azdak

I didn't like this as much as I thought I was going to at the beginning. I had high hopes after the opening scenes. The Grange Hill-style comprehensive school made me instantly nostalgic, and ASH was magnificently creepy - he had a kind of over the top understatedness, if that makes sense, and exuded menace from every pore. And it was an episode that dealt with themes that I find fascinating - growing older, loss, the crucial difference that being able to say goodbye makes. Having Sarah Jane crop up was a stroke of sheer genius. When has any TV show (or film) EVER been able to use the same actress to play her older and her younger self? (without resorting to stupid make-up, I mean). It caught the horror and humilation and pathos that is aging with a cruelty that no amount of faking could ever manage. If I'd been the director, I'd have been tempted to include a flashback, because for those viewers who can remember SJ from the first time around (I have only the vaguest of memories myself, but I do remember her) the impact is visceral, a real gut punch. It gave the Doctor's speech about why he has to leave his Companions a genuine emotional force, because yes, if you were forever young, would you want to sit around watching the people you loved crumble and fade? But having been given this gift of an opportunity they rather wasted it by giving so much time to Rose and SJ indulging in hissy fits, which I honestly thought didn't ring true. The problem they have is with the Doctor, not each other - yes, it must be horrible for SJ to finally see the Doctor again, only to find he's hooked up with a blonde babe, and I can buy that it comes as a terrible shock to Rose to learn that she's only the latest in a long line of Companions. But what hits both of them hardest is that the Doctor leaves. It's not the new Companion that hurts SJ, it's the fact that he never came back to find her. And it's not that Rose sees SJ as a threat, it's that she sees in her her own future. Reducing that to a female pissing contest did the emotional through-line a major disservice.

I'm not sure I'm pleased about having Mickey on board. He gets some great lines, but the actor doesn't quite have the skill to get the most out of them. And he seems a very one-note character.

And, finally, I can't tell you how pissed off I was that K9 wasn't dead. If I'm going to be subjected to that kind of blatant tear-jerking, then I bloody well want it to have been for something, and not just a cheap wallow. Especially in the context of an episode that really didn't pull any punches as far as Sarah Jane was concerned. We're human. Growing old, losing people we love, dying ourselves - it's all part of the deal. And hanging out with the Doctor is the best thing that ever happened to her, but it came at a terrible price. It would have been much more in keeping with those themes if, when he finally does return, it's to take away the only thing she has left that reminds her of him. So that we (and she) wonder if the price of his return wasn't too high.