SJA #14 : The Mad Woman in the Attic

"There were these two races, and they had a war. My people weren't involved, but because we could read the timelines, they attacked us. So many were exterminated. My parents put me in a ship and sent me out into space."

Episode #14:        The Mad Woman in the Attic.
Companions:        Sarah Jane Smith, Luke Smith, Rani Chandra and Clyde Langer.
Air Date:              22nd to 23rd October 2009.

The year is 2059. In the derelict attic of 13 Bannerman Road, an elderly Rani Chandra tells the story of the day she met the alien Eve and her life went wrong.

In this story we see a future that will never come to pass where the heroes of Bannerman road no longer exist, except for an elderly Rani living in the attic of Sarah Jane's old house. In the modern day the companions have a falling out and come to investigate stories of a red demon in an abandoned theme park. Here they meet the alien named Eve, a survivour of the Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords, who has the power to control people and read the time lines.

Eve however is not a villain in the traditional sense of the Whoniverse. She doesn't want to destroy or rule the Earth. She just wants friends and to not be alone. Unfortunately she is only a teenager in theory and she doesn't know how to control her powers. As in typical science fiction tales she needs the guidance of another to control her gift and it is this sort of growing and coming of age tale that we have. It makes a nice change from the usual faire of the Doctor Who universe even if it is an overdone science fiction trope.

Part of the future reading shows us that the Doctor is "coming back" which is a reference to the next episode. At the culmination of the adventure we get K9 back and I hope he's going to be a regular character.

While I watched this episode I had an odd thought considering the events of Children of Earth and major stories like it, how do those aliens on Earth handle the strange events that plague the Earth in the early 21st century? Maybe we will never know.

The Mad Woman in the Attic is an entertaining episode but for me I felt that it needed something more. The plot is slow and it is another SJA adventure were really nothing happens.