The Sarah Jane Adventures - The Nightmare Man

Now I'm reconnected to the interweb at home, I can do all the essential stuff that just isn't possible when borrowing Wi-Fi from pubs - namely, watching the TV on the internet. And as a result, I can now give you my review of the first story in the fourth season of the most successful Doctor Who spin-off - The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Of course, this is a show primarily designed for kids. Yet to call it a kid's show is rather to miss the point. It is often a surprisingly subtle and multi-faceted programme - much more so than Torchwood often is. And given it has superficially simple stories with decent cliff-hangers, it also resembles "Classic" Doctor Who at its best. The best Sarah Jane Adventures could easily be Doctor Who adventures themselves.

Except this one. Not because it isn't good enough, but rather because it is completely caught up in the mythology of this particular series. It is about what happens when a boy who was not designed to dream suddenly starts having nightmares. It is inventive, clever and creepy - indeed, had I been watching the first episode when I was a kid, I think it would have scared me more than just a bit. Not so much the character of the titular Nightmare Man, but rather because of the logic of nightmares. In particular, doors swinging closed of their own accord and malign faces appearing in the glass is the sort of thing that adult horrors are made of. Indeed, the latter image reminded me of the skull-face in The Exorcist - pretty bold stuff for a supposed children's programme.

And there is a depth to the script that you don't often see in modern kids' TV. Luke's nightmares are not just scary - they also deal with teenage insecurity, focussing on a desperate need to be liked/not forgotten by friends and a fear of parental rejection. These aren't just nightmares for Luke Smith - they are also anxiety dreams, where a predatory figure makes him feel guilt for the very fact that he is being preyed upon. Furthermore, there is a nice fate in store for the villain of the piece - he is not just defeated, but given a fate for all eternity that he would clearly hate. And finally, there are nods to much more adult films - the entire set up (and especially the scenes where Luke cannot let himself go to sleep) reminded me of A Nightmare on Elm Street, while Rani being dragged into the TV was a neat inversion of Ring. Indeed, there may be a whole generation of kids growing up and seeing Ring for the first time and thinking that the most striking scene from that film was stolen from the Doctor Who universe.

Of course, nothing's perfect, and this episode (inevitably, given its focus and what it had to achieve) was Luke Smith's - and while the actor playing him isn't bad, he is probably the least involving and the least charismatic of Sarah Jane's friends. Furthermore, the Nightmare Man himself - as played by former Ghostmaker and Davros Julian Bleach - was a little two over-the-top for my liking. This was probably inevitable - had he been anymore freaky he might have traumatised children. But given his appearance and endless laughing, Sarah Jane didn't need help from the Doctor this time - Batman would have been more appropriate to smack this second rate Joker in the face.

Yet this was a great story, well-told and well-performed. Indeed, as season opener's go, this is probably the best this series has ever managed and better than a couple of Doctor Who's season openers since it returned in 2005. It succeeded in dealing with the departure of two main characters in a satisfying and credible way, while still being a great story in its own right. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a decent TV sci-fi/fantasy story.