January 16, 2022

Retro Rewind: The Sarah Jane Adventures “Eye of the Gorgon” Review

Doctor Who, Other Reviews, Sarah Jane Adventures

Gustaff Behr takes a look back at the third story of the spin-off series.

The Sarah Jane Adventures was a spin-off series of Doctor Who which ran for five seasons, from 2007 to 2011. The show followed former companion, Sarah Jane Smith, after being reunited with the Tenth Doctor, and her friends/companions as they deal with alien incursions…all from an attic in Ealing, London. Retro Rewind travels back in time to see how this decade and a half old show holds up today. Has it aged like a fine wine or some chicken that’s been left out in the sun for too long? This is Series 1, Episode 3 and 4: Eye of the Gorgon!

Eye of the Gorgon was written by Phil Ford and aired from 1 to 8 October 2007. The only noteworthy aspect about this story is that it introduced the running gag of Alan Jackson being exposed to aliens, only for something to happen to make him forget about it.

This serial is perhaps the weakest in the entire first season one. It is also the campiest and kid-friendliest, even among a story with farting aliens. But what sets this story apart is that it just isn’t very interesting. It is the very definition of a generic Doctor Who story with some evil nuns that want to resurrect a mythical creature.

But let’s talk about the nuns for a moment. Their ‘serve the Gorgon’ chant is meant to come across as intimidating, but it’s just too comical to take seriously. Sister Helena, played by Beth Goddard, actually gives a really good performance in contrast. The director forgot to tell her not to take the scene so seriously, and thus she comes across as a genuinely bad person. The Abbess, on the other hand, is simply a cloaked monster that comes out when the plot needs her to. There is no reason to even hide her true nature as the episode early on explains the concept of gorgons and we are even shown one of their petrified victims early one.

While this episode continues Luke’s arc of becoming a ‘real’ boy, we do get to see him and Clyde grow as friends. Clyde guides him through the art of not making foolish choices like ‘talking to strangers’ and how to lie etc. Sarah Jane doesn’t get to do much this episode as it really shines a light on Maria, unfortunately. I say unfortunately because the subplot with her mother Chrissy coming to stay over is utterly pointless and only exists to create artificial conflict. Chrissy as a person is never redeemed and becomes even more loathsome as the season progresses. Not only that, but while Maria’s short outburst at Sarah Jane after her father is turned to stone is a believable reaction, it just feels artificial and needless since that conflict is resolved in the very same scene.

Speaking of conflict, this episode has a lot of plot conveniences. A script rewrite should have happened. Despite driving the way to Lavender Lawns at the start of the episode, Clyde insists he and Luke walk there to warn Sarah Jane. Luke even lampshades that using a cellphone would be quicker, but if they did that, the nuns couldn’t kidnap Luke. And then you have the actual abduction scene. Nobody screams for help and the street is conveniently devoid of anyone who can call the police because if they did that, the story couldn’t happen. Later, Luke and Clyde are being kept prisoner in the abbey library and Luke just so happens to find a secret passageway in a mundane location that somehow has never been found out by any of the nuns living there? Because if they didn’t, the plot couldn’t move forward.

The worst offender of the above is easily the character of Bea-Nelson Stanley, the old lady with Alzheimer’s that the Gang befriends. Bea is lucid only when it’s time to move the plot along, and having Alzheimer’s is the perfect excuse to keep characters in the same location not doing anything while she is lost in her own mind. I found this to be a cheap way to keep the tension. It also made the character of Bea very unlikable to me, even though she comes across as a very sweet, eccentric old lady. I appreciate how this story shows that while alien technology is capable of solving many problems, Alzheimer’s is not one of them. It really highlights how awful this illness is and not giving it some cheap easy fix shows a great deal of respect to viewers at home who may have a relative suffering from Alzheimer’s.

This episode is notoriously full of continuity errors. The most glaring being Sarah’s house number which is listed as being 21 instead of 13. Alan’s statue is also in a different pose after he is petrified. But the funniest is perhaps trying to play ‘when was this scene shot’ when the group visits the abbey. The production crew did a poor job hiding the rainstorm that occurred during filming, resulting in certain scenes being dry and others being wet as can be, sometimes even between shots. This is made worse by other scenes which show a clear, sunny sky until we cut back to the abbey. And it doesn’t stop there, inside the abbey, you can see bright sunny rays cast through the windows with no clouds. Then outside again it looks we’re five seconds away from getting soaked. It’s as funny as it is erroneous.

Eye of the Gorgon is a huge step-down from its predecessor. It’s campy and ridiculous and a slog to sit through. It speaks volumes when the most interesting part of a story are all the continuity errors you want to find while watching it.

So…after so many years, how do you regard Eye of the Gorgon?