Warriors of Kudlak (TV story)

Warriors of Kudlak was the fourth story in the first series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It was comprised of the fifth and sixth episodes of the regular series. It was during this story that Luke Smith and Clyde Langer went into space for the first time and Luke was given his first kiss from a girl.

Synopsis
Children have been going missing, but how? Will Luke and Clyde win Combat 3000? And who is the mysterious Mr Kudlak?

Part 1
A new laser tag centre, Combat 3000, has opened in London. Lance Metcalf, a teenage boy from Clyde and Luke Smith's school, is reported missing after going there. Mr Smith tells Sarah Jane that twenty-four children have gone missing from all across England in places where other branches of Combat 3000 have opened.

Luke tries in vain to master the art of telling jokes. Neither does he understand games. Clyde takes him under his wing to Combat 3000 to teach him how fun fun is. Sarah Jane learns there have been mysterious storms at the time of all the disappearances connected with Combat 3000. Investigating, Maria and she also find that Mark Grantham and a humanoid, insectoid alien called Kudlak are abducting the children for an unseen "Mistress".

Luke and Clyde have survived Round One of Combat 3000 and are challenged to make it to the door to the championships, facing other accomplished players. When Luke and Clyde approach the door, they are attacked. They escape, but are locked in a room from which they disappear. Mr. Grantham points an alien gun at Sarah and Maria, but Sarah uses her sonic lipstick to escape. Maria and Sarah arrive in a different room where they are confronted by Kudlak...

They have arrived too late to save Luke and Clyde. On a screen they see them transported to space by a transmat beam.

Part 2
Sarah Jane and Maria create a diversion and escape Kudlak. Back at Bannerman Road, Mr. Smith informs them Kudlak is a member of the Uvodni race, who were part of a planetary alliance fighting against the Malakh. The Malakh won the war, but the Uvodni continued fighting. Kudlak was injured on the front line and forced to leave the fighting. He was sent as part of an Imperial Fleet to recruit "warriors" from other worlds. His ship was led by a Mistress, who kept the patriotism and bloodlust in Kudlak alive. After decades of recruiting (mostly human) children via Combat 3000, Kudlak and Mr. Grantham have abducted Clyde and Luke.

Meanwhile, Luke and Clyde find themselves on a spaceship. They rescue other children from holding crates, including Lance and a girl called Jen. On Earth, Mr. Grantham breaks into Sarah Jane's home, but is overpowered by an electric shock. Back on the Uvodni ship, the children make their way to a shuttlecraft, but are recaptured. Sarah Jane and Maria blackmail Grantham into transmatting them to the Uvodni ship, where they talk to the Mistress. When Kudlak brings the children to the Mistress, everyone is reunited. They discover the Mistress's true identity as a face on a computer screen, with no real person behind it.

Kudlak is stopped by Luke before he kills anyone. Luke has discovered a ten-year-old message from the Uvodni Emperor, stating that an armistice had been reached with the Malakh. Having no programming to understand the concept of peace, the Mistress buried the message and continued to command Kudlak to recruit warriors, even though her missions no longer had any real point. With the truth revealed, Kudlak destroys the Mistress, releases the children and swears to do what he can to reunite the surviving recruits with their families. Back on Earth, Grantham has escaped, but Sarah Jane decides not to have him arrested. After chatting with her friends, Jen decides to thank Luke for saving her with a kiss. This kiss, being his first, leaves him quite confused, since he's never experienced romantic inklings before. Luke asks Clyde if he has any knowledge to share about dealing with girls, but it's the one mystery even he can't figure out.

Cast

 * Sarah Jane Smith — Elisabeth Sladen
 * Maria Jackson — Yasmin Paige
 * Luke Smith — Tommy Knight
 * Clyde Langer — Daniel Anthony
 * Voice of Mr Smith — Alexander Armstrong
 * Mark Grantham — Chook Sibtain
 * Carrie Metcalf — Sarah Haynes
 * Lance — Sonny Muslim
 * Brandon Butler — James Bellamy
 * Jen — Nadiyah Davis
 * Cashier — Chrissie Furness
 * Kudlak/Emperor/Mistress — Paul Kasey
 * Voice of Kudlak/Emperor — Silas Carson
 * Voice of Mistress - Tina Greatex

Story notes

 * Both episodes aired on the CBBC Channel, and were broadcast a week later on BBC1.
 * The BBC Ninth Doctor novel Winner Takes All has a plot similar to this episode.
 * The game that Lance Metcalf, alias Halo, and Brandon Butler played, could be played on the BBC website. It was called Interstella Z-Wingers.

Part 1

 * 425,000 (CBBC)
 * 1 million (BBC1)

Part 2

 * 397,000 (CBBC)
 * 1.2 million (BBC1)

Location filming
Barry Island

Production errors

 * If you look behind Luke as he puts on his suit, you can see the scores from after the game when it hasn't even started yet.

Continuity

 * Clyde has started tutoring Luke on how to "be cool" so he can get the hang of acting and interacting like a normal human boy. Luke's unfamiliarity to the nuances of social life was addressed in TV: Revenge of the Slitheen.
 * Among the aliens shown by Mr. Smith when generating an image for Kudlak is The Beast. (TV: The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit)

Home video releases

 * This story was included in the Series 1 box set, which was released in North America on 7 October 2008 and released in the UK on 10 November 2008.