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- For the audio series, see Sarah Jane Smith. For other individuals named Smith, see Smith (disambiguation).
Sarah Jane Smith was originally a journalist and then companion with the third and then fourth incarnations of the Doctor. Afterwards, still a journalist, she worked first with K-9 Mark III and then solo, uncovering evil plots on the side. In the late 2000s, while living in Ealing, she worked with her adopted son Luke and several young friends to fight evil aliens.
Biography
Early life
Infancy
Sarah Jane Smith was born in May 1951 in the village of Foxgrove. (SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith) She had the astrological sign of Taurus. (SJA: Secrets of the Stars) On 18th August 1951, her parents Eddie and Barbara Smith abandoned her in her pram and drove off in their car. A few minutes later on a country lane they drove into a tractor and were killed. She was then raised by her Auntie, Lavinia Smith, a virologist. (SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)
Childhood
During her youth, she developed a strong fear of clowns, derived mainly from a toy clown that used to hang in her room and stare down upon her as she slept. In later life, she would discover that the toy had been manipulated by the Pied Piper to instill coulrophobia in her. (SJA: The Day of the Clown)
On 13th July 1964, while off on a school outing together, Sarah Jane's best friend, Andrea Yates, slipped off of a pier to her death. The Trickster would later alter this event and create a timeline in which Sarah died, rather than Andrea; a timeline which, many years later, would eventually doom the planet Earth. In the normal timeline, the event would change Sarah, impressing onto her the importance of life. She would never forget Andrea. (SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
- Just prior to the accident, Sarah Jane and Andrea briefly encountered Maria Jackson, who accidentally travelled through time as she escaped the Graske. It is not known if Sarah Jane remembered this incident, or if it was erased from history when the Trickster's plan was unravelled.
Travels with the Doctor
First meeting with the Doctor
Sarah Jane had experienced journalist James Stevens as a mentor. (MA: Who Killed Kennedy) At age 23, when working for Metropolitan magazine, Sarah posed as her aunt, a famous virologist, in order to infiltrate a UNIT-controlled facility where some scientists had gone missing. She met Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT's unpaid scientific advisor the Doctor. Suspicious of the Doctor's activities, Sarah Jane stowed away in the Doctor's TARDIS and traveled back in time with him to 13th century England, to defeat a Sontaran known as Linx, who had kidnapped the scientists. (DW: The Time Warrior)
- Sarah Jane gave her age during Operation Golden Age as 23, which happened not very long after she first met the Doctor. (DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
Early adventures
Sarah Jane and the Doctor would have many adventures together both on Earth and on other planets. She got to know the Brigadier, Captain Mike Yates, and Sergeant Benton of UNIT (DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs) and Jeremy Fitzoliver. (BBCR: The Paradise of Death)
She met and fought the Daleks for the first time. (DW: Death to the Daleks) Faction Paradox altered the Doctor's timeline twice when Sarah Jane traveled with him. In one timeline, the Doctor died (and did not regenerate) on the planet Dust. In another, the Doctor did regenerate, an event which should never have happened at that time and place. (EDA: Interference - Book Two) Later, these events reversed, allowing history to take its natural course. (EDA: The Ancestor Cell)
In the regular timeline, the Doctor regenerated following his exposure to deadly radiation in the cave of the Great One on Metebelis III. With the Doctor dying and his TARDIS lost in the Time Vortex, he left Sarah Jane and the Brigadier to await his return for three weeks. Sarah believed he had died, but the Brigadier maintained faith. Sarah and the Brigadier watched as the Doctor's TARDIS returned to UNIT HQ and he regenerated in front of them into his next incarnation. (DW: Planet of the Spiders, Robot)
Later travels
Along with another Human companion, Harry Sullivan, Sarah Jane and the Doctor traveled off on other adventures in time and space. (DW: Robot) The Doctor, in his new incarnation, had less interest in Earth, yet he seemed to have a closer relationship with Sarah Jane herself. She was present on the planet Skaro during the creation of the Daleks by Davros and the Doctor's attempt to change or prevent it. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
The Departure
As she later related to Rose Tyler, Sarah encountered the Skarasen (a probable candidate for "Loch Ness Monster") (DW: Terror of the Zygons), anti-matter monsters (DW: Planet of Evil) and "walking mummies." (DW: Pyramids of Mars) Earlier she had met the Cybermen. (DW: Revenge of the Cybermen)
Finally, after many trips with him, the Doctor received a summons to return to Gallifrey, his home world; as a human, she could not accompany him (although this ban was evidently rescinded as the Doctor was later able to bring human companions to Gallifrey, possibly owing in fact to his later ascension to the position of President of the Time Lords). The Doctor attempted to deposit her near her flat in South Croydon (DW: The Hand of Fear), but mistakenly left her in Aberdeen, Scotland, instead. (DW: School Reunion)
The Doctor would later suggest he did not return for Sarah because he feared becoming too attached to any individual human, given that the differences in their life expectancies meant he would almost inevitably have to watch them grow old and die. (DW: School Reunion)
- There is also evidence that he believed Sarah was growing too detached from her Earth life and it was in her best interests that she return to it. (DWN: Doctor Who and the Face of Evil)
After the Doctor
The 1980s
The Doctor did not forget Sarah,as he sent her K-9 Mark III as a companion and keepsake, which she unpacked and activated shortly before Christmas, 1981. Together, with her aunt Lavinia's other ward, Brendan Richards, they uncovered the murderous cult of Hecate in the village of Moreton Harwood. (KAC: A Girl's Best Friend) Sarah Jane was also instrumental in helping Harry Sullivan. (TC: Harry Sullivan's War) Shortly after, a Time Scoop removed her (but not K-9) to the Death Zone on Gallifrey where she participated in the Games of Rassilion, and re-united with the Doctor's third incarnation. She briefly met the first, second and fifth Doctors, and introduced herself to Tegan Jovanka. Sarah also had a reunion with the Brigadier and briefly met Susan Foreman and Turlough. (DW: The Five Doctors)
The 1990s
Decades later, Sarah Jane accompanied the Doctor's seventh incarnation to a jazz concert in the Albert Hall and defeated an invasion of Earth by rogue members of the insectoid Kalik species. (DWM: Train-Flight)
Then, in the mid-1990s, Sarah Jane worked with the Brigadier to defeat the Great Intelligence, which had possessed Victoria Waterfield, another one of the Doctor's companions. (BBV: Downtime)
In 1996, with the Doctor's eight incarnation's companion, Sam Jones she fought against international human rights abuses and met her future husband, Paul Morley. (NA: Christmas on a Rational Planet, EDA: Interference) In one possible future, at least, they had a daughter together called Lauren and a grandchild called Lily. (ST: Lily)
Later, in 1997, she assisted the Doctor's seventh incarnation against the Cortez Project in Hong Kong and (seemingly) died. (PDA: Bullet Time)
- The Council of Eight had altered history by having Sarah die well before she should have done. This seems to have been undone by the Doctor's eventual defeat of the Council. (EDA: Sometime Never...)
Another account shows Sarah still alive in 1998 when her own younger self visited that year with the Doctor and Harry Sullivan. (MA: System Shock)
- Several contradictory accounts exist of the birth, deaths and marriages that occur or do not occur in Sarah's life following this adventure.
Obviously, these non-televised stories contain multiple contradictions with established events and characterizations in both DW and SJA.
The 2000s
Changes
K-9 broke down and Sarah did not know how to fix him. She also knew she couldn't find anyone else to fix him because of his advanced technology. (DW: School Reunion) Sarah Jane Smith continued to work as an investigative reporter following her departure from Planet 3 and her aunt's death. (BFSJS: Comeback) At this point in her investigations, she was joined by fellow investigators Natalie Redfern and Josh Townsend. A conspiracy to collapse her career was initiated against her by her old enemy Hilda Winters, who intended to commit a vicious bio-terrorism attack and frame Sarah for it, but Sarah and her companions thwarted this. (BFSJS: Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre)
Two years on, Sarah had become tired and morose, knowing she couldn't talk about her past with anyone and starting to think she'd imagined it. She also became involved in the machinations of the doomsday cult known as the Crimson Chapter, who believed a 400-year-old tome named the Book of Tomorrows which claimed aliens would wipe out humanity in the year 2000 - and discovered the tome made reference to her. (BFSJS: Buried Secrets) To her horror, she discovered the Chapter wanted to commit genocide solely so their prophecy would be fulfilled, and that they believed she was the human herald of the alien apocalypse. While she prevented this, she was distraught to find out the Chapter and the Book of Tomorrows had been formed due to comments she'd made to Guiliano while travelling with the Doctor. (BFSJS: Fatal Consequences)
Following this and the discovery that her friend Josh was a cold-blooded killer for the rival White Chapter cult, she admitted that she was lonely in her life and wondered if the Doctor had left her on Earth for a specific task. Needing something to believe in again, she went on the world's first commercial spaceflight, which would pass a comet that the White Chapter would bring salvation, only for the flight to be sabotaged by the last Crimson Chapter acolyte, killing Josh and leaving Sarah with failing life support and a vision of something she felt she'd been searching for. (BFSJS: Dreamland)
- While ending on a cliffhanger that hinted death, the story mentioned NASA was intending a rescue mission.
At some stage, Sarah permanently moved from South Croydon to Ealing and bought a rather large house on 13 Bannerman Road. (Prior to SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
Sarah Jane and Bernice Summerfield enjoyed a coffee together and shared reminiscences of their time in the TARDIS (BFBS: A Life of Surprises: A Mutual Friend), a time that for Sarah was shortly to be revisited in an inspirational reunion with the Doctor. (DW: School Reunion)
Reunion with the Doctor
Circa 2007, Sarah Jane launched an investigation into strange goings-on at Deffry Vale High School, which led her to an encounter with the Doctor in his tenth incarnation. She met the Doctor's current companion, Rose Tyler, and after some initial animosity, competition, and jealousy, bonded with the young woman. She was also instrumental in convincing the Doctor to take on Mickey Smith as a companion. During the incident at Deffry Vale, K-9 Mark III was destroyed, but the Doctor constructed for her Mark IV. During this adventure, Sarah Jane came to terms with the fact she was unable to move on with her life after leaving the Doctor, and departed the Doctor's company with newfound confidence. (DW: School Reunion) He also gave her a sonic lipstick and a watch to scan for alien life hidden in a compartment in Mark IV. (Sarah Jane Adventures website)
- References in the episode tend to discount any marriage to Paul Morley, and flatly deny her having met the Doctor after he left her in Aberdeen, although this could be accounted for by the possible explanation that the defeat of the Council of Eight and the destruction of Faction Paradox negated the circumstances under which Sarah met the Seventh and Eighth Doctors, while her meeting with the Fifth in the Death Zone didn't exactly count as she spent more time with the Third Doctor than his later self.
Losing K-9 and building Mr Smith
She chose to help the Earth by quietly opposing those aliens hostile to it, while simultaneously welcoming those aliens who might befriend it. Her philosophy of alien contact stood in stark contrast to UNIT and the Torchwood Institute, whom she believed tended go in "all guns blazing". K-9's unique abilities forced their separation. He became involved with a long-term project to stabilise an artificial black hole. Amongst the residents of Bannerman Road, she was seemingly viewed as a quiet and unsociable neighbor. Kelsey Harper, though likely exaggerating, described her as a "mad woman". (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
Sometime after her encounter with the Doctor, a geologist friend found near the site of the Krakatoa eruption, an alien crystal, around which she built a computer, which she named Mr Smith. Mr Smith possessed information on many alien species and the ability to contact any computer in the world. (SJA: The Lost Boy)
- The chronology of this remains a little uncertain, though it seems to have happened after K-9 Mark IV went off to stablise the black hole.
Meeting Maria Jackson and Luke
I saw amazing things, out there in space--but there is strangeness to be found, wherever you turn. Life on Earth can be an adventure too... you just need to know where to look!
The Bane invasion changed all this as its events exposed her secrets to her young neighbour Maria Jackson, who moved in to 36 Bannerman Road. Along with "the archetype", an artificial Human boy created by Bane technology, they defeated the Bane Mother. In the aftermath, Sarah Jane adopted the boy as her own, re-naming him Luke. Sarah was no longer content to live alone and opted to include Maria and Luke in her adventures. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
She enrolled Luke at Park Vale School, which Maria also attended. At Park Vale, Luke met Clyde Langer, a friend of his and Maria's; all three helped her defeat Slitheen who had infiltrated the school. (SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen) They also helped her against the Gorgon. (SJA: Eye of the Gorgon) She and Maria saved Luke and Clyde from General Kudlak. (SJA: Warriors of Kudlak) She was almost wished out of reality by The Trickster until Maria's father Alan saved her and Maria. (SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?) She was helped by the Slitheen to defeat Mr Smith, who had turned out to be evil, but with the help of Alan, Maria's father, re-programmed him. (SJA: The Lost Boy)
Medusa Cascade incident
When the Daleks transported Earth to the Medusa Cascade, Sarah Jane worked with Torchwood 3 to contact the Doctor by having Mr Smith cause every telephone on Earth to ring the Doctor's TARDIS. She reluctantly left her son behind and found herself first confronted by two Daleks (DW: The Stolen Earth). She again met Mickey Smith and made the acquaintance of Jackie Tyler, and was then transported to the Dalek base, the Crucible. In the heart of the Crucible, she once more met Davros, and working with Jack Harkness threatened to destroy the Crucible using a warp star she owned. After the defeat of the Daleks, she helped to drive the TARDIS and bring the Earth back home and said another farewell to the Doctor, commenting that, although he often spoke of being lonely, his wide range of companions gave him essentially the largest family on Earth. (DW: Journey's End)
Good-byes to Maria
Again with Luke, Clyde and Maria, she saw off the Sontaran known as Kaagh (the last survivor of the Sontaran invasion of Earth) who wanted to take Sarah Jane back to Sontar to stand trial in the Doctor's stead. During that adventure, Maria announced that her father had a job offer to move to America and had decided to let him take it. Six weeks later, she moved out. (SJA: The Last Sontaran)
Meeting with Rani
Shortly afterwards, Rani Chandra, an aspiring teenage journalist, and her parents Gita and Haresh moved in to Maria's old address and joined Luke and Clyde in defeating a child-stealing energy entity which had inspired the Pied Piper myth. Reluctantly, she took Rani into the team. The entity thrived off of Sarah's fears of clowns which started one night in childhood. (SJA: The Day of the Clown) Afterwards, Rani joined the team permanently. Together, they defeated the Ancient Lights (SJA: Secrets of the Stars), the Berserker (SJA: The Mark of the Berserker) and even the Trickster when he attempted to manifest corporeally in Foxgrove in 1951. (SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith) Later, Mrs Wormwood returned to Earth alongside the Sontaran Kaagh in an attempt to summon Horath, the immortal tyrant of the Dark Empire. With help from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and due to infighting between Kaagh and Mrs Wormwood, they were able to stop this potential apocalypse. (SJA: Enemy of the Bane)
Alternate universe versions
Andrea Yates' World
The Trickster swapped Sarah Jane's destiny with that of school friend Andrea Yates. Consequently, Sarah Jane, not Andrea drowned in 1964 on a school trip to a pier and never led the life she would have alongside the Doctor. Had her life not been restored, life on Earth would have been likely destroyed by an asteroid that only Mr. Smith could have stopped. (SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
Donna's World
In this universe, time was altered as the Doctor's companion Donna Noble was assaulted by a member of the Trickster's Brigade who coerce her into turning right instead of left six months prior to when Donna first met the Doctor, leading to her never meeting and saving the Doctor. Sarah Jane investigated the Royal Hope Hospital with Maria, Clyde and Luke, apparently meeting Martha Jones. When the hospital was teleported to the moon by the Judoon, Sarah Jane tried to step into the Doctor's role and defuse the situation. Though she did manage to deactivate the MRI weapon, she could do nothing about the hospital's dwindling supply of oxygen; and, along with everyone else, she suffocated. (DW: Turn Left)
The Trickster's World
Although only returning to it once, she had done this by de-activating her parents' car, falling into the Trickster's trap. (SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith) In the end, with the gang's help, Sarah stops this threat and the world returned to normal.
Personality
As a companion, Sarah was confident, inquisitive and possessed a sharp mind as well as a sharp tongue. She was also something of a feminist; she was infuriated when the Doctor asked her to make coffee (DW: The Time Warrior) and she often verbally sparred with fellow companion Harry Sullivan over his 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, or later with the Doctor himself. She shared a strong rapport with the Doctor, and her subsequent life has been shaped by her finding him a tough act to follow; she stops short of saying that she had fallen in love with the Doctor, but the context of a discussion with Rose Tyler about the Doctor, and Rose's growing infatuation with the Doctor, implied this as a possible scenario. (DW: School Reunion)
Other information
Skills and abilities
Sarah received training in evasion tactics from her UNIT days. (SJA:Warriors of Kudlak)
Miscellaneous facts
- Circa 2008-9 Sarah owned a car, namely a lime green Nissan Figaro. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane onwards)
- Until she apparently overcame it, due to the incident with the clown mannequin, Sarah had a case of coulrophobia. (SJA: The Day of the Clown)
Behind the Scenes
Popularity and significance
Sarah Jane Smith stands out as one of the more popular (arguably the most popular) of the Doctor's companions. Apart from Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier, no other actor has a higher profile as a Doctor Who companion. On-screen, Sarah has met the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Ice Warriors, the Slitheen, the Master (in The Five Doctors) and Davros. Her debut story, The Time Warrior introduced both herself and the Sontarans. On-screen, she has appeared with the Third, Fourth and Tenth Doctors. In The Five Doctors, she appeared with the First (played by Richard Hurndall in that story), Second and Fifth Doctors
Sarah Jane spin-offs
Sarah Jane has appeared in two television spin-off's, K-9 & Company, introducing and co-starring K-9 Mark III, (which never got beyond the pilot episode, A Girl's Best Friend) and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Starting in 2002, she appeared in two seasons of an audio series, Sarah Jane Smith. The K-9 Annual gives some idea of how the K-9 & Company series might have progressed if it had gone to a full series.
Sarah Jane special
The Doctor Who Magazine special for Holiday 1992 concentrated on Sarah Jane Smith. The article The Roving Reporter details her life from a in-universe perspective, establishing several of the "facts" now made canon by The Sarah Jane Adventures, except that it uses the "near future" version of UNIT dating.
Continuity and canon
Sarah's return to television in School Reunion overwrites previously established continuity from spin-off merchandise, such a novels and audio dramas. Apart from The Five Doctors, which shows Sarah meeting up with the Doctor (in the form of his third incarnation, in the Doctor Who Magazine comic Train-Flight, she shared an adventure with the Seventh Doctor. Terrance Dicks' short story Farewells also shows a reconciliation with the Fourth Doctor. School Reunion strongly implies that the Doctor and Sarah never met again after their parting in The Hand of Fear (however, since it was the Third Doctor she met in The Five Doctors, the implication holds true as the Doctor and Sarah never met post-The Hand of Fear. Add to that; she did very briefly meet the Fifth Doctor in The Five Doctors, but there is nothing to suggest she realised it was a later Doctor, and the was barely enough time for them to say hello let alone discuss this.).
Lawrence Miles' Interference books One and two, set partly in 1997, has K-9 Mark III replaced with the new Mark IV and the 1997 version of Sarah seeing her future self marrying a man named Paul Morley a few years in her future and the short story Lily by Jackie Marshall shows the Fifth Doctor meeting with an older Sarah, who has a grand-daughter.
The Sarah Jane Adventures uses background from the The Roving Reporter article, with the change of pushing her birthdate back a few days to fit in better with the idea that the UNIT stories took place in approximately the years of broadcast.
On 10th April 2009, scenes were filmed featuring Sarah Jane, Luke and The Doctor.
Gallery
- SarahAtIrongrons.jpg
Sarah spies on Linx
- SJSSwimmingPOD.jpg
Sarah prepares for a swimming holiday on Florana
- SJSListeningIOD.jpg
An unimpressed Sarah Jane
A happy Sarah Jane
- SarahLooksUpPOE.jpg
Sarah on board a ship orbiting Zeta Minor
Sarah smiles at the new K-9 Mark IV
Sarah Jane as she appeared in her first adventure with the Tenth Doctor
Sarah in the Trickster's void
- Sarah Jane Smith.jpg
Sarah on the job
Sarah fears for the life of her son in light of the 21st century Dalek invasion of Earth
External links
Continuity
Interviews and features
Notes