabbing the Ambassador’s hat and throwing it at Mr Smith’s console,
activating the beam and allowing Sarah to use her Sonic Lipstick to deactivate
the deely boppers, paralyse the Slitheen and reverse the teleport that brought
him to the attic.
“And it’s goodnight from him”.
Sarah, Luke, Clyde and Rani relax now that danger has
passed, whilst K-9 reboots his system, this time sporting a Red Nose.
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
The Slitheen were last seen in The Lost Boy. K-9 also made
an appearance in that episode, as well as in Journey’s End.
[Back to Main Page]
Prisoner of the Judoon
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Piers Wenger
Producer
Nikki Smith
Script Editor
Gary Russell
Written by Phil Ford
Directed by Joss Agnew
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Tommy Knight (Luke
Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), Paul Kasey (Captain Tybo), Nicholas Briggs (Voice of
Captain Tybo), Mina Anwar (Gita Chandra), Ace Bhatti (Haresh Chandra), Terence
Maynard (Madison Yorke), Robert Curtis (Security Man), Mark Goldthorp
(Androvax), Scarlett Murphy (Julie).
Sarah Jane and the gang face the most dangerous day of their
lives, as the rhino-like Judoon return. When prisoner Androvax the Destroyer
crash-lands on Earth, a Veil is set free and starts to turn Earth’s technology
against itself. And his next intended victim is Sarah Jane.
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
15th October, 2009 4h35pm
- 5h00pm
Part Two
16th October, 2009 4h35pm
- 5h00pm
Notes:
None.
Part One
(drn:27'59")
"My name is Sarah Jane Smith and once, I travelled
amongst the stars. I saw worlds beyond imagination, I went to places beyond my
wildest dreams and met creatures beyond my darkest nightmares...and all of it
was amazing. Then one day when I wasn't expecting it, I came home. Life
changed, more than I could ever have believed possible. Now, I have a son, even
a family of sorts. Life is good on Bannerman Road, even if you sometimes have
to work at a weekend..."
Waving goodbye to her son Luke and his friends Clive Langer
and Rani Chandra, Sarah Jane drives away from Bannerman Road and, some time
later, arrives at Genetec Systems, a gleaming new research facility where its
owner, Madison Yorke, tells her about his latest experiments in nanotechnology
- the development of microscopic robotic particles capable of completing
intricate or dangerous tasks a human cannot perform.
Sarah voices the concerns certain environmental scientists
have made about the destructive capability of such robots, but Mr. Yorke is
dismissive of the idea, also shrugging off further claims that he has been
doctoring his findings to secure financial backing.
Eventually Sarah's questioning gets her thrown out of the
building and she is forced to return home.
"As I said, my life changed, but I love my job and my
life, because despite all of the amazing things I saw on other planets, I've
learned that living on Earth can be just as exciting. If you keep your eyes and
mind open you'll find extraordinary things happen everywhere, even on your
street; because once you've seen the universe for real nothing ever looks quite
the same again."
Just as Sarah arrives home she and her friends look up to
the skies to see a massive ball of fire hurtling towards Earth. Clyde excitedly
asks if it was something more than a falling meteor, and to find out he, Sarah,
Luke and Rani all venture up to Sarah Jane's attic.
Sarah calls on Mr. Smith, her super-intelligent alien
computer, to analyse what the object was and he confirms that it was indeed a
spaceship, belonging to a Judoon - a race of rhinoceros-like creatures who act
as intergalactic police. Although military organisation UNIT have already
reached the crash site, he claims that a pod was ejected from the ship before
impact and has not yet been recovered.
The four friends hurry outside to Sarah's car but are
interrupted by Gita, Rani's mother, who has arrived to ask Sarah if any of her
journalistic contacts could prove useful in promoting her floristry business.
Sarah is sceptical but gives her the address of Genetec Systems before speeding
away with the others.
They arrive on an abandoned estate ten miles from the main
crash site, but before they can investigate they are shot at by a Judoon. They
quickly take cover and soon realise that it is not they the Judoon is aiming
for, it is another creature on the run through the estate - the ship must have
been a prison carrier, and its convict has escaped. The Judoon soon disappears
in pursuit and Sarah worries about what might happen if the conflict on Earth
gets out of hand - Judoon care very little for humans so anyone getting in the
way could be dangerous. She vows to help catch the prisoner before anyone gets
hurt.
Elsewhere on the estate the Judoon cautiously follows its
prisoner but is caught off guard and knocked out by the escapee - a lizard-like
creature with a long hissing tongue. It hears Sarah and her friends approaching
and flees, leaving them to help the injured Judoon back to its feet. The
Judoon, named Tybo, examines Sarah and assimilates her language so as to make
communication easier. Immediately he accuses the group of impeding his inquiry
and threatens to execute them, but is in no fit state to do so. Sarah asks
about the prisoner he has lost and Tybo tells her that he is known as Androvax,
the Destroyer of Worlds.
Suddenly a scream is heard and Sarah and Clyde hurry off to
find the cause. They arrive in an empty church hall, where they find a small
girl stood alone with her back to them. Hearing them she turns around, claiming
that 'the monster' has taken her mother. Sarah calls Luke and tells him to keep
Tybo busy whilst she looks for Androvax - she needs to find him first to avoid
bloodshed.
Luke bluffs to Tybo about Androvax having been sighted
heading back to the crash site and the irritable Judoon Captain quickly turns
walks off to intercept him, Luke and Rani following close behind.
Back in the church hall, Clyde searches the building for
Androvax but the search is fruitless, he ponders why a Destroyer of Worlds
would bother to take a little girl's mum, and Sarah worries that she may be a
hostage - one Tybo will have little regard for if it comes to a showdown.
The little girl - Julie - recalls seeing Androvax, and is
still scared by the encounter. Sarah and Clyde try to reassure her and she
seems to calm down, but by now Sarah has had a chance to run a scan of the girl
with her wristwatch computer, and confirms it reads her as not being human.
Immediately Androvax - the lizard creature - emerges from the girl's body and
with a single touch paralyses Sarah. Clyde asks what it is Androvax is after
and he claims that he wishes to retain his freedom. He then merges with Sarah's
body and, using it as a disguise, sends Clyde into a similar state of
paralysis.
Meanwhile, Tybo soon realises that he has been lied to and
Luke and Rani try to fob the incident off as a mistake. Citing the phone call
as the cause of the 'mistake', Tybo takes both of their mobile phones and
stamps on them to prevent further delay.
Still possessed by Androvax, Sarah returns to Bannerman Road
whilst Tybo makes his way to the church hall on the abandoned estate. They find
Clyde's frozen body and manage to revive him, after which he reveals what has
happened to Sarah. As Julie and her mother - also hidden in the hall - start to
wake up, the three young humans and their Judoon ally leave. Outside, Tybo
intercepts a Police car and commandeers it from the two officers sat inside. He
then takes the wheel himself and after promptly snapping the handbrake off,
slowly pulls away.
Back on Bannerman Road, the mind-controlled Sarah enters the
attic and calls upon Mr. Smith for assistance. Despite his suspicions about
Sarah's changing speech pattern and body language, Mr. Smith is forced to
comply as Sarah enquires about his ability to infiltrate any computer system on
Earth.
On the road, Tybo pulls up at a junction and takes the
opportunity to marshal another motorist about the volume of their stereo. After
threatening them with his gun they quickly comply and he drives off, still
accompanied by Luke, Rani and Clyde.
At Genetec Systems, Gita and her uncooperative husband
Haresh pull up outside the building to canvas for business. Haresh worries that
their activities might be considered sinister, given that they are turning up
unannounced. Undeterred by his pessimism, Gita goes inside and her plant-laden
spouse follows.
Tybo and the others arrive back at Bannerman Road but
discover Sarah has already left. The Judoon Captain is eager to leave given the
lack of a lead in his enquiry, but his human accomplices protest, claiming
Sarah may have left a clue as to her new whereabouts. At the moment Tybo
receives a signal telling him a full Judoon taskforce is on its way to assist -
they have only forty-five minutes before the planet is overrun.
Meanwhile in the laboratory building, Gita and Haresh are
discovered by a security guard, who escorts them from reception to another part
of the building just as Sarah arrives. She makes her way to one of the main
labs where she finds Mr. Yorke, whom she frightens by destroying one of his
computers with her Sonic Lipstick. He tries to call security but Sarah claims
he has already disabled the building's communication system. She then explains
that she has come to take the nanoforms, requiring them to build her something.
Luke, Rani, Clyde and Tybo all ascend to the attic and call
on Mr. Smith; however a nasty trap has been laid for them. As soon as the
computer is activated he warns them to run - Sarah has programmed him to
self-destruct in sixty seconds once activation is triggered. As the countdown
begins he warns that the blast will destroy Bannerman Road.
Part Two
(drn:28'17")
Again Mr. Smith tells the children to run but they stand
their ground. Tybo threatens to use his gun to destroy the computer before it
can detonate, but instead Luke takes centre stage, reasoning with Mr. Smith
that since his central protocol is to defend the Earth, and since Sarah's order
contradicts this, he must therefore override the command to detonate. After
considering this Mr. Smith accepts and cancels the countdown with one second
left to spare.
At Genetec Systems Sarah (alias Androvax in disguise)
manages to upgrade the nanoforms to widen their capabilities and forces Mr.
Yorke to input their activation code. As he does so she reveals her plan for
the microscopic droids - they are going to build her a spaceship.
Mr. Smith reveals what Sarah was looking for when she came
to see him - she has gained access to the blueprints of the spaceship that
crash-landed on Earth in 1947 in Roswell. Luke realises that Androvax plans to
rebuild the ship and escape the planet before the Judoon fleet arrives - after
being awakened from their sub-zero state of storage; the nanos will be able to
construct the ship in less than thirty minutes.
At the lab Mr. Yorke realises that Sarah has reprogrammed
the nanoforms to multiply at an accelerated pace, causing them to spill out of
the containers and into the open air. He warns that they will devour the planet
if not contained but this is all part of Androvax's plan - once the spaceship
is constructed he will be able to cover his tracks by destroying Earth.
Meanwhile, Gita and Haresh are still being held by the
security guard in his office. When a security alert goes up he is forced to
leave them but locks them in to prevent them from causing any more trouble.
Once he is gone Haresh begins trying to pick the lock, but with little success.
Gita manages to save them time by locating a spare set of keys in the desk
drawer.
Luke, Rani, Clyde and Tybo arrive outside the laboratory in
time to find the nanoforms swarming on the roof of the building, beginning
construction of the ship. Their arrival is detected by Sarah in the main lab,
and despite her reflection - which shows the true Sarah hidden beneath
Androvax's possession - warning her that they will stop the evil plan; she vows
that they will never gain entry to the locked-down building.
Back outside, after Tybo forces them to adhere to the pay
and display restrictions in the car park, Clyde, Rani and Luke try to get past
the main door. Finding it locked Tybo draws his gun, but before he can fire Mr.
Yorke manages to reverse the lockdown and allow them access. As punishment
Androvax turns on Yorke and sends him into a paralytic trance.
Downstairs Tybo manages to scare off the security guards in
time for his human aides to study a map of the building and head towards the
laboratories. On the way Rani spots her parents walking around the facility and
does her best to hide herself, her friends and their Judoon guardian.
Gita and Haresh, having gotten themselves lost, are looking
for an exit when a squadron of four Judoon officers teleport into the building
beside them. As Tybo did with Sarah, one of the troop scans the humans and
adopts their language before leading the others away to carry out their tasks,
warning that obstruction will result in death.
In the lab Androvax again quarrels with his reflection,
belittling the suppressed Sarah for attempting to act as conscience. He
threatens to harm her friends if she is not silent, but Sarah remains confident
that he will not succeed.
Despite Tybo protesting that they are not authorised to
enter the labs, Clyde, Luke and Rani make their way into the test rooms to
search for Sarah. The room they try is empty but they do manage to trap Tybo -
who has received communication from the recently-arrived troop - in a
electro-dampening cupboard to stop him from slowing down their investigation
any further and so that the other Judoon will have to find him first before
they can look for Androvax, as his radio will not work in the dampening field.
Gita and Haresh watch as the Judoon search the building. It
then dawns on Gita that the security guard took her mobile phone when they were
caught, and drags her husband away to find it for fear of it, and all of her
contacts, being lost.
Luke, Rani and Clyde manage to find Sarah and warn the
creature possessing her that the Judoon have started to arrive in the building
so he had better leave. Luke tells him to release his mother before he goes,
but Androvax claims that he cannot, for he knows that once released, Sarah will
not allow him to escape.
The children urge Sarah to fight the being controlling her,
claiming she is strong enough to expel Androvax. For a moment it appears to
work and Luke embraces her, but this is simply a trap to get him close enough
to send him into a trance. This done, she turns on Rani and Clyde and, using
the Sonic Lipstick as a remote control, summons a swarm of nanoforms to devour
them. They run out of the lab and through the building, the black swarm
spreading after them. Narrowly avoiding the Judoon squadron, they lock
themselves in another laboratory.
In the main lab Sarah brings Luke out of his trance and
takes him to the completed ship. Once inside Luke marvels at the scale of the
nanoforms' construction.
Clyde and Rani search for a weapon to fight the approaching
swarm and seem to find an answer when they recall Luke's claim that the
nanoforms fall dormant in sub-zero temperatures. As the Judoon patrol manages
to locate Captain Tybo and release him from the dampening chamber, they grab
two fire extinguishers and freeze the swarm and hurry outside to find a way of
stopping the robots for good.
Inside the spaceship, Luke urges Androvax to let Sarah go,
but he refuses. Through his conversation it becomes evident that Sarah is
fighting for control, her voice breaking through occasionally to reveal that
Androvax's penchant for destroying other people's worlds was born from the
destruction of his own. He admits that his planet was frozen by a dying sun,
leaving his people entombed forever and him alone in the universe. His jealousy
drove him to show other races the single truth of the universe: destruction.
Clyde and Rani continue their flight but find themselves in
the company of Tybo and the other Judoon. Found guilty of multiple offences,
they are sentenced to death but before Tybo can fire at them, the nanoforms
turn on the building and begin devouring it, causing a tremor that acts as
enough of a distraction to allow the two humans to escape. The Judoon follow.
They ascend to the spaceship - having been allowed in by
Luke, who recalls all of the controls from the blueprints displayed by Mr.
Smith, and watch as the young genius reveals that he has removed a vital fusion
mechanism from the ship, rendering it useless. He warns that Androvax can only
have it back if he releases Sarah and disables the nanoforms. Having seen the
Judoon approaching, the volatile alien is forced to obey. He steps out of
Sarah's body just as the Judoon arrive.
The tremors grow fiercer as Androvax reiterates to Luke that
the only truth of the universe is destruction. He agrees that demolition is key
to evolution, but claims that really the truth of the universe, it's once
constant, is survival. He turns away and sets to work at the computer, using it
to hack into the Genetec computer system and access the nanoforms' programming.
He succeeds, and the swarm surrounding the building are deactivated.
Defeated, Androvax turns on Sarah and warns that, even if
not by his own hand, one day she will be destroyed. He is led away by the four
Judoon guards whilst Tybo turns to Clyde, Luke and Rani and claims that, having
helped secure his prisoner they no longer face the death penalty, rather they
are to be grounded henceforth to Earth. He then claims that the Judoon will
confiscate the newly-built ship and orders the others to leave.
The four friends make their way outside, narrowly avoiding
being seen by Gita and Haresh, and speed away in Sarah's car just as Mr. Yorke
awakens and steps out side in time to see the ship take off and blast into the
heavens.
Returning home, Sarah claims that although things may die
all the time in the universe, just as Androvax claimed, that death is always
the start of something new, and that is the stunning thing about the cosmos.
Soon they are joined by Gita and Haresh, who claim that they
have seen aliens. Gita urges Sarah to turn their story into an article, and
hurries away to prepare to reveal all, whilst Clyde joshes his headmaster about
believing in the otherworldly. Mr. Chandra claims that nobody will believe the
tale, claiming that to the rest of the world, Bannerman Road is an ordinary
place - what could ever happen there? Sarah tells Luke:
"Oh, that's the wonderful thing about the universe.you
just never know."
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
The Judoon first appeared in the 'Doctor Who' story Smith
and Jones, and then again in The Stolen Earth.
Androvax's ship is a copy of the vessel that crashed in
Rosewell and was covered up by the Dreamland facility.
[Back to Main Page]
The Mad Woman in the Attic
Executive Producers
Julie Gardner
Russell T. Davies
Piers Wenger
Producer
Nikki Smith
Script Editor
Gary Russell
Written by Joseph Lidster
Directed by Alice Troughton
Incidental Music by Murray Gold
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Tommy Knight (Luke
Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Alexander
Armstrong (Mr Smith), John Leeson (K-9), Souad Faress (Old Rani Chandra), Gregg
Sulkin (Adam), Brian Miller (Harry Sowersby), Toby Parkes (Samuel Lloyd),
Eleanor Tomlinson (Eve), Kate Fleetwood (Ship).
Rani investigates strange rumours about a demon living in a
funfair at the seaside. What she finds there, however, is far more alarming
than that and she makes a decision that affects not only her future, but also
the futures of all those she cares about...
Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One
22nd October, 2009 4h35pm
- 5h005pm
Part Two
23rd October, 2009 4h35pm
- 5h00pm
Notes:
None.
Ealing, London, 2059 On a stormy night a teenage boy makes
his way into the attic of 13 Bannerman Road. Looking around at the gloomy, bare
room he peers at a hunched figure cowering beside the window. He talks to the
stranger, claiming he has not intention of causing harm. The figure - an
elderly woman - understands why he has come; he wants to see if the legends of
the 'mad old woman of Bannerman Road' are true. She tells him to come closer
and he asks her her name. "My name is Rani. Rani Chandra."
Part One
(drn:27'43")
The elderly Rani listens as the boy, Adam, explains that he
lives across the road and after having heard the stories about her at school,
could not resist the urge to investigate. He watches as she takes a box from
the windowsill and sorts through its contents - photographs of the people she
used to know and love - her parents, Sarah Jane Smith, Luke, and Clyde - now
all gone.
She remembers Sarah and how she changed her life, something
she never thanked her for because she never thought that one day the adventures
all four of them shared together might end. She recalls the monsters she
witnessed back before aliens were commonplace visitors to Earth - when not
everybody knew everything.
Adams asks how she came to be alone in the attic and she
claims it was simply because of a single mistake she made when she was a
teenager.
Back in 2009 the teenage Rani, having found a report of
strange lights in the sky on the Internet, hurries over the road to see Sarah,
Luke and Clyde and tell them about her discovery. Unfortunately, they have
already uncovered this and managed to confirm with Mr. Smith the computer that
it was simply a bolt of lightening. Rani then listens as her three friends
recount the latest adventures of their old companion Maria, who is now living
in America and assisting the government with alien cover-ups.
Feeling dejected Rani returns home where she finds an e-mail
on her computer from an old friend of her own - Sam Lloyd, whom she lived near
before moving to London but lost contact with when he stopped returning her
calls. Now having found something he would like her to investigate, he has
broken his silence.
She returns to her old hometown to find Sam - more irritable
than she remembers - who takes her to the now-abandoned amusement park. He
claims that recently, four people have disappeared after entering the grounds,
all homeless and therefore passed over by the police. Soon after a young boy
went snooping around one of the old rides and claims to have seen a demon
haunting the attraction. Having heard from Rani that she now spends her life
hunting aliens, Sam asks her to investigate.
Rani is keen on the idea but finds herself going on alone -
despite wanting someone to solve the problem, Sam has no interest in doing so
himself. He wanders off as Rani makes her way inside the park, making a log of
her findings on a voice recorder. Soon she is discovered by the park's
caretaker, Harry Sowersby, who tells her to leave.
She bluffs her way into his office by claiming to have
twisted her ankle, and once they are inside she begins to question him about
there being someone or something living in the park. He rebuts the idea but
when a ghostly voice is heard announcing "playtime is beginning",
Rani's suspicions are confirmed and she leaves to find the source of the noise.
Left alone, Harry turns to his wash basing mirror, where a haunting red face
appears and recites the incantation once again.
Rani ventures outside and sees four people - human but with
red eyes - marching across the park and onto various rides. The attractions
begin working again and the possessed punters dutifully enjoy their outing.
Back on Bannerman Road, Sarah realises that Rani has gone
missing and is worried she may be responsible after dismissing her friend's
story earlier that day. Realising they need to find her, Clyde prepares to
search Rani's house, under the pretence of having left a book there.
At the amusement park, Rani refuses to answer calls from her
friends whilst the spectacle continues. The demon's voice announces that
"playtime is over" and the attractions all come to a halt.
Having searches Rani's room, Clyde returns to the attic and
shows Sarah and Luke the e-mail Rani received from Sam. Sarah is hurt that Rani
has revealed all of their secrets to the boy and calls on Mr. Smith to
investigate Sam Lloyd, whom they discover is actually living in a care home
after his parents died in a car crash.
Meanwhile, Rani records her findings just as Harry arrives,
telling her again that she should leave. Refusing, Rani heads towards the ride
the four abductees came from before mounting the rides. She heads inside with
Harry following close behind, just as playtime begins again.
Elsewhere, Sarah, Luke and Clyde arrive at Sam's care home -
and he seems to have been expecting them. Shrugging off their pleasantries he
tells them he will reveal Rani's whereabouts:
"She's with her."
Rani eventually finds her way to a hidden room at the heart
of the abandoned ride, there she finds a girl standing with her back to her.
This, Harry claims, is his own little girl, Eve, and she needs somebody to play
with. He swiftly locks the door leaving Rani and Eve together. Rani panics but
then turns to face her new companion - the red-skinned demon.
Having learned little from Sam other than the mystery of the
amusement park, Luke elects to stay behind and talk to him whilst Sarah and
Clyde go in search of Rani. Sam watches them go.
Rani tries to speak with Eve, who communicates
telepathically. Reading the young human's mind, Eve reassures Rani that she
need not worry so much about proving herself to her parents and her friends -
she knows they love her, and that they are proud of her. Rani is astonished.
On their way to the park, Sarah and Clyde bicker about their
friendship and who discovered who - Sarah insists she chose her allies but
Clyde claims she had no choice. He teases that her memory may be failing with
age, and runs ahead leaving Sarah to smile.
Rani asks Eve about her own childhood and reluctantly she
reveals that she is an orphan. Many years ago a war between two alien races,
neither of them her own, raged across time and space, and due to her people
being able to read time lines, they came under attack and were exterminated.
Her parents managed to save her by placing her in a ship and sending her off
into space. It is so long ago now, that she can no longer recall her own
mother's face.
As Sarah and Clyde arrive outside, Rani watches the homeless
people forced to play on the rides. She asks why they do so and Eve claims that
she makes them - she saw that they were sad and alone and so made them be happy
again.
Outside Clyde tries to talk with one of the players, but he
receives no reply. Soon Harry arrives.
Back at the care home Luke talks to Sam about losing the
people they love. Sam claims that Luke is lucky to still have a mother, despite
losing Maria; he has no other friends or any family to care for him. However,
as he turns to his mirror he insists that he is not alone; and immediately the
red face that spoke to Harry appears before him in the reflection.
Whilst Sarah and Clyde try to find out from Harry where
their friend is gone - the old man insisting she is still safe - Rani urges Eve
to let her human playthings go. Eve ignores this and instead returns to reading
Rani's mind, seeing the events of the morning in the attic and telling her that
despite how she felt, she needs Sarah, Luke and Clyde. Reacting badly to the
intrusion, and once again rejecting a mobile call from her friends, she
offhandedly claims:
"I wish they'd just leave me alone"
In the office Harry leads Sarah to his mirror, seemingly at
the command of the face in the reflection. Likewise, Sam grabs Luke and
presents him to his own mirror; the face inside wants to know more abut the
extraordinary mother and son.
At the abandoned ride Eve presents Rani to yet another
looking glass, and offers t show her the future. Rani protests, claiming it is
wrong to know. Eve goads her, claiming that is a doctrine imposed by Sarah
Jane. Convinced, Rani agrees to look into the glass, but when she does the
future she sees is not a happy one.
"Oh god, make it stop. Please, no, I can't become that.
I'm so lost, so alone. The mad old woman of Bannerman Road."
Part Two
(drn:27'14")
Up in the attic, in 2059, Adam lights some candles as the
elderly Rani prepares to tell more of her story.
She recalls how the red face in the mirror - knows as 'Ship'
- showed Luke his past, how he was created in a laboratory, and then his future
as a successful university graduate. She then turns to Sarah and shows her her
entire life; from losing her parents to growing up on her own and then to her
travels across the stars with a man known as the Doctor - who cared for her
despite his changing face and who she found again so many years after they
parted.and now, Ship claims, he is coming back. Sarah reels away from the
mirror and is quickly dragged out of Harry's office by a concerned Clyde.
Rani bursts into tears having seen her own lonely future,
and swears that she will not allow it to happen (but as the Elderly Rani knows,
it already has). She turns to Eve and tells her that she will be allowed to
return to the stars, promising to find her lost space ship.
At the care home Sam is astonished by what the mirror has
revealed about Luke's past. As the two boys talk, Sam reveals how lonely he
felt when Rani started her new life in London, but Luke assures him that she
did not forget about him, as if she had she would not have revealed so much
about her secret adventures with Sarah. Luke then begins to realise that Sam
lured Rani back home to make her face the alien in the park - Sam was the boy
who went inside and saw a demon. Sam reveals he knows the creature not as a
demon but as Eve, and tells him that she is his friend. He explains that when
he found her she read his mind and found out about Rani and Sarah. She then
told Sam to bring her to her so that she could help her get away from Earth.
In the park Sarah contemplates the future she has seen - the
image of the TARDIS stood in her attic. Clyde forces her to consider the
present by reminding her Rani may be in danger, and they hurry away into the
ride Rani ventured into earlier. After a few moments they run into Rani and
Eve, and Sarah chides Rani for underestimating the danger Eve may pose. Angrily
Rani leads Eve away but Sarah and Clyde are close behind.
Meanwhile, having left to find a drink, Luke returns to
Sam's room at the care home to find that he has disappeared, leaving behind a
note that reads: "It's not Eve who wanted Rani". He calls Sarah to
explain all that he has seen and she tells him to check Sam's computer for any
clues as to what is really going on.
Sarah then hurries outside to find Rani showing Eve the open
air. Succumbing to a childish fit of glee Eve uses her powers to activate all
of the rides again. Harry arrives and warns her it is not safe to be outside,
but she does not listen and instead manipulates the rides, making them move
faster and faster.
Returning to Harry's office, Sarah summons the face in the
mirror. Immediately she senses that Eve has been allowed outside, and orders
that playtime must stop. She tells Sarah to bring Eve back to her, for she is
too young to be able to control her powers. She explains that she is Ship, the
computer of the craft that brought Eve to Earth. She is currently rebooting
after the crash and has found Harry to keep her ward safe by distracting her
with the rides and attractions.
Meanwhile, Rani grows tired of Eve's manipulation and makes
to leave, but her new alien friend has other ideas. Taking possession of Rani
she forces her to stay, just as Sam arrives as the fairground. He watches as
Eve's powers start to backfire, recoiling on her and burning her mind. Sarah
arrives and makes her stop taking control of the rides, warning her that if she
truly wants friends she must accept those who choose her, not those she forces
to play. Harry also urges her to release her prisoners but she confesses that
she does not know how, only Ship can help.
Sarah, Sam and Clyde take Eve to the beach, where Harry
found her after the crash. They locate her vessel, buried in the sand, and go
inside. Once there Ship is able to manipulate Eve's mind and release all those
she has possessed, including Rani, who then hurries away from the park with
Harry to join the others by the sea.
Sarah speaks with the ship and warns her that Eve will not
be safe of Earth - not everyone is as understanding as Harry and Sam. Ship then
reveals that it was she who made Sam summon Rani, for she knew it would lead to
Sarah following, and it is Sarah she requires - for only she has access to the
power Ship needs to fully recalibrate - Sarah is the only human with a black
hole in her cupboard.
Sarah calls Mr. Smith and asks to be put through to K-9, her
robot dog currently drifting in space around a black hole, keeping it in check
so that it cannot expand and envelop the Earth. He makes contact and sends his
coordinates to Ship so that she can lock onto the black hole and drain it for
fuel. His job done, K-9 teleports back to the attic for good and is given a
frosty reception by a somewhat covetous Mr. Smith.
Harry and Rani arrive in time to see the ship powered up and
ready to take Eve back into the stars. Sam apologises to Rani for being jealous
and Eve offers the orphan the chance to travel the universe with her. He
accepts and the same chance is given to Harry, who also agrees.
Sarah, Rani and Clyde prepare to leave the three new
crewmates for take-off, happy that they will make a good team. However, Ship
has one more task to complete. She thanks Rani for helping to keep Eve safe and
offers to grant her the wish she made back at the amusement park - that Sarah,
Luke and Clyde would leave her alone. Rani realises the folly of what she said,
apologising to Sarah and claiming she was in a bad mood. However, Ship has
taken her at her word and promptly makes all three of her closest friends
disappear forever.
Back in 2059 Rani tells Adam the rest of the story; she left
the ship and watched it take-off, leaving Earth behind and her alone in the
world apart from her parents. As time moved the prophecy of the mirror came
true - she became the mad old woman of Bannerman Road.
Adam then takes his turn to speak, claiming that he does not
really live across the road. For a second his eyes glow red and Rani realises
that he is an alien - Eve and Sam's son. He claims that he has been send by his
mother to fix the mistake and bids her one final wish. She asks that Sarah,
Luke and Clyde should never have been taken, and this he grants. As the
timelines change the attic fills with life and both Rani and Adam disappear.
Fifty years earlier, Sarah, Clyde and Rani leave Eve's ship
together and run for cover as the craft rises out of the sand and ascends into
the skies. Rani apologises to Sarah for causing such trouble by going to the
park alone but thanks her for the extraordinary life she allows her to share.
Sarah also apologises, and tells Rani that by trusting Sam with their secret
she has proved that not everyone is out to harm them.
Soon they all return to Bannerman Road to welcome K-9 home,
and after Rani and Sarah vow to face the future together - Sarah still
recalling the ghostly prophecy about the TARDIS - they join the boys for a
photograph.
Fifty years later the attic is once again teaming with life.
Rani Chandra, recently returned from Washington to see old friends Luke and
Maria, welcomes her children and tiny grandchildren, still in possession of the
photo taken on the day when her life almost changed forever.
Source: Dominic Smith
Continuity Notes:
Footage is used of many previous 'Sarah Jane Adventures'
episodes when showing the pasts of its central characters.
Clips are also taken from Sarah's adventures with the
Doctor, from The Time Warrior, Planet of the Spiders, The Hand of Fear, The
Five Doctors and The Stolen Earth. Clips of the future are taken from The
Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.
Maria was last seen living in Washington D.C. in The Mark of
the Berserker, she left the series in The Last Sontaran.
Eve alludes to the events of the Time War when she discusses
the destruction of her people due to their special relationship with time.
[Back to Main Page]
1.1 Comeback
1.2 The TAO Connection
1.3 Test of Nerve
1.4 Ghost Town
1.5 Mirror,Signal,Manoeuvre
2.1 Buried Secrets
2.2 Snow Blind
2.3 Fatal Consequences
2.4 Dreamland
DW School
Reunion 1 episode
01 Invasion of
the Bane 1 episode
02 Revenge of
the Slitheen 2 episodes
03 Eye of the
Gorgon 2 episodes
04 Warriors of
Kudlak 2 episodes
A01 The
Glittering Storm Audio
A02 The
Thirteenth Stone Audio
05 Whatever
Happened to Sarah Jane? 2
episodes
06 The Lost
Boy 2 episodes
DW The Stolen
Earth / Journey's End 2 episodes
07 The Last
Sontaran 2 episodes
08 The Day of
the Clown 2 episodes
09 Secrets of
the Stars 2 episodes
10 The Mark of
the Berserker 2 episodes
A03 The Ghost
House Audio
A04 The Time
Capsule Audio
11 The
Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith 2
episodes
12 Enemy of
the Bane 2 episodes
S1 Comic
Relief Special 1 episode
13 Prisoner of
the Judoon 2 episodes
14 The Mad
Woman in the Attic 2
episodes
15 The Wedding
of Sarah Jane Smith 2 episodes
16 The
Eternity Trap 2 episodes
A05 The White
Wolf Audio
A06 The Shadow
People Audio
17 Mona Lisa's
Revenge 2 episodes
18 The Gift 2 episodes
19 The
Nightmare Man 2 episodes
20 The Vault
of Secrets 2 episodes
21 Death to
the Doctor 2 episodes
22 The Empty
Planet 2 episodes
23 Lost in
Time 2 episodes
24 Goodbye,
Sarah Jane Smith 2 episodes
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