The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Second Season (2009)

The Sarah Jane Adventures:
The Complete Second Season (2009)

Dirs: Various | Episodes: 12 episodes, approx 27 mins each.

I was surprised to see one of the regular cast members leave in the first two-parter of the second season. I won't say who, because of spoilers, but it's not Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen), so the series survives the upheaval. But the relationships that were built up in season one had a lot more potential depth to them. I'd even begun to try and predict where things would go after the season finale.

Happily, the replacement character is a similar shaped peg that fits into the existing format well.

There's nothing herein that I'd call filler, but most of the stories are weaker than what came before. The exception, which was both the highlight and the one that quickly became my favourite episode of all so far, was The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith (Dir. Graeme Harper). It's a powerful story making use of a plot device that likely won't be new to fans of science fiction, but that doesn't lessen it. It packs a potent emotional punch that actually benefits from being simplified for a younger audience.

If the melodrama had been piled on too thick, it could've easily swamped the narrative and made it much too schmaltzy, but it avoided the pitfalls, so sincere kudos to the writers for that.

The notion of 'family' is a recurring theme throughout the second season, and ties everything together. It's shown from different sides: responsibility, self-sacrifice, parental abandonment, etc, but it gives each approach the same level of importance. The surrogate mother role that Sarah Jane filled previously is put to the test, and her own upbringing is further explored.

Alongside some rather heavy themes is the affirmation that differences in people should be something that's celebrated, not scorned or used as a basis for ridicule. It's an important message that everyone watching (i.e. not just kids) ought to recognise and take on board.