Time to get a new teenage girl on this show, and this time, the problematic parent for a new companion character is the girl’s father. Her mom seems pretty cool.
Also, there’s a clown.
Yes, apparently, some clown is running around the countryside and stealing children. That’s never good. Does anyone even like clowns?
Sarah Jane doesn’t. Turns out she’s afraid of them.
If anything, Luke and Clyde have their own problems. Luke misses Maria. Clyde misses not getting ragged on by the new headmaster, a no-nonsense type who doesn’t like class clowns like Clyde. I am guessing “class clown” doesn’t appear too often in British slang because with a clown that hands out coupons and balloons as a means of catching his prey, even appearing in mirrors, he’s obviously trouble.
But we do need a new Maria, so how about Rani Chandra, aspiring journalist who keeps seeing that clown and is looking into it? Clyde seems a little smitten with her. She did move into Maria’s old house across from Sarah Jane’s place. Sarah Jane seems to hit it off with Maria’s mother Gita. Luke befriends her rather easily (for Luke). And everything seems to be going well as Clyde tries to impress her in subtle ways (for Clyde).
Oh, and her dad is the new headmaster.
Awkward…
However, as Clyde and Sarah Jane investigate the disappearances on one end and Luke helps Rani investigate the clown on another end, with both Sarah Jane and Rani concluding they can’t go to the police because who would believe them, we have the added problem that Luke tries to tell Rani Sarah Jane would totally believe in the eerie clown thing, but Rani doesn’t believe that either.
However, the clown was handing out free passes to a circus museum, and the two pairs do meet up there by sheer coincidence. That place is run by the sinister Elijah Spellman, who may or may not be related to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and he has a lot of robo-clowns to sic on the foursome.
Also, he’s a shapeshifter of some sorts, so he’s the clown Clyde and Rani kept seeing.
And he’s the Pied Piper of old.
Well, a sonic lipstick may stop robo-clowns, but the real thing may be another story…
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