In which fish suddenly rain from the skies over West London. Sarah Jane Smith is visiting neighbour Haresh Chandra's office to organise Sky Smith's enrolment at Haresh's school when they see a fish land on the window ledge. More are falling outside. Hurrying back to Bannerman Road, Sarah asks Mr Smith to investigate and it suggests a possible link to a new museum exhibition. The centrepiece of this is a Native American totem poll recently uncovered by archaeologists. It was reported that there was a rain of fish when it was found. Sarah, Sky and her young friends Clyde and Rani go to visit the museum. Clyde gives some money to a homeless girl before going in. They learn that the totem pole is said to represent an evil deity known as Hetocumtek. Clyde touches one of the carved faces, and gets a splinter in his finger. After scanning the artefact, Sarah can find no trace of any alien technology, so they head for home. As Clyde falls asleep that night, he fails to see his name begin to glow on all the paperwork it is written on...
The following morning begins as normal for Clyde, but as soon as someone mentions his name they suddenly become hostile towards him. Sarah accuses him of always belittling Luke, and throws him out of her house. Rani tells him she hates him, and her father expels him from school. His best friend turns against him, and even Luke refuses to talk to him when he tries to phone him about what is happening. Clyde realises that people are turning against him on the mention of his name - as though it is cursed. He goes to the museum to ask about such curses from the head of the anthropology section - Dr Madigan - but she too becomes hostile on hearing his name and has security throw him out. The situation deteriorates when Clyde goes home, and his mother throws him out. When he tries to take money from a cash machine, the screen simply shows his name over and over again.
The homeless girl he had seen earlier approaches him and offers to help him.
Clyde finds himself living amongst the homeless of London. He decides not to give his real name, for fear of alienating the girl, whose name is Ellie Faber. From her he hears of a number of homeless people who have gone missing recently - and Ellie claims they were taken away by the "Night Dragon".
Back on Bannerman Road, only Sky has remained unaffected by the curse on Clyde's name. Dr Madigan contacts Sarah to say strange things are happening around the totem pole, and Sarah now detects a build-up of alien energy. The faces on the artefact begin to change into more malevolent aspects. At a soup kitchen, an old woman known as Mystic Mags tells Clyde that she has seen something worse than the Night Dragon when reading his tea leaves, and that she knows a curse has been placed on him. Sky finally succeeds in getting Sarah and Rani to listen to a theory from Mr Smith - that the totem pole houses an alien intelligence which has been reactivated through contact with Clyde. By forcing themselves to say Clyde's name, the curse is lifted. They go out and find Clyde and bring him to the attic, where Mr Smith hacks into the teleport of a passing spaceship to bring the totem pole to them. When Clyde touches it once more, repeating his name over and over, Hetocumtek's power is destroyed.
Clyde goes out looking for Ellie but fails to find her. He sees a lorry with "Night Dragon Haulage" written on the side, and learns that the drivers often give lifts to homeless people, taking them to another town to try to start a new life...
The Curse of Clyde Langer was written by Phil Ford, and was first broadcast on 10th and 11th October, 2011. As the penultimate story of the season, and of the series as a whole, it marks the departure of a couple of semi-regular cast members. Bowing out are Ace Bhatti, who played Haresh Chandra, and Jocelyn Jee Eisen, who had infrequently appeared as Clyde's mother Carla.
It's a Clyde-centric story, with Daniel Anthony carrying much of the plot. Although mentioned, Tommy Knight's Luke is absent from this story.
Homelessness in general, and youth homelessness in particular, are major themes. It is believed that Clyde's search for Ellie may have been returned to later in the series had it continued.
This story won the Writers Guild of Great Britain (Children's Fiction) award in 2012 for its sensitive tackling of these issues.
The other cast members worth noting are Lily Loveless, playing Ellie Faber, Sara Houghton as Dr Madigan, and Angela Pleasence as Mystic Mags. Angela had previously portrayed the aged Queen Elizabeth at the conclusion of The Shakespeare Code.
Overall, a well made story, which has its homelessness theme intrinsic to the plot, rather than treating it as a lecture tacked on (something the current iteration of Doctor Who should take note of). Daniel Anthony is excellent, but the other regulars aren't sidelined to allow his central role. SJA stories always end on a happy note, but this one ends on a bit of a sad note as Clyde doesn't know where Ellie has gone.
Things you might like to know:
- The pre-title sequence has now been amended to include Sky.
- The cash machine Clyde tries to use belongs to London Credit Bank. This fictitious institution first appeared in The Runaway Bride. It was from one of their ATMs that the Doctor flooded the street with banknotes to confuse the Robot Santas.
- The soup kitchen is run by an organisation called "Steven's Point". This is the same organisation who were feeding the homeless in The End of Time Part 1 - their mobile catering facility attacked by the Master.
- Clyde takes the name 'Enrico Box', rather than give his real, cursed name to Ellie. He takes this from a discarded box for "Enrico's Pizza". The Doctor Who universe usually only ever refers to "Jubilee Pizza", first mentioned in 2005's Dalek.
- Mystic Mags derives her name from newspaper and TV astrologer Mystic Meg, who was very big in the UK in the 1990's.
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