Pilots often feel a little off from what a show will become and this is no exception. While a good little episode taken on its own, it doesn’t quite feel like an episode of The Sarah-Jane adventures, not so much for any faults in and of itself, just for not quite meshing in the context of the rest of the show.

While all of the new characters are pitch perfect from the get go, or in the case of Luke as close as it is reasonable to get just after being born, outside of the scenes with Mrs Wormwood, Sarah-Jane feels a little off to me in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. A little too hard edged in perhaps not quite the right ways, and I suppose that's what the episode is going for, to see her softened by Maria and Luke, and later Clyde, but it doesn’t quite stick the landing. To an extent it feels as though they haven’t yet figured Sarah out as the main protagonist, as the leader of this small band of alien fighting kids, any coldness towards them or attempts to keep them out of the danger feel to me as though they are out of annoyance more than any desire to keep them out of harm's way.

The plot of this story is also pretty thin, which isn’t really an issue as this is the first episode, the plot is not as important as introducing us to the characters, but it does leave you with the impression that this is a Doctor Who plot with a Sarah-Jane Adventures coat of paint, making it pretty unrepresentative of what the show will be like moving forward. I think the primary reason for this is the sense of scale, while other Sarah-Jane Adventures episodes have aliens with plans to take over or destroy the world, the initial steps of those plans usually feels very local to Bannerman Road, or sometimes even hyperfocused on Sarah and the kids, and I don’t get that sense here.  Bubbleshock is already a large company getting endorsements on Blue Peter, and while I would never question the capabilities of Sarah-Jane and friends, alien invasions of this nature and scope are not really within their typical wheelhouse.

As someone who grew up on this show I do like the episode overall, and certainly it introduces all of its characters in a version of themselves that is either already perfect or will be with some minor tweaks which is the most important thing, but it is a story what just does not quite feel like it belongs to the Sarah-Jane Adventures as a whole.