5.2 The Curse of Clyde Langer

[Rob McCow]

CBBC site preview.

Clyde is living on the streets of London, lost and abandoned - and hiding from the Night Dragon.

This one looked absolutely thrilling from last week's trail - I haven't caught up with it yet, but I'm really looking forward to it!

[Dino]

from me for this one!
I won't spoil it, but it's been one of the best SJA stories for ages. Well acted.
And we've got another episode of it to go.

[Nyder]

Poor Clyde! And yay - SJA have made totem poles nightmare-inducing. Sleep well kids!

[SiHart]

Superb episode. Providing the quality is maintained this could be one of the very best SJAs of all.

There's something about that idea, of waking up and everyone hates you that is one of those things that gets under your skin. A universal fear.

[Rob McCow]

Oh yes. This was a brilliant episode. Creepy and genuinely moving - poor old Clyde!

What I love about SJA is the way it takes childhood and teenage fears and gives them a sci-fi twist. They've tackled alienation before, but this time they tackled the way people can suddenly turn.... something I'm sure we've all experienced at least once.

[Si Hunt]

This might be the best episode Phil Ford has done. Superbly chilling and actually quite scary, in a weird sort of way. I'm surprised that nobody has realised yet that all the trouble started with Clyde's prick.

Si.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

@ Mr Hunt

That was very good and genuinely unsettling.

Curiously I had a rather unfortunate flashback to when I was 15 during the scene when Clyde was being chased. Goodness knows why as I've seen similar scenes in countless other shows over the years without being bothered by them.

That said I'm glad children's TV can still be that powerful.

[Dino]

That was a pretty good second part story. I'm trying to think of homelessness in Doctor Who and all I can come up with is the "You've got a floater!" from Talons and The Master in The End Of Time.
Also, my Sky has this story as 2/6. I thought they were only able to make three stories? Are they going to fill the rest up with repeats? ("Death of The Doctor" and "The Wedding of Sarah Jane" there! I called it!)

[Llordllama]

Wow, I really, really enjoyed that. Okay so that was the cleanest bunch of homeless people I've ever seen, but the little emotional touches-Ellie's "problem" with his mum's new husband (without saying abuse, the eyes said it all), Clyde facing up to the challenge of being abandoned and to be honest rising above everything heroically. And the Night Dragon - neat idea, not a monster but a truck. And for once the panto acting from the supporting cast was kept to a bare minimum (lack of Rani's mum helping largely). Top episode.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

The homelessness scenes made this one of the best pieces of children's TV I can remember since the heydays of Grange Hill and Byker Grove almost 20 years ago now.

This series is really doing Lis proud so far.

[Nyder]

Wonder if "Ellie" will re-surface in the next story? For me, Sparky is treading a very fine line between cutesy and annoying. But hey, that's a minor point - it was a very enjoyable story. And the totem pole got even scarier!

[Llordllama]

I agree Sky is a bit annoying, but I guess with time her character might well have emerged as a winner (though frankly Luke bores the living daylights out of me). Thought the totem pole was extremely well done, and the musical cues were first rate too. As Richard says above as well this felt like a premier quality piece of intelligently written, socially relevant (without being preachy) and well acted bit of teen drama.

I think that's the biggest shame of the SJA ending is there is frankly nothing of this quality to take its place, and so kids will doubtless be faced with a thousand "funky and hip" pieces of sub-standard dreck in it's place.

[Dirk Gently]

I really enjoyed this. A relatively SJS light episode but a good insight for kids about people being dispossessed & thrown on to the street.
Clyde was suitable depressed at everyone being aggressive towards him & I felt genuine anger for the way he was being treated.
All good stuff.


I also spotted that Ellie was played by the same actress as the sister (her name escapes me) in the Fades.

[Rob McCow]

Absolutely outstanding. And much as I've been enjoying Doctor Who this year, 'The Curse of Clyde Langer' has been better.

I loved the split between the two episodes as well, they were very distinct. The first episode was about having people turn against you; while the second focused on the plight of being homeless. I thought his relationship with Ellie was incredibly moving, especially with the way it ended. It was - perhaps - a little predictable, but in a good way.

We did think that 'The Night Dragon' was setting up a new villain though! Shows how you can be fooled!