Series 4 of The Jo Jones Chronicles would’ve starred Katy Manning, Tyger Drew-Honey & Rukku Nahar in their fourth & final season as Jo & Jon Jones & Yasmin Garcia
Despite not what was originally planned, Series 4 of The Jo Jones Chronicles would prove to be the final series of the show. Originally, the show was to continue beyond this series with a fifth series in late 2022. However, in early 2022, Stewart Bevan, the actor of Clifford Jones, passed away in February, roughly a month before Series 5 was planned to start production. With the death of Bevan looming over the show, as well as the rumours that Phil Ford, Tyger Drew-Honey & Rukku Nahar were considering leaving at the end, it was decided to end the show after it’s fourth series concluded.
Like all television in 2020 & 2021, The Jo Jones Chronicles was heavily affected by the Covid-19 outbreak, which resulted in a halving of the episode count from 12 episodes / 6 stories to only 6 episodes / 3 stories.
THE LANDLORD
WRITTEN BY: Phil Ford
DIRECTED BY: Gareth Tunley
The story sees Jon moving out of Jo & Cliff’s house, as he wants to start to forge his own path & wants to be more independent, as well as not relying too much on his parents. He moves into a flat on an estate for relatively cheap, which is managed by the landlord, named Mr Michael Booth, who comes across as a bit unusual & strange.
We see Jon beginning to settle into his new house, as well as making friends with his neighbours, who are decent enough people. Through his new friends, he learns about how people on the estate are often reported missing. Naturally intrigued by this, Jon decides to investigate, as well as eventually dragging Jo & Yasmin into the situation.
It turns out that the missing residents from the estate have been absorbed by the housing estate itself, which is possessed by an alien corpse that crashed to Earth, died on impact & had the estate built on top of. We also discover that Mr Booth is working for the aliens, as he’s been deliberately putting up rooms up for cheap to draw people into the estate. These people then have a chance to be absorbed by the building, with the alien absorbing the energy from these people & slowly building up the strength to break free.
In the end however, the alien is defeated when Jon & his friends blow up the main basement of the estate, which is directly above the alien remains. The alien is killed & the torment is over, however Mr Booth escapes before he can face any consequences. The story ends with the estate being marked as too dangerous to live in, which results in Jon realising that while he does still want independence, he also wants to keep in contact with his friends & family, and so he moves back in with Jo & Cliff.
THE FATAL WASTE
WRITTEN BY: Scott Handcock
DIRECTED BY: Gareth Tunley
The story sees Jo investigating a Toxic waste company, which is being run by Joel Glover, a local politician & businessman who Jo suspects to be corrupt.
The story sees Jo, Cliff & Jon protesting against the company by stating it will cause major damage to the economy & the world, as Glover announces that he plans to open more facilities around the world. However, we soon see the effects this toxic waste causes, as it begins to mutate creatures such as maggots, wasps & ants into vicious giant creatures.
The story then sees Jo, Cliff & Jon fighting off these giant creatures, as well as working together to stop the flow of anymore toxic waste. In the end, they’re successfully able to defeat the creatures using a special-made chemical which turns all the creatures back to normal. The story also ends with the facility being shut down & Joel Glover being arrested after Jo finds evidence which proves he is corrupt.
THE POWER OF THE ATARMEN
WRITTEN BY: Phil Ford
DIRECTED BY: Adrian McDowall
The story sees Jon landing a job at the tech company, Cobotor, after realising that the mundaneness of working in a shop wasn’t for him. Now, he finds himself researching & helping the company develop & a new wave of artificially intelligent robots, after their first attempt was deemed unsafe (see Season 50s
The Age of Machines). Jon enjoys his new job & finally feels he’s found something “normal”. However, he’s constantly being distracted by Jo, who thinks there’s something going on at Cobotor, after learning that the company was bought by an anonymous woman named Samret Monaw.
We then see Jon doing some “snooping around” to see if Cobotor is actually evil . Jon sneaks down to the lower levels, in an attempt to calm Jo down. He expects to find nothing on the lower levels. However, to his surprise, he finds an army of Atarmen, last seen in Series 1.
It turns out that the mysterious new owner of Cobotor is actually the Master. We learn that the Master has made an alliance with the Atarmen. Using her wealth she acquired during her time as Queen of England (see Season 46’s finale), the Master was able to buy Cobotor & take over as the CEO. She then reactivated the Robot program, after the program was abandoned due to the events of The Age of Machines, when the Officer 2.0 robots were hijacked. The Master originally claimed that the Officer 2.0 robots would be re-established as military for hire robots, which could be hired by any organisation or government for their wars. However, the new robots are actually a new model of the Atarmen, who are slowly dying out. & with this new army of Atarmen, she plans to conquer the Earth with them.
Eventually, this invasion begins, where we see the Atarmen charging across London. We’d see Jo, Cliff, Jon & Yasmin working with UNIT to try & take down the army of Atarmen. The group begins brainstorming ideas on how to stop the Atarmen. Jon then comes up with the idea of hacking the Atarmen. He explains that the new robots still use some of the old technology that was used for the Officer 2.0 robots, which theoretically means he should be able to hack into them. We then see the team breaking into Cobotors' headquarters, where they discover another element in the Master’s plan.
They discover that the Master & Atarmen are constructing a giant computer, as they plan to summon & store Maindrive, the god of the Atarmen, who is a great artificial intelligence that can apparently predict the future. Once summoned, the Master plans to merge herself with Maindrive, thus making her the most powerful being in the universe. The team make their way to the main server room where Jon & Ellen Yorke are eventually able to hack into the Atarmens' systems & set each robot to self destruct. However, the day is not saved yet, as a loud computer chime rings throughout the complex, signalling that Maindrive is here.
With time running out, the team enter the room containing the Master & Maindrive, where they confront the 2 of them. Through some exchanges with the Master & Maindrive, Jo realises that Maindrive believes that the Master wishes them to rule the Earth & is unaware of the Master’s real intent. Jo then exposes the Master’s plans to Maindrive, which results in Maindrive essentially downloading & imprisoning the Master in themselves. With the Master now gone, everyone is left wondering what they’re going to do about Maindrive now. However, Maindrive announces that they’re leaving Earth as they have no army. They warn Jo & the gang to be prepared however, because one day, they will return & crush their planet into dust, before vanishing from the big screen as it cuts to static.
CONCLUSION
That concludes Series 4 of The Jo Jones Chronicles. This season was well received like those before it. As stated earlier, a fifth series was planned but was shelved after the passing of Stewart Bevan. With that comes the end of The Jo Chronicles, a much loved show by Doctor Who fans & CBBC’s general audience. The show was a smash hit on CBBC, instantly being recognised as one of their greatest shows on the channel
ever.
Join me next time for Season 56 of Doctor Who
Thank you & goodbye!
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