SJA: The Empty Planet Review (3.5/5)

After the event story of the series, Death of the Doctor, The Sarah Jane Adventures had its work cut out finding three more adventures for Sarah and the gang to go on before series’ end, but The Empty Planet goes some way to filling that Time Lord-shaped void. The premise is similar to all the best zombie films: Clyde and Rani wake up to find Earth deserted bar themselves and one other child…oh, and two robots. Often the tale takes a back-seat to some great scenes between unlikely leads Mohjandra and Anthony, but this is where The Empty Planet feels lacking in that the overall story bottles down to back-and-forth run sequences not a world apart from classic Doctor Who, and where in last week’s story Matt Smith and Katy Manning were there to light up proceedings this week there’s no such luck, and thus this episode fits among the good, but not great ranks of SJA. The Empty Planet is probably the worst of Series 4 so far, yet given its likeability that’s saying something!