The Shattered Prayer

I never wrote about Michael’s story on Lost, so here goes. But something far more important is happening tonight. Sarah Jane Smith, erstwhile companion of the third and fourth Doctors (and who has been known to hang out with the tenth) has the U.S. premiere of her show tonight! I for one, will be watching.

I love Sarah Jane. She was always my favorite companion. In fact, she was the companion in the very first episode of Doctor Who I ever saw, The Ark in Space . I was lucky. In spite of the papier-mâché wasps, it is rightly considered a classic story, and one of the best ever done. In fact, until quite recently, Episode 2 achieved the highest chart rating for a single Doctor Who episode (it was number 5 for the week). It was beaten by Voyage of the Damned, which airs next week on Sci-fi. Voyage guest starred Kylie Minogue and was first aired on the BBC last Christmas, charting at #2 for the week.

The Ark in Space, like many stories from producer Philip Hinchcliffe’s era on the show, was atmospheric, suspenseful, and even a bit spooky. That was some accomplishment given the bright white sets of the Ark itself. It was, in fact, Philip Hinchcliffe’s first show as producer. Starting with Ark and continuing over the next 3 years, Hinchcliffe produced a string of classic, gripping, and sometimes violent and frightening stories for Doctor Who. His era is sometimes referred to as the Gothic Era of Doctor Who.

And Sarah Jane was in almost every one of his stories. Pyramids of Mars! Brain of Morbius! The Sontaran Experiment! Genesis of the Daleks! This era produced a higher ratio of excellent Who than any other.

The Sarah Jane Adventures therefore has quite a lot to live up to. I hope Sarah’s show is good. It is supposed to be a “children’s show,” but so was the original Doctor Who. I guess British people expect much more out of their kids than we do out of ours. Here’s hoping that Sarah doesn’t get straddled with too much cutesie kiddieness. (I hear, for example, that she has a sonic lipstick. I hope this is better than it sounds)

But I’m not really worried. I’m sure it will be great. Sarah is fantastic. Elisabeth Sladen (who plays Sarah Jane) seems like a lovely lady (and she and I share a birthday, so that means she’s automatically a fascinating person!).

The show simply has to be good.

And if it isn’t, I’ll just pretend that it is and keep on loving Sarah Jane.

Oh, and Lost. Meh. It was okay. Some of it didn’t make sense, though. Michael said he was on the boat to die, but he already knew he wasn’t going to die by the time he said it. Why did he trust Ben? Why would he allay the guilt of killing 2 people by killing a boatload of people? Why does the first gay guy on the show have to be one of the “bad” guys? And was he with a prostitute?

These questions pale in comparison to the most important one raised by the show — who played “Long and kinda blurry view” of Walt?

It was a placeholder episode. I hear that Michael’s gonna be important later on, but this wasn’t as good as some of the previous episodes this season.

Here’s hoping the delightful Ms. Smith fares better.

Recently:

• The waiting list: Neal Stephenson, Dave McKean
• Noggin-food I have loved
• Microblogging for you
• I’ll be giving my imaginary kids up for adoption.
• … and I can even come to work drunk.
• Software for the way you write
• For the Hip Witch
• It’s Che-Day!
• It’s the Longest Day of The Year and You Know What That Means!
• Wilma-sighting