The Lost Boy (The Sarah Jane Adventures)

The Lost Boy is the sixth story of the British science fiction television series The Sarah Jane Adventures. It forms the ninth and tenth episodes of the show's first series. The first episode was aired on the CBBC Channel on 12 November 2007, and the second on 19 November. This episode was intentionally named after Dave Pelzer's The Lost Boy.

Plot

Part 1

Following on from Alan's discovery of what Sarah Jane and Maria do together in Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, he threatens to move house again, only to have a change of heart when he sees how upset Maria is. His condition for not moving away, however, is that he is kept up to date with their battles against aliens.

The next day, the news report on a family searching for their son, Ashley, who has been missing for five months. However, when a picture of Ashley is shown, it brings a shock, since he looks exactly like Luke. Mr. Smith compares their DNA, and confirms that Luke and Ashley are the same person; apparently Luke was not 'grown' by the Bane, but was a kidnapped boy. Chrissie calls the police and reports Sarah Jane as a child abductor; Sarah Jane is arrested and the police release Luke into the custody of Ashley's parents, Jay and Heidi, and Sarah Jane kept by the police, only for UNIT to intervene and have her released. Depressed, Sarah Jane decides she was wrong to involve children and tells Maria to stay away from her. Mr. Smith suggests to her that she have a case to take her mind off things, and she visits a research centre where alien technology is being used to conduct experiments into telekinesis, where she meets an annoying child prodigy, Nathan. That night, when Luke's new parents watch television, they switch over to a channel that glows green and announce to somebody they call 'Xylok' that they 'have the boy'.

Luke's new parents are extremely rude towards him, keeping him locked up in his room at all times. Clyde and Maria play truant to visit him but Maria is caught by their French teacher, leaving only Clyde to visit Luke in his room. He arrives at the house but Heidi does not allow him to see Luke. Heidi claims that her son is a keen skateboarder, which worries Clyde as he knows Luke has a poor sense of balance and is a dreadful skateboarder. To prove her statements, Heidi gives Clyde a photo of her, Jay and Luke together before closing the door. Clyde decides to bring the photo to Mr Smith, so that he could analyze it. Luke goes frantic upon seeing his friend leaving the house, and desperately begins making attempts to escape. Mr. Smith, meanwhile, sends Sarah Jane back to the lab to steal one of the headsets there, which he says he needs to analyse to work out Nathan's plans. Clyde gets to the house only seconds after Sarah Jane has left, but takes the photo to Mr Smith anyway, only for Mr Smith to confess that he faked the photo and that he is the Xylok. Mr. Smith then fires a bolt of energy at Clyde, causing him to vanish.

Back at Luke's new home, his 'parents' are meeting with Nathan, just as he is breaking out of his room, with the result that he fails to escape, but succeeds in discovering that his parents are actually Slitheen using improved compression technology, and Nathan is the same child Slitheen Luke encountered previously, now in a new disguise, and he will have his revenge.

Part 2

Clyde awakes to find himself inside Mr. Smith as Sarah Jane Smith returns from the Pharos Institute, having successfully stolen a telekinetic headset. Elsewhere, Maria and Mr Jackson go to Ashley's house, where they find a skinsuit and Maria realises that Heidi and Jay are Slitheen, and that they have Luke. Mr. Jackson then receives a message on his computer from Clyde, who states Mr. Smith has turned evil. The Jacksons and Sarah Jane confront Mr. Smith and are nearly killed as it fires a bolt of energy from a built-in gun.

Luke is tied up and taken to the Pharos Institute by the Slitheen, where they test his abilities. Luke overcomes the Slitheen and escapes, as Maria, Mr. Jackson and Sarah Jane arrive. Working together, they discover Mr. Smith's intentions with Luke and Mr. Jackson adapts a computer virus that could destroy Mr. Smith. Using the Slitheen teleporter, Sarah Jane arrives in her attic, where Mr. Smith is using Luke to crash the Moon into the earth, to release other Xylok from within the Earth at the cost of the planet and its moon. Clyde returns when Mr. Smith states he is merciful, but threatens the duo with its gun. Sarah Jane unlocks a safe and K-9 launches several laser beams at Mr Smith. The robots battle and Sarah Jane inserts the virus, which makes Mr. Smith forget its purpose. As the Moon grows closer to the Earth, Sarah Jane tells Mr. Smith it has a new purpose: to safeguard planet Earth.

The Moon returns to its original position, K-9 goes back to the safe to guard the black hole and the Slitheen return to Raxacoricofallapatorius. As Sarah Jane, Maria, Luke, Clyde, Alan and Chrissie watch the ship leave, Sarah Jane reflects how she never thought she could be part of a family.

Continuity

• The Slitheen reappear in these episodes, this time wearing new slimline skin-suits.^[1]
• The Blathereen, cousins and rivals of the Slitheen, wore slimline skin-suits in The Monsters Inside.
• Clips from "Invasion of the Bane", Revenge of the Slitheen and Eye of the Gorgon were shown in these episodes.
• K-9 returns briefly in Part Two to distract and battle Mr. Smith. This episode marks his first appearance since "Invasion of the Bane".
• The Pharos Institute was named after the Pharos Project in Doctor Who serial Logopolis.
• Sarah Jane's membership in UNIT during her original run as a companion of the Third and Fourth Doctors is stated in the report the Chief Inspector reads. Attached to it is a photograph of Sarah Jane from the classic era.
• The UNIT dating controversy is addressed on the report about UNIT that the Chief Inspector reads, and to which Sarah Jane's photograph is attached. The report's second paragraph refers UNIT's "golden period that spanned the sixties, the seventies, and some would say, the eighties."
• When asked by Alan if the Slitheen would ever return to Earth from Raxicoricofallapatorius, Sarah Jane says she imagines so.
• Mr Smith's crystalline self was discovered by geologists at the site of Krakatoa which Sarah Jane describes as "the biggest volcanic eruption civilisation has ever seen." Either the First or Second Doctor was present at the eruption,^[2] as was the Ninth Doctor.^[3]
• Sarah Jane's monologue in the final scene, "I've seen amazing things out there in space, but strange things can happen wherever you are," reprises her voiceover from the start of the pilot episode, "Invasion of the Bane".

Outside references

• BBC News 24 is once again shown to broadcast 'Breaking News' during the serial, although again without the BBC logo present.
• Alan likens Luke's creation by the Bane to the creation of Frankenstein's Monster.
• Alan compares his discovery regarding the existence of aliens to The X-Files.
• Mr Smith refers to the MITRE project as a "destroyer of worlds", the English translation of what Vishnu proclaims himself upon taking on his multi-armed form in the Bhagavad Gita: "kālo'smi lokakṣayakṛtpravṛddho lokānsamāhartumiha pravṛttaḥ" (Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds). The passage was made famous in Western culture in 1965 by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer when interviewed for NBC's documentary, The Decision to Drop the Bomb, and asked the thoughts he had at the first man-made nuclear detonation on 16 July 1945.

Reception

Firefox News commented upon the episode positively, particularly in comparison with Torchwood's first finale episode, "End of Days".^[4] Digital Spy commented that the tone of the episode was strangely dark, having expected more jovial adventures following the Slitheen adventure which kick-started the series, commenting "dark emotions have been regularly encountered, often to do with human loss, and a fascinating morbid tone has descended". The Cult Editor for the website, Ben Rawson-Jones, noted a similarity with some Doctor Who stories wherein "the formula of an old enemy from earlier in the series returning has been closely adhered to. Such a shame it had to be the Slitheen then, rather than any evil nuns or General Kudlak's brethren".^[5]

Novelisation

This was the sixth of eleven Sarah Jane Adventures serials to be adapted as a novel. Written by Phil Ford, the book was first published in Paperback on 6 November 2008.^[6]

References

External links

• The Lost Boy on TARDIS Data Core, an external wiki

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Sarah Jane Adventures

• Sarah Jane Adventures homepage
• The Lost Boy at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Lost Boy at Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel)
• "The Lost Boy" at the Internet Movie Database