The Sarah Jane Adventures: Sky Review (4/5)

One of the saddest losses this year was Elisabeth Sladen, the talented actress who played Sarah-Jane Smith in dozens of episodes of Doctor Who and starred in her own spin-off show, The Sarah Jane Adventures. This opening story to her final season was very by-the-books SJA, struggling to deviate from the 'raising a child alien' formula set down in the pilot episode Invasion of the Bane. The acting from the new co-stars isn't much less cheesy than it was in the aforementioned series opener, still bordering on pantomime at times and only redeemed by the superb portrayals of the protagonists by Sladen, Anji Mohandra, Daniel Anthony and newcomer Sinead Michael (Sky). The CGI certainly seems to have improved, though- the Metalkind didn't look too dissimilar to something we'd see in the parent show, an impressive feat considering this is CBBC rather than the more mainstream BBC One. My personal highlights of the episode were Sky's emotional acceptance of her role as a weapon to commit genocide and the shock appearance of the Shopkeeper (it'll be a shame if we don't discover his true nature, but that may be the case as only three of the six planned Series 5 episodes were filmed), but it did feel a shame that Sky couldn't branch out a little more from the boundaries of a kids' show, like many of the Series 4 stories managed to surprise us with. Oh well- still a fun start to what is sure to be a fitting tribute to Ms Sladen!