Secrets of the Stars - SJA 2.3

In which a young woman named Cheryl makes her weekly visit to astrologer Martin Trueman. On learning that she has been putting herself into debt with these readings, Trueman breaks down and admits that he is a fraud. Standing at his window, he is suddenly struck by a blazing light from a shooting star. He absorbs the light, and announces that he has a renewed faith in his abilities.
Some time later, Trueman has his own successful show, which is taking place at a theatre in East Acton. Cheryl is now working for him as his personal assistant. Gita Chandra insists on attending, taking her family with her. Luke and Clyde go with them. Sarah also decides to attend, thinking that there may be a story in Trueman's claims. As the show commences, Sarah can see how Trueman's readings of his audience might be down to collusion from his assistant. He then selects her, and she is shocked when he starts to speak of her life travelling through space and time, even mentioning the Doctor.
Sarah stays behind after the performance to speak to Trueman, demanding to know where he gets his knowledge from. He insists that it is entirely down to the stars, and astrology. When challenged by Sarah to explain more, he becomes quite threatening, and she is forced to leave.

Realising that Sarah poses a threat to his plans, Trueman compels Clyde to visit him at his home, under his hypnotic control. He transfers some of the strange light to the boy, making him his mental slave. Clyde is then sent to Bannerman Road where he confronts Luke and Sarah in the attic. His eyes glow with an unearthly red light, and he threatens to destroy them...
Sarah and Luke manage to talk him out of hurting them, appealing to his true nature. He is freed of Trueman's influence. Mr Smith is called upon to give them a background on astrology, which exists in some form across many planets. Many reports describe something called the Ancient Lights. As the zodiac signs are patterns of stars seen from a specific location, Mr Smith surmises that there can be no real power and it must all be superstition. Luke wonders if the Ancient Lights might not come from some other universe, where such things do have real powers.
Mr Smith then shows them a TV broadcast he has just picked up. Trueman has hijacked the airwaves from the theatre, where he has a large zodiac display set up. As each segment is illuminated, anyone born under that star sign falls under his mental control. Haresh sees Gita fall under Trueman's sway, and march out of the house in a trance. All the affected people are compelled to go to the theatre.

Sarah and her friends race to the building but find that the affected people are preventing anyone from entering. Clyde manages to bluff his way through. Luke and Rani try to switch off the power, but it is protected by a forcefield. Soon everyone except those born under the sign of Taurus are enslaved - and this includes Sarah. Her attempts to get Trueman to stop fall on deaf ears. He reveals that Luke was correct - the Ancient Lights existed from the universe before this one. They are going to use Trueman to enslave all of mankind. Luke had earlier pointed out to Sarah that he does not have a star sign, as he was never really born. He will remain unaffected by the Ancient Lights. He destroys Trueman's zodiac display. The Lights are expelled from Earth, and all the people affected are freed. Trueman decides that he can never go back to his old life, and so decides to go with the Lights, his body disintegrating into light.
Back on Bannerman Road, Sarah decides that today's date will become Luke's birthday - the day he saved the human race.

Secrets of the Stars was written by Gareth Roberts, and was first broadcast on 20th and 27th October, 2008.
It is basically a sequel to Sarah's penultimate adventure as a regular TARDIS traveller - The Masque of Mandragora. Russell T Davies has stated this, and that he almost had the Ancient Lights specifically called the Mandragora Helix, but kept changing his mind. In the end, he thought it was too obscure a reference, meaningless to younger viewers, and so decided to make it a completely new threat. He also felt that the Mandragora Helix would not be so easily defeated as the Lights are here. However, everything that the Ancient Lights do matches Mandragora. They want to enslave the human race, using magic and superstition.
The other inspiration for this story comes from the popularity of astrology, with millions of people reading their horoscopes in the newspaper each morning, with varying levels of belief. There are a number of astrology programmes on TV as well - and Trueman uses the medium to enslave people here.
I read recently of how one newspaper's astrologer died suddenly (not having seen it coming), and the editor basically ran the feature himself for a couple of months until a replacement could be recruited. He simply used old horoscopes from previous issues, and made others up, keeping them as vague as possible.

The main guest star is comedian Russ Abbott, playing Martin Trueman. He had his own highly popular show which ran from 1986 to 1991, before turning his hand to more serious acting. He became one of the regulars on Last of the Summer Wine for its final three years.
The only other guest of note is Carryl Thomas, who plays Cheryl. She had been a regular on the Channel 5 soap Family Affairs. A familiar face from the parent programme is newsreader Trinity Wells, as played by Lachelle Carl.

Overall, it is one of the weaker stories of the series. Perhaps having it explicitly a sequel to Masque of Mandragora might have raised it up above the humdrum.
Things you might like to know:

• Discussing planets which have some astrological beliefs, Draconia is mentioned.
• Surprisingly, what isn't mentioned is the Ancient Lights' similarity to the Mandragora Helix. You would have thought that Sarah would have commented on this, even if the menace was a different one.
• We see the Doctor in the series for the first time, but only in flashbacks to School Reunion and to Journey's End. Prior to this he had only ever been spoken of.
• The French newsreader, played by Anthony Debaeck, had previously been seen in Army of Ghosts, and would shortly be seen in Torchwood: Children of Earth.
• Trueman tells Cheryl that she is "going on a long journey - a very long journey...". This was a reference to the Children in Need mini-adventure Dimensions in Time, where the same line is spoken by the Rani at the cliffhanger ending to Part One.
• That the Ancient Lights came from a time before the creation of our universe is a reference to the Virgin New Adventures range of books, which Roberts wrote for. They regularly featured a number of evil forces who existed from before the Big Bang. The Beast on Krop Tor had also claimed to have existed since before the creation of the universe.