The Sarah Jane Adventures is quite the phenomenon. A successful spin-off from Doctor Who starring a companion from the 1970s in the lead. A cast of young actors who manage to be engaging, funny and grow as characters and actors as the series progresses. Strong ties to its parent series whilst maintaining its own identity. Production standards as good as Doctor Who. Guest actors of high calibre (and female-focussed) such as Jane Asher, Samantha Bond, Floella Benjamin, Suranne Jones, Nigel Havers, Jeff Rawle, Donald Sumpter and Peter Bowles. And it was a series which was unafraid to treat its young audience with intelligence with a number of excellent scripts involving pretty mature concepts (as well as a sizeable helping of gunge).

The first series introduced the character of the Trickster in the story Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane Smith (a superb story) and this story from series 2, The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith saw his return and also gave the audience something classic Doctor Who rarely did – an examination of a companion’s childhood.

Sarah Jane is unwittingly tricked into travelling back to 1951 and finds herself in the village where she was born and lived with her parents before their untimely deaths in a car accident. Initially choosing to avoid the inevitable paradoxes likely to result from interacting with her own history, Sarah Jane eventually succumbs and finds herself the victim of the Trickster’s trap to take control of Earth.

The period details of 1951 are fun – a village fete is convincingly recreated with Georgie Glen as the officious Mrs King organising the entire town. She adds an element of verisimilitude to the story due to her being inextricably linked, for me, with her role in the period drama Call the Midwife (in a similarly officious role). She even has a line about Rani’s clothes surely not being what they are wearing in the Punjab (Glen’s character in Call the Midwife while English was raised in India and speaks Punjabi).

But central to the village setting are Sarah’s parents, Barbara and Eddie. They are written perfectly to be Sarah’s parents – loyal and open-minded, they quickly adapt to the increasingly strange events occurring around them. Barbara is intuitive and eventually realises the true identity of Sarah Jane (who is amusingly using the pseudonym Victoria Beckham). Eddie is loving and yet maintains an element of cynicism. Their characters build nicely over the two episodes and the sacrifice they make at the end is convincing and there are some nice parallels drawn between their characters and how Sarah Jane inherited the best of both of them. There’s also a fun reference to Sarah’s Aunt Lavinia, Eddie’s sister, who is apparently never in one place long enough to lick a stamp – a phrase used by Lavinia herself to describe Sarah in K9 and Company.

Does Elisabeth Sladen succumb to a little bit of overacting here – I have to admit I think she does; but then I have never been convinced as many in fandom are about Sladen’s skills as an actress. I often find her to be rather mannered and occasionally stiff, especially in emotional scenes and this story showcases a few of my bugbears with her performances. She is also saddled with a terrible pink outfit, worthy of joining Sarah Jane’s wardrobe of fashion faux pas which is already teeming with see-through rain macs, stripy dungarees, that godawful flat cap from Dimensions in Time and the brown all-in-one from Death to the Daleks.

Back in the present day, Clyde and Rani experience travelling into a parallel universe where Earth is under the control of the Trickster. Joining forces with a Graske, there are some good parts where Mina Anwar gets to try some different, more tortured, aspects of Gita as a slave in this new world.

I do love the Sarah Jane Adventures and the episodes exploring Sarah’s past and which are pretty high concept always seem to work well in the series. The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith is an excellent example of what this series does best.