GALLERY
CAST
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah), Anjli Mohindra (
CREW
| Written by | Phil Ford |
| Directed by | Michael Kerrigan |
| Produced by | Matthew Bouch |
PLOT
PART 1
A group of boys are playing football when the ball goes out of the pitch. A child goes over to fetch the ball but sees a clown. A few seconds later, the child is scared by the clown and disappears, never to be seen again.
A new family is moving into number 36 Bannerman Road, formerly occupied by Alan and Maria Jackson. Luke Smith still misses Maria, even though she’s keeping in touch by e-mail. His mum Sarah Jane sympathises and reminds him Maria will visit England soon. She’ll be at her mother’s wedding. Yet, as Luke notes, it’s not the same.
There’s a new girl at Park Vale School: clever and inquisitive Rani, who wants to be a journalist. Clyde is smitten — even forgetting his odd sightings of clowns, always just out of the cornerof his eye — until he notices there’s also a new head at the school: humourless Mr Chandra. He is determined to improve the students’ scores and put an end to the recent rash of child disappearances. He is not impressed by Clyde, the class clown. Clyde doesn’t make it to lunch before receiving a summons to the new head’s office.
While he is waiting by Mr Chandra’s office, Clyde has another clown sighting. He tries to laugh it off, but he is shaken when his friend Dave ducks into a small art closet for supplies and doesn’t come out. The art closet is empty; Dave has vanished into thin air.
Sarah Jane brings the new family tea and biscuits as a welcoming gift, but when Gita Chandra’s back is turned, she performs a scan to check that no alien “residue” remains from the Jacksons’ previous inhabitancy, because of Clyde’s earlier remark. Only Gita Chandra is there — her husband and daughter are at school, she explains — so the two women share tea. Gita describes her family. She is thrilled to learn that Sarah Jane is an investigative journalist because her daughter Rani wants to become one herself.
Clyde and Luke are walking home from school when Clyde sees another clown. Though Luke doesn’t see anything, the boys give chase. They encounteronly Rani, who has also been seeing clowns. Rani wonders if there is an extraordinary or supernatural explanation of the disappearances. The three are deep in discussion when they reach Bannerman Road and Luke and Clyde find out that Rani’s dad is Mr Chandra. Mr Chandra is not pleased to see his daughter with Clyde, whom he has pegged as a troublemaker. On the other hand, he is delighted she has made friends with Luke, one of Park Vale’s most gifted students.
Luke helps Rani unpack. In her room, they continue their talk of the missing children. The mention of clowns jogs Rani’s memory: she remembers taking a ticket to see a circus museum. Rani decides to investigate. Luke feels he has no choice but to follow.
Clyde and Sarah Jane have independently discovered the same thing. All the missing children received tickets to the same circus museum, and only children with tickets were seeing the clowns. They elect to visit the clown museum as well.
Spellman’s Magical Museum of the Circus is run by the strange Elijah Spellman. He shows them around and leads them to a room filled with clown mannequins. Clyde spots a picture on the wall: an old watercolour painting of a man wearing red, blue and yellow — just like the mysterious ghost clowns he’d been seeing. Sarah Jane explains that the figure depicted is the Pied Piper, a legendary figure of European folklore who stole the children from Hamelin.
Elijah Spellman agrees. He reveals that he is the Pied Piper and the mysterious clown. He has come for more children. Nor will he tolerate discovery — with a word, he vanishes, and the clown mannequins come to life and threaten Sarah and Clyde.
They run to the entrance, where they meet Luke and Rani and find that while Sarah Jane’s sonic lipstick is effective against the clown mannequins, the Pied Piper has trapped them in the building…
PART 2
Spellman frightens Sarah Jane with insights on her childhood fear of clowns, whilst Clyde, Luke and Rani try to escape from the museum. Luke and Clyde get outside whilst Sarah remains terrified inside the circus museum. Rani’s phone rings and she is confronted by a dilemma as “Mum” appears on the screen. While the phone rings, Spellman freezes. After a few seconds, Rani declines the call and runs out of the circus. Sarah Jane follows and the gang get inside Sarah Jane’s car to drive back to Bannerman Road. Once there, Sarah Jane gives Rani a choice: live across the road and not interfere with her life, or go with Sarah and a whole world of adventure. Rani chooses to join Sarah Jane and says she will explain to her mum that she is completing some work experience with her.
Sarah Jane, Rani, Luke and Clyde go into Sarah Jane’s house. Rani is amazed at the alien gear in Sarah Jane’s attic, particularly the alien supercomputer, Mr Smith. The new team quickly determines the history of the Pied Piper is traceable to a meteorite that fell to Earth in 1283. The extrasolar meteorite originated in the Jeggorabax Cluster, a region of space known to house entities that feed off of emotions. To confirm this, Mr Smith will need a sample of the meteorite. Fortunately, it is on loan from the University of Munich to the Pharos Institute.
Luke confronts Sarah Jane about her fear of clowns, confused how she could be after having seen some of the strangest things in the universe. Sarah Jane explains that she was frightened of a clown marionette owned by her Aunt Lavinia when she was a child. It was one of the few times she missed having parents she could call on for comfort.
Sarah Jane visits the Pharos Institute and borrows a piece of meteorite to give to Mr Smith. Whilst she is there, Spellman appears and tells Sarah Jane that families will perish at the deaths of a nation of children.
Meanwhile, at Park Vale School, a host of red balloons fall from the sky. As the children grab them, they seem to lose free will, and mindlessly walk out of school towards Spellman’s museum. Sarah Jane remembers when Rani’s phone rangearlier, Spellman froze. She gets Mr Smith to ring all the children’s mobile numbers, breaking the spell, but Spellman kidnaps Luke and imprisons him in the hall of mirrors. Currently, he is sleeping with the other missing children whom Odd Bob has caught and after a while, “they just fade away”.
Sarah Jane demands the children be brought back, but Spellman correctly deduces she is still afraid of him and says he has been responsible for her lifelong fear of clowns. Spellman and she face off, unaware that Rani and Clyde have entered the building. Clyde faces Spellman unafraid. He begins to tell jokes. The humour loosens the grip that fear has on Sarah, which in turn weakens Spellman, who feeds on fear. Spellman weakens and Sarah Jane forces him back into the fragment of the meteorite, which she puts into an alien box from which nothing can escape from.
Rani is a little shaken by herodd experiences, but vows to help Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde in their adventures.
NOTES
Gita’s name was originally Sundra, Haresh’s name was originally Suresh and theirs and Rani’s last name was originally going to be Rakhit.[1]
Luke claims that he and the Bannerman Road gang have saved the world twelve times. It’s unclear if he’s approximating or being literal. Even if one were to throw in The Thirteenth Stone and the Glittering Storm — and even Journey’s End — that only amounts to ten world-saving operations since Luke met Sarah Jane. So either Luke is approximating, or there are a couple of missing adventures.
Gita continues the tradition of misnaming of Sarah Jane that was begun by Chrissie Jackson, albeit to a smaller degree by calling her simply “Sarah” as opposed to Sarah Jane. It is shown that Sarah Jane is irritated by this, despite The Doctor having done the same repeatedly throughout their friendship. This inconsistently is resolved in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, where the Tenth Doctor clarifies to Rani that Sarah Jane only allows him to call her “Sarah”.
TRAILER