Talk:The Sarah Jane Adventures (in-universe)

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To be honest, I am not convinced this page should exist. I do not believe that Chute! Episode 9 provides evidence of The Sarah Jane Adventures existing as a television series, in-universe, such as Doctor Who (in-universe), at all.

Firstly, I feel this in-universe tape is more comparable to the scene in Shada (the novelisation) where after his defeat, Skagra is forced to watch records of the Doctor's adventures, the first of which syncs up with An Unearthly Child; but this doesn't imply that in-universe the BBC recorded AUC, it was probably recorded by some alien or something. Also, for more examples, see Press Play having a TARDIS data log of the creation of the Daleks titled Genesis of the Daleks, etc.

Secondly, the whole interaction between Luke, Lee, and the tape doesn't fit the meta-fictional stance: Luke asks Lee for a recording of his mother to give him confidence, so Lee finds a recording of Sarah Jane. They all watch it, and after it finishes, Luke says "that's my mum". He doesn't go "holy fucking shit why is there a television based on my life down to a scary level of detail, how did I never know about this?!" It is clear from the textual clues that this is an in-universe recording. Yes, it doesn't make sense that the recording has cuts and stuff to different perspectives, but that is a limitation of the format, it is not like the crew of Chute! are going to completely recreate that scene from the perspective of a security camera or something. Most "in-universe recordings" in other stories are like this too, where they recycle footage from previous stories despite it not matching a character's POV. The infostamp in The Next Doctor or the Atraxi memory scene in The Eleventh Hour recycling old footage without it matching the Doctor's POV doesn't mean that the television series exists in-universe.

21:17, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, even if we weren't to perceive it as an in-universe version of the TV series itself, in-universe evidence would at least suggest that The Sarah Jane Adventures is still the title of the VHS that the footage is on. WaltK 21:52, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
While I don't feel that I agree I do recognise that it is a valid argument. 22:11, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
When Ross looks for it, he goes through tapes that have similar titles ("The [blank] [blank] Adventures"). This indicates to me that he's looking for a tape called The Sarah Jane Adventures. He does say "oh here ya go, Sarah Jane" when finds it. But that doesn't necessarily mean that's literally what it's called; I think most of us just abbreviate the show to "Sarah Jane" in natural conversation ("wanna watch some Sarah Jane?") WaltK 22:27, 12 June 2023 (UTC)