From Raxacoricofallapatorius with Love (TV story)

From Raxacoricofallapatorius With Love was a special episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures that was broadcast on 13 March 2009 as part of the 2009 Comic Relief appeal. Pre-broadcast publicity attributed the title Funny for Money (also the slogan of Comic Relief) to the special, but co-writer Clayton Hickman revealed the episode's true title in a post to the Doctor Who Forum a few days after the broadcast.

Synopsis
While performing a maintenance on Mr Smith, a surprising guest visits Sarah Jane.

Plot
Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Clyde are running a routine check on Mr Smith, concluding with manual calibration of the energy reversal beam. Before they get the chance to calibrate it however, the entire attic starts shaking and Mr Smith warns them of an unknown force locking in on their location. Just as suddenly as it began, the shaking stops and a small man in a bowler hat teleports into the room.

The man greets them and tells them he is Ambassador Eranius, sent by the Galactic Alliance to thank them for protecting Earth. With a click of his fingers, he bestows upon them a gift: a set of sparkly red deeley boppers each. Confused, Clyde asks what they are for and Eranius cites cultural differences making humans very difficult to buy for. Eranius begins to make himself comfortable by hanging his hat on the back of the door and taking a seat. Whilst telling a story he proceeds to break wind noisily. This raises Sarah Jane's suspicions as they have encountered an alien race with "gas problems" before: the Slitheen family.

Suddenly, K-9 teleports into the attic and identifies Eranius as a Slitheen. His cover blown, Eranius activates a device on his ring that attaches a clamp to K-9 which deactivates him. He then proceeds to unzip his forehead and peels off his skin to reveal his true form, before activating another device that roots Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Clyde to the floor through their "Deadly Deeley Boppers".

His enemies now immobilized, Eranius reveals that he plans to steal K-9. With his extensive knowledge of the past and the future, no bank in space will be safe from them - they'll crunch the credit of the cosmos. With Eranius distracted by K-9, Luke reminds Sarah Jane of the energy reversal beam, but Sarah Jane reminds Luke in return that it is still un-calibrated and none of them can reach the switch. Clyde tells them to leave it to him as he grabs Eranius' hat off the door.

Sarah Jane gets Eranius' attention back, telling him she still has her Sonic lipstick. She signals to Clyde who throws the hat which hits the calibration switch. Mr Smith channels the energy reversal beam through the sonic lipstick meaning Eranius is now stuck to the floor and everyone else can move again. Sarah Jane tells Mr Smith to send Eranius back where he came from, along with K-9's clamp.

Sarah Jane claims that it was the weirdest five minutes of her life. K-9 agrees, a red nose adorning his face.

Cast

 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Luke Smith - Tommy Knight
 * Clyde Langer - Daniel Anthony
 * Rani Chandra - Anjli Mohindra
 * Mr Smith - Alexander Armstrong
 * Voice of K-9 - John Leeson
 * Ambassador Eranius - Ronnie Corbett
 * Slitheen - Jimmy Vee
 * Voice of Slitheen - Ronnie Corbett

Production Crew
to be added

Story Notes

 * This episode marks the first time one of the Doctor Who spinoffs has been featured in a mini-episode and is the first "mainstream Whoniverse" Comic Relief mini-episode (the previous production, The Curse of Fatal Death, was a spoof and not considered part of mainstream continuity).
 * Running at just over 5 minutes, it was the shortest mini-episode produced as of its broadcast and, thus, the shortest episode to date ever produced for the Doctor Who television franchise. It has since been surpassed by the three-minute Doctor Who mini-episode Tonight's the Night, however the later production is not considered in any way canonical, wheras the SJA mini-episode can be considered thus, allowing it to retain the record of shortest legitimate Who-franchise story.
 * The title of the mini-episode does not actually appear on screen, making this only the third Doctor Who franchise episode in history to not display a story title (following the Doctor Who TV movie and the 2005 Doctor Who Children in Need Special mini-episode).
 * The title is a play on From Russia with Love, the title of a James Bond novel and movie.

Ratings
The episode was watched by approximately 8.3 million viewers according to unofficial over-night ratings.

Myths

 * The fansite sarahjane.tv claimed before transmission that this episode would feature an attack from an alien species called the Rednosicles.
 * Many fans speculated that this production would feature the Graske as the two Doctor Who mini-episodes DW: Attack of the Graske and Music of the Spheres and the two The Sarah Jane Adventures episodes SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? and The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith did before it. This proved incorrect, although Jimmy Vee, the actor who played the Graske on those previous occasions, does appear, but playing a Slitheen, instead.

Filming Locations

 * Upper Boat Studios

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * "Slitheen" are referred to as a race whereas they are actually a family within the Raxacoricofallapatorian race. A lot of time during Doctor Who the Raxacoriofallapatorian race has been referenced as a Slitheen because they are known as criminals so it only makes sense to continue that tradition into the spin off.
 * Eranius plans to steal K-9 Mark IV for its extensive knowledge of the past and future. This model has only been activated since early 2007 so will not have experienced all that much. It is possible that this model has retained its memories of K-9 Mark III and possibly even those of Marks II and I before it when the Doctor created it. It is also possible that K9 has interfaced with Mr. Smith or the Doctor's TARDIS at some point. Another possibility is that Eranius was mistaken in believing this model would contain such data. This K9 has been shown to have significant knowledge previously, including the TARDIS base code numerals(DW:Journey's End).
 * Just before donning the red nose, K-9 is heard laughing. Is the tin dog capable of displaying such emotion? Although never before heard laughing, K-9 has been heard sounding indignant, smug, angry, and in other emotional states in stories dating back to his debut in The Invisible Enemy. Sarah or one of the kids might have also adjusted his programming.
 * How did K-9 get his red nose? It was a Comic Relief Special, it was almost inevitable they'd work a red nose in somehow; ditto the funny hats given to the other characters. Exactly how it got there is a question left unanswered from an in-universe perspective. It is, however, very similar in appearance to the red deely-boppers that were previously materialised onto the humans in the room. It's not unreasonable to assume that the nose was also meant to be of similar origin.
 * The Slitheen in this episode has gas exchange problems but they managed to fix it in The Lost Boy. There is no guarantee that the technology would be distributed throughout the family. It's also possible whatever was used to override the gas problem malfunctioned. This Slitheen is also depicted as being not entirely competent; he could have simply forgotten to apply whatever method was used to stop the exchange.
 * It is unknown where this is set in the timeline of the series, except that it is set after Day of The Clown as Rani is with them. Is is possible, as K9 comes from the safe that it is about 6 months after The Lost Boy, as Sarah Jane says in Invasion Of The Bane that K9 has been in the safe for 18 months and pops by time to time, presumably every 6 months

Continuity

 * Presuming Ambassador Eranius was a real person, this is the first time in the series that a Raxacoricofallapatorian is seen wearing the skin suit of a non-human.
 * There are a handful of references to The Two Ronnies - a long-running TV series that Ronnie Corbett co-hosted - including Eranius saying that his nickname, "Rani", and Rani herself makes them "The Two Ranis", that whilst he was in the Galactic Canteen there were fork 'andles and when Eranius is finally teleported away, Sarah Jane says "And it's good night from him," which was Ronnie Barker's catchphrase. Equally, Corbett's monologue, a running feature in The Two Ronnies, is referenced through the speech pattern and mannerisms of Eranius when he is sitting, much like he did in the aforementioned show.
 * "Two Ranis" can also be a reference to The Rani, showing that the fact she shares her name with Rani Chandra is not significant because there are a lot of Ranis. One of the muder victims in Torchwood premiere "Everything Changes" was a Rani Gosch.
 * With the exception of K-9, for no apparent (in-universe) reason donning a Comic Relief red nose, there is nothing in this mini-episode to suggest it cannot occur in mainstream continuity, unlike the franchise's previous Comic Relief production, The Curse of Fatal Death, which was a spoof.

Timeline

 * The presence of Rani places From Raxacoricofallapatorius With Love as occurring at some point after SJA: The Day of the Clown.

DVD, Video and Other releases

 * It has yet to be announced whether the Comic Relief Special will later see DVD release like other recent mini-episodes. In late August 2009, BBC Video/2 Entertain announced details of the upcoming DVD release of Series 2, but this mini-episode is not mentioned as being included.
 * The entire Comic Relief appeal appeared, segmented, on iPlayer within a few hours of broadcast.