Episode 2 Sarah Jane's Alien Files

My name is Sarah Jane Smith and I defend the world from aliens.

These are my Alien Files.

The collected information gathered by me,

and the Bannerman Road gang,

about extra-terrestrials that have threatened our planet,

and might do so again.

The universe is amazing,

and don't be fooled by what some people might tell you.

It's full of strange and wonderful life.

I've met so much of it out there among the stars, and here on Earth.

But not all of it is friendly.

Pay attention, because one day Earth might be depending on you.

Entering the Alien Files this time are Odd Bob the Clown,

sometimes known as the Pied Piper,

Ship and Eve, the alien teenager she protects.

Mr Smith? I need you!

Rani. In what way can I be of assistance?

I need someone to practice my interview technique on.

To get to the top in journalism, you need to know what you're doing.

Might the other members of the Chandra family

be suitable candidates?

I tried interviewing Mum before and it just turned into

a gossip session about how dirty the windows are getting at number 16.

Those net curtains would benefit from the application

of a bleaching agent.

What I need is an interview subject with heroism, intelligence

and a sense of mystery.

I see, Rani. I would be glad to help.

-Great!

-Where to begin?

My purpose is Earth's protection from intergalactic threats

-of any nature - rogue meteor, invasion forces...

-Er, Mr Smith...

Keeping a cool head when the world is on the brink of destruction

can be a challenge, but a massive intellect helps enormously.

-Sorry, I meant who can you suggest?

-Suggest?

Combining heroism, intelligence and a sense of mystery...

as an interviewee?

Oh, I see.

Sorry.

I shall give it some consideration.

Thanks. Oh! Tell you what, while we're at it,

we can upload some information to the Alien Files, eh?

Yes, that would be just great.

Upload to the Alien Files commencing in three, two, one.

I recommend first for examination should be the energy entity

that manifested around the time you moved into Bannerman Road.

Oh, he still gives me the shivers.

Or rather they do... Odd Bob the Clown/Elijah Spellman/the Pied Piper.

Talk about weird.

The Pied Piper, Odd Bob the Clown

and circus ringmaster Elijah Spellman

are merely the known manifestations of this energy entity.

It is not alone among alien beings in being able to impersonate humans.

The Graske possess this ability.

While Androvax The Veil is able to jump into

and take control of bodies.

But the way the Entity is able to take human form

is through feeding on human fear

and it had been doing so for seven centuries,

ever since it landed on Earth embedded in a meteorite.

It had travelled from the Jeggorabax Cluster,

a region of space known to harbour beings that feed on emotions.

Its other strengths include teleportation,

telekinesis and mind control.

To sum up, the entity is unpredictable and ruthless.

Watch out for its shape-shifting ability to take on many aliases.

And he certainly made use of his full repertoire against us.

'Mum, Dad and I just moved in at number 36.'

DOORBELL RINGS

-Yes?

-'I'd met Luke, who was clearly the school genius.'

-ALL:

-Lukey, Lukey, Lukey...

-Are you a bit of a brain-box, Luke?

-They haven't got a box big enough.

'Then there was Clyde, who was very cute,

'not that you'd ever tell him that.'

And then there was my dad to reckon with.

That's enough!

-Silence, the lot of you!

-'Somehow I'd not found

'the moment to break the news that I was the new headmaster's daughter.'

You, boy, sit up straight and pay attention!

Nightmare!

Your father had assumed the already arduous role

of headmaster at a difficult time

when a number of children from the area had recently disappeared.

A third child has gone missing.

If you seeing anything, or anyone suspicious,

tell the police immediately.

Think about it from my point of view.

You start a new school where kids have been disappearing,

your dad's the new headmaster and thinks he's Robocop.

What you don't want on top of all that is to start seeing things.

'Like a clown appearing out of nowhere

'and then vanishing just as quickly.

'Although, it soon turned out I wasn't the only one

'seeing this colourful character.'

-There it is!

-Where?

Come on.

'Clyde could. Although super brainbox Luke couldn't.'

-'What was that about?'

-Where is he?

Search me.

He was here.

-Don't touch it.

-Why?

I don't know why. Just don't.

That was such a relief,

to find out it wasn't just me seeing all this crazy clown stuff.

I thought I was going Lady Gaga.

That's how the entity operates, feeding on the fear that stems

from irrational human interpretation of events.

So it needed a little bit of rational investigation of the facts.

'It was weird that not everyone could see the clown.

'I soon worked out that those that could

'had been given free tickets for a circus museum.'

People were handing these out by the Tube.

I think you should talk to my mum.

I can't talk to anyone. Don't you get it?

You haven't seen the clown.

I think only kids that get one of these can see it.

-Then they disappear!

-Clyde saw it.

-He must have a ticket.

Mum understands things like this.

'I didn't get why Luke kept going on and on about his mum.

'What I didn't realise, of course,

'was what Sarah Jane did and that she and Clyde

'were one step ahead of me and were at the circus museum already.'

Welcome to Spellman's magical museum of the circus.

From the tumblers and the jugglers of Ancient Rome...

..to the father of the modern circus.

Believe it or not,

a sergeant major in the 15th Light Dragoons.

It's not so much the clowns.

The showbiz history that I'm interested in is there.

A reputation for scaring people.

The fear of the painted smile.

'By the time Luke and I got to the museum,

'things had already started getting pretty weird.'

-Someone's animating the clowns.

-Look out!

'One creepy clown in my life was one too many

'and here was a whole troupe of model ones come to life.

'It was just too much for me to take in.

'Oh, and that's a good thing to mention in the Alien Files.'

-What was that?

-Sonic lipstick, never leave home without it.

'Be prepared for your first alien encounter

'to freak you out a little bit.'

Who am I?

I am the Pied Piper who conjured away a whole town's infants

and has chilled the hearts of parents

for more than seven centuries.

And now I am Odd Bob the Clown,

who snatches children

in the heartbeat their mother's back is turned.

And you are mine!

A bit more data analysis on this entity, Mr Smith.

After all, accurate data is the secret to good journalism.

The entity came to earth inside the Weserbergland Meteorite

which crashed to Earth in Lower Saxony in 1283.

Local fear of the plague gave the entity enough energy

to break out of the meteor and shape-shift

into a brightly clothed human, the Pied Piper,

who abducted all the city of Hamelin's children,

raising fear levels even more.

I always thought the Pied Piper was just a fairy tale.

Turns out he was a shape-shifting alien entity

who'd come to Earth in a meteorite and was here in Ealing.

That's a lot for a girl to take in.

Oh, sweet girl.

-Luke, give me a hand!

-Why are you coming after me?

You have a ticket, you are mine.

Get away from her! I'm not scared of you.

But you are scared of me,

Sarah Jane Smith.

'So there we were, held prisoner by a deranged clown

-'who was actually an alien.'

-Mum!

MOBILE PHONE RINGS

Just the sort of moment you want to take a call from your mum.

Although, it turns out, her legendary bad timing was spot-on this time.

-Quick, we're out! Come on!

-He's frozen!

'Because my mum called, the phone's electro-magnetic waves

'froze Odd Bob the Clown in his tracks.'

Just get in the car!

'We were able to escape, and my life had changed for ever.'

So that was it, I was part of the gang.

And about to learn the weirdest lesson of all.

That whatever alien invaders or super-powerful entities

might be threatening, there's no escaping school!

Welcome to our world, we're the fearless alien hunters,

defenders of Earth, but everything stops for the school bell.

'But it proves how vital it is to always be on your guard.'

He's here. The balloon, it's Odd Bob. He's here.

'Because school was the entity's next target.'

It's as if the balloons are taking control of them.

'Everyone who grabbed a balloon seemed suddenly zombified

'and for anyone who knew the Pied Piper story,

'what was happening in our school would be horribly familiar.'

It was another mass abduction, like in Hamelin.

'But happening here and now in Ealing.

'It was as if the whole school was being controlled by the entity.

'And we were powerless to stop them heading to the circus museum.'

Roll up, roll up!

Welcome to Spellman's magical museum of the circus!

'This was scary stuff and something really special was called for

'to rescue our schoolmates.'

And what was needed was a supercomputer with heroism,

intelligence, and a sense of mystery.

'Luckily, we knew one of those.'

Perhaps I should phone a friend?

Connecting now.

'We knew that mobile signals affected the entity's power.'

-MOBILE PHONES RING

-It looks like his line's busy.

It must be Mr Smith. He scanned the school records and rang every pupil.

'So when you simultaneously phoned the whole school, Mr Smith,

'the spell they had fallen under was broken.

'And that's an important point to record in the Alien Files.

'That with a bit of imagination, the most everyday object, like a phone,

'can help against even the most fearsome alien threat.'

You meddle with me at your cost, Sarah Jane Smith.

'But the golden rule when combating hostile aliens is never relax,

'not even for a second.'

Luke? Luke!

-He was right next to me.

-Where's he gone?

'The entity had struck in the way it knew would terrify

'Sarah Jane the most, by targeting her son.

'She was petrified, but the most important thing

'to remember about the entity is not to allow it to feed on your fear.

'And it's vital that fact gets recorded in the Alien Files.'

-Spellman, where are you?

-LAUGHTER

'If the entity is to be defeated,

'the fear that feeds its energy somehow has to be overcome.'

Not scared of me, Miss Smith?

-Oh, I think you are.

-If you hurt my son, Spellman,

if you've done anything to him, I will destroy you!

No-one can destroy fear.

How do you fight fear? What can we do?

'Improvise. That's what.'

All right, Mr Spellman? Listen to this.

Two aerials got married. You should have seen the reception.

-What is this?

-Keep away from him.

What do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud.

What's invisible and smells like carrots?

Rabbit farts.

'As soon as we were laughing at Clyde's jokes,

'we weren't afraid anymore.'

Stop this. Stop it now.

What's wrong? Does the sound of laughter upset you?

You will fear me!

-He's getting weaker.

-It is not a frequent occurrence,

but on this one occasion,

Clyde's unique sense of humour did serve a useful purpose.

Oh, yeah,

we have a whole load of weaponry to go up against aliens like Odd Bob.

Your technology, our bravery.

But deadliest of all, Clyde's dodgy jokes.

What's wrong, Mr Spellman? Not game for a laugh?

'People talk about laughing in the face of fear.

'On this occasion, it worked.

'Without fear to feed on, the entity lost the energy

'to keep itself separate from the meteor it had once come from.'

Your pocket.

Sarah Jane had got hold of a piece of a meteor from one of her contacts.

No!

This is where you belong. The meteor that brought you to Earth.

You've always been attached to it but were strong enough to resist.

Not any more, Mr Spelman. The nightmare is over.

So, back into the meteor went the entity in all its forms.

Goodbye, Odd Bob, Pied Piper, and Elijah Spelman. Hopefully, for good.

Thank you, the joker in the pack.

Every alien-busting team should have one.

Wow! What a way to meet the neighbours

and find out what goes on in their attic.

The most amazing place in the world.

You have proved yourself an asset to Sarah Jane, Rani.

Alien threats as disparate as Erasmus Darkening, the Trickster,

and the vain Mrs Wormwood

would have been harder to repel without your help.

Although there was one time -

or one alternative timeline, should I say -

when it looked like this attic would end up totally different.

That would be when you encountered Eve.

She wasn't the invading kind of alien. But she was still trouble.

Data profile of Eve uploading, Rani.

Eve's appearance is of a humanoid teenager

with red skin, eyes and hair. And extended ears.

She is one of an unknown race of aliens

whose home planet was destroyed

because of their ability to read time lines.

It was in the same time war that saw the destruction

of the Doctor's home planet, Gallifrey.

And the demise of almost all of the Time Lords and Daleks.

Her parents smuggled her on to a ship to escape,

but it crashed on a beach on Earth.

I've had friends before who were a bit controlling,

but they had nothing on Eve.

It is true that Eve has the ability to possess and control humans.

As well as the power to read minds

and manipulate objects from a distance.

However, Eve's youth only allows her

to exercise her telekinetic and telepathic powers

for a short time before energy burn-out occurs.

To sum up, she is not a hostile alien.

However, her manipulative and controlling nature,

and raw telekinetic powers,

can create havoc, endangering herself and others.

The Eve saga all started one perfectly normal day

when I couldn't wait to get to the attic

with what I thought was big news.

-We've just been talking to Maria.

-Never mind that, look what I found.

There were lights around the BT Tower. They say it was lightning.

-Rani...

-That might be what they want us to think because...

-Rani...

-There could have been a spaceship or...

It was lightning, Mr Smith checked it out this morning.

Oh, right.

Maria's been helping the Government hide aliens.

-What?

-Haven't you heard? She's the new Sarah Jane.

She met a race that look like the Thimbles.

'They were always talking about Maria.

'I suppose I'd kind of taken her place in the Bannerman Road gang.'

I still felt a bit like a new girl.

I'm not sure that I properly fitted in.

And it's easy to get the wrong end of the stick sometimes.

There I was, feeling left out and angry, when an e-mail arrived.

E-MAIL ALERT

It was from Sam.

He was a friend from Danemouth, where I used to live.

His parents had died when he was young, so he lived in an orphanage

which he didn't like much.

He was e-mailing with a really weird story about a disused funfair

which I just had to check out.

Over the past three months, four people have disappeared.

They were homeless, so no-one cared.

This kid came down one night, broke in.

Said he saw a demon in the haunted mine.

-A what?

-A red demon.

He said it was like fire, you know? Living fire.

I wanted to prove something to Sarah Jane and the others.

And I wanted to be a journalist, didn't I?

So here was the chance to prove to them and me what I could do.

Four missing people, Sam had said.

It looked like I'd found them, coming out from the haunted mine.

'Not that they were especially pleased to see me.'

Well, this is weird.

And what's happened to their eyes?

Fairground rides that powered themselves,

and a gang of zombies riding them. This was all pretty freaky stuff.

It's always best not to work by yourself when investigating aliens.

Teamwork is crucial. That's certainly worth mentioning in the Alien Files.

But I wasn't thinking straight that day.

I decided to head into the haunted mine they had all come from.

Alone.

And that was when the trouble really started.

"Are you my new friend?"

'It was Eve.'

It's OK.

I've met aliens before.

-"I know."

-Right.

So, you can read my mind?

-"You don't need to keep proving yourself."

-What?

"You worry about a girl called Maria."

"That Sarah Jane Smith doesn't think you're as good as her."

OK, can you not read my mind?

We hit it off pretty well, though.

Maybe too well.

As females of a similar age, you had much in common.

-Zac Efron.

-OK, stop it now.

-He is fit.

-Stop it.

Your mind is so full of such... Oh, there's so much in there.

With this new friend, a teenage girl like me,

but with these amazing powers, who needed the old ones?

Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde have been trying to contact you

but you want to punish them.

You need them, Rani, you're lost without them.

I'm not. I don't need them.

MOBILE PHONE RINGS

I wish they'd just leave me alone.

That I would live to regret.

But Sarah Jane was the last person on my mind

when Eve offered me what seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Do it!

'The chance to see my future.'

My name is Rani. Rani Chandra.

'The vision of the future she was showing was of me in the attic

'as an old lady, friendless and alone.

'And it was an awful sight.'

Oh, God. Make it stop.

Please! No, I can't become that!

I'm so lost. So alone, a mad old woman at Bannerman Road.

If the future's not what you hoped for, seeing it can be a shock.

For that very reason,

such knowledge of future events is usually best withheld from humans.

And the present was about to get really tricky, too.

Oh, yes!

While it seemed I had a lonely future in store, Eve was lonely now.

After her ship had crashed here, she was stranded on Earth

and so had lured these people into the fairground to be her friends.

Kind of.

This was her idea of playing - in a game where she was in total control.

Eve, listen to me. You've got to stop this.

'Time for me to make a move...

-'Or so I thought.'

-Don't go. You can't leave me.

-I can.

-Oh, no, really, you can't.

Frozen to the spot, red eyes like a zombie

because Eve had me in her power.

Could things get any weirder?

Well, yes, they could because there was another alien

about to come into my life.

That's when I met Ship. I wasn't going to forget her in a hurry.

Data on Ship. Processing.

Ship is an irregular shaped ovoid craft powered by black hole energy.

It can manifest with a red human face, often projected onto mirrors.

Ship's mission was to look after Eve

and help her learn to control her powers.

But after crashing, the damage to Ship was such

that the system reboot time was estimated at 20 years.

During which period, Ship was unable to care for Eve properly

which was why she was being kept in the funfair,

hopefully out of harm's way.

But that wasn't how things had worked out.

She is a child, trying to be an adult, and it will burn her mind.

Eve's powers were out of control

and she was in real danger of destroying herself.

So it was lucky she had some real friends to watch out for her.

It's here...

Sarah Jane and Clyde had followed me down to Danemouth.

Together with Sam,

they took Eve back to the beach where Ship had crashed.

I can feel her.

Whoa! Stand back!

That's a spaceship?

Ship.

Ship saved Eve's life by bringing her energy overload under control.

Eve was rescued from her out-of-control powers.

And I was, too.

We were even able to help with fuel.

-A9, can you hear me?

-Affirmative, mistress.

I'm in a spaceship, under a beach, on the south coast.

The space ship needs a black hole, reckon you can help?

Affirmative, mistress.

Black hole energy absorbed.

Ship operating at maximum capacity.

And my old friend Sam got an amazing opportunity.

I'd like you to come with us.

We really could go anywhere, in space?

-Yeah.

-I don't know what to say.

-Say yes, you idiot.

-Yes.

What an adventure.

A new start out among the stars.

Mission accomplished, as they say.

But there was still a shock in store for me.

It's true what they say,

be careful what you wish for.

As a thank you, Ship wanted to pay me back.

I need to grant you your wish.

Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde have been trying to contact you

but you want to punish them.

I wish they'd just leave me alone.

I guess some aliens don't understand that just because

we humans say something, it doesn't mean we mean it.

I will grant you your wish.

Ship, no!

Ship! Where are they?

-I have granted your wish.

-No, Ship, that's not what she meant.

You must leave now, Rani.

Playtime is over.

And what Ship had done created an alternative time line

in which I was left friendless and alone for the rest of my life

until I became the old woman in the attic,

just like in the vision of the future that Eve had shown me.

My name is Rani. Rani Chandra.

And what an alternative time line that was, turning a wonderful

and happy place like this attic into a miserable kind of prison.

-A most distressing outcome.

-But friendship is so important.

I'd been a really good friend to Eve,

even when she overstepped the mark a little.

And so, eventually, she paid me back.

Through her son.

Because, one day, 50 years into the future,

a visitor came to the attic wanting to know

what happened all that time ago. And with a surprise for me.

My mum sent me.

I don't understand.

-Eve!

-She's my mum.

You helped my mum all those years ago.

Now we want to help you.

How? What can you do?

I can return things to the way they should be.

It was quite big down there. Shouldn't we move back?

RUMBLING

He changed back the time line

so Sarah Jane and the rest didn't go away.

Putting things back as they should be.

Sometimes, visitors to this world just need a friend. Come on.

Let's go home.

To conclude, Rani, uploading three new entries into the Alien Files.

As a permanent record for all to learn

about these deadly threats to Earth's safety.

The entity.

Unpredictable and ruthless.

Its shape-shifting powers mean it has the ability

to manifest as one of many aliases.

Remember, it will feed on your fears.

Eve, manipulative and capable of controlling humans,

both physically and psychologically.

Her telekinetic and psychic powers can create havoc if unchecked.

Approach her with extreme caution.

However much she might mean well.

Ship.

A spacecraft powered by black hole energy

and Eve's protector.

Possessor of advanced powers to read minds and alter time lines.

Be careful what you say in her earshot.

She may take you at your word.

This is Rani Chandra reporting from Sarah Jane's attic,

where uploading to the Alien Files is taking place as I speak.

I hope that these dispatches will be useful.

Over to you. And good luck.