Trivia / The Sarah Jane Adventures, S4 E1&E2: "The Nightmare Man"

• Prop Recycling: The Slitheen is one of the two costumes originally created for "Revenge of the Slitheen". As it had been painted orange to act as a Blathereen in "The Gift", the costume was painted rather overzealously back to green for its use here. As a result, this Slitheen has a much darker shade of green skin compared to all those who came before, and is further distinguished in that his fingernails are the same colour as his skin.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original script took place at Oxford University, and saw Luke forge an uneasy alliance with other undergraduates to battle an otherworldly menace — either an alien conman posing as a Dean who had brought a swarm of extraterrestrial flies to Earth, or an ancient destroyer of worlds trapped inside a statue who was revived by a misguided student. Luke would save the day, and viewers would be left assured that he would go on to have adventures with his new friends at university.
  • For a time the storyline included the eponymous entity's opposite, the Friendly Man, for whom pleasant dreams were sustenance. At the end of the story, the Friendly Man would have convinced a furious Luke not to destroy the ensnared Nightmare Man by again recalling the events of "The Mad Woman in the Attic".
  • The characters' nightmares were different - Sarah Jane would have had a dream in which an adult Luke confronted her about not being allowed to go off to university. Rani's nightmare originally saw her threatened with punishment at a school where Luke was the headmaster and Sarah Jane was a teacher. A later version involved her being too preoccupied with the rest of her life to help Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde. Lidster also conceived of a nightmare version of Sarah Jane's funeral, with K·9 reciting The Lord is my Shepherd.
• Word of Gay: The BBC had originally approached Russell T Davies and asked him to make a character gay in the show. Davies planned for this character to be Luke, and intended to begin foreshadowing it from here. However, Davies chose to cut one line which hinted more explicitly at this more development. The line which is cut is from the scene in which Luke saying goodbye to Sarah Jane as he departs for university.
  Sarah Jane: Have a lovely time at university. You'll grow up, you'll find a girlfriend.
  Luke: (off-handedly) Oh, could be a boyfriend!
  Sarah Jane: Well, as long as it's not a Slitheen, I don't care!
• Working Title: Luke's Leaving Story, Nightmare on Bannerman Road.

---