Happy Doctor Who Day! To mark the 61st anniversary of this sci-fi institution, here’s the second and final part of my review of the children’s spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures, following on from my previous post about Series 1 & 2.
Starring the delightful and dearly missed Elisabeth Sladen in the title role of Sarah Jane Smith, the series is available on BBC iPlayer, but I’m going through the complete DVD boxset here,
Throughout Series 3-5, Sarah Jane continues to be accompanied by Luke Smith (Tommy Knight, whose role was reduced due to his real-life studies), Rani Chandra (Anjli Mohindra) and Clyde Langer (Daniel Anthony), plus Sky (Sinead Michael) in Series 5. Vital assistance is also provided by supercomputer Mr Smith (Alexander Armstrong) and robot dog K9 (John Leeson), who have an amusing rivalry between one another throughout the series. Rani’s parents Haresh & Gita, who live across the road from Sarah Jane, also appear in some stories, played by Ace Bhatti & Mina Anwar, as does Clyde’s mother Carla (Jocelyn Jee Esien). And the Doctor also appears a couple of times, played by David Tennant and Matt Smith.
Clyde gives a generic introduction to every 25-minute episode (30 seconds in Series 3-4, and 45 seconds in Series 5) about what it’s like having adventures with Sarah Jane, with the illustrative clips updated accordingly in each series. This wasn’t a feature of the first two series. It makes sense to have it for the first episode of each series to guide any new viewers in, but it feels repetitive thereafter, so I always fast forward through it.
So let’s jump straight back into the episodes, as all the other introductory stuff was dealt with in the previous post. I’ve also created a Youtube playlist for Series 3-5 (just like I did for Series 1-2) with hundreds of clips, including a lot of videos from the show’s official Youtube channel, if you want to dig through that as well. I hope you enjoy!
Contents
Series 3
- First Broadcast: 15 October – 20 November 2009
- Links: BBC / Wikipedia / Tardis Wiki
- DVDs: The 6 stories are evenly spread across 2 discs.
1: Prisoner Of The Judoon
In this story, a Judoon spaceship crashes on Earth, allowing prisoner Androvax (Mark Goldthorp) to escape. So Captain Tybo (played by Paul Kasey and voiced by Nicholas Briggs) is on the hunt, and typically for a Judoon he doesn’t care for humans being in the way. But Sarah Jane and her gang try to help him nevertheless, and he does form an unlikely alliance with the children, especially when Androvax tricks Sarah Jane into a meeting, and enters her body to control her.
It’s quite fun to see an evil Sarah Jane, just as we saw a bad Mr Smith in Series 1, and indeed she forces the supercomputer to engage his self-destruct program when the children try to activate him later. Thankfully Luke figures out how to stop him though. Captain Tybo is also quite amusing sometimes, with his insistence that all signs are obeyed, so even when he commandeers a police car he insists on obeying the rules of the road, rather than turning on the blues and twos.
The action then ends up at a company specialising in nanotechnology, where Androvax wants the nanoforms to build them a spaceship and destroy the Earth. So there’s a lot of enjoyable action there, as the children race against the Judoon to try and stop Androvax and save Sarah Jane.
Also in the company building during all of this, for reasons that weirdly feel more far-fetched than the primary storyline, are Rani’s parents. Upon hearing about the company, Gita is inspired to take some plants along to the offices, to see if she can talk to them about using the nanotechnology to advance her floristry business. The company aren’t interested of course, but Gita and Haresh end up trapped in the building while the big emergency is dealt with. So Rani has the challenge of not letting her parents see that she’s involved, and in that sense it does add an extra bit of peril to Rani’s story. But ultimately the presence of her mother and father doesn’t really add anything, so it just feels like they’re there to pad the episodes out by having a few humorous moments, which happens on a few more occasions in these last few series.
2: The Mad Woman In The Attic
The character referred to in the title of this story is Rani, as we see her alone in Sarah Jane’s attic in the year 2059, with none of her old friends. A young man called Adam (Gregg Sulkin) finds her, and she tells him how she came to be that way.
It all stems from an impulsive decision that she made in the present day, as a result of being annoyed at her friends for not paying much attention to her, because they had been talking to Maria online (who we don’t see or hear, but it’s nice that she gets a mention).
Rani heads off by herself to meet an old friend called Sam at the seaside, who has prompted her to investigate a mystery of people disappearing at an amusement park. There she meets a caretaker, and sees a bunch of people on the rides as if under some kind of spell. She discovers it’s due to a red-skinned lady called Eve (played by Eleanor Tomlinson, who I’ve seen more recently as Lady Gabby in The Outlaws). Eve, locked away in a room with CCTV monitors to see the rides, is a lonely war evacuee from another planet who is trying to create friends for herself, by hypnotising people she also considers lonely so she can make them go on the rides whenever she wants.
Eve is also able to read and manipulate minds, and is thus able to show Rani her future as the lonely old woman, which terrifies her. Rani tries to make Eve feel better by taking her outside, but when Eve sees the people on the rides, she loses control as she makes them go faster and faster. And then, when Rani’s friends from Bannerman Road turn up, Eve shows Sarah Jane and Luke images from their pasts and futures – which includes a few clips of the young Sarah Jane in her Classic Who days – before putting Rani under her hypnotic spell so that she feels happy to be there and wants to stay.
The explanation and solution to all of this lies in a spaceship buried on the beach that is recharging itself, with the AI on the ship having taken over the mind of the caretaker to make him look after Eve on its behalf. So once they all find a way on board, they’re able to resolve things for the most part, saving everybody’s lives in the process. It even has the surprising and lovely consequence of returning K9 to the attic in Ealing, so he can have a fuller role this series, as the ship is able to harness the energy from the black hole the dog was guarding. It’s great to have him back – although, as we see occasionally during the series, Mr Smith isn’t overly thrilled, as he amusingly finds the dog a bit irritating!
However, the ship is so grateful for Rani’s help that it also agrees to fulfil the wish she had flippantly made earlier to Eve in a moment of frustration, wanting her friends to leave her alone. So the ship takes everyone away, thus cementing Rani’s future as the woman who will be lonely as she grows old. But all is not lost of course, as in 2059 it turns out that Adam wasn’t just there to hear her story by chance, and is in a position to undo the ship’s final actions to give Rani her friends back in the present day. We also get a nice glimpse of her brighter future too.
So it’s an interesting story altogether, one that enables Anjli Mohindra to shine brilliantly as Rani as she goes on an emotional rollercoaster. And there’s also a tease about a certain Doctor returning…
3: The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith
Sarah Jane is in love at last, with a man called Peter Dalton (played by veteran actor Nigel Havers). She’s been keeping it a secret from the children, but they eventually figure it out and she introduces them. They’re rather surprised it’s all happened so quickly, especially when she reveals the wedding’s only a fortnight away, but they support her decision – apart from Clyde, who is rather suspicious, even more so when he visits Peter’s address and finds the house empty.
Sarah Jane defends Peter when confronted about it though, because her thoughts are being controlled by the engagement ring she’s wearing – which also causes her to shut down Mr Smith when he tries to alert her to the fact that it’s no ordinary piece of jewellery. Incidentally, prior to that, we also learn that Mr Smith can open quietly without all the fanfare if the situation calls for it. But it is fun when he plays his little jingle, even if it has been shortened this series.
Sarah Jane also hasn’t told Peter what she really does, which leads to an amusing sequence where she invites him back to the house, and receives a parcel with a live creature inside. Rani takes it to her house so it’s out of the way, but it then breaks out, and K9 detects it from the attic, so he emerges from the house to cross the road and investigate. Sarah Jane does find a moment to tell them how to get rid of it though, so it doesn’t play a role in the story beyond that.
Things come to a head at the wedding, however, as the Trickster returns, and takes Sarah Jane and Peter away – just as the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) bursts in to try and stop them. Throughout the first part there are intermittent Tardis noises as it struggles to materialise, hinting at the Doctor’s return. But he does eventually get there, albeit just a bit too late, as not only do Sarah Jane and Peter vanish, but so does everyone else apart from the children.
It turns out that the Trickster has trapped the Doctor and the kids in a looping second of time, and likewise Sarah Jane and Peter in a separate second. And there’s even a physical loop within the building, as running upstairs to enter another room takes them back down to the ceremony room again.
But the Doctor does eventually find a way to confront the Trickster, who we are reminded is a member of the Pantheon Of Discord, a group of beings who reside outside the universe, a concept that was explored heavily in the recent 60th anniversary specials and the first Ncuti Gatwa season of Doctor Who. Clyde also gets a surprising opportunity to meet the Trickster and do some damage to him, thanks to the Tardis zapping him with artron energy. But ultimately Sarah Jane, having learned the truth about her fiancé, has to persuade Peter to make a hugely difficult choice if everything is to return to normal.
So this story is basically a Doctor Who episode, especially the second part where the Time Lord is at the centre of the action. And it’s a great deal of fun, with all the humour, drama and action you’d expect and hope for. There’s great chemistry between the Doctor and the children, and it’s wonderful to see him in a story with Sarah Jane again. It means that we finally get to see the Doctor arrive in the attic, and the children get to explore the Tardis. And along the way there’s also a nice callback to the Series 4 finale of Doctor Who, in which Sarah Jane, Luke, Mr Smith and K9 gave vital help to the Doctor. Finally, there’s a sweet farewell between the Doctor and Sarah Jane, unsure if they’ll ever meet again. But they will of course.
This story was also released on the Blu-ray set for the 10th Doctor’s final specials, which I’ve previously reviewed. So while I’ve watched it a few times before and it works perfectly well in isolation, it’s great to finally see it in the context of the wider Sarah Jane Adventures series, as I understand a lot more of the references and the backgrounds of the characters. David Tennant’s scenes in this story were also the last ones he filmed as the Doctor at that time, until his later return for the 50th and 60th anniversaries.
4: The Eternity Trap
Broadcast on 5 & 6 November 2009, this would have been perfect for Halloween a week earlier, as it’s a ghost story set in a large haunted manor house. Granted, the villain isn’t really a ghost – it’s a magician from another world called Erasmus Darkening (played by Donald Sumpter, who’s also played characters in Doctor Who a few times). But his behaviour over hundreds of years, resulting in the disappearances of a lot of people, has resulted in rumours of a phantom presence.
Hence Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani (without Luke, who isn’t in this story due to Tommy Knight’s GCSE exams) have been invited down to Ashen Hill Manor to help with the investigations by the Pharos Institute – which means we once again see the lovely Floella Benjamin playing Professor Rivers, and she’s assisted by a man called Toby (Adam Gillen). And from there it feels much like a typical ghost story, with objects moving around and strange noises being heard, while Professor Rivers also vanishes.
Clyde and Rani go exploring by themselves, getting a bit freaked out along the way but also discovering the magician’s secret chamber, while Sarah Jane tries to communicate with whatever the mysterious being is. Another ‘ghost’ also appears though, of Lord Marchwood, who has been searching for his children for over 300 years since they went missing, and it’s ultimately with his help that the group defeat Erasmus Darkening.
So it’s an enjoyably spooky story, with nothing too scary for children but still with the right atmosphere of unease and tension, aided by the setting, lighting, sound effects, and the use of shaky handheld camerawork that makes it feel like you’re there with them.
5: Mona Lisa’s Revenge
Luke returns in this story, where we learn that Clyde is a rather talented young artist, which he’s kept very quiet for fear of ridicule. But with his work having won a competition, his class are invited to a gallery, where the one and only Mona Lisa is on display, on loan from France. However, all is not well, as the subject of the picture escapes from the painting, replacing herself in the frame with the curator’s assistant instead, and takes a Sontaran blaster from Clyde’s painting that’s also on display.
Meanwhile, Sarah Jane doesn’t know anything about the class attending the exhibition to start with, as Luke didn’t mention it after getting into an argument with her about his messy room – and he feels bad about that, because it’s the first time he’s fallen out with her. But once Sarah Jane becomes aware of the unfolding emergency, she makes her way down there to investigate, only for Mona Lisa (Suranne Jones) to trap her in a painting as well, before releasing a highwayman from another painting to chase after the children.
Mona Lisa is searching for her ‘brother’, another painting created in the same time period and location as hers. Known as the Abomination, it was deemed too horrifying for people to see, as it would drive them mad just like it did its creator, so it was locked away in a secure vault in the gallery in London. But now its sister painting is in the same building, it’s finally stirring, and when Mona Lisa forces the curator and the children to find it, it starts making angry growling noises from within its enclosure.
However, the Chinese puzzle box required to unlock it is elsewhere in the gallery. Luke finds it, but it gets destroyed in a stand-off against Mona Lisa, which makes her and the Abomination very angry. Luke offers to help though, by persuading a reluctant Clyde to use his artistic skills to redraw it from a photo, which Mona Lisa then brings to life in order to unlock the Abomination. That’s hardly a good thing of course, but Luke knew that the next page of Clyde’s sketchpad had a drawing of K9 on it, so by bringing the puzzle box to life, Mona Lisa has also generated a fresh copy of K9, and he destroys the Abomination. That in turn sends Mona Lisa and the highwayman back into their paintings, and the cloned K9 back into his drawing, as well as releasing Sarah Jane and the curator’s assistant from the artworks they were stuck in.
So it’s a strange and somewhat silly concept for a story, and the Mona Lisa character is nothing like you might consider the person in the painting to be, but then it would be rather dull if she had been like that. So I don’t know if art purists who worship the painting would be happy with it all, but it’s entertaining enough for the purposes of this adventure.
During the story there is a fleeting reference to “the Cup of Athelstan fiasco at Easter”, which relates to Lady Christina De Souza stealing the said artefact from the same gallery in the Doctor Who episode Planet Of The Dead earlier in the year. And two years later in 2011, Suranne Jones also played the central role of Idris, the soul of the Tardis, in the Doctor Who episode The Doctor’s Wife, meaning she’s had a couple of big parts in the Whoniverse.
6: The Gift
The Slitheen are back, or so it seems. When Sarah Jane and her crew track down a couple of Slitheen, and find them activating a machine that will compress all the matter on Earth, they are saved by a couple of other creatures who look like Slitheen but with different coloured skin, who teleport the villains away to be put on trial.
These new creatures identify themselves as the Blathereen, and come across as a much more friendly race, who want to honour Sarah Jane for all the work she’s done across the universe. So they all end up having dinner together, where the Blathereen wolf down their food with no decorum whatsoever, and we learn that Clyde is a good cook as well as an artist. The Blathereen then present Sarah Jane with a plant called rackweed, explaining that it can grow anywhere and is highly nutritious, so it could end famine on the planet. Sarah Jane is suspicious of the gift, but accepts it and takes it to the attic for analysis, where Mr Smith cannot find anything untoward in his initial scans.
But it’s too good to be true of course, and the rackweed soon mutates, ejecting thousands of spores that fly out through an open window. Luke – who has been listening to Everybody In Love by JLS as a relatively rare example of contemporary music in the show – breathes in a lot of the spores and becomes seriously ill, while more of them also find places to embed themselves for more rackweed to grow very quickly. And as the plant rapidly spreads across London, more and more people become infected by it. So with the aid of Mr Smith, Sarah Jane is able to teleport to Antarctica where the Blathereen are hiding out, but she’s quickly taken captive and has to figure out how to escape.
At the school, meanwhile, Rani is less than impressed to discover that Clyde has smuggled in K9 to help him during an exam! But when the Rackweed gets into the building and knocks out the teacher, panic ensues and everybody escapes – apart from Clyde, Rani and K9, of course, who try to figure out what’s going on. By chance they discover that the school bell happens to ring at just the right frequency to kill the spores, and by having K9 transmit that frequency to Mr Smith, the supercomputer is able to make all the electronic devices across London emit a noise at exactly that frequency, thereby destroying all of the rackweed in one go, including the spores that have got inside Luke and other people.
The same tactic is also used when the Blathereen teleport to the attic to get their revenge on Sarah Jane and the children for spoiling their plan. The noise breaks down the copious amounts of rackweed they’ve eaten, resulting in a lethal build-up of methane that makes them explode, covering our heroes in goo. Or as it’s explained more succinctly, they fart themselves to death! So it’s an amusing conclusion to another great series finale, with high stakes, lots of action and plenty of humour.
Series 4
- First Broadcast: 11 October – 18 November 2010
- Links: BBC / Wikipedia / Tardis Wiki
- DVDs: Stories 1-4 are on Disc 1, while 5-6 & Pyramids Of Mars are on Disc 2.
1: The Nightmare Man
After a brief prelude about the gang defeating another Slitheen – so they get covered in goo again, just like they did at the end of the previous series – the focus of the story turns to Luke, who’s preparing to go to Oxford University due to his exceptional brainpower.
He’s nervous enough about it, but is having increasingly disturbing nightmares as well, in which Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani are saying nasty things about him and are glad he’s going, even though he knows that’s not really true. There’s also a strange man who at first is heard and then seen in these dreams, and it turns out he’s the Nightmare Man, who is feasting on the fear that he’s causing Luke. He’s played by Julian Bleach, who is most well known for being Davros in the modern era of Doctor Who, and has also been in an episode of Torchwood as the Ghostmaker, so he’s experienced at being a scary villain!
With each new dream, the Nightmare Man gains more and more power, until he’s eventually able to manifest in the real world, and from there he plans to send everyone to sleep and give them nightmares. So while Luke finds himself trapped in an empty void, Rani is transported to a news studio, where they try and force her to read a negative story about Sarah Jane, and Clyde finds himself working in a burger bar.
Luke was prevented from telling anyone the identity of the man who was causing him to have bad dreams, but he was smart enough to record a video message before being sent into a long-term sleep. So when Sarah Jane watches it back, she finds a way to get K9 to enter the dream world and communicate with Luke directly. The Nightmare Man soon stops that of course, but it’s given Luke reassurance that there is still a connection with his real life. He then figures out that he can connect with Rani and Clyde, and they all meet up together in the dream world, which in turn gives him the support he needs to defeat his tormentor.
So it’s a good story, tapping into the natural fear of nightmares that we all have, and imagining what it would be like if they became real. And it also tugs at the heartstrings, as there are emotional farewells with Luke setting off for a new chapter in his life, with K9 alongside him to keep him safe. Both Luke and K9 do reappear in the series, thankfully, but much less regularly from this point.
There are also a few pop songs that are heard during this story, with Luke listening to Bulletproof by La Roux early on, then Untouchable by Girls Aloud plays at his school leaving party, and finally Boys And Girls by Pixie Lott is in the background when the gang are making a home video of his final day at Bannerman Road.
2: The Vault Of Secrets
Luke makes a short cameo early on in this episode, when he appears on a video call from university, while the gang are watching a feed from a NASA probe on Mars and Mr Smith disables it before it can discover an ancient civilisation on the planet. But Luke isn’t involved beyond that.
For the main story, however, the body-stealing Androvax (Mark Goldthorp) has returned, having first appeared in Prisoner Of The Judoon, and this time he claims to need Sarah Jane’s help. He’s been fatally poisoned and wants to find his people, who were in a spaceship that crashed on Earth after evacuating their home planet. But the craft is now locked away in a vault in an old asylum, where it’s guarded by 3 suited Men in Black, who are androids that can take off their hands to reveal the large guns attached to their arms. Led by Mr Dread (Angus Wright), they serve the Alliance of Shades and were previously seen in the animated Doctor Who special Dreamland. The vault also requires 2 access discs to enter, of which Androvax only has one and is keen to find the other.
Meanwhile, in a sub-plot that doesn’t immediately seem relevant, Rani’s mum Gita has dragged her husband Haresh along to a meeting of the British UFO Research & Paranormal Studies Society (BURPSS), to talk enthusiastically about the aliens she’s seen. But it transpires that the leader of the group, Ocean Waters (Cheryl Campbell) has encountered the Men in Black before. Other than remembering their existence, however, they’ve wiped her memory of anything else alien-related, as they do to many people they encounter. And when Sarah Jane and her friends talk to Ocean – with Androvax having taken over Clyde to disguise himself – it’s revealed that she has the second access disc without realising what it is, which Androvax gladly takes, just as the Men in Black also turn up.
There’s then a big chase to the asylum, during which Androvax briefly takes over Gita’s body, so she ends up at the facility with Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani as well, as they try to stop Androvax opening the vault while also trying to stop the Men in Black from killing them. It all gets very eventful, and there’s lots of action there in the second episode, with Clyde even tricking two of the Men in Black into shooting each other, which is an impressive-looking moment even though it’s a simple case of CGI gunfire and a slow-motion leap out of the way.
And when Androvax does enter the vault, which is actually a hyper-dimensional space, and launches his spaceship, it threatens to collapse the vault and take the Earth with it. So Sarah Jane and co have to persuade Mister Dread to help them. And once they’ve done so, he also does them one more favour by wiping Gita’s memory of aliens ever existing, which is probably for the best given what an irritating gossip she is!
3: Death Of The Doctor
The gang are interrupted during another video call with Luke when soldiers from UNIT (the Unified Intelligence Task Force) rock up on Sarah Jane’s doorstep, accompanied by Murray Gold’s theme music for them, to deliver the solemn news that the Doctor is dead. They also deliver a recorded message of condolence from the Shansheeth, a race of vulture-like creatures known as the undertakers of the universe.
Sarah Jane doesn’t believe it though, as she explains to Luke on another call, but accepts the invitation to go along to the supposed funeral at a UNIT base under Mount Snowdon to see what’s really going on. And there she meets Jo Jones, former companion of the Doctor known back then as Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning. This was Jo’s first appearance in the Whoniverse since she originally left Doctor Who in 1973. She would later make a cameo appearance in The Power Of The Doctor in 2022, and was then reunited with Clyde in Tales Of The Tardis a year later, when she reminisced about the events of the Classic era story The Three Doctors. Those are the only other times I’ve seen her, I’ve not watched her other Classic era adventures
Anyway, Jo and Sarah Jane get on like a house on fire, happily reminiscing about their adventures with the Doctor, and we see a lot of fleeting glimpses from their Classic Who days in this story, as well as from Sarah Jane’s more recent meetings with him. But that’s actually a problem, as these particular members of the Shansheeth have gone rogue, along with UNIT agent Colonel Karim (Laila Rouass) who is helping them, and they need the strong memories of the two former companions of the Time Lord to fulfil their plan.
They’ve somehow tricked the Doctor into being stranded on an alien planet, as they’ve taken his Tardis and sonic screwdriver. And now they intend to use Jo and Sarah Jane’s powerful memories of the Doctor, by having them imagine the Tardis key, which a special Memory Weave device will make a physical copy of. They then hope to use the Tardis to mess with time and space in order to prevent death across the universe.
The Doctor (Matt Smith) isn’t powerless to get back though. In a nice callback to his previous guest appearance at Sarah Jane’s wedding, we learn that Clyde still has a bit of residual artron energy inside him, which the Doctor harnesses from afar to swap places with him. His initial reunion with Sarah Jane and Jo is a lovely moment, with a lovely music cue when it dawns on Sarah Jane who he is, and a nice bit of gentle humour too.
This switching between Clyde and the Doctor happens a few times, with the final occasion resulting in the Doctor taking Sarah Jane and Jo to the other planet with him. There the Doctor takes the opportunity to talk to Jo for the first time since they parted ways all those years ago, revealing that he knows a lot more about her life since then than she realised. So that’s a nice little bit of resolution to their story. He’s also able to use Sarah Jane and Jo’s help to finish building a machine that will enable him to teleport back to Earth without using Clyde at all.
Back on Earth, meanwhile, Clyde and Rani – along with Jo’s grandson Santiago (Finn Jones) – are doing their best to stay away from the Shansheeth and Colonel Karim, with a little bit of help from a Groske (a politer, blue-skinned cousin of the mischievous Graske). The Doctor eventually returns to help them, but Sarah Jane and Jo are captured and have the Memory Weave used on them (resulting on lots more flashes of imagery from their old adventures). The Doctor can’t enter the room to help them, but is able to tell them how to overload the Memory Weave device, and they’re able to shelter in the lead-lined coffin intended for the Doctor when the contraption explodes.
So it’s a very enjoyable, action-packed adventure. Matt Smith is brilliant as the Doctor of course, and it’s great to have another former companion getting a big role alongside him and Sarah Jane, even if it’s one I’m not so familiar with. There are mentions and updates about several other Classic era companions as well, mainly from Sarah Jane at the end when she reveals the research she’s been doing. So long-term fans of Doctor Who will appreciate the myriad of clips and callbacks in these two episodes.
The Doctor also tells Clyde at one point that he can regenerate 507 times, rather than 12 as is deemed canon, but Russell T Davies later clarified that this was just a joke on the Doctor’s part. The issue of limited regenerations was eventually dealt with by Steven Moffat at the end of Matt Smith’s reign in the main show.
This adventure wasn’t included on any of Matt Smith’s individual series Blu-rays for Doctor Who (unlike the one featuring David Tennant that was on his specials release). However, it was included on a bonus disc in a big Blu-ray box set of Matt Smith’s years on the show, and again in The Collection: Series 10 relating to the Classic era. It was also an extra feature on a special edition DVD of the Classic era story The Green Death (Katy Manning’s final story in the main series as Jo), complete with an audio commentary where Katy chats to Russell T Davies, but sadly that commentary isn’t included in the Sarah Jane Adventures set.
Also, as a final fun fact, this wasn’t the last time that Anjli Mohindra got to act alongside the Doctor on TV. Having already met David Tennant and Matt Smith in The Sarah Jane Adventures, she also appeared with Jodie Whittaker‘s iteration of the Time Lord in Series 12 of Doctor Who in 2020. She didn’t play Rani on that occasion though – instead, she was in prosthetics as Queen Skithra in the episode Nikola Tesla’s Night Of Terror.
4: The Empty Planet
This ‘Sarah-lite’ story is a great two-hander between Clyde and Rani, who wake up one day to find that they’re the only people left on the planet, with no TV, radio, mobile coverage, internet or even Mr Smith available.
After much exploration they do eventually meet another child called Gavin (Joe Mason), though only after giving chase, and he’s so freaked out by their talk of aliens that he escapes from them again. He does reappear, however, to save Clyde and Rani from a couple of robots that have been chasing them. But it’s only after a further confrontation with the robots that we learn it’s Gavin they’re after.
It turns out that Gavin has just become king of the planet he’s really from, but hasn’t received the message because of a bio-damper ring he’s wearing, which has enabled him to live a normal life on Earth by believing he’s a normal human like everyone else. So in order to find him, the robots have suspended the human race, thinking that he would then be the only human-like being left – but Clyde and Rani weren’t taken away, because the Judoon had previously barred them from leaving Earth in Prisoner Of The Judoon, which is a nice bit of continuity. So when Gavin runs away again, Clyde and Rani must work with the robots to find him and get the message through to him, otherwise the human race will never be restored.
So it’s an enjoyable story despite the absence of Sarah Jane, Luke, Mr Smith and K9. It’s fun to see Clyde and Rani working together to try and figure out what’s going on, and to see their friendship evolving as a result, as they’re great characters who deserve to have a moment in the spotlight.
5: Lost In Time
Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani are naturally persuaded by reports of an alien sighting to visit a local shop. But the Shopkeeper (played by Cyril Nri, best known as Superintendent Adam Okaro in The Bill) has got them there on false pretences. He actually wants them to search for pieces of a special metal called Chronosteen, which has been distributed across time, and before they have a chance to agree he forces them into a time window, through which they have a time limit in which to find the pieces if they want to return to the present day. And from there it becomes three stories in one, as our heroes are all sent to different places.
Clyde lands on a beach in the middle of World War II, where he meets a boy called George Woods (Richard Wisker) and they’re both captured by Nazis, who have a rather unusual piece of technology they’ve stumbled across, which is able to mask their vehicles from British radar. The boys do escape and meet George’s school teacher, but it turns out she’s working with the Germans as well, so they’re trapped again. Clyde, however, tricks them by pretending his mobile phone is a bomb (playing Pass Out by Tinie Tempah – incorrectly credited to Tinchy Stryder in the DVD subtitles), and is able to retrieve the object.
Meanwhile, Rani finds herself in the Royal Chambers at the Tower of London in 1553, where she’s to be the new Lady in Waiting for Queen Jane (i.e. Lady Jane Grey, during her 9 days on the throne, played by Amber Beattie). Rani forms a close rapport with the sad and lonely Queen, stops Lady Matilda (Fiona Hampton) from killing her with a Chronosteen dagger, and keeps Jane company until she’s imprisoned under the orders of Queen Mary. She’s then able to take the dagger.
Finally, Sarah Jane ends up in an old house in 1889 that is apparently haunted, meeting a lady called Emily Morris (Gwyneth Keyworth), who has recently lost her mother. They discover a room where they can hear two children dying in a fire, but Sarah Jane realises it’s an echo from the future, not the past. They find a way in which to bring the mother, children and bedroom door from the future into view, and then use Emily’s fears regarding her own mother to manifest the Chronosteen key locking the door, so they can physically turn it and release them.
When Sarah Jane grabs the key to return home, however, Emily keeps hold of it when she disappears. So while Clyde and Rani have safely returned with their objects, Sarah Jane is without hers, and as such the time window becomes very unstable, threatening to destroy the earth. Emily’s grandmother turns up with the key at the crucial moment, however, having had it passed down to her through the years with a message to be at the shop that day.
The time window is successfully closed, but we never find out who the Shopkeeper is. It’s simply revealed that his parrot is known as the Captain who has been giving the orders, before they disappear. Our heroes then learn about the fates of the people they encountered – Sarah Jane talks to Emily’s grandmother, while Clyde and Rani go online to discover more about George’s war work and what happened to Lady Jane Grey respectively. It’s lovely that all of those historical characters get nice closures to their stories.
So it’s a very busy couple of episodes, with 3 concurrent storylines, but it’s all paced and woven together very nicely, and they’re all quite different so there’s plenty to hold your interest.
6: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith
When tracking a meteor leads the gang to encounter a lady called Ruby White (played brilliantly by Julie Graham), she seems to be very like Sarah Jane, hunting aliens and using technology to help her out. But she’s very dismissive of them, even when they discover that she’s living on Bannerman Road and go knocking on her door. However, Ruby later saves their lives from some Dark Horde warriors and a new friendship is struck up between them all.
That’s just as well, because Sarah Jane is becoming increasingly distracted and forgetful, and Mr Smith confirms that she has some brain tissue damage. So she eventually concedes that she cannot carry on, and entrusts everything to Ruby, giving her the keys to the house, removing her voice from Mr Smith’s programming, and preparing to leave.
Only then does she discover, however, that Ruby is really an alien called a Qetesh, and she engineered all of her meetings with Sarah Jane and the kids, feasting on more of Sarah Jane’s life force each time. Ruby then teleports Sarah Jane to a cellar, imprisoning her next to a big stomach, which will continue to feed on her life energy until it’s all gone. Meanwhile Ruby intends to keep looking out for aliens, but she wants to help them in whatever way they want, even if it ultimately means destroying the Earth, because she’ll be able to feast on people’s fear and distress.
Clyde, however, isn’t taken in by the fake video message from Sarah Jane, which was AI-generated by Ruby’s pocket computer Mr White (voiced by Eddie Marsan). But when he confronts Ruby, she teleports him to her small spaceship orbiting the Earth, with only a finite amount of air to sustain him.
Rani, meanwhile, is taken in by the ruse at first, and falls out with Clyde over it. But she’s comforted by her mother Gita, who helps her to realise that Sarah Jane’s manner of disappearing wasn’t normal. And then Luke turns up at her door, having become concerned after his recent chats with Mum. So with the aid of K9 in Luke’s university bedroom over video call, they figure out how to stop Ruby, bring back Clyde and restore Sarah Jane to full health. Ruby is then sent away in her spaceship, angrily vowing revenge.
So it’s another great high stakes finale with a powerful villain, and it’s wonderful to have Luke and K9 back, although in K9’s case it’s for the final time, as he doesn’t appear in Series 5. It was also the final episode to be broadcast before Sarah Jane’s death 5 months later.
Julie Graham later appeared in Series 12 of Doctor Who in 2020, playing Ravio in Ascension Of The Cybermen and The Timeless Children. And I’ve also seen her as lead character Jean McBrian in The Bletchley Circle, which I reviewed a couple of years ago in relation to my visit to Bletchley Park. Plus she’s had small roles in some other shows I’ve seen over the years, as has Eddie Marsan, as they’re both very prolific actors.
Series 5
- First Broadcast: 3-18 October 2011
- Links: BBC / Wikipedia / Tardis Wiki
- DVDs: All 3 stories and a tribute documentary are on a single disc.
There are fewer episodes in this series because of Elisabeth Sladen’s untimely death on 19 April 2011.
1: Sky
This series begins in dramatic fashion with a flaming meteor crashing to Earth, from which emerges a man made of metal (Paul Kasey). And Sarah Jane is shocked to find a baby on her doorstep, which manages to blow out lightbulbs, set off car alarms and even short-circuit Mr Smith when it cries. She calls on Rani and Clyde to help her out, and the baby ends up being called Sky, thanks to a conversation with Rani’s nosy mother. Meanwhile, in a nuclear power station, Sky’s mother Miss Myers (Christine Stephen-Daly) emerges from a ball of energy, and takes control of one of the workers to help in the search for her daughter.
Sarah Jane and Rani head down to the meteor crash site, meeting Professor Rivers again (Floella Benjamin), and they learn about the metal man when talking to a homeless man who witnessed the landing. But back at Sarah Jane’s house, the robot-like individual attacks Clyde, who has been tasked with looking after and entertaining Sky. They’re both saved by Miss Myers, who had been posing as an electrical engineer across the road, but when she takes them back to the power station and reveals she’s Sky’s mother, Clyde refuses to give her back out of suspicion for her motives.
Sarah Jane and Rani also turn up, and they all witness a rapid metamorphosis, as the appearance of the metal man triggers something within Sky, and she turns from a baby into a 12-year-old girl (Sinead Michael). It transpires that she’s really a bomb, bred in a lab by the Fleshkind people to destroy the Metalkind race they’re at war against, and the nuclear power is being harnessed to open a portal for the Metalkind to pass through, so that the war can be ended on Earth.
Sarah Jane is desperate for Sky to be deactivated, but the girl is determined to fulfil the purpose she was created for. It’s only when Rani and Clyde figure out how to cut off the power at the last moment that the situation is brought to an end, and it causes an energy backlash that changes Sky’s genetic programming, which means she’s no longer a weapon and can have a normal life.
There’s then a surprise when the gang return to Sarah Jane’s house, finding the Shopkeeper and the Captain parrot from Lost In Time in the attic, and he reveals that he left Sky on the doorstep, knowing that Sarah Jane would protect her. Sky is given the option to stay or to go with the Shopkeeper, but of course she chooses Sarah Jane.
The Shopkeeper promises that they’ll find out who he is one day before disappearing, but of course with this series being cut short we never do get an answer to that. In The Sarah Jane Companion Volume Three, which includes details of the unmade Series 5 episodes and other untold stories, it’s explained that he was due to return in the finale, and would have explained that the Trickster had got him to leave the baby at Sarah Jane’s house for some reason.
Anyway, the story is a fun way to bring a new companion into the attic. Luke still appears briefly, in a video call at the beginning, but he isn’t involved otherwise.
2: The Curse Of Clyde Langer
After Rani took centre stage as The Mad Woman In The Attic back in Series 3, and Luke succumbed to The Nightmare Man in Series 4, this is a long overdue moment for Clyde to take the limelight. And this is an absolutely heartbreaking story that doesn’t pull any punches, with a fabulous performance by Daniel Anthony.
Following a bizarre storm in which hundreds of fish fall from the sky, Sarah Jane and the gang go to a totem pole exhibition, where one in particular from the Mojave Desert, known as the Totem Of The Lost Tribe, is the subject of legends saying that a warrior god is imprisoned in it and that it caused a storm of fish when it was removed from its cave. Clyde gets a splinter when he touches the pole, and then, while he sleeps that night, his name glows wherever it appears on his possessions.
Things then get steadily worse the next day, because whenever anyone speaks, hears or reads his name, they immediately get angry and turn on him, including Sarah Jane, Rani, Luke (over the phone), his school friends, a member of staff at the museum, and even his own mother. It’s quite unnerving to see Clyde’s nearest and dearest becoming so furious all of a sudden, and it gets to a point where the police are called to his house and he’s forced to run away.
A teenager called Ellie (Lily Loveless) befriends him when she finds him crying in the rain, and of course he gives a false name to avoid frightening her off in the circumstances. So they form a close bond during their time together, as he learns about her sad story and the homeless community in general that he now finds himself a part of. It’s a powerful way of raising awareness of what it’s like to be in such a terrible situation, and reminds us that it can potentially happen to anyone, no matter how successful you are.
The only person from his normal life who is immune to the curse is Sky, given that she’s from another planet, and nobody can give an answer when she asks people why they hate Clyde so much. So she gets her chance to prove herself as a member of the team, by figuring out that it’s due to his name and how to fix it. Trouble is, she has to persuade Sarah Jane and Rani to help the person they’ve come to hate. And they, along with Clyde’s mum Carla, have already found themselves becoming rather depressed, as if missing something in their lives without knowing what it is. Plus the totem pole in the museum has come to life in a disturbing way, so time is of the essence before something even more terrible is unleashed.
It all works out in the end, naturally, as Clyde is reunited with his friends and does what’s necessary to lift the curse. But it’s still tinged with sadness, as it means he has to abandon Ellie, and despite extensive searching he’s unable to track her down afterwards, only to then learn from a stranger where she’s gone. He vows to find her again one day, and maybe he would have done if the series had continued. But as it is, there is just one more episode to go…
3: The Man Who Never Was
In the final story of the series, it’s great to see Luke making a return, although things are a bit awkward between him and Sky at first, given that she now has his bedroom. But the two of them join Sarah Jane at a rehearsal event for the launch of the SerfBoard, a new portable computer, where Joseph Serf (Mark Aiken) appears to glitch, because it turns out he’s a re-animation of a dead person.
This leads to an amusingly awkward interview between Sarah Jane and Joseph, as she looks to prove that he’s not real. Joseph is looked after by his assistant Harrison (James Dreyfus), who is well aware that Sarah Jane knows the truth, so gets increasingly agitated at her attempts to expose it.
And while that’s going on, Luke and Sky are exploring the rest of the building, where they discover a group of one-eyed Skullions in the basement, who are using machinery to control everything Joseph says and does. We learn that they’ve been enslaved after their ship crashed on the planet, with collars around their necks to give them shocks when they disobey. So that naturally leads to some discussion about slavery, another big topic that the show explains well to its young target audience.
Of course, Luke and Sky are caught and locked in a room, as is Sarah Jane who finds herself prisoner with a cleaner called Adriana (Edyta Budnik). So while they find ways to escape, Luke and Sky – whose friendship naturally blossoms as they work together – also figure out how to stop Harrison from torturing the Skullions. Luke then uses his whistle for K9 (who sadly doesn’t appear) to send a message across the city in Morse code to Mr Smith back in the attic.
Mr Smith then passes on the message to Clyde and Rani, who are finally able to get involved, having been sidelined for a little while. They have already looked at the SerfBoard that Sarah Jane brought back from the rehearsal event, taking humorous precautions just in case, but it turns out to be nothing more than an ordinary computer, which is confirmed by Mr Smith’s analysis. But now, again with help with Mr Smith, they’re able to pose as members of the press to get access to the launch event. And from there, Sarah Jane, Luke, Sky, Clyde, Rani and Adriana all work together to expose Joseph as fake and release the Skullions from their enslavement.
The end of the episode then features a short monologue from Sarah Jane – taken from recordings Elisabeth Sladen did for the Series 1 finale – over a montage of her appearances in the series and its parent show Doctor Who. It’s quite an abrupt ending given the unexpected truncation of the series, but it’s nicely done and very moving, with the lovely message at the end that “the story goes on… forever.”
Bonus Material
DVD Extras
The DVD menus continue to use the 3D animated attic as on the first 2 series, though with far fewer extras the view doesn’t need to fly around the room very much.
In addition, Series 4 & 5 – which are the only series to be released on Blu-ray to date – have audio navigation available for the menus and audio description for the episodes, making them much more accessible. The attic is still used as a background for these alternative menus, but in greyscale and without any animation so the options show up more clearly.
Compared to Series 1 & 2, which had several items of bonus material, there’s only one extra on each of the later series:
- Series 3: The White Wolf – This is just a 3-minute audiobook extract read by Elisabeth Sladen, part of the series of novels relating to the show,
- Series 4: Pyramids Of Mars – Here we get all 4 parts of this Classic era Doctor Who serial, lasting 25 minutes each, featuring Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor. It’s presented in memory of Elisabeth, who passed away before the DVD’s release. I saw the Tales Of The Tardis omnibus edition earlier this year, which had improved effects and other edits, and was produced to mark Sutekh’s return in this year’s Season 1 finale. So it’s nice to have the original version here with all the cliffhangers intact, because it is a very good story, with lots of tension and scary moments. It’s set in an estate owned by archaeology professor Marcus Scarman (Bernard Archard), which has been taken over by Ibrahim Namin (Peter Mayock), who has worked to bring back the deadly god Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf). A servant of Sutekh travels through a portal to the house, and turns out to be the animated corpse of Professor Scarman, who had been possessed when discovering a burial chamber in Egypt many years earlier. He hunts for the humans, but is then ordered by Sutekh to build a missile pointing at Mars, to destroy a jewel in a pyramid there that is keeping him prisoner. So the Doctor and Sarah Jane, working with Marcus’ brother Laurence (Michael Sheard), have to try and foil Sutekh’s plan, because if he makes it to Earth he’ll wipe out the human race.
- Series 5: Goodbye Bannerman Road – Remembering Elisabeth Sladen – Filmed a year after her death, this is a lovely 19-minute feature, in which actors Daniel Anthony, Anjli Mohindra and Matt Smith, along with script editor Gary Russell, talk with great love and affection about Elisabeth.
CBBC Videos
It’s a shame there are so few DVD extras for the last few series, because there are several videos in the Clips sections of the CBBC website for Series 3, Series 4 and Series 5 that they could have included, such as behind the scenes Diary Cams for Series 3, competitions between the child stars for Series 4 and 5, information about some of the aliens that inspired the clip show Sarah Jane’s Alien Files (which was broadcast alongside Series 4), as well as other fun clips featuring the cast.
K9 Series
K9 was an independent production for children made in Australia, mixing computer animation and live action. The first 25-minute episode, Regeneration, aired as a preview on Disney XD in the UK and Ireland on Halloween in 2009, before they broadcast the full series from April 2010 onwards, as did Network Ten in Australia. Channel 5 then aired the series for terrestrial viewers in the UK from December 2010.
The first episode is the only one I’ve bothered watching, because it’s available for free on Youtube, and it’s nothing special. K9 is still voiced by John Leeson, but the character has a new design, having initially self-destructed to defeat some aliens before then regenerating, and I don’t think it’s an improvement particularly. The writing and characters in general aren’t as good as Doctor Who and its UK spin-offs either. Indeed, for rights reasons they weren’t even allowed to include direct references to Doctor Who – although there is a quick nod to the opening notes of the theme tune in the first episode, when K9 mentions music but can’t recognise it due to his memory damage.
It’s because of the production of this series that K9 was only able to make a couple of small cameos in the first series of The Sarah Jane Adventures and didn’t appear at all in the second series. He made up for that with 6 appearances in Series 3 and a couple in Series 4, but he was sadly absent from Series 5. It’s a great shame he wasn’t more heavily involved in Sarah Jane’s series really, he should have been from the outset.
Audio Adventures
There have also been several audio expansions to Sarah Jane’s universe. I haven’t listened to any of them, as I don’t currently have the time to go through lots of audiobooks on top of the TV shows, and exploring the Doctor Who audio catalogue will be a massive task all of its own one day. But these are well worth knowing about for anyone who wants to hear more from Sarah Jane and her friends. The older titles from the Classic Era were mentioned briefly in my previous post, but are included here for completeness.
- Classic Era Adventures – In the 1970s, Elisabeth played Sarah Jane alongside Tom Baker’s Doctor in a few BBC audio dramas, and then with Jon Pertwee’s Doctor in the 1990s. These books can be found on Audible.
- K9 & Company – This is a novelisation of the 1981 TV pilot for a series that never got commissioned. It’s written by Terence Dudley, and the audiobook is narrated by the voice of K9 himself, John Leeson.
- Sarah Jane Smith: Series 1 & 2 – Sarah Jane’s first proper spin-off series saw Elisabeth returning to the role for 2 audio series produced by Big Finish between 2002 and 2006. It ended shortly before her reappearance in the School Reunion episode of Doctor Who on TV, which in turn led to her own TV series.
- Doctor Who At The BBC – This was a series of documentaries released from 2003 to 2013 about the show, most of which were presented by Elisabeth. A box set is available on Audible.
- The Sarah Jane Adventures Collection – 10 original audio stories were produced by the BBC alongside the TV show. Most were read by Elisabeth, except for 2 released after her death that were narrated by Clyde & Rani’s actors Daniel Anthony and Anjli Mohindra respectively. The complete box set is available on Audible.
- Sadie Miller – Elisabeth’s daughter has brought the character of Sarah Jane back to life in various audio dramas for Big Finish. She obviously doesn’t sound exactly like her mother, but she’s aimed to capture the key qualities of the character.
- Rani Takes On The World – Bringing things right up to date, in 2023 Big Finish launched a new spin-off series of full-cast audio plays using the original actors from the TV show, led by Rani with Clyde alongside her. Beyond Bannerman Road, which came out in April last year, also featured Rani’s mum Gita, while December’s release of The Revenge Of Wormwood featured the welcome return of Luke along with their old enemy Mrs Wormwood. So it’ll be interesting to see if they make any more.
Tributes
Elisabeth Sladen died aged 65 on 19 April 2011, just 2 months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. So it caught everyone by surprise, even those closest to her who were aware of her condition. The fact that she continued working for as long as she could is testament to her professionalism and her love of her work.
Her broad multi-generational appeal across the Classic and New eras of Doctor Who plus her spin-off series meant that children and adults alike were devastated by her loss. And the BBC had an unprecedented flood of messages from young viewers who had become huge fans of hers and wanted to pay their respects.
And I understand how they feel. Having just binged my way through all 5 series of The Sarah Jane Adventures for the first time, following on from a few of her appearances I’ve already seen in Doctor Who, the fact that it came to such an abrupt end is very sad. There are very few things I’ve ever watched that make me well up, but the tribute films about Elisabeth really do tug at the heartstrings with some force.
The character of Sarah Jane was so warm and friendly and felt like a mother figure, which by all accounts was much like Elisabeth herself behind the scenes, so it feels deeply unfair that she was taken from us much too soon. And it’s a shame that she never fully understood just how hugely loved she was. But she left behind a wonderful legacy of being the quintessential companion to the Doctor, who was so popular that she got her own spin-off series.
Apart from the special feature on the final DVD that I’ve already mentioned above, there have been other nice tributes paid to Elisabeth and Sarah Jane over the years, including:
- My Sarah Jane: A Tribute To Elisabeth Sladen – This was broadcast on CBBC 4 days after her death on 23 April 2011, straight after the opening episode for Series 6 of Doctor Who (which was dedicated to her memory). It features interviews with the child actors Tommy Knight, Daniel Anthony & Anjli Mohindra, Doctor Who stars Matt Smith, David Tennant, John Barrowman & Katy Manning, showrunner Russell T Davies and CBBC presenter Barney Harwood. It finishes with a moving montage of clips set to She by Elvis Costello.
- Goodnight, Sarah Jane – This is a sweet song by folk singer Talis Kimberley, which she released on Bandcamp the day after Elisabeth’s death. It was originally available at no charge, but after exceeding the website’s limit for free downloads, people happily started paying for it, so she pledged to donate all proceeds to a cancer charity.
- Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography – Elisabeth’s story about her life, which she had only just completed in the months before she died, was posthumously released on 7 November 2011, and included a beautiful foreword by David Tennant. I haven’t read the book, but maybe I will one day, as I imagine it’s fascinating and wonderfully written. The reviews certainly suggest it’s a lovely read.
- The Attic – This was a special reunion event held in Cardiff University’s Students’ Union on 29 July 2017 to mark the 10th anniversary of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It brought together the actors who played Maria, Luke, Clyde, Rani, Sky, K9, Gita, Jo and the Trickster, as well as various members of the production team, and it raised a whopping £6,643.35 for Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice in Penarth, close to where the show was filmed. A DVD & Blu-ray with no less than 7 hours of footage from the day was released exclusively through the event’s website, and later appeared on Amazon, but is no longer available, sadly. However, there is a Youtube channel relating to the event which has a lot of nice videos on it.
- Farewell, Sarah Jane – This short story, written by Russell T Davies, served as an epilogue to The Sarah Jane Adventures, finally giving proper closure to the title character and bringing us up to date on those around her. It was produced during lockdown and released online on 19 April 2020 – the 9th anniversary of Elisabeth’s death, as noted in an accompanying message from her daughter, Sadie Miller. Narrated by Jacob Dudman, it centres around a memorial service for Sarah Jane and the gang leaving Bannerman Road one more time, and features appearances by Clyde, Luke & Rani, along with Rani’s mother Gita and the Doctor’s companions Jo & Ace, all played by their original actors who recorded their parts at home. Ace (Sophie Aldred) never crossed paths with Sarah Jane in Doctor Who or this spin-off, so it was lovely of her to take part anyway. Mr Smith also makes a brief cameo, but voiced by Jacob rather than Alexander Armstrong. Aside from being very emotional in general, with a beautiful soundtrack by Sam & Dan Watts from the series, other striking things about this short episode is that a lot of other characters from Doctor Who are referenced in some way, the Trickster briefly tries to disrupt proceedings, there’s a huge and delightful revelation about Luke, and Rani has a lovely thought about what really happened to Sarah Jane. So it’s a really fitting conclusion to Sarah Jane’s story, even if it leaves you a mess by the end of it!
Conclusion
I’ve finally made it to the end of The Sarah Jane Adventures, and it’s been a real joy for me to finally watch the series in its entirety, it felt like the right time to do so. Sarah Jane is a such a wonderful character, just like Elisabeth Sladen was in real life, and her companions are a great bunch as well, all of whom got to enjoy many exciting adventures together. And the memories clearly aren’t fading given all the tributes and new stories that have come along since Elisabeth’s passing, which is lovely to see. It’s all illustrated by the hundreds of clips I’ve compiled in my Youtube playlists for Series 1-2 and Series 3-5 if you’re bored and want to look through them.
As the final episode said at the end, the story does indeed go on forever. Farewell Sarah Jane, you’ll never be forgotten.
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