In which Luke Smith informs his mother that headmaster Mr Chandra has arranged for him to sit his A-levels a year early, so that he can go to University next year. Sarah is pleased to hear this, but points out that now isn't the best time to be discussing it as they are both tied to a Slitheen bomb. They are rescued by Clyde and Rani, who arrive armed with vinegar.
The year passes, and Luke gets top marks in his exams. He is going to Oxford University. He discusses the move with Sarah, expressing his concerns about leaving home. She gives him a present - her old car. Clyde and Rani go back to school, and Luke feels left out. He starts to think that everyone is going to be glad to see him leave, and finds they are acting coldly towards him. One night, he overhears Sarah talking to K9 about how they can't wait for him to leave. He wakes to find that this was just a bad dream - which is worrying, as he doesn't dream. He tells Rani who urges him to tell Sarah, but he thinks it is just worry about going to University. Clyde seems to be avoiding him these days. He then has another bad dream, where he is trapped in a darkened school corridor. Clyde and Rani appear and mock him, and Sarah joins in with them when she arrives. Luke then hears a man's voice, who claims that he gains strength from people's nightmares. He tells Sarah afterwards, and she has Mr Smith scan him, but nothing untoward can be found.
When he goes to visit the school he discovers that Clyde and Rani have organised a surprise farewell party for him. He dozes off, and wakes to find himself confronted by a white-faced man dressed in black - the Nightmare Man. He tells Luke that he wants to exist in the real world, and one more bad dream from Luke will allow him to cross over.
On his last night at Bannerman Road, Rani and Clyde join him for a sleep-over. Luke goes alone to the attic to record a video message for his mother, but falls asleep. He sees his friends burning mementos of him on a bonfire in the garden, and Sarah is already renting out his room to someone else. Again, everyone is glad to see the back of him. He suddenly finds himself alone in a black void, and the Nightmare Man announces that he is now real, and able to invade the waking world...
The Nightmare Man then inveigles his way into the dreams of Clyde and Rani. Clyde finds himself working in a dead end job doing night shifts in a burger joint. The only customer is an old down and out woman - Sarah Jane Smith. Rani has always dreamed of being a TV journalist, and she finds herself being dragged into her TV set to appear on a current affairs programme where she has to work with a bossy co-presenter. Sarah meanwhile has watched the video Luke made and seen the Nightmare Man appear in it. Mr Smith warns her that he is an alien entity from another dimension. K9 is able to make contact with Luke, appearing in the dreamscape he has found himself trapped within. Luke also manages to contact Clyde and Rani, who are trapped behind other doors in the darkened school corridor. The Nightmare Man has started to give everyone on Bannerman Road bad dreams, but he realises the threat Sarah poses to him. He has Mr Smith and K9 deactivated. Sarah tells him that he might as well take her as well, as she has nothing left to live for. This is a ruse so that she can be reunited with Luke and her friends, because together they have a chance of defeating the Nightmare Man.
Luke is able to help Rani and Clyde escape from their individual nightmares by each concentrating on making a door appear. They succeed, and all are reunited in the corridor, where they are joined by Sarah.
The combined will power of the four is enough to overpower the Nightmare Man, and he is sucked though a door into his own nightmare - trapped in the burger bar with the elderly Sarah telling him all about how successful her son is.
The next day Luke sets off for Oxford University in his new car, and Sarah gives him another gift. K9 will accompany him.
The Nightmare Man was written by Joseph Lidster, and was first broadcast on 11th and 12th October, 2010. It was the first story of the fourth season of The Sarah Jane Adventures - the first produced after Russell T Davies had handed over the showrunner role on Doctor Who to Steven Moffat.
Lidster had written one episode of Torchwood's second series - A Day in the Death - but had also contributed to a lot of the on-line content for Doctor Who related websites.
The Nightmare Man marks the last regular appearance of Tommy Knight as Luke Smith, although he and K9 will continue to appear in the series from time to time - even if it is just Luke making a video call to Sarah and his friends. As such, a replacement character wouldn't appear until the beginning of the fifth series, so Sarah continues her adventures this year with just Rani and Clyde.
Towards the end of 2010, viewers in the UK would get to see the new K9 Adventures series, when it was broadcast over the Christmas / New Year period daily by Channel 5.
The story concentrates mainly on the regular cast, so there are only two guest appearances worth noting. First and foremost we have the wonderful Julian Bleach as the Nightmare Man. By this time he was best known for portraying Davros in The Stolen Earth / Journey's End, having previously played the Ghost Maker in Torchwood's second series story From Out of the Rain. The Nightmare Man allowed him to show off his theatrical mime skills, as seen in his award-winning performances in Shockheaded Peter.
The other guest performer is comic actress Doon Mackichan (Smack the Pony, Two Doors Down, Toast of London etc). She plays obnoxious TV presenter Louise Marlowe, from Rani's nightmare.
Overall, a low key start to the new season - more of a psychological thriller rather than a big VFX heavy storyline as might have been expected. At the time fans were sad to see Luke and K9 apparently leaving the show. Nice to see Lis Sladen get to essay a funny character role as the old version of Sarah.
Things you might like to know:
- A line was cut from the broadcast version which implied that Luke might be gay. This had been something which Russell T Davies had intended, and the BBC had asked him to include a LGBT character in the series. As Luke is about to set off for Uni, Sarah mentions that he might get himself a girlfriend, to which Luke responds "Or a boyfriend...". This dialogue was reinstated for the novelisation of the story.
- The novel also includes a second party which Sarah organises for Luke, which has as guests a number of characters seen in earlier SJA stories or from elsewhere in the Doctor Who universe - such as Prof. Rivers and her assistant Toby, the Brigadier and his wife Doris and even Martha Smith-Jones and husband Mickey.
- There's a reference to the most recent series of Doctor Who as Sarah has Mr Smith analyse an object which comes from Alfava Metraxis (the setting for The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone).
- The series' running gag of characters being covered in slime is continued here as the vinegar attack on the Slitheen in the opening segment sees the aliens explode all over everyone.
- The Slitheen costume has had a slight modification since its last appearance in the final story of Series 3, being a much darker green.
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