Prisoner of the Judoon

Prisoner of the Judoon is the first serial of the third series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It was first broadcast on the 15 and 16 of October 2009. It features the Judoon, the intergalactic police introduced in the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Smith and Jones".

The episode involves a Judoon Captain, Captain Tybo, chasing down an escaped prisoner known as "the destroyer of worlds", with their chase leading them to Earth. Alien investigator Sarah Jane Smith and her companions become involved after Captain Tybo issues a distress call while crash landing, which is picked up by Sarah Jane's supercomputer, Mr Smith.

Plot[]

Part 1[]

Sarah Jane continues to live her life on Bannerman Road. Investigating a nanotechnology company, she is thrown out and goes back to her house, when suddenly, an alien space pod crashes into a nearby building. Sarah Jane's supercomputer, Mr Smith, picks up on a distress call from the ship's occupant, a member of the "intergalactic police" race, the Judoon. Sarah Jane and her companions travel to the building, where Judoon Captain Tybo is shooting at an alien escaped prisoner, Androvax, a Veil, who soon possesses a little girl. Luke and Rani team up with the Judoon Captain, while Sarah Jane and Clyde meet the little girl. Sarah Jane becomes possessed by Androvax and Clyde is put out of consciousness. Luke, Rani and Captain Tybo locate and awaken Clyde.

Meanwhile, Rani's parents, Gita and Haresh, pay a visit to the nanotech company to help improve Gita's flower business but they are arrested. The possessed Sarah Jane arrives, disables the company's communication system and demands the company's nanoforms. Captain Tybo, Clyde, Luke and Rani arrive at Bannerman Road to discover that the possessed Sarah Jane has ordered Mr Smith to self-destruct with a one-minute countdown.

Part 2[]

Luke talks Mr Smith out of self-destructing, and Mr. Smith explains that Androvax had him access the schematics for the crashed Roswell spaceship to guide nanotechnology construction of a new spacecraft. The team heads over to the nanotechnology company to save Sarah Jane and for Captain Tybo to bring in Androvax who must be executed for the destruction of 12 planets. The possessed Sarah Jane releases the nanoforms, which threaten to destroy the Earth in the process. Gita and Haresh easily escape the company guards and are then confronted, scanned and catalogued by newly arrived Judoon troopers.

Luke, Clyde and Rani use a ruse to lock Captain Tybo in a lab room and confront the possessed Sarah Jane. The team tries to encourage the real Sarah Jane to fight back against possession, but Androvax deceives Luke and suspends his consciousness. Running from the spreading nanoforms, Clyde and Rani remember that sub-zero temperatures keep the nanoforms dormant and use fire extinguishers to freeze them. The possessed Sarah Jane takes the revived Luke onto the completed spacecraft, and the real Sarah Jane forces Androvax to explain how his home world was frozen when its sun burned out. Despairing from the planet's loss, he wants to destroy all inhabited worlds, believing that destruction is the way of the universe.

The Judoon troopers free Captain Tybo, and then everyone converges in the spacecraft's control room where Androvax, having been forced by Luke to leave Sarah Jane's body, is arrested by the Judoon platoon. Luke uses the ship's controls to deactivate the nanobots. The Judoon charge Clyde and Rani with interference, but take the pair's assistance and motives as mitigating factors, limiting their punishment to a bar against extraterrestrial travel. The Judoon leave with their prisoner, and the gang — as well as Gita and Haresh, who do not realize that their daughter and her friends were involved in the events they have witnessed — return to Bannerman Road. Gita and Haresh are left in shock from seeing real aliens.

Production notes[]

Beginning with the first part of this story, a short 30 second introduction to the series and its main characters was presented by Daniel Anthony in character as Clyde. The introduction would remain for the rest of the series with updated clips for each new season.

Novelisation[]

Pearson Education published a simplified novelisation of this episode by Trevor Baxendale under the title Judoon Afternoon for school literacy programs in September 2010.^[2]

References[]

External links[]

• "Prisoner of the Judoon" at IMDb
• Prisoner of the Judoon Part 1 - Script at BBC Online
• Prisoner of the Judoon Part 2 - Script at BBC Online
• Judoon Afternoon title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database