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Maria Jackson was a teenage girl who lived in 36 Bannerman Road. She assisted Sarah Jane Smith and her friends in combatting alien menaces and protecting the Earth from natural threats originating from space.
Biography
Meeting Sarah Jane Smith
When Maria was thirteen, her parents, Alan and Chrissie Jackson, divorced. In 2008, Alan and Maria moved to Bannerman Road in Ealing. The first night in her new home, Maria made the life-changing discovery about her neighbour, Sarah Jane Smith, whom she saw talking with a glowing, winged alien. The next day, she and a new friend, Kelsey Hooper, went to the Bubble Shock! factory where Maria learned she was one of the 2% who didn't drink Bubble Shock! When Kelsey used her phone, it triggered the Bane's alarms which awakened their artificially created human child, "the Archetype". Maria escaped the factory with Sarah Jane and the Archetype. On their return to Bannerman Road, Sarah Jane told her to forget everything she had seen and go live her life like a normal person.
They were joined by Kelsey, and then Davey, a disguised Bane who unmasked and tried to kill them. After Davey was defeated, Maria went upstairs to Sarah Jane's attic, where she was told the truth about the Universe: aliens came to Earth all the time. She met Mr Smith, Sarah Jane's alien supercomputer and K9 Mark IV, her robot dog who was stuck beneath Switzerland trying to repair a black hole so the Earth wouldn't be sucked in. She, Sarah Jane and the Archetype banded together to defeat the Bane invasion and blow up the Bubble Shock! factory. On naming the Archetype that Sarah Jane adopted, Maria replied "I like Luke". (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
Adventures with Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde
A week later, Maria and Luke went to their first day at Park Vale Comprehensive School, They met Clyde Langer, who had also just started. Sarah Jane, investigating the company who built the science block, told Maria and Luke to look around look for something suspicious. Clyde tagged along. They found two of the teachers and a student had disguised themselves as Slitheen, and the family were using transducers across the world to absorb power from the Sun so they could sell the Earth. Clyde then joined Luke and Maria in the fight against the Slitheen.
After discovering the Slitheen's weakness, vinegar, Maria went back to Park Vale to kill Glune Fex Fize, who was disguised as their head teacher Mr Blakeman.
The Slitheen captured Maria. She saw the capacitor start to overload. The Slitheen reset it, but Luke then damaged it with his mother's sonic lipstick. Most of them escaped, though Kist Magg Thek and Florm Rox Fey were killed. (SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen)
While the team were investigating claims of sightings of a ghostly nun at Lavender Lawns, the local nursing home, Chrissie temporarily moved in with Maria and Alan, causing further problems in the family. At Lavender Lawns, an old lady gave Luke an ancient talisman, the key to a portal in space and time. The nuns were hiding an age-old creature, a Gorgon. They kidnapped Luke and Clyde and took the Gorgon and Maria to Sarah Jane's house, where the Gorgon turned her father into stone. Having got what they came for, the nuns and the Gorgon left.
Mr Smith told Maria and Sarah that Alan's original form was retrievable until 16:00. The Gorgon - a parasite inside the Abbess - chose Sarah Jane as its next host. Just as the Gorgon began to transfer itself, Maria arrived and used a mirror to revert the transfer and turn the Gorgon - and Abbess - to stone, freeing the nuns of their mind-control. Maria disconnected the talisman and the portal shut down forever. The talisman brought her father back to flesh-and-blood and Chrissie left, reuniting with Ivan. (SJA: Eye of the Gorgon)
Maria helpped defeat Uvlavad Kudlak and discovered why children went missing all over the country because they were taken by a H2O scoop at Combat 3000. She left Earth for the very first time and saw Earth on the Uvodni Warship in space with Sarah Jane. (SJA: Warriors of Kudlak )
Mr Smith was monitoring a meteorite that passed a radar blindspot and prepared to send it back. Sarah Jane handed Maria a puzzlebox a Verron soothsayer had given her the previous week. The Trickster had been making a deal with Andrea Yates in 1964 to swap places with her friend. When the deal happened, Maria awoke in a world where she never befriended Clyde, Sarah Jane had died in 1964 and Mr Smith was never installed in 13 Bannerman Road's attic. The Trickster had guided away Maria's various encounters with aliens so that he could feed on the chaos of the meteorite strike.
The Trickster's Graske servant, Krislok, captured Maria, and sent her to Limbo. There she encountered Sarah Jane, who told her about the day Andrea died.
Alan captured the Graske and got Maria back, and she assisted in helping Andrea go back to her rightful place, so that the timeline returned to normal and Mr Smith could. (SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
However, in the process, Alan stumbled in on the existence of Sarah Jane's activities Maria told him about her adventures and things she seen. He decided that they were moving away, concerned for his daughter, but Alan recanted and decided to stay in their old home when Maria convinced him that not all aliens were evil. Maria and Alan then helped defeat the Slitheen and the rogue Mr Smith. (SJA: The Lost Boy)
During the Daleks' relocation of Earth to the Medusa Cascade in 2009, Maria was staying in Cornwall with her father. Luke called her to check on her. (DW: The Stolen Earth)
Last adventure
Alan later received a letter inviting him to work in America, at the head office of his firm. Maria was distraught at the implications, despite Alan teling her that the decision was not just his to make.
At Goblin's Copse, Maria found Kaagh, the last of the Sontarans that had attempted an invasion of Earth earlier that year. He planned to use the Tycho Project radio telescope to take control of Earth's satellites, and steer them to crash into nuclear stockpiles on Earth, triggering nuclear annihilation. He did so using mind control on the Tycho.
Maria, not sure that Luke would be able to synthesise the gas in time, decided to ask Mr Smith for more information on defeating Sontarans. As Mr Smith was still in Ealing, she called her dad and asked him to contact the computer. unaware that he would be followed into Sarah Jane's attic by Chrissie.
When the plan to deactivate the telescope had failed, all appeared lost until Chrissie burst into the observatory and attacked Kaagh's probic vent with her high-heeled shoe, allowing Luke to deactivate the telescope. Maria then used the gas to knock out her mother, having Alan take her home and pretend that she had dreamt everything about Kaagh.
Six weeks later, Maria came up to the attic to say goodbye to Mr Smith and have one last look before she left. The next day, Maria and Alan said their goodbyes to Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde, as they left for their new life in America. (SJA: The Last Sontaran)
Life in America
After Maria moved to America, she stayed in touch with Luke by email. (SJA: The Day of the Clown)
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Maria and Alan were later contacted by Luke and his new friend, Rani, who asked for help identifying an alien pendant. (SJA: The Mark of the Berserker) Later, Maria was involved in helping aliens hide from the American Government. One of the races she encountered was the Zodin, whom Sarah Jane had also met. (SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic) Maria retained a closeness with her colleagues that sparked a degree of jealousy in Rani Chandra/ (SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic)
Soon after, Maria was invited to Sarah Jane's wedding, but could not attend because she was taking exams. (SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith)
In September 2010, Maria congratulated Luke, through a social network, on being accepted to the University of Oxford. He attempted to tell her about the Nightmare Man, but was unable to. (SJA: The Nightmare Man)
Later Life
Although Maria had long since left, Sarah Jane and her gang continued to have adventures, defend Earth and save countless lives. They (including Maria) would get statues in their honour (SJAN: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith) and leave behind a legacy that would last forever. (SJA: The Man Who Never Was)
Alternate realities
Donna's World
If Donna Noble had turned right for a job interview instead of turning left, Maria would have investigated the Royal Hope Hospital with Sarah Jane, Clyde and Luke. As the oxygen gradually ran out it caused every one in the hospital, including Sarah Jane, to suffocate. Maria, Luke and Clyde were feared dead as well. (DW: Turn Left)
Personality
Maria had a patient, tolerant, and inquisitive personality. Her parents divorce made her somewhat moody, and she was much less worldly-wise and trendy than Clyde. She was also braver and kinder. Clearly, Maria looked up to Sarah Jane, and Sarah Jane trusted her more than anyone in the world. (SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
Behind the scenes
- Although Maria technically left the series in The Last Sontaran, each story for the remainder of Series 2 included some on-screen reference to her, with Maria herself making a cameo in The Mark of the Berserker. Maria was again referenced several times in Series 3 and 4 though she did not appear.
- Maria's birthday was some time in the last week of August. She had to be fourteen before the 1st of September to be in year 10 with Luke and Clyde. (SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen)
- A young woman named Maria, recently returned to London after having moved to America several years previous, meets her friend Ceol in the Faction Paradox short story Now or Thereabouts. It is implied that Maria and Ceol are Maria Jackson and Kelsey Hooper, several years after the events of The Invasion of the Bane.