The Sarah Jane Adventures “Eye Of The Gorgon Part 2”

Crap.  That lousy gorgon turned Maria’s father to stone.

Since this isn’t the type of show that would do that to even a reoccurring supporting character as a permanent thing, I suppose we’ll have to see how Sarah Jane and the kids fix all this.

And, truth be told, it is the kids who fix all this, mostly Maria.  The nuns still have Luke and Clyde, and they stuck those two in the worst possible room:  the convent’s massive library where Luke finds a book on the building’s secret passageways.  They even almost manage to steal the talisman, but there are just too many evil nuns, and this isn’t the sort of show where our heroes get to punch nuns, even evil ones, in the face.

Still, this whole “the mother superior gorgon just wants to go back to its home planet to die” thing doesn’t seem to be sincere, so Sarah Jane needs to do something fast.  Mr. Smith says Maria’s father is slowly turning to organic stone, but they can maybe revive him if they find a method in 90 minutes.  Otherwise, well, it’s a lot more permanent.  To do, well, something, Sarah Jane heads off to confront the nuns while Maria grills the senile old lady for information on how to reverse the process, a series of scenes that don’t work out too well as the woman doesn’t even seem to know where she is.

Until she snaps into the present and tells Maria to use the talisman to reverse the process on her dad–just as the old woman’s husband had done for her before–and to take a large hand mirror with her when she goes back to the convent.

Good thing too.  The nuns recapture the boys and take Sarah Jane away because, as Sarah Jane figured out, the old nun isn’t the Gorgon.  The Gorgon is a parasite inside the old nun, and it’s looking for a new host body.  Plus, opening the portal means a lot more Gorgons to “save” the world as the nuns would like.

That would be bad.

But it turns out you can turn a Gorgon to stone with a mirror reflecting its beams back at it, and then Maria grabs the talisman from the altar, closing the portal, saving everyone–even the nuns–and gets the talisman back to her father and returns him to flesh and blood just in time.

Plus, he conveniently doesn’t remember anything.  That always helps.

So, that’s how Maria Jackson saved the world, with Sarah Jane and the boys kinda standing around watching.

Not a bad day’s work for a middle schooler.  Or whatever they call them in Britain.