'Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith' (Part 2) by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman

Having drained enough of Sarah’s life essence to satiate her huge, disembodied stomach, Ruby taunts her prisoner on how she will carry on her work tracking aliens, but with one terrible difference: Ruby will help these aliens their evil plans – and as the Earth is destroyed, she will feast on humanity’s terror and despair … A short while later, Rani and Clyde arrive at No.13 Bannerman Road to find Ruby alone in the attic; linking Mr White to Mr Smith’s monitor, Ruby plays the two kids a message from Sarah, in which she explains how she has handed everything over to Ruby, and then bids them goodbye. Rani and Clyde are astonished – and in Ruby’s cellar, Sarah screams her protest at the fake recording on Ruby’s video screen. Learning that Sarah hasn’t even told Luke, Clyde storms off in fury; Rani goes after him, but Clyde lashes out at her, and Rani runs home in tears. When Rani’s parents see their daughter upset they are immediately concerned; however, when Gita hears that Sarah has apparently left, she doesn’t believe a word of it: she knows that Rani and Sarah have a special friendship, and that Sarah would never run off without saying a proper goodbye. Unaware that Ruby has teleported back to her cellar to gloat over her prisoner, Clyde returns to the attic; he attempts to elicit help from Mr Smith, but the Xylock supercomputer is unable to override Ruby’s instructions, although he does manage to override his new programming enough to spell out a message by substituting numbers for letters. As Clyde decodes the letters “BEWARE R” he is interrupted by the return of Ruby; using Mr White to override Mr Smith, Ruby grabs Clyde in a grip of steel and teleports them both to a spherical pod in orbit around the Earth: her prison cell. Ruby explains that her insatiable hunger led her people to exile her, casting her into space with just a games machine, Mr White, for company and sustenance. But Ruby was clever: she reprogrammed the device and used it to steer the ship to Earth; she also created a bio-dampener, which prevented Sarah’s scanner from detecting her alien physiognomy. In the cellar, Sarah watches this conversation over the video screen, looking on in dismay as Ruby teleports away, leaving Clyde to suffocate to death, his air running out… Back at Bannerman Road, Rani finds Luke on her doorstep demanding to know what is going on, having received a warning message from Clyde. Using the video-conferencing application on his laptop, Luke contacts K-9 in his university dorm; the robot quickly tracks Clyde’s phone, amazing Luke and Rani with the information that their friend is now in space! With everything pointing to Ruby, Rani reasons that their new ‘friend’ is to blame; she shows K-9 the photo of Ruby and Mr White that she took with her camera-phone, allowing the robot dog to scan it and identify the A.I. device as K’Tesh technology. Learning of these aliens’ feeding habits and their independent stomachs, Rani and Luke reason that Sarah must still be nearby – and in terrible danger. K-9 informs them that Mr White is a reprogrammed holographic system: there was never any meteor, or even a fleet of invading Dark Hoard warriors – it was all a trick. K-9 then advises that he could use Mr White to send a reset signal to Mr Smith – the only problem is that he will need to get close to the device to access it… Up in space, Clyde lies gasping for breath: he manages to record a message on his phone for Sarah, his mum, Luke and Rani, before passing out… Pretending to still be Ruby’s friend, Rani returns to the attic for a chat, managing to leave her mobile phone next to Mr White in the process. While K-9 uses the open connection to hack into Mr White, Rani continues to distract Ruby; unfortunately, she goes to far when she tells her she is glad Sarah has gone, and Ruby immediately sees through her; But Ruby is too late: K-9 transmits the signal to reboot Mr Smith, and also resets Mr White. Ruby is furious, but Rani manages to get free and grab Sarah’s sonic lipstick. K-9 then teleports Clyde to the attic: although groggy, Clyde is able to grab the gun Sarah gave him earlier, and, holding Ruby at bay, he instructs Mr Smith to imprison the alien in a containment vortex. Luke accesses Mr Smith and uses him to locate Sarah, and Clyde and Rani race off to rescue their friend. Vowing vengeance on Luke, Ruby breaks free of the force field; with Mr Smith now blocking her teleport signal, she sets off in pursuit of Clyde and Rani. Arriving in Ruby’s cellar, Clyde and Rani use the sonic to free Sarah; but their happy reunion is cut short by the arrival of Ruby, who declares that she will use her giant, mobile stomach to directly absorb their flesh! At that moment Luke arrives, offering Ruby the chance to leave the planet; when the hungry K’Tesh just laughs, Luke uses Mr White, now reprogrammed by K-9, to activate a hologram programme: all across the Earth, people gaze up in terror as a huge meteor storm appears to rain down on the planet. The resultant terror experienced by all of humanity is too much for Ruby: unable to cope with the emotional surge from six billion people her body begins to overload; in desperation she tries to pass the energy across to her stomach, but the massive organ is unable to hold it in – it implodes, covering Clyde in a small blast of gunk in the process! The destruction of Ruby’s stomach returns Sarah’s stolen life force to her, restoring her to full health. Sarah then confronts the exhausted Ruby, and, ignoring the alien’s false pleas for mercy, she uses her sonic to transport the evil K’Tesh back to her prison in space. As the enraged Ruby vows her revenge, Mr Smith disengages the ship’s gravity link, sending the sphere speeding straight for the sun… Later, in the attic, Sarah locks Mr White in her safe while Rani reassures her mother than recent events were merely a 3D game advert. Joining Clyde and Rani as they see Luke off to university, Sarah reflects that with a team like this, she can go on forever…

Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Alexander Armstrong (Mr Smith [Voice]), John Leeson (Voice of K-9), Mina Anwar (Gita Chandra), Ace Bhatti (Haresh Chandra), Julie Graham (Ruby White), Eddie Marsan (Mr White)

Directed by Joss Agnew
Produced by Brian Minchin
Executive Producers Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Piers Wenger
A BBC Wales production

TX:
16th November 2010 CBBC @ 5.15 pm
18th November 2010 BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD @ 4.30 pm

Notes:
*Featuring Sarah Jane Smith, Luke, Clyde, Rani, K-9 Mk IV and Mr Smith