The Sarah Jane Adventures: Prisoner Of The Judoon

A flaming spaceship burns up the sky over Bannerman Road and very soon Sarah Jane Smith (Lis Sladen) and her young Scoobie Gang are on the case.

Mr Smith, the supercomputer in her attic, tells Sarah Jane that UNIT are dealing with the main crash site, but they do not know about a pod that was launched moments before the landing.

The pod has slammed into an abandoned council estate and as a distress message has identified the ship as being Judoon.

The gang soon realise that the pod was probably a detention cell of some kind.

Luke (Tommy Knight) and Rani (Anjli Mohindra) assist the injured Juddon Captain, Tybo (Paul Kasey, voiced by the vocally versatile Nicholas Briggs), while Sarah and Clyde (Daniel Anthony) head off after the escaped prisoner, who has the ominous nickname of the "destroyer of worlds".

He is Androvax (Mark Goldthorp), the last surviving member of the reptilian Veil race, who has the ability to "step inside" people and take over their bodies - which he promptly does with Sarah Jane, goes to Bannerman Road, sets Mr Smith to self-destruct then heads off to the nanotech firm Sarah Jane was investigating at the start of the episode to steal their nano-forms to make him a new ship.

Lis Sladen has always been a fine looking lady, but when she goes "all evil", her sultriness rating goes through the roof! More "Evil Sarah Jane", we say!

The first episode ended with Captain Tybo and the youngsters in Sarah Jane's attic and Mr Smith warning them he was about to blow up and wipe out most of the street...

But after Luke managed to talk the computer out of exploding (was anyone surprised by this Captain Kirk-style turn of events?), the second part of Prisoner Of The Judoon ramped the action up a gear for a full-on, all-out romp that really heralded the return of The Sarah Jane Adventures to our screens.

As long as you can accept the fact - as happens in dramas with a similar set-up - that all crashing spaceships pass over Bannerman Road and that Sarah Jane has access to the world's most powerful computer in her attic, then this is a solid start to the season.

It's nice to see the return of a favourite alien race (The Judoon, with their jobsworth habit of obeying 'all rules'), lots of references to the general continuity of the Whoniverse (e.g. The Shadow Proclamation and events from previous stories), and a major 'plug' for Dreamland, the upcoming Doctor Who animated series which deals with The 10th Doctor's adventures in Roswell, New Mexico.

There seemed a fair degree of silliness as well in the early stages of this story - yes, I know it's a kids' show - such as the interaction of the police officers with the Judoon and then the alien driving the police car (although I loved the Judoon telling the boy racer to turn down his car stereo - we need a Judoon round these parts to do that!).

However, having been reminded that the people of Earth are now aware of alien lifeforms, this settled down into more general humour during the thrilling second part and managed to avoid tipping over into slapstick.

Prisoner Of The Judoon mixed thrills, spills and witty banter with some quality alien action (both old - Judoon - and new - The Veil) to create a first rate adventure, that may have started a bit slowly, but eventually took off and reminded us why The Sarah Jane Adventures is as valid a part of the Whoniverse as Doctor Who itself and Torchwood.

It wasn't really about character development, more about staking its claim to our tea-time viewing schedules for the next half-a-dozen weeks.

Next Week: The Mad Woman In The Attic.