The Mark of the Berserker

For me, Mark of the Berserker is an encapsulation of what The Sarah Jane Adventures does best, taking a difficult situation kids at home might be struggling with and making it worse through aliens, could be as simple as starting a new school or anxiety that your friends don’t really like you, or something a lot heavier that you’d never expect a show that is, at its core, for children to ever even approach. Mark of the Berserker fits somewhere in the middle.

In Mark of the Berserker the central issue is Clyde dealing with the return of his father who has not been around in years, even before aliens get involved the situation is ripe with drama, your heart breaks for Clyde as he desperately seeks the approval of a man who does not deserve to be a part of his life.

Then the pendant is introduced and Clyde’s dad can get everything he wants from his relationship with Clyde without putting in the effort, and as soon as Clyde’s mum and his friends, the people who are actually there for him, try to intervene he is forced to forget them, it's awful.

And then it all comes to a head and Clyde learns that his father didn’t come back to see him, but to once again avoid his responsibilities with a different family.

It is perhaps a perfect episode of the Sarah-Jane Adventures, and shows everything that the show can do and be. There are episodes that are probably better pieces of television, but none that quite so successfully balance their tone as a children’s show with the subject matter, often injecting scenes that feel like they are just there to keep the kids watching entertained. Not Mark of the Berserker which successfully keeps a consistent tone throughout, never feels as though it forgets its target audience, and pull no punches when it comes to what Clyde is going through

Nothing is diluted in this children’s show. The emotions in this story, where Clyde is reunited with his selfish, “useless” dad goes places more powerful, meaningful and impactful then most adult dramas - certainly more than most Torchwood! It reveals something about Clyde which gets under the surface of who he is as a character. The pain he has been through. And the space that Luke, Maria, Rani and Sarah-Jane fill in his life. They absolutely smash this “Sarah-lite” episode with a neat cameo from Maria and her Dad. The few scenes Sladen is in truly astonished me with the humanity and tenderness in her performance.