The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Thirteenth Stone

When The Sarah Jane Adventures began I was worried that the show would devolve into the Murder, She Wrote formula of plots driven by contrived coincidences (how come the police have never realised that wherever Jessica Fletcher goes someone gets murdered? Arrest her - stop the murders!)

Thankfully, so far, the TV series has avoided that, primarily by having the events either tailored specifically for Sarah Jane and her gang or making events be on a scale that it seems natural that Sarah Jane would investigate.

However, The Thirteenth Stone, an original audio story by Justin Richards and read by Lis Sladen, is precisely the scenario I'd feared.

Set during the show's first year, Sarah Jane is chaperoning on a school trip (I guess we can accept that as Luke is still a newcomer in her life and she'd probably want to keep an eye on him); but returning from a 'living history' museum the party stops off at The Stone Whisperers - an ancient semi-circle of stones, now under cover in a new visitor centre.

By sheer coincidence, during their stay, a scientific scan of the stones is completed - revealing that they contain humanoid figures; 12 knights standing guard over the 13th stone, the King Stone.

Luke is possessed by the spirit within the King Stone, an evil monarch by the name of Ravage, and the other stones open up to release the knights that must keep him at bay.

My problem with this kind of set-up is, simply, what if Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria and Clyde hadn't been there? It was sheer luck that they were there at the exact moment the electrical surge from the datascans gave Ravage the power to project his mind out.

Beyond that, The Thirteenth Stone isn't much of a story - unless I missed something, we never really find out who Ravage and the knights are; names are bandied about and, given the nature of the show's mythology, we can assume that they are alien, but this is never even touched on.

The meat of the plot is little more than a protracted chase/fight scene, an "encounter" (in Dungeons & Dragons gaming vernacular) or simply an "incident", that the protagonists appear to laugh off at the conclusion, despite the obvious ramifications and dangerous potential of what could have happened.

After The Ghost House, this was a very disappointing audio - although you still can't fault the wonder of having Lis Sladen read you a Sarah Jane Smith story; just a pity this one was lacking in substance.