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Biography
Early life
- Sarah Jane Smith's birth seems to have taken place in the early 1950s.
On July 13, 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, not Andrea died, 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?)
Travels with the the Doctor
First meeting with the Doctor
In her early twenties Sarah Jane gave her age as 23 during Operation Golden Age, which occurred shortly afterwardss (DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs) in her capacity as a journalist for Metropolitan magazine, Sarah posed as her aunt, Lavinia Smith, 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 and traveled back in time with him to the 12th century England to defeat the Sontaran known as Linx, who has kidnapped the scientists. (DW: The Time Warrior)
Early adventures
Sarah Jane and the Doctor would have many adventures together both on Earth and on other plants. She got to know the Brigadier, Captain Mike Yates 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 (The Hour of the Geek)). Later, these events reversed, allowing history to take its natural course. (EDA: The Ancestor Cell).
In the usual 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. The Brigadier believed he had died. Sarah still 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 himself. She was present on the planet Skaro during creation of the Daleks by Davros and the the Doctor's attempt to change or prevent it. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
- The Doctor's mission to stop or alter the creation of the Daleks would count as the origin of the Last Great Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords.
The departure
As she later related to Rose Tyler, Sarah encountered the 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, to which she was forbidden from accompanying him. Attempting to deposit her near her flat in South Croydon (DW:The Hand of Fear). The Doctor, however, 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. (DW: The Face of Evil (Novelisation))
The 1980's and '90's
The Doctor did not forget Sarah, but rather sent her K-9 Mark III as a companion and keepsake. In the early 1980's, they uncovered the murderous cult of Hecate in the village of Moreton Harwood (K-9 & Company: A Girl's Best Friend). Shortly after, a Time Scoop removed her (but not K-9) to the Death Zone where she participated in the Game of Rassilion, re-united with the Doctor's third incarnation. (DW: The Five Doctors).
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).
Sarah Jane worked with Victoria Waterfield and the Brigadier to defeat the Great Intelligence (MA: Downtime).
The late 1990's
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). Some accounts state 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 died (PDA: Bullet Time). The Council of Eight had altered history by seeming having Sarah die in 1997, well before her time (PDA: Bullet Time). This seems to have been undone by the Doctor's eventual defeat of the Council (EDA: Sometime Never...).
- Several contradictory accounts exist of the birth, deaths and marriages that occur or do not occur in Sarah's life following this adventure. This is perhaps to be expected as she has been present at number of points where history has been altered. Apart from the instances mentioned, Mortimus implied at one point that UNIT's contradictory chronology is a product of his meddling with history (NA:No Future).
- By the time she encountered the Doctor and Rose Tyler, then much of this would seem to have been lost from her timeline. Her husband was never married and her children never born as she instead considered the Doctor to have been the only man for her. Similarly her solo adventures appear never to have happened, traded in for a normal life of rain and electric bills. That, however, was all about to change.
- Given so much potential damage to her personal history, the Doctor's truly ecstatic reaction to meeting her again in his tenth life might be considered to come from not just his pleasure at seeing an old friend, but from elation at the fact her timeline still exists and that she's recognisably still the woman he cares about.
Sarah Jane Smith continued to work as an investigative reporter following her departure from Planet 3 and her aunt's death. (BFA: Comeback)
Reunited and Refocused
In the early 21st century, 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 revisted, as an inspirational reunion with the Doctor (DW: School Reunion) put her life back on track.
Sarah Jane Smith found, near the remnants of the Krakatoa eruption, an alien crystal, around which she built a computer who 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). Sarah also had a sonic lipstick and a watch to scan for alien life, Mr Smith (a sentient supercomputer assistant) and various other futuristic and extraterrestrial devices. Using these technologies and her experience she has helped the Earth and its alien visitors in a much less violent way than organisations such as UNIT and the Torchwood Institute, who in her estimation tend to go in "all guns blazing". (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
Her amateur operation has more in common with that which Isaac Summerfield ran during the 1980's, being as likely to assist stranded aliens in returning home or in integrating as it is to oppose hostile incursions.
K-9 left her in order to stabilize an artificial black hole. Sarah had by that time developed a reputation on Bannerman Road for being unsociable and quiet. The Bane invasion changed all this as its events exposed her secrets to her young neighbor Maria Jackson. 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 continues her adventures alongside her young friends. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
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; 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 strong rapport with the Doctor, and her subsequent life has been shaped by her finding him a tough act to follow (DW: School Reunion).