School Reunion

This is a fantastic episode, providing an excellent mix of nostalgia, humour, and an emotional depth which a previous reviewer identifies as being new to Dr. Who. The interplay between Rose and Sarah Jane is top-notch, while K-9 remains steadfastly "disco". ("Suggest mistress engage running mode...") We've often wondered (at least I have) what happens to the old assistants after their travels, and this episode offers a look at what travelling with The Doctor does to someone's life. It made me want to go back and brush up on how The Doctor and Sarah Jane parted. Rose's charming naïveté is gently highlighted (did she really think someone as old as The Doctor had always travelled alone?) while reinforcing for her the value of her travels.

I think I looked forward to this episode more so then any other of the series, simply because of the return of Elisabeth Sladen, and i'm afraid that her being in it distracted me from everyone else, even the site of a suited and booted Eugene Washington.

Mickey calls in Rose and the Doctor because something is very wrong at the local school, the Doctor teaches, Rose becomes a dinner lady, where she witnesses an accident with a colleague and some cooking oil. The children are well behaved and super intelligent, so clearly something is wrong. Sarah Jane finally gets to tell the Doctor off for leaving her alone for so long, but it's not long before K-9 is introduced and the team take on the Krilitane species.

Seeing Sarah Jane was a hugely emotional moment, my definite favourite classic series companion, it was ridiculous how amazing she looked, 60 years old and very beautiful. It was great that she became the first companion to question the Doctor about life after travels with him. Great scene where we discover the Doctor dropped her off in Aberdeen instead of Croydon.

The Krilitane are a little bid dodgy I guess, I doubt we will see them again. Anthony Head's performance as excellent. It was flawed I guess but Lis's performance was good enough to give her her own spin off series, and on that alone it gets a 10.

I was worried about this episode. Sarah Jane Smith has always been my favorite Dr. Who assistant and didn't want the new producers to trample on my feelings about the character (the way 'Star Trek Voyager' did when they brought back the character of Kes for a one-off episode). I needn't have been concerned though, it was wonderful. That's the thing about this new Dr. Who incarnation, it's so much more emotional than the old version. Perhaps it's not surprising. The new producers grew up with the show like the rest of us. We're all older and we want something with a bit more depth than just the same old face-off between the Doctor and the Daleks, the Cybermen etc. (although we want that too). As a result, Elizabeth Sladen got to act in a way that she never did in the old series (and didn't she look GREAT). I loved that little scene in the café where Sarah Jane talked about how much traveling with the Doctor had meant to her and what it had been like to give it all up. I also loved the final scene where she got to go inside the Tardis again, and the moment when she thanked the Doctor for all her experiences with him. She might have been speaking for all of us.

Quite easily one of my top five favorite episodes (if not #1). A good story. Poignant moments, cheeky moments, this episode has it. A satisfying tribute to the Classic DW with one of the most popular companions from the classic era. You can see from the moment that the Doctor first sees Sarah, that this is going to be something special. And it delivers. The initial byplay, the scene in the café where Sarah believes she did something wrong, to complaining about the navigation of the TARDIS (You'd think that with all the time The Doctor spends in England, he and the TARDIS would know the difference between Aberdeen and Croydon). But the big highlight for me was the "discussion" between Rose and Sarah in the classroom. What starts out as open antagonism becomes a funny, wonderful scene where the 'old' generation eventually bonds with the new. And I can't help but smile at the fact that Sarah Jane gets the last word in ("The. Lock. Ness. Monster!") This episode also provided the inspiration and impetus for "The Sarah Jane Adventures".

The good Doctor and Rose go undercover at a modern-day private school, (Who as a teacher, Rose as a cafeteria server) at the behest of Rose's boyfriend, Mickey, who tips them off that something is not quite right there. To divulge any more of the plot would be robbing you of some of the brilliance of this episode, which as I wrote in my comment for last weeks episode, features the return of old companions Sarah Jane and K-9. That reason alone made me anticipate this particular episode for a good while before it actually aired. And it does NOT disappoint in the least and although I liked the previous two episodes of this series quite a bit indeed, this one just one-uped both of them by far. At turns, thrilling, humorous, and yes even touching, this is Doctor Who at it's best. On a side-note it's rumored that K-9 might get his own series sometime in the future, but I can't vouch for if it will be good or rubbish.

My Grade: A+