Mona Lisa's Revenge (TV story)

Mona Lisa's Revenge is the fifth story in The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 3.

Synopsis
Strange forces bring the Mona Lisa, visiting an art gallery in London to life, as Clyde, Rani and Luke are at the art gallery on a school trip as the Mona Lisa runs rampant with a Sontaran blaster, taken from another painting, Sarah Jane comes to the rescue, but ends up trapped in a painting. It's all down to Clyde, Rani and Luke to save the day as the Mona Lisa searches for her brother, the Abomination, hidden in another piece of art.

Plot
Part 1 Luke enters Clyde's painting for an art competition and Clyde wins first prize. The prize is a trip to see the first showing of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in Britain for Clyde and his class. But Sarah Jane Smith is unaware of this as she and Luke have argued over the untidiness of his room. While the class is at the International Gallery, something causes the Mona Lisa to come to life and step out of the painting. She also has the ability to make other people and objects from paintings come to life. She is also able to put make real people become part of paintings, and does this with some gallery staff. Believing the painting to be stolen, the gallery calls the police, who arrive but who have not been there long before the Mona Lisa puts them too into paintings. She removes a Sontaran blaster gun that Clyde has unwisely painted from his winning picture and commands the gallery's director, Mr Harding, to take her to find her 'brother'. Seeing the coverage of the apparent theft of the painting on television, Sarah Jane Smith arrives at the gallery and argues with the Mona Lisa to let the painting people come back to life. Instead, she puts Sarah Jane into a painting.

Part 2 The Mona Lisa tries to unleash a beast in the gallery basement, which she refers to as her brother. This creature is locked up in a vault and can only be released by using a puzzle box key. This key is destroyed by Harding who, despite his admiration for La Giaconda, cannot allow her to unleash the beast on the world. Luke, Clyde, and Rani have to try to solve the problem without Sarah Jane as she is now trapped in a painting. As Mr Harding has destroyed the original key, Clyde is encouraged to drawn another, that the Mona Lisa can bring to life as a replacement. This is done and the key is used, but before the beast can escape, a picture of K9 drawn by Clyde also comes to life and fires at the beast, causing it to retreat into the vault. This sets off a chain reaction causing all the painting people to revert to being just works of art, and all those trapped in paintings to be released. The story ends with the Mona Lisa restored to her frame and Luke promising to tidy his room.

Cast

 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Luke Smith - Tommy Knight
 * Clyde Langer - Daniel Anthony
 * Rani Chandra - Anjli Mohindra
 * Voice of K-9 - John Leeson
 * Haresh Chandra - Ace Bhatti
 * Mona Lisa - Suranne Jones
 * Lionel Harding - Jeff Rawle
 * Phyllis Trupp - Liza Sadovy
 * Highwayman - Paul Kasey
 * Himself - Lizo Mzimba

Crew
to be added

Story Notes

 * Jeff Rawle previously appeared in DW: Frontios, this is the third time a guest star of the classic series of Doctor Who has appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures

Ratings
to be added

Myths
to be added

Filming Locations

 * The Mona Lisa chamber at the art gallery is a redress of the Platform One meeting room set from DW: End of the World

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * The International Gallery is located in London, but outside you can see the bay mark for Buses is in Welsh "Bysiau" on the road.
 * Mr Smith did not appear in part 2 at all yet he was still credited.
 * In the vault, after everything has been reversed, Rani says "And that's the last of her" as she says "I hope", a microphone can be seen at the top of the shot.
 * Sarah-Jane is surprised when she hears about the trip to the gallery on the news, but unless there's forgery or law breaking going on this doesn't make sense. Since Luke and the others are minors, the school would have had to send out permission slips to go on a trip, (even if it is in the same town, because they're being transported by another adult) so unless Luke faked Sarah-Jane's signature, or the school is breaking the law, she would have known about the trip or Luke couldn't have gone without permission from his parent/guardian. (Given Luke's temporary irritation with Sarah Jane during this story, it's not unreasonable that he did forge her permission.)

Continuity

 * A smiliar story, involving Edward Munch's The Scream appeared in BFA: Dust Breeding
 * The Mona Lisa paintings appeared in DW: City of Death
 * The Cup of Athelstan and the International Gallery appeared in DW: Planet of the Dead.
 * A smiliar story, featuring paintings and drawings coming to life appeared in DW: Fear Her.

Timeline
to be added