"Sarah Jane": A Kids' Show About Middle Age
You have to learn one important lesson at some point, if you’re a geek like me, lest you risk becoming the sort of sweaty, beer-gutted miscreant found haunting second-tier comic book conventions in a ratty Green Lantern t-shirt, debating the relative power levels of Superman and the Hulk with pathological fervor. You have to learn that there is stuff out there based on things you like, but it’s not made for you — and that’s perfectly fine.
Comic book fan that I am, I was mildly appalled when the Teen Titans cartoon show came out a few years back — not because I was any big fan of the comic book series on which it was based, but because it seemed so silly and juvenile compared to the more all-ages Justice League Unlimited airing at the time. But the more I watched the show, the more I realized that it wasn’t bad. It was just designed for people much younger than me. And in that light, it was actually a really good show, stylish and big-hearted and filled with gentle, un-preachy lessons that kids might actually use.
The Sarah Jane Adventures is similar — a spinoff of the more family-oriented Doctor Who, soon to join its older sibling on the SciFi Channel, that’s unabashedly aimed at younger viewers. (How fantastic is it, by the way, that the same middle-budget British sci-fi institution can spawn both the decidedly R-rated Torchwood and this very PG bit of fun?) Adults who insist on watching it should expect a lot more silliness, considerably less menace, and a higher quotient of fart jokes. Still, based on the pilot and the first episode, The Sarah Jane Adventures is well worth watching, especially as a family. Beneath all the kid-friendly fun, there’s a rather sweet and almost haunting exploration of the ways that kids and adults aren’t so different.
Reprising her role from both the original Who series and the new show, Elisabeth Sladen is Sarah Jane Smith, a former companion of the Doctor’s. Though she was unceremoniously dumped back in reality, Sarah Jane never gave up the good fight against monsters and aliens. In the new show, she’s the enigmatic next-door neighbor to a precocious 13-year-old girl named Maria (Yasmin Paige), who stumbles into Sarah Jane’s weird world of wonders and stubbornly refuses to leave. That turns out to be a good thing for both parties. Maria swiftly needs help in dealing with a sinister soda, Bubble Shock, whose omnipresent ads seem to have all her classmates enthralled. And Sarah Jane, much like her time-travelling mentor, is realizing that fighting secret invasions and impossible evils is a lot lonelier and emptier than it might seem. As they investigate the Bubble Shock factory and its extraterrestrial owners, Sarah Jane and Maria also meet a mysterious boy, Luke, (Tommy Knight) with a prodigious intellect and absolutely no knowledge of the real world.
Not exactly sophisticated stuff, true, but it’s fun. The kids aren’t Haley Joel Osment-caliber actors, but they give decent performances, and their characters are written with intelligence and sympathy. The pilot takes great pleasure in skewering Bubble Shock’s slick, predatory marketing tactics, and the way its young consumers shrug off any concerns about the drink by noting that the label says it’s “100% organic.” Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan era of 007 films) makes a wonderfully icy villainess, the special effects walk that fine line between impressive and cheesy, and much of the humor is actually funny, if only in a way that your inner 11-year-old can fully enjoy. (The first episode of the regular series involves the return of Who’s zipper-headed, perpetually gassy Slitheen, made a bit less creepy and a bit more flatulent for younger viewers. Consider yourself warned.)
But the show really shines in the surprising amount of depth it lends to Sarah Jane herself. Sladen’s a warm and charismatic actress, and the writers give her a truly meaty role to play. Like her new young friends, Sarah Jane’s lonely and adrift, trying to figure out who she’s going to be as she gets older. In the first episode of the regular series, she has as much to learn about being Luke’s new adoptive mum as Luke does about fitting in at school. On American TV, it’s rare to see a middle-aged female character given such dimension. (Heck, it’s rare to see any female character acknowledge or act like they’re middle-aged.) As part of a kids’ show, it’s downright remarkable, and really quite touching. There’s also a subtle running joke about Maria’s newly divorced dad having something of a crush on Sarah Jane, which seems like a nice nod to Sladen’s days as a geek goddess on the original series.
I wish that a bizarre tangle of rights issues hadn’t kept sidekick K-9 from more than a cameo appearance. Honestly, is there any television series that couldn’tuse more of a smartass tin dog with a laser in his nose? Still, it’s a nice fix for Who fans eagerly awaiting the upcoming fourth season. Just be prepared to feel a little weird, and maybe a bit silly, if you’re watching it without any kids around.
The Sarah Jane Adventures premieres Friday, April 11, at 7:30 p.m. ET on SciFi.
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