So, what did we all think? Overall I give it a solid B. I seem to recall reading on these boards that this show was going to be geared more toward kids than adults, which is why I suppose three lead kid characters, but I thought it was at around the same maturity level as Doctor Who. I do wish they’d named the computer something other than “Mister Smith” and I’m sorry that K-9 won’t be on it regularly. I liked Sarah Jane’s little gadgets and gew-gaws.
That little Kelsy or whatever her name is, the black girl, is awful. I kept hoping she’d get eaten.
The other two kids are reasonably cute, although the boy being an amalgamation of 10,000 humans’ capabilities will no doubt be used in irritating ways whenever convenient.
Is the other girl’s dad a romantic interest for Sarah Jane? He’s a bit young.
What’s up with K-9? Why is he stuck stuffing a black hole up his butt or something?
I liked it overall, especially the little touches. “Mister Smith” struck me as a stand-in name for the doctor (when Sarah met him, he called himself "John Smith), so it worked for me. I also liked Sarah saying “Harry” (Sullivan) and “Alistair” (Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, generally known as "The Brigadier’), the two male companions during her time with the doctor.
The story didn’t reach the level of the current Doctor Who serial, but since it’s aimed for a younger audience, that’s not surprising. I sort of missed that K-9 has been written out, but I suppose they didn’t want him to upstage the kids.
Darn it, I thought this premiered along with Doctor Who next Friday. Oh well. Since Sci-Fi doesn’t believe in reairs I guess I’m out of luck (legally)…is this light enough that I’ll be able to jump in next week?
I missed that reference – where was it? (another reference I liked was to the residual time-travel radiation)
I liked the look and feel of the show; it’s much closer to the Doctor, something that IMHO would have made Days of our Torchwood much better. It’s looking like a fun show.
As soon as she took it out, both Mrs. Dvl and I looked at each other and said “sonic lipstick!” It was a great moment.
I’m a bit off on the timing of things. She seemed to mention getting into this life just after meeting the Doctor in the school. But that’s an awful lot of gadgetry to have acquired in a couple years. She also had K-9 with her in that episode. Did I mishear?
Lastly, Given the general direction the episode was taking, was anyone else hoping to discover the Bane were really from Raxacoricofallapatorius?
I think they fudged things a bit with that explanation. She was working as an investigative journalist when she met up again with The Doctor, so he wasn’t the inspiration for that aspect of her new life. K-9 was with her in that episode (and was destroyed and rebuilt). Out-of-universe, K-9 is slated to appear in his own animated series in Australia and so won’t be a regular on SJA.
I think this is going to be pretty decent. Where Doctor Who (the new one) is pretty much a grown-up show that’s not unsuitable for kids, this is a kids’ show that’s not too twee or noisy for grownups.
The last we heard of the annoying Kelsey was that she was “backtracking like mad” and insisting the day’s events never happened, so I don’t suppose she’ll be seen much in the future.
I would have preferred something like “Archimedes” or “Aunt Lavinia” (see classic Who) as a name for the computer instead of “Mr Smith”; the vaguely spousal name makes me wonder how much Sarah Jane uses it to surf for porn.
But I was more bothered by the computer being hidden in the wall, and unveiling itself so dramatically. It seemed so unnecessary. Wouldn’t it be more effective for the computer to be “hidden in plain sight”, disguised as a normal PC, until and unless Sarah Jane speaks to it? OK it probably can’t be made to look completely normal, but a lot of gamers and geeks have pretty strange-looking computer rigs already, and in a room already littered with alien tech a PC would need to be very, very weird to attract attention.
I kind of like it. I read one review that said the episodes get better after the first. Is it normally a half hour or hour show?
I didn’t like Kelsey either. I’m glad she’s not a regular part of the gang.
It was cool that Sarah Jane was a little more concerned about the effect her lifestyle would have on her potential companions than the Doctor is.
I’m glad K-9 is not going to be seen a lot. He sounds like a domesticated Dalek.
The sonic lipstick was cool!
The amalgam boy struck me as a Kyle Xy clone, right down to his lack of belly button.
I was a little confused about the girl’s parents. I thought they were divorced, but the mom seemed to be spending a little too much time in their new house. I was also sensing some potential Dad-Sarah Jane love interest going on. The aliens in their natural form reminded me of Cthulu.
But I like the idea of “you can have adventures without travelling” aspect. I look forward to the rest of the series.
I watched it Saturday with my son. He seemed to enjoy it as did I.
One odd question, was anyone else that watch the pilot, a Futurama fan?
The plot was half lifted from the Slurm episode. (Which was a funny parody of “Willie Wonker and the Chocolate Factory”.)
I got confused at first though, I thought Sarah Jane was one of Tom Baker’s companions and she looked to young to be the same actress, but she was the same actress. So I looked it up on the IMDB and it not only is Elisabeth Sladen from the Tom Baker years, but she is 60. She looks at least 10 years younger, I was surprised.
She’s sixty? Holy hell, she’s a hot sixty. I would’ve pegged her age as much lower- I kind of thought they were going to set up the girl’s father as a potential love interest. But then, I’m absolutely horrible at judging ages.
One thing really bugged me about the episode… the Bane were scanning every person who toured the factory in order to create Luke, so that they could figure out why the 2% weren’t affected by the Bane. However… how many of the 2% would want to tour the factory that produces a drink they don’t like?
Overall, I’d give it a C. I loved seeing Sarah Jane again, but the episode felt really dumbed down. I know it was for kids, but it felt really rough around the edges.
Once I determined her age, I kept looking and she did look older than I first thought and nothing compare to how she looked back in 1975 as the Doctor’s companion, but she does not look 60 at all. I don’t know how much is her and how much is make-up and camera work, but I think it is impressive.
It has been so long since I seen her, I forgot how cute she was back then. I always remembered Leela more.
OK, so I dind’t see “The Bane Invasion,” we started with “Revenge of the Slitheen” … I dunno why our TiVo didn’t pick up the pilot.
In any case, we were mightily confused, and I’m hoping someone can clarify for us. So far as we remember (and our memory is pretty faulty nowadays), we last saw Sarah Jane being left behind by the Doctor, but she kept K-9. Now suddenly she’s got a sonic lipstick, an omniscient computer, and a kid named Luke. So my question is: huh? Can someone 'splain?
