Sunday, October 18, 2009

Haunted

The ratings are in for the first two episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures! These come direct from Marcus at the Doctor Who News Page:

SOME VIEWERS TUNED IN AND MISTOOK ANDROVAX HERE FOR ANNE ROBINSON...

Prisoner of the Judoon - Part One
+ Watched 'live' by 0.6 million people on BBC One.
+ This gives an audience share of 5.9%.
+ An extra 40,000 people watched on the BBC HD Channel.
+ This is a 50% improvement on the programming that traditionally occupies this slot.

Prisoner of the Judoon - Part Two
+ Watched 'live' by 0.7 million people on BBC One.
+ The audience share here up, to 7.2%.
+ More than double the 0.3 million watching Hotel Trubble in the same time slot last week.

DigitalSpy reviews the episodes (unfavourably) here.

***

The BBC Press Office have released the synopsis for episodes seven and eight of the new run of adventures, which comprise The Eternity Trap adventure.

SPOILERS below!

Part One: A haunted house, with mysterious whispers and secrets in the shadows attracts Sarah Jane's attention. When Professor Rivers and the gang investigate an old legend, a monstrous creature appears in the night as the terrifying grasp of Erasmus Darkening reaches out from centuries past...

Part Two: Sarah Jane and the gang discover the secrets of Erasmus Darkening, but are they too late? As ghosts from the past rise up, and the quest to find the missing children reaches a climax, it seems that nothing can stop the ancient alchemist's rise to victory.

The role of Erasmus Darkening is portrayed by Donald Sumpter.

The Eternity Traps airs Thursday 5th November and Friday 6th November at 4:35pm.

***

My subscription copy of SFX Magazine issue 189 landed on my doorstep yesterday, and I can confirm that it features an article relating to the SJA - in particular, David Tennant's guest appearence in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.

Tommy Knight talks about the man: "Well, I learned how he does his hair in the morning..." He jokes. "If you read the script and picture how he's gonna say his lines, he always does it a bit different - not how you'd expect. He can take a dull scene and turn it into something... ridiculously banging!"

"He'll, like, go into his little zone," Daniel Anthony adds. "He used to come on set and just... jump on everything!"

Ah, an actor of the Tom Cruise school of how to do things...

Lis Sladen goes on to discuss how the show has evolved since its 2007 launch, "It's a progression," she states. "The first series, she was a very confused woman who all of a sudden had a son, and too many people in her attic that'd never been there before - she was letting people in. Second series, her normality was alien and her absolute fragility was dealing with the Headmaster and the school. This season, the kids are older, they can go off and do their things, and she can be freer. Which is lovely, because it meant I could smile more. Which I like doing, because it makes me look younger!"

The magazine also previews November's Doctor Who special The Waters of Mars, which was co-written by the SJA's own Phil Ford. Says co-writer Russell T Davies:

"It's a scary one! A lot of that came from Phil Ford - after all those years on The Sarah Jane Adventures, he was dying to let rip! And he's been amazing. We love testing the limits, and poking and prodding to see how far we can go, and why. But as a matter of fact, this was the only story, in all five years on the show, that made me actually go on to the set one day and physically change one thing about the monsters, because I thought it was in danger of crossing a line."

The magazine confirms that the special airs in November, the most likely dates for this being Saturday 7th or 14th.

You can read more about the SJA series three and The Waters of Mars in SFX Magazine's 189th issue - out this approaching Wednesday priced £3.99.

3 comments:

Nabu San said...

The ratings seem level with last year, and I love that it increased on the second day! They can only get better as the series progresses! Wish we knew what the AI figures were...

Insightful interviews with the cast! Insightful promo pics too, I hope?

Weimlady said...

Are those ratings good, bad, indifferent? I have nothing to compare them with, as all I ever hear about over here on the other side of the pond are the Doctor Who and Torchwood ratings. They seems to score in the millions of viewers, not the point-something millions. But since this is a children's show, I'm guessing it's not comparable.

Looking very much forward to seeing what the figures are for David Tennant's episodes. I have a feeling they will blow these out of the water.

Nabu San said...

It's very very good for its slot, but not as good as the 1 million plus viewers it got in the series one slot practically every week in 2007. It's amazing how an hour can make such a difference between good ratings and excellent ratings. I feel 0.7 million per two-parter is enough to secure a fourth series, though.