Sarah Jane S02E11: 'Enemy Of The Bane - Part One'

Woohoo - the Brigadier is back! Boohoo - his long-awaited return is in a stinker of a story that is far too uninteresting and uneventful for the first part of a season finale.

Even the reunion scene between the UNIT legend and Sarah Jane falls flat, precipitated by a poor build up instead of us being whipped up into anticipation about the meeting of two legendary figures. Of course, the show's target audience wasn't even born when the Brigadier made his last Doctor Who appearance, but such a mythical figure in Who folklore deserves a better reintroduction.

The whole plot about the Black Archives and this mysterious Horath is a total mess, and the reliance on flashbacks to the previous Bane story seriously dogs the pace of the episode. At least the Sontaran Commander Kaagh returns at the end of the story, although the circumstances for his presence are unknown and, like the Brigadier, his appearance was hardly built up with suitable tension.

Samantha Bond is good value as the devious Mrs. Wormwood and clearly relishes the part, although the character is inexplicably accepted by Sarah Jane and the gang. Luke's sudden yearning for his real 'maternal' figure is almost as unconvincing as Anjli Mohindra's acting as Rani, who is unable to create a sense of panic at her mother's disappearance - despite unleashing the usual array of bizarre facial expressions.

All in all, the final part of Sarah Jane's uneven second season needs to do a great deal in order to salvage the finale. It's still excellent children's television even at its worst, but the problem is that the show is capable of so much more than this stale episode.

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