* Elisabeth Sladen – Sarah Jane Smith
* Tommy Knight – Luke Smith
* Daniel Anthony – Clyde Langer
* Anjli Mohindra – Rani Chandra
* Alexander Armstrong – Mr Smith
* Yasmin Paige – Maria Jackson
* Joseph Millson - Alan Jackson
* Gary Beadle – Paul Langer
* Jocelyn Jee Esien – Carla Langer
* Ace Bhatti – Haresh Chandra
* Perry Millward - Jacob
* Huw Higginson - Mr Cunningham
* Elijah Baker - Steve Wallace
* Jessica Lewis - Detention Girl
* Andrew Phillips - Detention Boy

Plot outline by Wikipedia

Luke is going for a sleepover at Clyde's house whilst Sarah Jane goes away for the weekend, during which a new character, Clyde's estranged father Paul, turns up hoping to get to know his son. Another new character, Jacob, is in possession of an alien pendant. Jacob discovers that he can use it to control other people. When he takes a teacher's voice in a detention, Jacob rushes to the bathroom to wash the handmark off. When he successfully does so, Rani knocks on the door and distracts him. Jacob leaves the room but hides outside. Rani enters the bathroom cautiously, and finds the time-watch. When she discovers, through instructing her dad, that it can control people, she takes it to Sarah Jane's house for Mr Smith to investigate it. Sarah Jane, however, has disabled him while she is away. Rani leaves the pendant hanging on a roof beam. Clyde tells his father about the adventures he has with Luke, "saving the world". When his father does not believe him, Clyde takes him to visit Sarah Jane's attic. While showing him some of the objects in the attic and telling him about Mr Smith, Paul pockets the pendant. When they leave the house, Rani's father spots them and comes over to investigate. In possession of the alien pendant, Paul discovers that he can control people, after making Rani's father a victim of the pendant for the second time that day. After Luke and Rani turn up, Paul instructs his son Clyde, who he now has control over, to forget who they are and that he has ever seen them before. Clyde, as he must, accepts his fathers command.

Luke and Rani send a picture of the pendant to Maria and her father, to investigate as her father can hack into UNIT. They discover that using the pendant can give you hand marks. Rani's father refuses to stop the press-ups. Paul gets everything he wants for free, and uses this as a bonding method with his son. He instructs Clyde to forget about how he left him and his mum when he was young and to forget about his Mum. The pendant takes over Paul's skin and he can't control it, and he collapses. He announces himself as the Berserker and that Clyde is his soldier. Sarah Jane appears and Clyde recognizes her. She tells him that his mum, Rani, and Luke, are the most important in his life when he asks who they are. Clyde and his mum talk Paul through his memories, whilst Sarah Jane shows him a reflection of himself in the mirror. And he remembers who he really is. Everyone who the Berserker commanded has their commands undone. Clyde tries to get his mum and dad back together, but Paul tells his son that he has made his Mum's sister pregnant. Clyde tells his father he doesn't need him and not to mess up with this baby. Clyde tells his mother to forget about the pendant, what she knows about Sarah Jane's adventures with her son, and his father. Clyde chucks away the pendant, into the sea. Sarah Jane reveals that her parents died when she was young and she would do anything to see them again. When Clyde is gone, she takes out a picture of her mother and father and rubs her finger over the latter.

Analysis By Leather_Tuscadero

Parents, does anyone mess kids up as badly as Parents do? [Well, maybe clowns]

Clydey boy takes centre stage this time with an episode that focuses on his family, his nice caring mum Carla, and his arsehole of a dad Paul, Yes an arsehole!!! Any man who runs out on his family with his wifes sister then runs out on her when he gets her pregnant is an arsehole!
Still this was a damn good episode despite being Sarah lite [What the hell!!! no one warned me about that!] and it hit on some good issues too, plus we finally got to meet Clydes mum, I was beginning to think she was a myth!

The Berserker pendant was a cool plot device; can you imagine the things you could do if you could make people do whatever you wanted? It would be so hard not to use something like that for evil like Paul did, still I thought the scene where Paul made Mr Chandra do press ups was funny, man he’s gonna have some serious muscle cramps in the morning! Oh and when he stole the car from that patronising car salesman, that was awesome! Someone’s so gonna get fired!

Clyde was great in this episode, especially at the end when he was talking to his dad, I thought he acted really mature during that scene, and when he was alone with Sarah too, I think she was totally right when she told him he doesn’t have to be cool all the time, I think he needed to hear that.
I’m glad Paul got redeemed in the end too, especially when he told Clyde that if he had forced him and Carla to be together using the pendant it wouldn’t be real and he would probably end up leaving again, I think that’s true, if parents don’t work together it’s better to split up than to stay together and make everyone miserable, I think that sends out a good message to kids in the audience who have divorced parents. That’s one of the things I like about The Sarah Jane Adventures, it doesn’t talk down to kids like a lot of kids programmes do.

All the scenes with Clyde and Luke at his house were great, Clydes right though, when it’s boys it’s not a sleepover! Sleepovers are for girls! Plus Carla was awesome, I love the fact that she completely embarrassed Clyde; it’s good to know there’s one person who makes sure he’s not cool all the time.
The kids definitely carried this episode, Luke and Rani were especially good seeing as they pretty much had to deal with Clyde and the berserker pendant all on their own, I think the two of them were very clever in asking Alan and Maria for help, it was also good not to have Mr Smith solve everything, he kinda ruins the fun sometimes.

It was good not to have Sarah carry all the responsibilities too, although how awesome was the scene where she arrived to save Paul and Clyde, I seriously thought she was gonna swoop in like Wonder Woman and save the day! If they had done that I think the episode would have been even more awesome, unfortunately I’ll have to wait for another day for that too happen. Although she did wear hospital scrubs in this episode, how cool did she look in them! [I have simple pleasures, don’t judge me!]

I seriously have to question Sarah Janes security on her house; it puzzles me why someone like Sarah Jane would leave a key to her house under a plant, why would she of all people do that! Not only is it completely dumb for normal security reasons like burglars but she knows how many monsters are out there, it makes no sense, and look how easy it was for Clyde and Rani to get in, she seriously needs to rethink that.

It was great to see Maria and Alan again too, I liked how Alan was able to crack into UNIT files so easily, although I have to point out that UNIT are really slipping on their security as well, have they all gone mad! You’d think their files would be encrypted, surely Alan isn’t that good at hacking into things, I mean please they’re a military organisation!
I think the way they did the whole introduction of Maria and Rani was great too, they could have made that so awkward with the new girl stepping into Marias shoes but instead they made it so they already knew each other, I’m quite glad there was no bitchiness between the two of them I think that would have ruined the episode.

The effects in this episode were awesome too, the blue veins from the berserker pendant were really cool looking I think the effects department did a really good job on that, plus the little alien that Sarah was tracking in the hospital was cute too, I wish we’d have seen more of that.

On a final note, I am so annoyed at the CBBC channel for ruining a proper good dramatic ending, this episode had a nice moving end scene and it was completely ruined by a giant green splodge taking up half the freakin screen, Idiots!!

 

Review by Brandon Tempany/Leather Tuscadero