SJA: The Nightmare Man

[johne]

My disjointed thoughts on Part 1:
]

• Poor Luke. Going away to university is difficult enough as it is, without having exquisitely-tailored personalised nightmares inflicted on you.
  
• I congratulate him on his taste in choosing Oxford over Cambridge.
  
• Where, exactly, does Sarah Jane think Luke is going to keep a car in Oxford? And what does she imagine he'll use it for? It's a very car-unfriendly city, and everything he needs should be in easy range with a pushbike or on foot.
  
• I nearly turned off at the first Raxacoricofallapatorian, though fortunately it didn't outstay its welcome. I do slightly wonder at the implication that it's OK to blow the R21ns to bits because it's funny; is there a Toclafane involved in the script-editing process?
  
• The Nightmare Man himself... Well, so far I find myself imagining Toby Jones appearing behind him dressed in his butcher costume and saying "Did somebody order a large ham?" Or just looking disdainfully at his watch.
  

[

[clocketpatch]

My thoughts:

- I like the smiley face on Luke's calendar
- A mime with a bad French accent? really?
- This episode is making me want to ship Luke/Clyde ...
- "You are such a light weight" They show characters drinking on the children's channel in the UK? Whaaaat?

Next week's episode looks fun. I'm looking forward to seeing evil dream Sarah-Jane in that bad wig.

**

[jjpor]

Just watched Pt 2:

*Is it me, or is Lis Sladen a bit wasted playing Sarah Jane as written for SJA? I see her playing weird old SJ as in Clyde's nightmare in this or the lizard-possessed Sarah in that one last year and sort of see glimpses of the more fun, slighty-daft-sometimes Sarah from the Four years and think "why can't we have more of that?" Not that she doesn't play Sarah very well and with conviction all of the time, it's just that the character seems a bit one-note sometimes, and I put that down to the writing...

Anyway... Yeah, this was an all right one. I personally didn't think it was vintage, mainly due to the fact that the story was pretty underdeveloped. The aforementioned Nightmare Man didn't really seem much of a threat to anybody apart from our three or four regular characters, and moreover was defeated rather easily and handwavily for my liking. I agree about the large ham, johne... ;D I thought Julian "2nd best Davros of them all" Bleach played him quite amusingly, if without much in the way of subtlety. I liked the physicality of the character, but didn't find him as creepy as I've found some of SJA's deliberately creepy characters in the past. Maybe I've grown up or something since last series? God, I hope not! ;D

I liked the nightmare sequences, though, and the character stuff. Clyde, Rani and Luke were as entertaining as ever, I thought. I liked what the nightmares said about them, their fear of life beyond school and their fear of not fitting in, of personal inadequacy, of drifting apart and being left behind. I think these are real fears that people can relate too at that time of life - although I'm not sure how many kids in that sort of 16-17 age bracket would actually be watching SJA really...

So, so long Luke - and so long K9! Good K9 stuff, as ever. Good old John Leeson... I think the little tin dog had the moral victory over Mr Smith at the end there.

Thought: in Pt 1, when Clyde asked why would Luke want to go to university - why, for the drinking and debauchery, educational, interpersonal and career opportunities, of course! ;D

And next week, we have that alien lizard person who possessed Sarah last series vs those Men in Black from Dreamland (yes, it's the same ones - "Mr Dread" and co, but not in rubbishy CGI form) - SJA is getting nearly as self-referential as JNT-era Who - I strongly approve! ;D*

[johne]

Oct 12, 2010 20:47:40 GMT jjpor said:

Just watched Pt 2:

*I personally didn't think it was vintage, mainly due to the fact that the story was pretty underdeveloped. The aforementioned Nightmare Man didn't really seem much of a threat to anybody apart from our three or four regular characters, and moreover was defeated rather easily and handwavily for my liking.*

]While the Power of Friendship is all well and good, I was rather hoping that the moment the NM was facing away from Luke, Luke would whack him over the head with a fire bucket mid-speech ;D [

[clocketpatch]

I'm only about half-way through part two, but I've just realized that the titular villain has a striking resemblance to the very strange man from Torchwood 2: community.livejournal.com/doctorwhy/79362.html

(it's even more striking in his original black & white appearance, but I'm not wadding through 200+ comics to find it)

[jjpor]

I agree with Johne that the direct approach is sometimes the best approach... ;D

And...he does, Clocket. I had the feeling that I was supposed to recognise his voice, that it was a reference to something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Or the actor could have just been doing a daft voice, I guess...

[lynda]

Just watching both these eps in one setting; hopefully by the time the 11th doctor one airs I'll be caught. Oh SJA, how I've missed you. I love how it's a kid's show so they can do all sorts of ridiculously campy stuff like *the nightmare man's acting, or the loser sign they did in the first episode*. That makes it feel like classic Who, really. I really did like *what they dreamed about, though. They have a lot of the same fears about the future that I do*. Also, Clyde and Luke and Rani get more awesome every episode. *Shame about Luke leaving the show.*

[clocketpatch]

Hi Lynda! I don't think I've seen you around for a bit?

The cheese and the camp in SJA is the best bit. Well, that and Clyde, who is the man. I really enjoyed this week's episode. Though... I kind of want to know WHY exactly a commission was formed to pull the wool over humanity's eyes about the aliens and how exactly Sarah-Jane and Jo and Ian and Barbara and the Brig and etc escaped the Men in Black.

... though, I suppose they are a pretty convenient excuse for why no one remembers the first few Cyber Invasions, that time dinosaurs took over Central London, or the Loch Ness Monster... hmmm... I wonder if the Doctor knows...



As for next week... well, I wasn't expecting to see Clyde turn into Eleven in the trailer. That was... odd.

*

[jjpor]

Hiya Lynda - how you doing?

I agree regarding the Nightmare Man - I thought the plotty bits of that story were a bit weak really, but I guess the character stuff was the important part and I thought that worked - it rang very true to the kind of fears we have at that time of life (and afterwards really if, like me, you continue to have trouble getting your head round that whole concept of "growing up"... ;D).

But yeah, I maintain that in terms of format, production values and general feel, SJA is probably the closest thing you're going to get in modern day TV to classic Who.

Clocket, *regarding the Alliance of Shades, well, they were self-evidently doing a bit of a bad job weren't they? I seem to remember them being pretty rubbish when Ten ran into them in Dreamland, so given the sheer number of alien invasions Whoniverse Earth seems to experience, I wouldn't mind betting that they just couldn't keep up with them all, which might be why their activities allegedly ended in 1972... Which maybe not coincidentally happens to be the sort of period when Three and UNIT were at their peak of activity... As I say, there are probably many amusing tales of how the Men in Black and Torchwood, UNIT etc came into conflict at one point or another. And throw the Master into the mix too... ;D*