The White Wolf

"How much of your life do you remember?"

Writer: Gary Russell

Format: Audio

Released: October 2009

Series: SJA Audio 06

Featuring: Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde, Rani

Synopsis

When Sarah Jane receives a strange letter from Eddison Clough, her curiosity is aroused. For Eddison possesses a photograph proving he was once close friends with her Aunt Lavinia – but he has no memory of ever having met her.

Intrigued, Sarah Jane and Luke go to visit him and, with Clyde, and Rani, they explore the village of Wolfenden. The locals seem strange and secretive – especially the Hendricks, a deathly pale family with white hair and white eyes.

What is lurking in the underground caves? What is the significance of the white wolf carved on the hillside? And what does it all have to do with alien abduction?

Verdict

The White Wolf was an excellent Sarah Jane Adventures audio! For some reason, it appears that the Audible collection of the SJA audios is in the wrong order as on the app this came after The Ghost House despite being two stories removed from it, but I'm sure that won't be much of an issue when it comes to continuity. I thought this was a really strong audio and I liked the approach of telling a point at the start pre-credits that we would then reach after reverting back. That came nicely with Rani bursting out into the meeting claiming to have been a victim of alien abduction, but she didn't actually feature that much and the same could be said of Clyde. I liked how it was more of a Sarah and Luke story and the latter was definitely growing up as he was no longer too interested in getting kisses off his mother. It was nice to explore their maternal relationship and despite his growing up, the affection he had for his mother was still clearly evident. That was especially noticeable when Ben was staring at Sarah Jane and Luke tried to block the view in both ways. Ben was a mysterious character and Sarah Jane felt uncomfortable by his presence and thinking him as wrong, with Luke seeing that he didn't fit into the world and also knew it. The realisation that the Hendricks were aliens was fun and I liked the way that was paced. The Hendricks as a whole were a mysterious bunch and that fitted in really well with the Wolfenden setting. I loved the history of the village and the chalked wolves made it feel really ominous which worked well. The idea of Eddison having a huge bulk of his life missing from his memories was intruding and the connection with Sarah Jane and her aunt Lavinia was delightful. I really enjoyed having Sarah explore the memories of her aunt who of course goes way back in Doctor Who folklore! Drawing parallels between the relationship of Sarah and Lavinia to that of Colin and his son was very well done. Mrs Hendrick made for a strong villain and the reveal that they were serving sentence and were actually preventing their own species from finding them every fifty years was a nice surprise. The relationship between Colin and his wife was fascinating and he was a little strange in wanting to continue that family mission and get them home, and go with them, except she was fighting for the opposite and had been for numerous generations of Colin and his ancestors. It was fun for Rani to try and infiltrate and her coded message about the cave and Clyde was well done, but she went a little far and the game was up. An admirable effort though! Luke's position as a perfect human and being able to read the memories rather than have his used as substance was excellent and that sparked a horrifying realisation that the aliens could have gone home at any times with the likes of Sycorax or Uvodni having the ability to transfer them home. That didn't go down well! Mrs Hendrick being arrested was a fitting touch for her crimes and with the offspring being partly human, they were not guilty of anything so could return home or find a new one. Eddison wanting to create new memories was lovely and I thought it was a wonderful comment for Sarah to say that she was very happy to have a new photo of her aunt. Overall, a brilliant listen!

Rating: 9/10