Warriors of Kudlak (TV story)

Warriors of Kudlak was the third serial of series 1 of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It was written by Phil Gladwin, directed by Charles Martin and featured Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Yasmin Paige as Maria Jackson, Tommy Knight as Luke Smith, Daniel Anthony as Clyde Langer and Alexander Armstrong as Mr Smith.

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
Combat 3000 is a new laser tag centre that has opened in London. Lance Metcalf, a teenage boy from Clyde and Luke Smith's school, is playing and walks down a corridor into a small room when a door shuts behind him. Lance then disappears in what appears to be a transportation beam. At Lance's house, Sarah is asking Lance's mother, Carrie Metcalf, about the disappearance. Back at 13 Bannerman Road, Mr Smith tells Sarah and Maria 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. He also does not understand games. Sarah asks the children if they knew Lance and Clyde refers to Lance by his nickname, Corporal. Sarah tells them that this nickname probably upset Lance because his father was a soldier that was killed in battle. Luke is upset by this because he thought he finally said something humorous and he leaves the house upset. Clyde follows after him to try to cheer him up. Sarah learns there have been mysterious storms at the time of all the disappearances connected with Combat 3000. Sarah and Maria make a machine to try to trace energy that might be left by alien activity during the sudden storms.

Clyde takes Luke under his wing, and they go to Combat 3000 in order to teach Luke how fun fun is. Luke and Clyde have survived Round One of Combat 3000 and are the top two players, with Luke edging ahead of Clyde; Clyde puts this down to beginner's luck on Luke's part. Mark Grantham appears and challenges them to Round Two where they will be facing other accomplished players. The winners of Round Two will advance to the championships by making it through the arena and through a door at the end of the arena. They enter into the second round, where should they lose their allotted ten lives they lose the game. Working together, they manage to make it near the door, with Luke on six lives and Clyde on four. When Luke and Clyde approach the door, they are attacked by unknown attackers. They successfully push through the assault, but are locked in a room.

Sarah and Maria arrive at Combat 3000 and start investigating. They sneak into the office area and break into an office. Grantham catches Sarah and Maria in his office and points an alien gun at them. While talking with Grantham, they find out that he is working with a humanoid, insectoid alien called Kudlak and are abducting the children for an unseen "Mistress". Sarah uses her sonic lipstick to disrupt Grantham's earpiece, which shocks him and allows them to escape. Maria and Sarah arrive in a different room where they are confronted by Kudlak. They see a screen and see Clyde and Luke transported away by a transmat beam.

Part 2
Sarah 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.

Luke and Clyde are still in the small locked room when a door opens and the guards grab them and shove them in a wooden crate. The guards then push the crate into a large room where there are other crates. Luke works to open the crate and when they get out, they rescue other children from holding crates, including Lance and a girl called Jen. While they are all talking, Luke uses Clyde's phone to hack into the computer system of the spaceship and he finds a map. On the map he sees a shuttlecraft that they can use to escape. They all hear a door starting to open and hide. A guard enters and Jen sneaks up and grabs the guard and shoves him into a crate. They then run through the door as the guard blows open the crate with a weapon. Luke, Clyde and the others find a window and discover that they are indeed in space.

On Earth, Grantham breaks into Sarah's home, but, while cornering Sarah, Maria overpowers him by using parts of the machine that they made to electrocute Grantham. Back on the Uvodni ship, the children make their way to a shuttlecraft, but are recaptured. Sarah 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. Luke tells Kudlak that the war is over. They discover the Mistress's true identity, which is a face on a computer screen with no real person behind it. Kudlak doesn't believe this and threatens to kill all of them.

Kudlak is stopped by Luke before he kills anyone. Luke tells Kudlak about a video that he discovered. It is 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 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

Individuals

 * Next to Clyde, Luke, Lance and Jen, a boy from Manchester, a girl from Leeds and a girl from Inverness were on the Uvodni warship.

Locations

 * Sarah says that Lance Metcalf could be the first human man on Mars.
 * The Uvodni homeworld is located 34,000 light-years from Earth, in the Spiral Cluster of the Dragon Nebula.
 * A Combat 3000 game store is located in Manchester, Brighton and Inverness.
 * Simon Metcalf was a soldier at the Iraq War.
 * The Ghost Wars took place at the Horsehead Nebula.
 * Sarah and Maria visit Haven Green.

Organisations

 * As Mr Smith notes while accessing his database, Kudlak is one of the Uvodni Signus Brigade's most decorated warriors. He also mentions the Uvodni Imperial Fleet.

Objects

 * Sarah uses two fuse rods, made from Cibrianite Flux, to create an energy web machine.
 * Entanglement shells are used in terraforming.

Species

 * A picture of a Cyberman appears in Sarah Jane's attic.
 * While Mr Smith searches for Kudlak's race, Krillitane wings and the Beast's horns are seen.
 * Mr Smith's last data registration of General Kudlak came from a cybergon download with a Zantoxian trade vessel that passed through the Solar system two months ago. As Sarah reveals to Maria, Mr Smith sometimes likes to connect with the onboard computers of passing alien vessels.
 * Slabs are working at the Uvodni warship.
 * The Uvodni and the Malakh fought against each other for thousands of years.

Food

 * Luke tries to make a joke about cornflakes.

Expressions

 * Luke is confused by Clyde's use of the word "gaffe".
 * Brandon describes Lance as "the nuts".

Cultural references to the real world

 * Lance Metcalf's name on the scoreboard of the game he and Brandon play is Halo, a possible reference to the Halo series of games.
 * Clyde mentions Captain Kirk, a reference to Star Trek.
 * Mr Grantham and Clyde Langer make a reference to Star Wars.

Films

 * Lance Metcalf has filmposters of Acid Burn, City Justice and Space Station Zero inside his room.

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
 * Womanby street, Cardiff

Production errors

 * Near the beginning of episode 1, in the background you can see a sign on the side of the building next to Combat 3000 that clearly has the words "South Wales."
 * 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. (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 DVD box set, which was released in North America on 7 October 2008 and released in the UK on 10 November 2008.