Sarah Jane Smith

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An investigative journalist, Sarah Jane Smith who was a companion of the Third and Fourth Doctors, she was a regular in the programme from 1973 to 1976 (seasons 11–14), and has returned to Doctor Who several times since, most recently in the 2006 episode School Reunion, opposite David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. In 2007, the pilot of her own series The Sarah Jane Adventures debuted on BBC1.

Character history

Doctor Who

Sarah first appeared in the Third Doctor serial The Time Warrior, where she had managed to infiltrate a top secret research facility by posing as her aunt, Lavinia Smith, a famous virologist. She sneaked into the TARDIS while the Doctor was preparing to follow the trail of a kidnapped scientist through time, and became embroiled in the subsequent adventure.

Sarah then found herself working with the Third Doctor and UNIT on a number of occasions. She was present when he regenerated into the Fourth Doctor at the end of Planet of the Spiders, and continued to accompany him on his journeys through time and space.

The exact placement of Sarah's adventures with the Doctor is part of the UNIT dating controversy. In Pyramids of Mars she stated (more than once) that she was "from 1980", which implies that her adventures with the Doctor took place in the near future from the time of broadcast. However, fans continue to argue whether she meant 1980 as the year she came from, the year she last returned to Earth, or the year she believed it was in her personal chronology.

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During her time with the Doctor, Sarah encountered Daleks, Cybermen, antimatter creatures on the most distant planet in the universe, android mummies in 1911 England, ancient evils in 15th century Italy and other dangers, until the Doctor received a summons to his home planet Gallifrey and could not take her along.

Sarah had a flat in South Croydon, where the Doctor tried to drop her off at the end of The Hand of Fear (but, typically, did not get the coordinates quite right. In fact, it was finally revealed in School Reunion, 30 years later, that she had not been dropped off in Croydon, but in Aberdeen, Scotland). When the Doctor did not return for her (despite having left K-9 Mark III, a robot dog, as a gift) she believed him to be dead, until she encountered his TARDIS in School Reunion.

As a companion, she was confident, inquisitive and possessed a sharp mind as well as a sharp tongue. She was also something of a feminist — in her first appearance she was infuriated when the Doctor asked her to make coffee, and she often verbally sparred with fellow companion Harry Sullivan, who had an old-fashioned, chauvinistic and unintentionally patronising attitude towards her. Her feminism was more practical than fanatical, and did not get in the way of forming close friendships with Harry, however, and a more personal feeling for the Doctor himself. These views became less prominent as the series went on, but Sarah never gave the impression that she was less than capable. In spite of the dangerous and frightening situations she often found herself in, she loved adventure and risk, and in spite of her outward complaints, was always thrilled to go off in search of more adventure. She shared a rapport with the Third and Fourth Doctors, and is consistently one of, if not the most popular of the companions among fans.

At the time of School Reunion, Sarah was still single, having found it impossible to hold down a lasting relationship with any man following her experiences with the Doctor. At the episode's conclusion, Sarah Jane was gifted with a new K-9 model.

In the lead-up to the broadcast of School Reunion, Sladen was quoted in The Daily Mirror being somewhat critical of the characterisation of Sarah Jane in the original programme: "Sarah Jane used to be a bit of a cardboard cut-out. Each week it used to be, 'Yes Doctor, no Doctor', and you had to flesh your character out in your mind — because if you didn't, no one else would." She spoke more favourably of the characterisation in the new series[1].

The Sarah Jane Adventures

The Sarah Jane Adventures, a new programme starring Sladen as Sarah Jane, is being produced by BBC Wales for CBBC. A 60-minute special written by Russell T. Davies and Gareth Roberts was aired 1 January 2007, with a full series to follow later in the year. K-9 appeared in the special, but will not appear in the series. [2] This is due to the concurrent development of K-9 Adventures, which is an independent production with no other ties to Doctor Who; it is unlikely that Sarah Jane will appear in K-9 Adventures.[3][4][5] Sarah Jane will, however, have her own sonic screwdriver (with a red tip) for the series; she also now drives a Nissan Figaro. [6] According to the show's website, both the screwdriver (referred to as a "sonic lipstick") and "a watch to scan for alien life" were gifts from the Doctor, hidden inside K9 Mk IV when it was left for her.

In the time between School Reunion and Sarah's Adventures (at least a year and a half), K-9 has left Sarah to close off a black hole, occasionally passing close enough to contact her, leaving her entirely alone Sarah Jane has developed a reputation on Bannerman Road as being unsociable and quiet, keeping her investigations into alien life a secret. Acquiring a sonic lipstick, a watch to scan for alien life, sentient supercomputer assistant Mr Smith and various other futuristic and extraterrestrial devices in the meantime, she has helped the Earth and alien life forms in a much less violent way to organisations such as UNIT and the Torchwood Institute who she remarks tend to go in "all guns blazing". As of the pilot episode, Invasion of the Bane, Sarah Jane has adopted a son — Luke Smith, and befriended neighbour Maria Jackson, remarking that since meeting them she is no longer content to live alone. When asked by several characters why she has never married, she remarks that there was only one man for her, to whom no one could ever compare.

Reprising the role

File:Sarah jane pic.jpg
Sarah in School Reunion.

Elisabeth Sladen has returned to the role of Sarah nine times since she left Doctor Who in 1976:

  1. In a 1981 pilot for a proposed spin-off television series titled K-9 and Company where Sarah was given K-9 Mark III. She was also said to have worked for the Reuters news agency. However, the planned series never materialised.
  2. Sladen played Sarah again in the 1983 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors, appearing alongside Jon Pertwee once more (K-9 also made a brief appearance). Some lines in School Reunion seem to imply that these events did not happen, or at least that she does not recall or count them as additional encounters with the Doctor.
  3. Sladen also appeared as Sarah in the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time.
  4. In 1993 Sladen voiced the character of Sarah in BBC Radio audio play The Paradise of Death (Radio 5) together with Pertwee as the Doctor and Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
  5. Another BBC Radio drama, The Ghosts of N-Space, was made in 1994 (although not broadcast until 1996, on Radio 2), again featuring Sladen with Jon Pertwee's Doctor and Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier.
  6. In 1995 Sladen appeared as Sarah in the Reeltime Pictures' video production Downtime, together with Courtney as the Brigadier and Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield.
  7. Big Finish Productions has also produced a series of nine Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures set in the present day.
  8. In the third episode of the 2006 series of Doctor Who, School Reunion, Sladen reprised the role of Sarah on television. K-9 also appeared.
  9. Finally in 2007, Sladen received her own series again in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Other appearances

Between seasons 13 and 14, Sladen appeared as Sarah, with Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, in the audio play LP The Pescatons (1976). She also appeared with Baker in "The Time Machine", episode three of the BBC Radio series Exploration Earth on 4 October, 1976.

Sarah has appeared in the spin-off Doctor Who novels and short stories, notably in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels Interference: Book One and Interference: Book Two by Lawrence Miles; and the Past Doctor Adventures novel Bullet Time by David A. McIntee, all taking place after she stops travelling with the Doctor.

Interference and the Virgin New Adventures novel Christmas on a Rational Planet, also by Miles, suggest that Sarah married someone named Paul Morley sometime between 1996 and 1998 and took his name. In the short story The Aurelius Gambit by Helen Fayle, from the charity anthology Perfect Timing, Sarah marries private investigator Steve Kennelly. In the short story Lily by Jackie Marshall, in Big Finish's Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury, the Fifth Doctor pays a visit to an older Sarah, who has a daughter, Lauren, and an autistic granddaughter, Lily; Lauren's father is not named.

In the Past Doctor Adventure Bullet Time, Sarah was apparently killed in 1997, contradicting her other spin-off appearances. However, the novel took place during a story arc where enemies of the Doctor were attempting to eliminate his companions from the timeline, and Sarah's death may have been reversed when those enemies were defeated. In any case, other stories have shown her alive after 1997.

The canonicity of Sarah's appearances in the audio dramas, novels, and websites, like all Doctor Who spin-off media, is unclear, and they may not even take place in the same continuity. For example, the novels' mention of Sarah as having been married is contradicted by the Sarah Jane Smith audio play, Dreamland and the episode Invasion of the Bane.

List of appearances

Television

Season 11
Season 12
Season 13
Season 14
File:Sarahjaneadventuresclip.JPG
Sarah Jane Smith in a scene from the pilot episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures
Spin-off pilot
20th anniversary special
30th anniversary special
2006 series
Spin-off: The Sarah Jane Adventures

Video

Audio dramas

Argo Records
BBC Radio
Big Finish Productions

Novels

The Companions of Doctor Who
Virgin Missing Adventures
Virgin New Adventures
Eighth Doctor Adventures
Past Doctor Adventures

Short stories

Comics

References

  1. ↑ Template:Cite news
  2. ↑ Template:Cite press release
  3. ↑ Template:Cite news
  4. ↑ Lyon, Shaun. More on K9 Series. Retrieved on 2006-08-02.
  5. ↑ Template:Cite news
  6. ↑ Template:Cite episode

External links

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