The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

Written by: Phil Ford
Directed by: Josh Agnew
Starring: Elizabeth Sladen, Anjli Mohindra, Tommy Knight, Daniel Anthony, Mina Anwan, Ace Bhatti and Alun Armstrong
Guest Starring: Paul Kasey, Nicholas Briggs, Terrence Maynard, Mark Goldthorp and Scarlett Murphy

1. Plot
Part 1:
Sarah Jane is interviewing Maddison York, the head of a nanotechnology company about his work.  After a few difficult questions, the interview is terminated, and Sarah Jane arrives back at Bannerman Road just in time to see a meteor scream overhead.  Mr Smith, the Xylock Supercomputer informs her and the children that this meteor took 45minutes to cross the Solar System.  Mr Smith plays a distress signal sent by the ships pilot.  It is identified as a Judoon ship, and whilst UNIT are fruitlessly searching the main crash site, Sarah Jane and the gang head off to a secondary site, where the ship’s escape pod has crash landed.

Sarah Jane and the kids witness one alien escape from the Judoon, and assume that this must have been a prison ship and as it has crashed.  Attempts to help the injured Judoon, a Captain Tybo are not at all welcomed by the Judoon.  He is only interested in finding and recapturing his prisoner.  Sarah Jane scans the area for alien life, and heads of with Clyde, leaving Rani and Luke to delay the judicious Judoon.

Androvax the Destroyer

In a nearby church-hall, the alien prisoner, Androvax the Destroyer, a Veil life-form, has taken over the body of a young child.  This discguise does not fool the scanner in Sarah Jane’s watch.  Unfortunately, this angers the Veil, who leaves the child’s body and possesses Sarah Jane and puts Clyde into a trance.  The alien possessed Sarah Jane then returns to  Bannerman Road, where they force Mr Smith to divulge information.

Having made their way to the church-hall and rescued Clyde, the rest of the group return to Bannerman Road and are informed by Mr Smith that his self destruct protocols have been activated and that he will explode in under a minute, taking all of Bannerman Road with him.

Part 2:
Quick thinking by Luke stops Mr Smith from exploding.  The Xylock tells the group that SarahJane/Androvax have gone to the nanotech company Sarah Jane visited earlier in the day.  The alien plans to use the company’s nanobots to build a spaceship similar to the one that crashed at Roswell.

Delaying Departure

At the company,  Sarah-Jane/Androvax send the nanobots into overdrive.  The machines will build the ship and then destroy the planet after Androxax has escaped.  The news gets worse when Tybo announces that the Shadow Proclimation has responded to his distress signal and there are more Judoon on the way.  Rani, Luke and Clyde manage to nutralise Tybo, by locking him in an isolation chamber.  They find Sarah Jane/Androvax, but they are tricked into letting them board the ship.

Sarah Jane proves to be stronger than Androvax can cope with, and is forced into confessing his crimes. before it can take off. The alien is overpowered by the Judoon and Luke manages to deactivate the nanobots.  The alien policemen leave Earth with their captive in the recently created spaceship.  However, Tybo is not happy with the kids, so he sentences them to being permanently grounded on Earth before he departs.

Meeting Captain Tybo

2. Thoughts:
It is nice to have The Sarah Jane Adventures back on the screens, although 4.35pm in the afternoon is far too early.  I doubt if all the series’ target audience will be at home and watching at that time in the afternoon, let alone all the adult Doctor Who fans who are glued to the series.  This is the strongest of all the opening stories so far, neatly re-introducing all the key characters and concepts of the series without being bogged down by the exposition.

• It looks as if old wooden boy himself, Tommy Knight, has had some acting lessons in the break between series.  You could almost believe that he was genuinely concerned for his screen mother’s safety, and not just reaing his lines of the autocue.    Well, it was either that, or he was leaching some acting skills in a vampiric way from Elisabeth Sladen, who was far from stellar when portraying the Habpossessed Sarah Jane.  She was trying to be snakelike and sexy but came over as being overly arch.
• The rest of Ms. Sladen’s performance was spot on, especially those scenes where Sarah Jane’s indomitable spirit appears on any reflective surface, chiding the Veil possessing her body.  And it is nice to see Sarah Jane actually do some journalism.  you have to wonder how she can afford to live in that large house when you very rarely see her do any paid work.
• As for the rest of the cast, the scenes were one again those that featured Daniel Anthony.  Clyde Langer is the best character in this series, and it would be great if his character Clyde Langer were to be given a regular role in Doctor Who, especailly if he had to constantly dodge represntatives of the Shadow Proclamation, now that the Judoon have banned him from leaving Earth.
• I am not a great fan of Rani Chandra, she annoys me.  In this story, Rani was almost bearable in this story. I suppose I still miss the character of Maria Jackson.  Though as in the mother series, thingss constantly change and move on, so I suppose I will eventually get used to her.

I have a strong suspicion that the whole sub-plot revolving around Rani’s parents was added in by the series Executive Producer Russell T. Davies.  It just seemed so superfluous, adding nothing of value to the story, and further undermining Rani’s parents.  It is a product of Davies’ obsession with “Comedy Mothers”, and I do wish somebody commission Russell T. Davies to write a sit-com, so that he can get this  schtick out of his system.  Yes, I know this is a series about teenagers and a pensioner saving the World from alien invasion,  but  that only works if  there are  some roots in reality. A bussiness woman like Gita Chandra would not dump hundreds of pounds worth of stock  on a  firm that is not even a potential client, this whole sub-plot is just silly.  Another thing that makes me certain that  this sub-plot has to be an RTD addition that the only person in the whole world who speaks like Rani’s mother Gita is Russell T. Davies himself.

Having said that, without RTD there would be no twenty-first century Doctor Who and no spin-offs, so no Sarah Jane Adventures. One of the great things that RTD has added to the mythos of the series has to be the Judoon.  Bureaucratic, officious, bad tempered, pedantic jobsworths, but you have to love them because despite their faults, they are definitely the good-guys who will get the job done, even if they do break a few heads in the process.  And they just had to look like rhonoceroses, it just fits the character so perfectly.  RTD has admitted that some of the characters and characteristics found in Gridlock were inspired by the comic book 2000AD and I wonder how much the Judoon, as judge, jury and executioner, have been influenced by the likes of Judge Dredd of Megacity, a mainstay of that publication.

The quailty of the special effects on this story are, as usual, second to none.  The reptilian tongue that flicked out of Sarah Janes’ mouth whilst she was possessed by the Veil was a seemless piece of work.  Make-up and prosthetics were also very good.  Although I notice that there is still only one animatronic Judoon head, and so we only saw Captain Tybo without his helmet on.  There has been talk of budget cuts for this series, but so far they are not in the slightest bit visible.

3. Stars:
3.5 out of 5

(4 out of 5 without the sub-plot with Gita’s Parents)

This article was inspired by a poster on the Gallifrey Base Forum asking how the name Ynysybwl was pronounced.  So, as I am currently learning to Welsh, I thought I would write this as a guide, giving my learners understanding of Welsh pronunciation, to help those fans confusd by some of the names ofthe locations used in the current series of Doctor Who.

The Welsh Alphabet has 29 letters, each denoting a single sound.  These letters are A, B, C, Ch, D, Dd, E, F, Ff, G, Ng, H, I, J, L, Ll, M, N, O, P, Ph, R, Rh, S, T, U, W, Y.

• The first thing to notice is that some letters, Ch, Dd, Ff, Ll & Rh consist of two characters but are a single letter because they represent a single sound.
• Secondly, the letters K, V, X & Z are missing from the alphabet, C is always hard so there is no need for K; V is replaced by F; X is replaced by CS in most cases and finally S has a more buzzing sound that in English and replaces Z in most cases.
• Thirdly, the letters  Ch and Ll are produced by vibrating  the same part of the soft palette that produces a really loud snore.  In fact it is useful to regard Ll as an extension of Ch, (Imagine “snore + L”)
• Fourthly the theta sound produced by the letters TH in English is separated in Welsh.  The soft theta of “Breathe” is written a Th and the hard theta of “Breath” is written as Dd.
• Fifthly the Ph is more emphatic “F” sound.
• Finally, Ng is pronounced just like nasal sound at the end of “sing” in English.

It is important to realise that Welsh has seven vowels, the standard A, E, I, O and U are joined by Y and W. This is why  a towns like Ynysybwl has a name that from an English viewpoint consist entirely of consternants, but from the Welsh perspective have a mix of vowels and consternants.

So the Welsh Alphabet with equivalent English Sounds:

A – ah
B – buh
C – cuh
Ch – “snore”
Dd – as in Breath
E – eh
F – v
FF – ef
G – guh
H – huh
I – ee
J – Juh
L – el
Ll – “snore + L”
M – (u)m
N – n
O – aw
P – puh
Ph – ffuh
R – as in “air” but rolled a bit more.
Rh – Ruh (shorter R sound)
S – es (“sh” if followed by “i”)
T – tuh
Th – as in “breathe”
U – ee
W – Ooh
Y – uh

Although it is not officially regarded as a single letter the combination Wy can be regarded as one, as nine times out of ten it is pronounced “Oy”.  The only exception being in words where W and Y are the second and third letters after a G.  In this case the W makes the “Ooh” sound and the Y make a short “I” sound as in the word “in”.

So, going back to the original question, as Welsh has almost an almost completely phonetic alphabet, what you see is what you say,  Ynysybwl is pronounced Unuh-es-ER-buh-el, with the stress on the penultimate syllable.

Today is the twenty fifth anniversary of the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, during the 1984 Conservative Party Conference.  I remember following the news that morning with growing horror.  No matter how much I despised Norman Tebbitt the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry back then  (and still do today), I knew that I should not be seeing covered in dust, dragged from the rubble of his hotel room, looking like a ghost.  Although I opposed every one of his policies, and today a quarter of a Century later, the lasting damage he did to this country is still painfully obvious, I knew that the British People had democratically elected him, and his boss Margaret Thatcher, and I had to wait until the British people came to their senses and voted the out of power by the same democratic means.  Terrorism is never the answer, change can only be achieved through the ballot box.

The bombing by the IRA achieved nothing, the main target Margret Thatcher, the Prime Minister was outside the blast zone.  She carried on in power for the rest of that decade and into the next.  Even if she had been killed by the bomb, the government would have continued, and would have done so until the early nineties.

It was with great regret that I read about the death, at the age 84, of Barry Letts this morning.  Barry Letts started his career as an actor, but became a director  in the 1960’s.  First working on Doctor Who as Director of the 1967 story The Enemy of the World.  In 1969, he was invited to become the Producer of the series. There can be no doubt that without his input to Doctor Who during the turbulent years of the early 1970’s, the series would not be here today.  Instead of a much loved flagship of British television, the series would regarded as one of those quaint, short lived black and white curios so peculiar to the 1960’s.    Back in 1969, the series  was going through the doldrums and came close to being canceled.  Mr. Letts took the show by the scruff of the neck and took it from monochrome into glorious colour for the new decade.  He gave us a new Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee; in a new setting, the exile of The Doctor to twentieth century Earth.  He was the man who proved that Doctor Who was the infinitely flexible format that the Fans  often claim it to be, he proved that it could go anywhere and do anything, and more importantly, he made people want to watch it again.

Barry Letts had a hand in the creation of three of the most popular Doctors.  As well as being Producer for all of Jon Pertwee’s tenure, in 1974 he cast Tom Baker in the role, before handing the series over to incoming Producer Phillip Hinchcliffe.  Finally in 1980, he returned to the series for one year as Executive Producer, and helped to cast Peter Davison after Baker’s marathon tenure.

It is fair to say that Barry Letts never really left Doctor Who.  He wrote two radio plays that featured Pertwee’s Doctor together with Sarah Jane Smith, (the companion played by Elisabeth Sladen, the he created back in 1974) and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (played by Nicholas Courtney).  He also wrote a number of novels with his friend and colleague Terrance Dicks.  His particular style blending the mundane with the extraterrestrial is a foundation of the current series of Doctor Who, and without him, Russell T. Davies would have had a much harder time bringing the series back in 2005.

Barry Letts’ carreer extended beyond Doctor Who. After leaving that series, he became the Producer of the BBC’s much loved Sunday Teatime Classics Adaptations, that would take a piece of great literature and transfer it to the TV in digestible half hour chunks.  It is through his work on these adaptations that a generation of children, myself included, developed a love of great literature.

His wife Muriel died earlier this year. He is survived by three children.

Barry Leopold Letts 1925 – 2009

I think it is great.  A lot simpler and not as fussy as the “TAXI Light” logo.

And if you are outside the UK and cannot get the clip to play, here is a picture of the new Logo: