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- For the audio series, see Sarah Jane Smith. For other individuals named Smith, see here.
Sarah Jane Smith, occasionally rendered Sarah-Jane Smith (also known as Sarah by the Doctor, who was allowed to call her that, and by Gita Chandra, who was regularly corrected) was an investigative journalist who travelled with the Doctor in his third and fourth incarnations. She later reunited with the Doctor in his tenth incarnation and shared adventures with him and his immediate successor. Unlike most former companions, Sarah Jane encountered 7 different incarnations of him in total: those previously mentioned along with the First, Second, and Fifth Doctors. Due to her experiences with the Doctor, she was entrusted with the task of protecting Earth from hostile extraterrestrial threats and helping peaceful aliens; she shared these adventures with her young companions/surrogate family.
Biography
Early life
Infancy
Sarah Jane Smith was born in May 1951 in the village of Foxgrove (SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith) under the astrological sign of Taurus. (SJA: Secrets of the Stars) On 18 August 1951, her parents, Barbara and Eddie Smith, abandoned her in her pram and drove off in their car to protect the world from the Trickster as it had tricked the adult version of herself into almost allowing him to manifest and conquer Earth. A few minutes later on a country lane, they drove into a tractor and were killed, knowing they were saving the world. Sarah Jane was raised by her aunt, Lavinia Smith, a virologist, and may have been close to her uncle, Africana. (SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)
Childhood to Adulthood
Young Sarah Jane developed a fear of clowns because of an old clown puppet that once belonged to her aunt Lavinia, which hung in her bedroom and stared down at her as she slept. In thunderstorms, it seemed to move. Later in her life, Sarah Jane learned it had been manipulated by the Pied Piper to induce coulrophobia in her for their future encounter; this fear stayed with her for most of her life. (SJA: The Day of the Clown)
In November 1963, Sarah Jane went on a day trip to London with her aunt. While her guardian was buying sweets for her, she explored a junkyard and saw a police box. After returning to her aunt, they walked by the junkyard, and she caught a glimpse of a young girl entering it. This nearly caused her to meet the First Doctor. (BE: Playtime)
On 13 July 1964, while on a school outing with her, Sarah Jane's best friend, Andrea Yates, slipped off a pier to her death. The Trickster later altered this event to create a timeline in which Sarah Jane died rather than Andrea. Many years later, this doomed the planet Earth. In the normal timeline, the event changed Sarah, impressing on her the importance of life. She never forgot Andrea. She also met one of her future companions, Maria Jackson, due to Krislok's blunder and was given a vague warning about Andrea's death before being taken hostage again. If she retained memories of this, it may have been why Sarah Jane later gave Maria the puzzle box. (SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
Sarah had been doorstepping since she was nineteen years old. (SJA: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith) When she began in journalism, her editor was Lionel Carson. He had romantic feelings for her which she did not reciprocate. (SJA: The Man Who Never Was) At some point in her early career, Sarah was mentored by James Stevens. (MA: Who Killed Kennedy)
Travels with the Doctor
First meeting with the Doctor
While working for Metropolitan magazine, Sarah posed as her aunt, a famous virologist, to infiltrate a UNIT-controlled facility where scientists had gone missing. She met Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT's unpaid scientific advisor, the Third Doctor. Suspicious of the Doctor's activities, Sarah Jane stowed away in his TARDIS. (DW: The Time Warrior) She was roughly 23 years old at this time, by her own account. (DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
With the Third Doctor
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Sarah Jane travelled to 13th century England and defeated a Sontaran called Linx, who had kidnapped the scientists at the facility to this timezone. (DW: The Time Warrior)
Sarah Jane and the Doctor shared many adventures on Earth and 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. (DW: Death to the Daleks) Faction Paradox altered the Doctor's timeline twice while Sarah Jane travelled with him. In one timeline, the Doctor died and did not regenerate on Dust. In another, the Doctor did regenerate, which should not 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)
Sarah Jane travelled to Goodwood, Sussex for a horse race, unaccompanied by the Doctor, who was taking a metabolism test on the Brigadier's advice. She encountered Daleks, whom she stopped with help from the U.S. Cavalry. (AG: Glorious Goodwood)
In the regular timeline, the Doctor regenerated after his exposure to deadly radiation in the cave of the Great One on Metebelis III. Dying, and his TARDIS lost in the Time Vortex, the Doctor left Sarah Jane and the Brigadier to await his return for three weeks. Sarah believed he had died, but the Brigadier kept faith. They saw the Doctor's TARDIS returned to UNIT HQ and he changed before them into his next incarnation. (DW: Planet of the Spiders, Robot)
With the Fourth Doctor
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Along with another human companion, Harry Sullivan, the Doctor and she travelled to other adventures in time and space. (DW: Robot) The Doctor, in his new incarnation, had less interest in Earth, yet a closer relationship with Sarah Jane.
On Nerva Beacon, she encountered an insectoid-like species known as the Wirrn. (DW: The Ark in Space) She was also present on Skaro during the creation of the Daleks by Davros and the Doctor's attempt to change or prevent it. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks) Sarah returned to Nerva Beacon several millennia before her first visit and encountered the Cybermen. (DW: Revenge of the Cybermen)
As she later told Rose Tyler, (DW: School Reunion) 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)
Departure
After many trips with her, the Fourth Doctor received a summons to return to Gallifrey, his home world. He told her then that they had to part company because humans weren't allowed on the planet, (DW: The Hand of Fear) despite the fact that they had already jointly appeared before the High Council on Gallifrey. (TVC: Return of the Daleks)
Because she had in fact been to Gallifrey, and because other humans, like Jamie McCrimmon (DW: The War Games) and Leela, (DW: The Invasion of Time) were allowed to visit Gallifrey, it was unclear whether the Doctor was actually telling the truth. Even though the Tenth Doctor later repeated the Fourth's rationale, (DW: School Reunion) other explanations were possible. One account held that the genuine reason he left Sarah behind was that he believed Sarah was growing too detached from her life on Earth, and it was in her best interests that she return to it. (DWN: Doctor Who and the Face of Evil)
Whatever the real reasons, the Fourth Doctor did ultimately take her back to Britain. He tried to leave her near her flat in South Croydon, but mistakenly left her in Aberdeen, Scotland, instead. (DW: School Reunion)
After the Doctor
The 1980s
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The Doctor did not forget Sarah; he sent her K9 Mark III as a companion and keepsake, whom she unpacked and activated shortly before Christmas, 1981. 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) She helped Harry Sullivan. (TC: Harry Sullivan's War) Some time later, a Time Scoop removed her to the Death Zone on Gallifrey. She took part in the Games of Rassilon and re-united with the Doctor's third incarnation. She 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
Sarah Jane accompanied the Doctor's seventh incarnation to a jazz concert in the Royal Albert Hall and defeated an invasion of Earth by rogue members of the insectoid Kalik species. (DWM: Train-Flight)
In the mid-1990s, Sarah Jane worked with the Brigadier to defeat the Great Intelligence, which had possessed Victoria Waterfield, another of the Second Doctor's companions. (RP: Downtime)
In 1996, with the Doctor's eighth incarnation's companion, Sam Jones, she fought human rights abuses and met her future husband, Paul Morley. (NA: Christmas on a Rational Planet, EDA: Interference) In one possible future, they had a daughter named Lauren and a grandchild called Lily. (ST: Lily)
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 altered history by having Sarah die well before she should have done. This was likely undone by the Eighth Doctor's eventual defeat of the Council. (EDA: Sometime Never...)
Sarah Jane lost another family member some time between 1990 and 1998 when her aunt, Lavinia Smith, died (PDA: Millennium Shock) and, sometime before this, Africana had passed away too.[source needed]
Another account held that Sarah was still alive in 1998 when her own younger self visited that year with the Fourth Doctor and Harry Sullivan. (MA: System Shock)
- Several contradictory accounts exist[source needed] of the birth, deaths and marriages that may have occurred in Sarah's life following this adventure.
New Millennium
Changes
K9 broke down and Sarah Jane couldn't find anyone to fix him because of his advanced technology. (BFSJS: Comeback, DW: School Reunion) She continued to work as an investigative reporter after her departure from Planet 3 and her aunt's death. (BFSJS: Comeback) She was joined by fellow investigators Natalie Redfern and Josh Townsend. A conspiracy to destroy her career was initiated against her by her old enemy Hilda Winters, who intended to commit a vicious bio-terrorist 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 four-hundred-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 so their prophecy would be fulfilled, and 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 Giuliano 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 she was lonely 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 had said 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. It may also be possible that, if NASA did not rescue her, the Doctor did.
At some time Sarah permanently moved from South Croydon to 13 Bannerman Road in Ealing. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
Sarah Jane and Bernice Summerfield at some point enjoyed a coffee together and shared memories of their times in the TARDIS. (BFBS: A Mutual Friend)
During Christmas 2006, Sarah witnessed the Sycorax invasion, (DW: The Christmas Invasion) in which she suspected the Doctor's involvement. (DW: School Reunion)
Reunion with the Tenth Doctor
In 2007, Sarah Jane investigated strange goings-on at Deffry Vale High School, leading her to an encounter with the Doctor in his tenth incarnation. She met the Doctor's current companion, Rose Tyler, and after animosity, competition, and jealousy, bonded with the young woman. During this incident, where she helped foil the Krillitanes crack the Skasis Paradigm using their mind-altering oil on the children, K9 Mark III was repaired by the Doctor. Shortly after, K9 sacrificed his life by blowing up the school with the Krillitanes inside.
Sarah Jane declined an offer to join the TARDIS, but helped convince the Doctor to take on Mickey Smith as a companion. The Doctor left her K9 Mark IV as a replacement. Sarah Jane came to terms with her inability to move on with her life and left 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. (WEB: The Sarah Jane Adventures website)
Losing K9 and building Mr Smith
She chose to help the Earth by quietly opposing those aliens hostile to it and welcoming those who would 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". K9's unique abilities forced their separation. He became involved in a long-term project to stabilise an artificial black hole. Amongst the residents of Bannerman Road, she was viewed as a quiet and unsociable neighbour. Kelsey Hooper, though likely exaggerating, described her as a "mad woman". (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
Some time 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 had information on many alien species and could 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 K9 Mark IV went off to stabilise the black hole, which would set it, for Sarah Jane, at some point after the incident with the Krillitanes but before meeting the Bane. Sarah tells Maria that K9 Mark IV has been stabilising the black hole for a year and a half, placing it, without a doubt, during Series 4 of Doctor Who (as the end of series 1 later merges with Doctor who in 'The Stolen Earth' and 'Journey's End') and right, or shortly after, School Reunion, which is a year and a half before the end of Series 4.
Adventures With Maria, Luke and Clyde
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The Bane invasion changed Sarah's life dramatically; before the events of Invasion of the Bane she was a slightly cold woman who lived alone, and after she had a family, both literally, in the case of Luke and figuratively, in the case of Maria. In 2008, its events exposed her secrets to her young neighbour, Maria Jackson, who had moved into 36 Bannerman Road. With "the archetype", an artificial human boy created by Bane technology, they defeated the Bane Mother. In the aftermath, Sarah Jane adopted the boy, re-naming him Luke. Sarah was no longer content to live alone and chose to include Maria and Luke in her adventures. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
She enroled Luke at Park Vale School, which Maria also attended. At Park Vale Luke met Clyde Langer, who became a friend of his and Maria's; all three helped Sarah defeat Slitheen who had infiltrated the school. (SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen) They also helped her against the Gorgon. (SJA: Eye of the Gorgon) Maria and she 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)
When the Daleks transported Earth to the Medusa Cascade in 2009, Sarah Jane worked with Torchwood Three to call the Tenth Doctor by having Mr Smith make every telephone on Earth ring the Doctor's TARDIS. She reluctantly left her son behind and was confronted by two Daleks (DW: The Stolen Earth). She again met Mickey Smith and made the acquaintance of Jackie Tyler, who saved her from the Daleks, 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 with a warp star she owned. After the defeat of the Daleks, she helped to pilot 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)
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 Tenth 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)
Escapades with Rani, Luke and Clyde
Shortly afterwards, Rani Chandra, an aspiring teenage journalist, and her parents Gita and Haresh moved into Maria's former address and joined Luke and Clyde in defeating a child-stealing energy entity which had inspired the Pied Piper myth. Reluctantly, Sarah 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 Martin Trueman, envoy of the Ancient Lights, who wished to control the universe, (SJA: Secrets of the Stars) the power of the Berserker pendant, (SJA: The Mark of the Berserker) and even the Trickster when he attempted to manifest corporeally in Foxgrove in 1951. In the last adventure Sarah Jane learned why her parents had abandoned her and was immensely proud of them. (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 apocalypse. (SJA: Enemy of the Bane)
Sarah Jane and her friends fought Androvax, a Veil who possessed Sarah Jane's body but thanks to Luke, Rani, and Clyde, as well as a Judoon, she got it back and learned the Judoon had "grounded" Rani and Clyde to Earth for impeding his search. (SJA: Prisoner of the Judoon) She and the gang also helped a lonely alien named Eve get back to her Ship and fly away with her friends. Ship absorbed the energy from the black hole K9 was guarding to take off, bringing him back to Sarah Jane's side. (SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic) Sarah Jane later met Peter Dalton and they got engaged, much to Luke, Rani, and Clyde's surprise. At her wedding she had two very special, uninvited guests, her greatest ally and arch enemy. She was teleported to limbo by the Trickster and separated from her companions and the Doctor. She had to allow Peter to sacrifice himself to defeat the Trickster. She had genuinely been in love with Peter and when she and the others returned to Earth, she was left heartbroken. She was checked up on by Luke, Clyde, and Rani as well as the Doctor, who allowed Sarah Jane's gang to have a look inside the TARDIS. She then bid another farewell to the Doctor in the manner of their original departure. (SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith)
Sarah Jane's next challenges would be unique aliens unlike any she had previously faced: her beliefs regarding ghosts were tested by her encounter with Erasmus Darkening, (SJA: The Eternity Trap) and the Mona Lisa would come to life shortly after Sarah Jane and Luke argued for the first time about typical teenage habits. Sarah Jane temporarily ended up trapped in a painting by the Mona Lisa, but ended up freed after her companions tricked her. (SJA: Mona Lisa's Revenge) Later Sarah Jane attempted to thwart another Slitheen plot which threatened the Earth. Despite the best efforts of Luke, Rani, Clyde, K9, and her, the Slitheen could not be stopped. Fortunately members of the Blathereen family arrived in time to stop the Slitheen. They tricked Sarah Jane into accepting a gift: a Rakweed plant. It mutated overnight and began to spread across London, threatening to kill anyone infected by its spores. Luke was the first to inhale the spores and almost died. Fortunately a way for Mr Smith to destroy the Rakweed was discovered, but Sarah Jane was forced to kill the Blathereen, an act she immediately regretted. (SJA: The Gift)
Luke told Sarah Jane that he would be doing his A levels a year early whilst she was held captive by a Slitheen. Rani and Clyde quickly defeated the Slitheen with a bucket of vinegar and Sarah Jane said Luke should go to university. (SJA: The Nightmare Man)
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After the incident with the Master Race, Sarah Jane asked Mr. Smith to create a cover story so that no one would suspect more alien activity, using a fake story of the wi-fi system suffering a major technical malfunction all around the world that caused everyone to have hallucinations. She was later told by Luke that the Doctor had arrived and saved his life. She watched as he waved goodbye before entering the TARDIS, and smiled tearily (after several failed attempts), showing signs of knowing what was about to happen, having witnessed it once before. (DW: The End of Time)
After Luke
When the time came, Luke passed his A Levels with flying colours, as Sarah Jane expected. Luke was then plagued by nightmares caused by the extradimensional Nightmare Man entity. Despite not being to help, Sarah Jane was amazed that Luke, Clyde, and Rani entered the same nightmare to be together and defeat him by overcoming their fears, trapping the Nightmare Man in Clyde's nighmare of an older version of herself bragging about Luke. Alive and well, Luke left for the University of Oxford along with K9 in Sarah Jane's old car, a Volkswagon Beetle named Ethel, that she had given him after the repairs had been finished. (SJA: The Nightmare Man)
Although Luke was no longer with Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani stayed behind and the trio continued to have adventures in 2010. Androvax returned to Sarah Jane and asked for her help. Along with the Men in Black, they saved Earth from hyperdimensional cataclysm, allowing Androvax to leave Earth without destroying it and find a new home planet for the remnants of the Veil species. (SJA: The Vault of Secrets)
Sarah Jane attended the Eleventh Doctor's staged funeral and helped uncover the Shansheeth plot. She met Jo Jones for the first time and they bonded over stories of travelling with the Doctor before running into the Doctor himself. She and Jo were captured by the Shansheeth, who tried to use a Memory Weave and their memories to create a TARDIS key. With the help of the Doctor, the two women overloaded the machine and hid in a lead-lined coffin as the device self-destructed. After this, she used "TARDIS" as a search word and learned of more of the Doctor's previous companions that were working to help make Earth a better place. "With friends like us, he's (the Doctor's legacy) not really going to die, is he?" (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
Sarah Jane was teleported to a sub-dimension along with the rest of humanity by the Automatons. Clyde and Rani remained on Earth due to their grounding by the Judoon and they solved the mystery, returning alien king Gavin back home after he ordered the return of the human race. Sarah Jane told Clyde and Rani how proud she was of them and after having Mr Smith fix the records that Gavin moved to Australia, got pizza for her young friends. (SJA: The Empty Planet)
Soon after, the Bannerman Road gang investigated a shop owned by a mysterious Shopkeeper who transported Sarah Jane, Clyde, and Rani to three different moments in time to obtain pieces of Chronosteel using a Time window. Arriving in 1889, Sarah Jane met a young woman named Emily Morris who was investigating a haunted house. They discovered the house was melding with its future self and saw two children locked in a room on fire. This was how Emily had lost her mother nine weeks earlier. Under Sarah Jane's guidance, Emily used her fear to travel through time and open the door, saving the children and obtaining the chronosteel key. Sarah Jane took the key and began to teleport back to 2010, but Emily wanted Sarah Jane to stay with her and took the key, inadvertently sending Sarah Jane back to the future empty handed. However Emily passed the key down to her granddaughter, Angela Price, who gave it to the Shopkeeper. He stabilized the Time Window and teleported away, saying his parrot's work was done. Sarah Jane then had a cup of tea and chat with Angela to learn more about Emily and Angela. (SJA: Lost in Time)
Sarah Jane and the gang met Ruby White, a woman who supposedly defended the Earth like Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane thought she was getting too old to continue defending the planet and passed her duties on to Ruby. It turned out Ruby was a Qetesh, a member of a race that drained life force through emotion and excitement, and she had been draining Sarah Jane whenever they met. Ruby handcuffed Sarah Jane next to her stomach - a separate part of her being - and left her in a cellar to drain her life force directly. She was eventually set free by Clyde, Rani, and Luke who had come back from university to defeat Ruby, using her artificial intelligence to show every human on the planet, a hologram of a meteor headed towards them causing Ruby to absorb over 6 billion thrills. Ruby's stomach was destroyed and all of the life force she had stolen from Sarah Jane returned. Sarah Jane then used Ruby's teleport bracelet to warp the Qetesh back to her prison ship where she belonged. (SJA: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith)
Adopting Sky and subsequent adventures
In 2011, a baby was left on Sarah Jane's doorstep. She named the young girl Sky. The baby caused power
fluctuations around Bannerman Road. Sarah Jane and Rani investigated a crash site for a supposed meteor the previous night, where she meet Professor Rivers again. When they found that Clyde and Sky had been taken to a power plant by Sky's mother, Miss Myers, she saw Sky's transformation from baby to a pre-teen. Rani and Clyde deactivated the core of the power station, foiling Miss Myers plot to bring the entire Metalkind species to Earth that would have caused Sky to detonate and destroy them all, as per her purpose. When Miss Myers and the Metalkind had left Earth at supposed the cost of Sky's electrical powers, the gang returned to Bannerman Road where Sarah Jane decided to adopt her after learning that it was the Shopkeeper and Captain who left the child with her as the Shopkeeper explained in person. (SJA: Sky)
Sarah Jane enroled Sky in Park Vale Comprehensive School the day it rained fish. Sarah Jane, along with the other people important in Clyde's life, was put under Hetocumtek's curse making her turn against Clyde and tell him he was to stay away from her. The curse on her was later broken with the help of Sky who urged her and Rani to remember what Clyde meant to them. She and the rest of the gang reunited with Clyde and together defeated Hetocumtek, lifting the curse. Sarah Jane helped Clyde look for his new friend but they later learned that she had already left London on a haulage truck. (SJA: The Curse of Clyde Langer)
As she was one of the top three journalists in the United Kingdom, Sarah Jane was invited to the rehearsal of the launch of the SerfBoard by Joseph Serf. However, she found that Serf's assistant, John Harrison, was actualy the one pulling the strings and Serf himself was a hologram controled by enslaved Skullions. With the help of her two children and one of the former cleaning staff, Adriana, Sarah Jane managed to sink John's plans by using the hologram's hypnotism on the audiance to convince them that the computer was rubbish. After John was teleported away with the escaping Skullions, Sarah Jane recommended Adriana join UNIT as her kind-heartedness towards friendly aliens was just what they needed; she said mentioning her name would ensure good pay. (SJA: The Man Who Never Was)
Later Life
Sarah Jane and her gang continued to have adventures, defend Earth, and save countless lives. Statues were raised in their honour and they left behind a legacy that lasted forever. (SJAN: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, SJA: The Man Who Never Was)
Alternate Timelines
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 coerced her into turning right instead of left six months prior to when Donna first met the Tenth Doctor, leading to her never meeting and saving the Doctor.
In 2008, Sarah Jane investigated the Royal Hope Hospital with Maria, Clyde and Luke, apparently meeting Martha Jones. (DW: Turn Left) When the hospital was teleported to the moon by the Judoon, (DW: Smith and Jones) 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; along with everyone else, she suffocated. (DW: Turn Left)
The Trickster's Earth
The Trickster used an elaborate plan to entice Sarah Jane into preventing the death of her parents. This gave him the chance to manifest himself fully in our reality and take control of the planet in yet another alternate timeline. Sarah Jane's actions made her a notorious figure in this dystopian world. In the end, Sarah Jane's parents chose to sacrifice themselves in order to circumvent the Trickster's plan, erasing the alternate timeline. (SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)
Personality
As a companion, Sarah Jane was confident and inquisitive, and possessed a sharp mind and tongue. She was also something of a feminist; she was infuriated when the Third 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 the Doctor himself. She shared a strong rapport with the Doctor, and her subsequent life was shaped by her finding him a tough act to follow. She stopped short of saying she had fallen in love with him, though several of her exchanges with him after their reunion, in addition to the context of one of her conversations with Rose, strongly implied she had developed deep feelings for him. (DW: School Reunion) However, her relationship with the Doctor was said to be more than a romance. (SJA: Secrets of the Stars) Despite the passage of time, she maintained her can-do personality, and after reuniting with him remained a close friend of the Doctor.
During her time defending Earth with her young friends, Sarah Jane was a motherly and excellent leader. She was very protective of her young allies and blamed herself when they got into trouble. (SJA: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith et al) This made her rather cold and secretive to strangers but her young friends helped her open up to others. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane, The Mad Woman in the Attic) She adored her young friends, considering them her family. (SJA: The Lost Boy et al) She was essentially to her young friends what the Doctor was to her, an older, wiser mentor. She was extremely proud of Luke and loved him, calling him the most important thing in the universe. (SJA: The Gift et al) When she met Jo Jones, they became very fond of each other and often hugged and even high-fived. (SJA: Death of the Doctor) She didn't think babies cute but rather rubbery. (SJA: Sky) She considered the lives of homeless people to be the most alien of all and was saddened that people did not know because they did not want to. (SJA: The Curse of Clyde Langer)
She was fiercely against violence and killing and showed sympathy to her enemies like Martin Truman, the Slitheen-Blathereen, and even Androvax, (SJA: Secrets of the Stars, The Gift, The Vault of Secrets) as they simply did these things, not because they were evil, but because they were hurt or felt inferior. This went hand in hand with her strong mind. She disliked the military, including UNIT, but remained a friend of the Brigadier and felt that her gang could not defeat a Sontaran or the Dark Hoard but knew UNIT could. (SJA: The Last Sontaran, Enemy of the Bane, Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith) She hated the Trickster, considering him to be the most evil enemy she had as he had tried using her friends and family against her to try manifesting. (SJAF: Episode 1)
Rani once pointed out to the Tenth Doctor that Sarah Jane didn't like being called just "Sarah", though he replied that "she does by me". (SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith) Indeed, during her years travelling in the TARDIS the Doctor, along with a few other individuals such as Harry and Mike Yates, referred to her many times simply as "Sarah".
Behind the scenes
Popularity and significance
Sarah Jane Smith is arguably the most popular of the Doctor's companions, as well as one of the most iconic. Apart from the Brigadier, no other individual 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 the Sontarans. On-screen, she has appeared with the Third, Fourth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. In The Five Doctors, she also appeared with the First, Second, and Fifth Doctors. She was the first companion to have been given her own spin-off series.
Casting
Elisabeth Sladen was not the original actor cast to play Sarah Jane. The role oiginally went to April Walker. She was fully contracted for the whole of season 11, but Barry Letts discovered that she had no real chemistry with Jon Pertwee. She was quietly paid off for her entire contract, and Elisabeth Sladen was brought in to replace her. (INFO: Invasion of the Dinosaurs) Though it was known for years that there had been "another Sarah Jane", both Letts and Sladen went to their graves without revealing her identity. Walker's name was discovered only when the DVD info text writer chanced across her name while doing research into Dinosaurs.
Sarah Jane spin-offs
Sarah Jane has appeared in two television spin-offs, K9 and Company, introducing and co-starring K9 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 K9 Annual gives some idea of how the K9 and 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 an 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 Jane Smith's return to television in School Reunion overwrites some previously established continuity from spin-off merchandise, such as novels. 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. Interference - Book One and Interference - Book Two portray her meeting with the Eighth Doctor and inviting Samantha Jones to stay with her. 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. Dialogue in School Reunion also suggests that, for reasons unexplained, neither Sarah Jane nor the Doctor seem to recall the events of The Five Doctors (perhaps due to Time Lord interference, or the Doctor chose not to mention it).
Lawrence Miles' Interference — Books One and Two, set partly in 1997, has 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 years to fit in better with the idea that the UNIT stories took place in approximately the years of broadcast.
The Big Finish Productions audio drama series Sarah Jane Smith released its final episode only a few weeks before School Reunion was broadcast. Its continuity is not necessarily overridden by the new series, and in fact the absence of K9 from the audio stories is explained in School Reunion, which also establishes that Sarah Jane is still an active investigator, as profiled by Big Finish.
Spelling
Though typically rendered "Sarah Jane" in closing credits on television, and within the bodies of most text-based narratives, Smith's forenames were consistently hyphenated by the letterers of Polystyle Publications, Ltd. Every TV Comic story held that she was "Sarah-Jane".