The Curse of Clyde Langer (TV story)

The Curse of Clyde Langer was the second story of Series 5 of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Part one
It's raining fish from the skies, and Sarah Jane's investigations lead the gang to the Museum of Culture, where the ancient god Hetocumtek may offer answers. Yet when Clyde acts the fool once too often, family and friends savagely turn against him, and he is thrown out of their lives!

Part two
Clyde is alone and abandoned on the streets of London, living rough, cold and hungry. One person reaches out to him, but as they become friends, he's warned about the legendary Night Dragon. In Bannerman Road, Sky knows something's wrong – why do Sarah Jane and Rani suddenly hate Clyde?

Part one
Clyde shows Rani ‘The Silver Bullet’, a superhero comic strip he has written and illustrated. Rani is impressed with her friend’s latest project, but isn’t quite as taken with his idea for another tale, starring an adventurer named “Susie June Jones”! Meanwhile, Rani’s father, headmaster Haresh Chandra, meets with Sarah Jane and her newly-adopted daughter to discuss Sky’s enrollment at the school. When their conversation is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a fish on the window-ledge outside the office, Haresh suspects a student prank. However, when Sarah Jane, Sky and he go outside, they are astonished to find that it is raining fish!

Leaving Haresh and his pupils gazing in amazement at the bizarre, fish-covered school and playground, Sarah Jane, Sky, Clyde and Rani race back to the attic of No.13 Bannerman Road, where Mr Smith is busy monitoring reports of the unusual storm. Sarah explains that previous accounts of such phenomenon have been attributed to tornadoes sucking up fish and depositing them elsewhere. Just to make sure, she asks Mr Smith to carry out a scan for any alien energies that could be to blame. The Xylok computer does not detect anything suspicious. He informs Sarah of a possible link to a new exhibit at the Museum of Culture, where a Mojave Native American totem pole is on display. Legend has it that when this artefact was removed from the cave where it was hidden, a storm of fish fell from the skies.

The gang arrive at the museum; as they race inside, Clyde gives some spare change to a homeless girl begging on the street. Making their way to the Native American display, the four adventurers easily find the totem pole: a tall, wooden post carved with creepy-looking faces. Clyde immediately plays the joker and tickles one of the faces, only to get a nasty splinter in his finger; while he tries to remove it, Sarah, Sky and Rani meet Doctor Samantha Madigan from the anthropology department. She knows of the totem’s legendary powers, but doesn’t attribute the recent storm to Hetocumtek, the vicious warrior supposedly imprisoned inside the artefact by Native American Medicine Men. As Sarah conducts a fruitless scan of the totem pole, Clyde removes the splinter.

With no alien threat apparent, the friends leave. Clyde returns home and, after dinner with his mum, goes to his room to work on his comic book. After completing the final panel of ‘The Silver Bullet’, Clyde signs his name and goes to bed, noticing as he does so that his finger is still hurting. As Clyde falls asleep, he fails to see his name mysteriously glow on his pictures and school certificate.

The following morning, Clyde visits Sarah to show her his completed comic book. She is full of praise – until Clyde says his name, and her attitude changes in a second. She is furious at Clyde for his teasing of Luke, and promptly throws him out of her house. Astonished, Clyde crosses the road to tell Rani what happened – but then Haresh says Clyde’s name, and he and his daughter become enraged. Rani spitefully tells Clyde she hates him and Haresh expels the bewildered boy from school.

Upset and confused to hear such venom from people he considers his friends, Clyde quickly walks away. Back at No.13, Sarah tears up all the pictures drawn by Clyde that she can find; Mr Smith voices his concern at her inexplicable anger, but Sarah calms down as Sky enters the attic. With Sky about to attend her first day at school, Sarah decides to return to the museum to write an article on the totem and the fish storm. Sky mentions Clyde – and Sarah’s attitude changes once more: she bans her daughter from ever mentioning Clyde again, and instructs Mr Smith to sound an alert should the boy ever come near the house.

Meanwhile, in the park, Clyde phones Luke, only to discover that his best friend won’t talk to him either. Clyde meets his mate Steve, who asks him to join in a game of football; Clyde tactfully refuses – but then Steve says his friend’s name, and he too is overwhelmed with hatred. After stomping Clyde’s phone into bits, Steve and his mates prepare to do the same to their former friend, but Clyde runs for it instead.

Racing out of the park with the angry gang close behind, Clyde evades his pursuers by hiding behind some bins; once his ex-mates have run past, Clyde notices that his finger is still bleeding – and he makes the connection to the totem. Returning to the museum to look at the artefact, Clyde bumps into Doctor Madigan; he asks her about Native American curses. Before he can learn anything useful, Sarah turns up and causes a scene. Doctor Madigan tries to calm her, but then she says Clyde’s name and Clyde finds himself being frog-marched out of the exhibition hall by security guards, while Sarah phones the police to make a harassment claim.

Clyde picks himself up from the pavement and sees the homeless girl watching from nearby. He returns home, only to discover his mum affected by the curse after reading his name on some mail. Accusing Clyde of lying to her, Carla demands that he leave the house never to return; Clyde tries to reason with his mother, but when she opens the door to let in the police, he is forced to make a hasty exit out the back door.

On the run, Clyde tries to get some money from a cash machine, only to watch as the screen just fills up with his name, repeated over and over again, Night soon falls and a thunderstorm begins. Soaked through, with no home, no family and no friends, Clyde tries to find shelter in a doorway; all seems lost, but then Clyde finally gets a break: the homeless girl appears before him and offers to help.

Cast

 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Clyde Langer - Daniel Anthony
 * Rani Chandra - Anjli Mohindra
 * Sky Smith - Sinead Michael
 * Mr Smith - Alexander Armstrong
 * Haresh Chandra - Ace Bhatti
 * Carla Langer - Jocelyn Jee Esien
 * Ellie - Lily Loveless
 * Doctor Madigan - Sara Houghton
 * Mystic Mags - Angela Pleasence
 * Max - Ewart Jones
 * Security Guard - Anwar Lynch
 * Steve Wallace - Elijah Baker

Story notes

 * Angela Pleasence previously played Queen Elizabeth I in DW: The Shakespeare Code.
 * This episode premièred Sky being included in Clyde's description of 13 Bannerman Road in the pre-titles sequence.

Ratings
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Rumours
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Production errors
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Continuity

 * Clyde's drawing that was put in the museum in Mona Lisa's Revenge is seen on his bedroom wall.
 * Clyde's friend, Steve Wallace, previously appeared in The Day of the Clown and The Mark of the Berserker.
 * Clyde is seen reading a book about the French Revolution. (DW: An Unearthly Child, Remembrance of the Daleks)

DVD releases
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Blu-ray releases
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