Sara Kingdom

Sara Kingdom
Place of origin:	Earth
Appearances:	Full list of appearances
Main actor:	[[actor:: Jean Marsh May Warden (aged) | Jean Marsh May Warden (aged)</l]]

Sara Kingdom was a Space Security Service agent who turned against Mavic Chen, the traitorous Guardian of the Solar System, to join the Doctor and Steven Taylor to defeat Chen and his secret allies, the Daleks. She was killed in the attempt.

Biography

Sara was the sister of Bret Vyon, another SSS agent who the Doctor had found on Kembel, and was gradually convinced of his suspicions of Chen. (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan) Trained and efficient, Sara had the strength of ten men. (Sara Kingdom: Space Security Agent)

Given Vyon's statement that he had been born in Mars Colony 16, there is the possibility that Sara Kingdom was also born on Mars.

Sara, with fellow SSS agents Jason, the humanoid robot Mark 7 and her brother David Kingdom, encountered the Daleks in a brief confrontation early in her career. (BFA: The Destroyers) Mark 7 wrote a report about Sara, which Mavic Chen consulted when he and Bret Vyon unexpectedly met her in 3999 (she was supposed to be stationed on Venus at the time). Sara recieved a surprise promotion from Chen at this time. (CC: The Guardian of the Solar System)

On Earth the following year, she was briefed by Chen, and told that her brother had become a traitor. In an experimental testing facility, she found the Doctor, Steven Taylor and her brother, the latter of whom she shot to death. Sara would have done the same to the Doctor and Steven, but all three were transferred from Earth to Mira by cellular transportation accidentally. There she learnt, to her horror and grief, that her unquestioning obedience had not only led her to unjustly kill her brother but also had prevented Vyon from warning Earth of the Dalek plot. She then joined the Doctor in his fight.

With Steven and the Doctor, Sara took a short, stress-free trip to (in Sara's terms) long-ago Earth (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan, ST: The Little Drummer Boy). They visited 3999 where Sara met Vyon and had an audience with Chen, which finally explained why she had been promoted in that year. (CC: The Guardian of the Solar System) After further travels with the Doctor, they came upon a house in Ely that granted wishes, and at the end of the adventure a copy of her mind lived on inside it for thousands of years. (CC: Home Truths) After that, they once more returned to the struggle against the Daleks on several worlds and time periods.

The Daleks turned against Mavic Chen (who intended to betray them) and killed him. The Doctor had returned to Kembel to activate the Time Destructor to finally stop them. The Doctor had ordered his companions back to the TARDIS for their protection. However, Sara followed him, not knowing the nature of his plan but concerned it might fail. She was caught in the field of the Time Destructor and, being a Human rather than a Time Lord, aged to death. As Steven and the Doctor watched helplessly, Sara died, her remains aging to dust. (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan) The death of Sara, as well as their other allies Bret Vyon and Katarina, affected Steven profoundly to the point where he confronted the Doctor about the violence that seemed to follow him. (DW: The Massacre)

The copy of Sara Kingdom's mind left behind in the house in Ely lived on into an age of Earth's history in which advanced technology had become almost non-existent. An academic named Robert befriended her, interested in hearing stories from her past. Eventually, Robert wished to take her place as the entity inhabiting the house, and the alternate Sara was given human form, as an older woman. In addition, Robert drew the Doctor's TARDIS back to the house, and allowed Sara to choose whether to join with the Doctor (in a later incarnation), or to remain on Earth. What choice she made is unknown. (CC: Home Truths, The Drowned World, The Guardian of the Solar System)

After life

In his seventh incarnation, on the ruined planet Adeki, the Doctor though he'd found Sara Kingdom among others of his companions alive again and desperate to leave in the TARDIS. As the Doctor soon guessed, he learned that one of a race of shape-shifting Gwanzulum had used his sentiment in order to manipulate him into helping it escape the dead world. (DWM: Planet of the Dead)

Later, while in a Hell-like world composed of the Doctor's mind, Ace met an eerie ghost-like recreation of Sara Kingdom among other of his companions who had died because of him. (Ace did not recognize her.) (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation)

Possibly apocryphal information

One account states that immediately after spending Christmas Day on Earth, Sara Kingdom and the others spent six months having other adventures before once more getting involved with the issue of the Daleks and Chen. (DWN: Doctor Who - The Daleks' Master Plan Part 2: The Mutation of Time)

Personality

Sara was by turns aggressive, independent and ruthless in her pursuit of what was right, a single-mindedness that blinded her to the larger implications of her orders. Meeting the Doctor changed that, and she turned her formidable skill and intellect to the defeat of the Daleks.

Behind the scenes

• In two prominent 21st century interviews about her involvement with the character, Marsh has firmly and consistently maintained that Sara was not a companion. (BBC DVD: Battlefield, CC extra features: The Drowned World)
• The DVD documentary "Girls! Girls! Girls! - The 1960s" (included on the 2008 release of The Rescue/The Romans), indicates that the character of Sara Kingdom was inspired by the character of Catherine Gale on The Avengers (coincidentally, a series created by one of the originators of Doctor Who, Sydney Newman).
• Terry Nation planned to feature Sara Kingdom in an American spin-off series, had it gone into production. The series would have concentrated on an anti-Dalek task force. Some of the concepts which would have featured in the show appeared in The Dalek Outer Space Book (in which a comics story, Sara Kingdom: Space Security Agent appeared). Sara appeared in the pilot script written by Nation, entitled, "The Destroyers". When plans for the spin-off fell through, Nation adapted his ideas and characters for The Daleks' Master Plan.
• Jean Marsh had earlier appeared in Doctor Who playing King Richard's sister Joanna in The Crusade. She would return to the programme in the 1989 serial Battlefield, playing Morgaine, coincidentally alongside Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. (Courtney had also played Bret Vyon in The Daleks' Master Plan.)
• Despite the character's brief tenure, there have been some spin-off works including her. John Peel, who novelised The Daleks Master Plan for Target Books, intentionally introduced a gap of several months in his adaptation into which such stories could be inserted. Most recently, Jean Marsh has reprised the character for three installments of Big Finish Productions' The Companion Chronicles audio drama line. These stories take place between installments of "The Daleks' Master Plan" and reveal that Sara has survived as an apparition.