Eye of the Gorgon

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 1 October 2007, with the second being broadcast on 8 October.

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 Jane 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. The Gorgon plots to transfer itself and have Sarah Jane as its new host. The nuns blindfold Sarah Jane to prevent her from turning to stone and the Gorgon begins the transfer 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 Stratagem". A lone Sontaran appeared later in The Sarah Jane Adventures second series stories The Last Sontaran and Enemy of the Bane. Sarah Jane and the Sontarans were both introduced in The Time Warrior.
• 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.
• Sarah Jane mentions Agatha Christie, whom the Doctor and Donna Noble meet in "The Unicorn and the Wasp".
• The Gorgons were first mentioned in the Torchwood episode "Random Shoes". The fictional Gorgon Medusa appeared in the 1968 Doctor Who serial The Mind Robber.
• 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.
• In "Random Shoes", Eugene Jones has a piece of what he believes to be pre-Gorgon currency in his collection of alleged alien artefacts.
• Chrissie Jackson's taxi had an advert on it for Henrik's - the store Rose worked at in the eponymous Doctor Who episode.

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 both the song "Maria" from the musical The Sound of Music and the BBC talent show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, which John Barrowman, the actor who portrayed Jack Harkness, Head of Torchwood 3 and ex-companion of the Doctor's, was a judge on.
• When Maria goes to see Bea to find out how to save her father, Bea begins playing the song 'Goodnight Sweetheart', which shares its name with another BBC time travel programme.

Novelisation

This was the third of eleven Sarah Jane Adventures serials to be adapted as a novel. Written by Phil Ford, the book was first published in Paperback on 1 November 2007.^[1]

References

External links

• Eye of the Gorgon on TARDIS Data Core, an external wiki

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Sarah Jane Adventures

• Sarah Jane Adventures homepage
• Eye of the Gorgon at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Eye of the Gorgon at Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel)
• "Eye of the Gorgon" at the Internet Movie Database