Eye of the Gorgon

Doctorwhobox
number=03
serial_name=Eye of the Gorgon
caption=Past victims of the Gorgon.


show=TSJA
type=story
cast=
*Elisabeth Sladen – Sarah Jane Smith
*Yasmin Paige – Maria Jackson
*Tommy Knight – Luke Smith
*Daniel Anthony – Clyde Langer
*Alexander Armstrong – Mr Smith
guests=
*Joseph Millson – Alan Jackson
*Juliet Cowan – Chrissie Jackson
*Phyllida Law – Bea Nelson-Stanley
*Sarah Crowden – Mrs Gribbins
*Doreen Mantle – Mrs Randall
*Beth Goddard – Sister Helena
*Audrey Ardington – The Abbess
writer=Phil Ford
director= Alice Troughton
script_editor= Lindsey Alford
producer= Matthew Bouch
executive_producer=Phil Collinson Russell T Davies Julie Gardner
production_code=1.2
series=Series 1
length=2 episodes, 25 mins each
date=1 October & 8 October 2007
preceding="Revenge of the Slitheen"
following="Warriors of Kudlak"
imdb_id=1030456

"Eye of the Gorgon" is the third story of the British science fiction television series "The Sarah Jane Adventures". It forms the third and fourth episodes of the show's first series. The first episode was broadcast on the CBBC channel on October 1 2007, with the second being broadcast on 8 October.

Synopsis

After a tip-off from Clyde's grandmother, the team investigate a local nursing home. Stories of visitations by a phantom-like nun abound and soon they find themselves pursued by a spooky order of Sisters who hide a dark secret.

Plot

Part 1

Sarah Jane and her companions investigate claims of sightings of a ghostly nun at Lavender Lawns, the local nursing home. Meanwhile, Chrissie Jackson moves into her ex-husband's house, but succeeds only in causing further problems with the family. Back at Lavender Lawns, an old lady gives Luke an ancient talisman, which is really the key to a portal in space and time. They find that a group of nuns are hiding an age-old creature, the Gorgon. When Sarah Jane refuses to give the talisman to the nuns, they kidnap Luke and Clyde and take the Gorgon and Maria to Sarah Jane's house where the Gorgon turns Maria's father to stone.

Part 2

Having got what they came for, the nuns and Gorgon leave. Luke and Clyde escape from their entrapment via a secret passage. Mr Smith tells Maria and Sarah that Alan is retrievable until 16:00. Luke and Clyde see the Gorgon stumble, but are unable to prevent the talisman beginning the process of joining the Gorgon Homeworld with Earth. The Gorgon - a parasite inside the Abbess - chooses Sarah Jane as its next host. Chatting with Bea reveals to Maria that the talisman can revert those turned to stone. Clyde distracts the nuns long enough that Luke grabs the talisman, disconnecting the portal. However, Sarah Jane and both boys are recaptured and locked in another room, though Sarah Jane is soon taken and tied next to the portal. Luke and Clyde escape again and join Sarah Jane just as the Gorgon begins to transfer itself, but Maria arrives and uses a mirror to revert the transfer and turn the Gorgon - and Abbess - to stone, freeing the nuns of mind-control. Maria disconnects the talisman and the portal shuts down forever. The talisman brings Alan back to flesh-and-blood and Chrissie leaves, reuniting with Ivan.

Continuity

* When Sarah Jane Smith and Bea Nelson-Stanley discuss aliens, Sontarans are mentioned. The two women agree that they resemble potatoes, and that they were "the silliest race in the galaxy". Sarah Jane met the Sontarans in "The Time Warrior" and "The Sontaran Experiment". Another character compares a Sontaran to a potato in "The Sontaran Strategem". A lone Sontaran will return for the first time in the Sarah Jane Adventures, in the second series episodes "The Last Sontaran" and the series final "Enemy of the Bane".
* When Sarah Jane and Mr Smith discuss hauntings, the explanation they give Clyde matches the explanation given in the "Torchwood" episode "Ghost Machine". The idea of "residual haunting" is also known as the "Stone Tape theory", named after the 1972 BBC television play "The Stone Tape" by Nigel Kneale, which popularised the theory. The theory also appears in the Doctor Who Past Doctor Adventures novel "The Eleventh Tiger".
* Bea mentions the Yeti.
* The Gorgons were first mentioned in the "Torchwood" episode "Random Shoes". The Gorgon Medusa appeared in the 1968 "Doctor Who" serial The Mind Robber.
* In this episode Sarah Jane's house number is shown as 21, yet in the first serial, "Revenge of the Slitheen", it is shown as 13.
* In the "Torchwood" novel "Trace Memory", an explorer by the name of Nelson-Stanley (who may be Edgar Nelson-Stanley) is alluded to.
* Clyde predicts that in the future, he will be able to have his brain transplanted into a metal body so that he can live forever, unwittingly referring to the Cybermen.

Outside references

*Sister's Helena's line, "I'd shut up if I were you, or the Abbess will show you her idea of solving a problem like Maria", references the song "Maria" from the musical "The Sound of Music", as well as the BBC talent show "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?".

Novelisation

A novelisation was released on 1 November 2007.

References

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/sja/ Sarah Jane Adventures homepage]
*Doctor Who RG | id=sja_03 | title=Eye of the Gorgon
*Brief | tsja=y | id=2007de | title=Eye of the Gorgon