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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 the planet Kembel and gradually convinced of his suspictions 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 said that he had been Mars Colony 16, leaving open the possibility that Sara Kingdom was also born on Mars.
On Earth, she was briefed by Chen, and told that her brother had turned traitor. In an experimental testing facility, she found the Doctor, Steven Taylor and her brother, who she shot him to death. Sara would have done to do the same to the Doctor and Steven when all three were all transferred from Eath by cellular transportation to the planet Mira by accident. There she learned, to her horror and grief, that her unquestioning obedience had not only led her to unjustly kill her brother, but also that by doing so she had prevented Vyon from warning Earth of the Dalek plot. She then joined the Doctor in his fight.
Sara, with Steven and the Doctor took a short, stress-free trip to (in Sara's terms) long-ago Earth (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan, ST: The Little Drummer Boy) and then 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 actually sickened of the Doctor. (DW: The Massacre)
After life
In his seventh incarnation on the ruined planet Adeki, the Doctor found Sara Kingdom, as well as other of his companions, alive again and desperate to leave in the TARDIS. Actually, as the Doctor soon gueesed, one of a race of shape-shifting Gwanzulum had used the Doctor's sentiment in order to manipulate him into escaping 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 herself 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 Chan. (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
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 with 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 two installments of Big Finish Productions' The Companion Chronicles audio drama line.
Decades after her introduction, the Torchwood mini-series Children of Earth would introduce the character of Johnson, a government agent and assassin with similarities to Sara Kingdom.