The Sarah Jane Adventures the complete Fourth Series

There aren’t going to be any more Sarah Jane Adventures, with the sad and unexpected death of Liz Sladen last year the BBC closed down production and so we have just five seasons.

A spinoff of Doctor Who the Sarah Jane Adventures are unapologetically a kids show, pitched at a younger audience. Although not quite as young as the audience that might have thought that the recent K9 series was cool. But does it have anything for the casual adult viewer?

This is season 4 so it must have something going for it or we wouldn’t have made it this far, of course the Doctor occasionally turning up doesn’t hurt the audience appreciation figures. Last season it was David Tennant in his final minutes as the Doctor since that story was filmed after the end of his season four, this time it’s Matt Smith but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

The series starts with The Nightmare Man about an alien that resides in the darkest region of the mind waiting for his chance to manifest in the real world. It’s not terrible but….there’s no easy way to say this. These kids can’t act, their just so wooden. Of the three teenage leads only Anjli Mohindra could not be replaced with at Bunnings without anyone noticing. If you get over this and the terribly hackneyed subplot about Luke leaving for University then it’s ok.

The Vault of secrets is better, it has more aliens and a less predictable plot and it’s choc full of Androvax but who are we kidding this is a mere entrée paving the way for the main course which is:

The Death of the Doctor

A provocative title, Matt Smith teaming up with not one but two past companions and written by the man who bought Doctor who back himself Russell T Davis, what’s not to like?  When the Doctors body is returned to Earth by the Shansheeth Sarah Jane is suspicious as is Jo Grant another of the Doctors past companions invited to the funeral. As their suspicions grow it turns into a race against time to stop the Shansheeth gaining the greatest prize in the galaxy. More of a gift for the fans of the Classic series than anything else the Death of the Doctor succeeds in being a touching adventure.

The rest of the series has it’s ups and downs worthy of special mention is The Empty planet which has super cool robots in it and a pretty good premise. And Goodbye Sarah Jane, a story that would have made a fitting last episode for the series.  But we have half of season 5 left to go.

Special Features: I have to say that this is very weird, Because Liz Sladen died before the release of this set the special features are dedicated to her which is nice but there’s only one special feature and that’s the classic Doctor Who episode Pyramids of Mars in its entirety. A fine bonus to be sure but not exactly what people were expecting I fancy. I suppose that doco’s like My Sarah Jane  and various other tributes will be saved for the Season 5 release. Having said that it’s a fantastic episode and if you’ve never seen it but are a big Sarah Jane fan well worth your time. Although the original DVD release did include a host of great special features and if your really interested you might want to check that out too (you’ll be quoting “I bring you Sutkeks gift of ocelots” for simply ages afterwards).  

Video: The Video quality is up to the standard that I have come to expect from 2Entertain releases of recent material.                                

Audio: Totally fine.