She's A Fake, Sure But She's A Real Fake

So, yeah, in the end I rather enjoyed Mona Lisa's Revenge, but it was easy to be distracted by the famous painting's other starring role in a Whoniverse adventure, 1979's wonderful City of Death. No wonder Leonardo da Vinci needed to borrow paint from his neighbor when he had not one but six Mona Lisas to complete. But surely Mr Harding the curator couldn't have missed the Fourth Doctor's warning "this is a fake", scrawled on the canvas of his beloved masterpiece in felt tip pen? Oh well, whatever.

Suranne Jones' performance as the Mona Lisa will doubtless always be mentioned in the same breath as the words "love it or hate it". Personally I might rather have seen the painting portrayed as a serene, implacable presence than a potty-mouthed Mancunian shazza, but I guess we were overdue for a comedy interlude. Jones didn't really bear much resemblance to the actual painting in my opinion, either, but that's what suspension of disbelief is for.

Very little of the actual plot made much sense to me. I have no idea why proximity would re-empower the aliens in the paint; it's then enough of a stretch to imagine that one of the powers of this race is to be able to make things in paintings real, but as far as turning real people into two-dimensional paint is concerned, I'm not even going to bother trying to make sense of that. I do amire the chutzpah of going to such absurd lengths solely to be able to reuse the Sontaran blaster, and avoid having to spring for a new weapon prop for the Mona Lisa. The puzzle box, so let me get this straight, Di Cattivo went stark staring mad from painting The Abomination but then had the time, knowhow and presence of mind to build an elaborate containment device for the alien, and a convenient key to release it? No, you've lost me there.

I liked the return to the International Gallery (though truly, it is a very silly place) and enjoyed Mr Harding and Miss Trupp. The dowdy spinster female assistant in love with her oblivious boss is a familiar double act, and it was nice to see Phyllis reject Lionel for being an idiot at the eleventh hour, in place of the telegraphed tidy conclusion. Though didn't we already have this scene out between the Doctor and Martha, at the end of New Who Season 3?

As I say, I could have done without so much of the "Harders" and "Clydie", but there was a lot more to this painting than met the eye. The scene where the Mona Lisa longed hopelessly to explore the outside world was touching, and the idea of a sentient being being trapped in silence and immobility on a wall for hundreds of years is a horrifying one. I was very surprised that Sarah Jane could only "almost" feel sorry for consigning Lisa to such a fate; I tend to expect a bit more compassion out of her, she's not the bloody Doctor after all.

All in all, a picture paints a thousand words and there were a lot more ideas in these two episodes than the somewhat silly business of Lisa running around wisecracking might suggest. I definitely preferred it to the straightforward "here's some aliens" fare of Prisoner of the Judoon, and if it does end up being rated as a relative disappointment, it's only because this has been by far the strongest and most interesting season of Sarah Jane Adventures yet.