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Sarah Jane Smith

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Template:Doctorwhocharacter Sarah Jane Smith is a fictional character played by Elisabeth Sladen in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its related spin-offs. An investigative journalist who is a companion of the third and fourth incarnations of the Doctor, she was a regular in the programme from 1973 to 1976 (seasons 11 – 14), and has returned to Doctor Who several times since, most recently in the 2006 episode "School Reunion", opposite David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

One of the longest serving companions, she appears as a regular character in 18 stories over four seasons, and is the first (human) companion to appear in a spin-off, the 1981 television pilot K-9 and Company. She is the central character in the ongoing series The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Character history

Doctor Who

Sarah first appears in the Third Doctor serial The Time Warrior, where she has managed to infiltrate a top secret research facility by posing as her aunt, Lavinia Smith, a famous virologist. She sneaks into the TARDIS while the Doctor is preparing to follow the trail of a kidnapped scientist through time, and becomes embroiled in the subsequent adventure.

Sarah then finds herself working with the Third Doctor and UNIT on a number of occasions. She is present when he regenerates into the Fourth Doctor at the end of Planet of the Spiders, and continues to accompany him on his journeys through time and space.

The exact placement of Sarah's adventures with the Doctor is part of the UNIT dating controversy. In Pyramids of Mars she states (more than once) that she was "from 1980", which implies that her adventures with the Doctor took place in the near future with respect to the time of broadcast. However, fans continue to argue whether she means 1980 as the year she came from, the year she last returned to Earth, or the year she believes it is in her personal chronology.

During her time with the Doctor, Sarah encounters Daleks, Cybermen, antimatter creatures on the most distant planet in the universe, android mummies in 1911 England, ancient evils in 15th century Italy and other dangers, until the Doctor receives a summons to his home planet Gallifrey and cannot take her along.

Sarah has a flat in South Croydon, in which the Doctor tries to drop her off at the end of The Hand of Fear, her final regular appearance. Typically, the Doctor did not get the coordinates quite right. In fact, it was finally revealed in "School Reunion", 30 years later, that she was not dropped off in Croydon, but in Aberdeen, Scotland. When the Doctor does not return for her she believes him to be dead (despite him having left K-9 Mark III, a robot dog, as a gift, and having met the Fifth Doctor, Second Doctor, and First Doctor in The Five Doctors), until she encounters his TARDIS in "School Reunion".

As a companion, she is confident, inquisitive and possesses a sharp mind as well as a sharp tongue. She is also something of a feminist — in her first appearance she is infuriated when the Doctor asked her to make coffee, and she often verbally spars with fellow companion Harry Sullivan, who has an old-fashioned, chauvinistic and unintentionally patronising attitude towards her. Her feminism is more practical than fanatical, and does not get in the way of forming a close friendship with Harry, and a more personal feeling for the Doctor himself. These views become less prominent in later episodes, but Sarah never gives the impression that she is less than capable. In spite of the dangerous and frightening situations she often finds herself in, she loves adventure and risk, and in spite of her outward complaints, is always thrilled to go off in search of more adventure. She shares a rapport with the Third and Fourth Doctors, and is consistently one of the Doctor's most popular companions among fans.

At the time of "School Reunion", Sarah is still single, having found it impossible to hold down a lasting relationship with any man following her experiences with the Doctor. At the episode's conclusion, Sarah Jane is gifted with a new K-9 model.

In the lead-up to the broadcast of "School Reunion", Sladen was quoted in The Daily Mirror being somewhat critical of the characterisation of Sarah Jane in the original programme: "Sarah Jane used to be a bit of a cardboard cut-out. Each week it used to be, 'Yes Doctor, no Doctor', and you had to flesh your character out in your mind — because if you didn't, no one else would." She spoke more favourably of the characterisation in the new series.[1]

The Sarah Jane Adventures

The Sarah Jane Adventures, a new programme starring Sladen as Sarah Jane, is being produced by BBC Wales for CBBC. A 60-minute special written by Russell T. Davies and Gareth Roberts was aired 1 January 2007, with a full series to follow later in the year. K-9 appears in the special, but will not appear in the series.[2] This is due to the concurrent development of K-9, which is an independent production with no other ties to Doctor Who; it is unlikely that Sarah Jane will appear in K-9.[3][4][5] Sarah Jane does, however, have her own sonic screwdriver (disguised as a red lipstick) for the series; she also now drives a Nissan Figaro.[6] According to the show's website, both the screwdriver (referred to as a "sonic lipstick") and "a watch to scan for alien life" are gifts from the Doctor, hidden inside K9 Mk IV when it was left for her. In the time between "School Reunion" and Sarah's Adventures (at least a year and a half), K-9 has left Sarah to close off a black hole, occasionally passing close enough to contact her, leaving her entirely alone. Sarah Jane has developed a reputation on Bannerman Road as being unsociable and quiet, keeping her investigations into alien life a secret. Acquiring a sonic lipstick, a watch to scan for alien life, sentient supercomputer assistant Mr Smith and various other futuristic and extraterrestrial devices in the meantime, she has helped the Earth and alien life forms in a much less violent way than organisations such as UNIT and the Torchwood Institute which she remarks tend to go in "all guns blazing". As of the pilot episode, "Invasion of the Bane", Sarah Jane has adopted a son — Luke Smith, and befriended neighbour Maria Jackson, remarking that since meeting them she is no longer content to live alone. When asked by several characters why she has never married, she remarks that there was only one man for her, to whom no one could ever compare.

Reprising the role

File:Sarah jane pic.jpg
Elisabeth Sladen reprising the role of Sarah Jane in "School Reunion".

Elisabeth Sladen has returned to the role of Sarah nine times since she left Doctor Who in 1976:

  1. In a 1981 pilot for a proposed spin-off television series titled K-9 and Company where Sarah was given K-9 Mark III. She was also said to have worked for the Reuters news agency. However, the planned series never materialised.
  2. Sladen played Sarah again in the 1983 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors, appearing alongside Jon Pertwee once more (K-9 also made a brief appearance, directly referring to the events of K-9 and Company). Some lines in "School Reunion" seem to imply that these events did not happen, or at least that she does not recall or count them as additional encounters with the Doctor.
  3. Sladen also appeared as Sarah in the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time.
  4. In 1993 Sladen voiced the character of Sarah in BBC Radio audio play The Paradise of Death (Radio 5) together with Pertwee as the Doctor and Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
  5. Another BBC Radio drama, The Ghosts of N-Space, was made in 1994 (although not broadcast until 1996, on Radio 2), again featuring Sladen with Jon Pertwee's Doctor and Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier.
  6. In 1995 Sladen appeared as Sarah in the Reeltime Pictures' video production Downtime, together with Courtney as the Brigadier and Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield.
  7. Big Finish Productions has also produced a series of nine Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures set in the present day.
  8. In the third episode of the 2006 series of Doctor Who, "School Reunion", Sladen reprised the role of Sarah on television. K-9 also appeared.
  9. Finally in 2007, Sladen received her own series again in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Appearances in other media

Between seasons 13 and 14, Sladen appeared as Sarah, with Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, in the audio play LP The Pescatons (1976). She also appeared with Baker in "The Time Machine", episode three of the BBC Radio series Exploration Earth on 4 October, 1976.

Sarah appears in several spin-off Doctor Who novels and short stories, notably in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels Interference: Book One and Interference: Book Two by Lawrence Miles; and the Past Doctor Adventures novel Bullet Time by David A. McIntee, all taking place after she stops travelling with the Doctor.

Interference and the Virgin New Adventures novel Christmas on a Rational Planet, also by Miles, suggest that Sarah married someone named Paul Morley sometime between 1996 and 1998 and took his name. In the short story The Aurelius Gambit by Helen Fayle, from the charity anthology Perfect Timing, Sarah marries private investigator Steve Kennelly. In the short story Lily by Jackie Marshall, in Big Finish's Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury, the Fifth Doctor pays a visit to an older Sarah, who has a daughter, Lauren, and an autistic granddaughter, Lily; Lauren's father is not named.

In the Past Doctor Adventure Bullet Time, Sarah is apparently killed in 1997, contradicting her other spin-off appearances. However, the novel takes place during a story arc where enemies of the Doctor were attempting to eliminate his companions from the timeline, and Sarah's death may have been reversed when those enemies are defeated. In any case, other stories have shown her alive after 1997.

Sarah was mentioned in the prologue of the Virgin Publishing novelisation of The Power of the Daleks by John Peel. It revealed that Sarah was working as UNIT's official chronicler and that in 1986 she covered the aftermath of the Cybermen's failed attempt to drain Earth of its energy and the technology left behind in their wake (The Tenth Planet).

The canonicity of Sarah's appearances in the audio dramas, novels and websites, like all Doctor Who spin-off media, is unclear, and they may not even take place in the same continuity. For example, the novels' mention of Sarah as having been married is contradicted by the Sarah Jane Smith audio play Dreamland, and the Sarah Jane Adventures episode "Invasion of the Bane".

List of appearances

Television

Doctor Who

Season 11
Season 12
Season 13
Season 14
20th anniversary special
30th anniversary special
Series 2


K-9 and Company

The Sarah Jane Adventures

Video

Audio dramas

Argo Records
BBC Radio
Big Finish Productions
Series One
Series Two

Novels

The Companions of Doctor Who
Virgin Missing Adventures
Virgin New Adventures
Eighth Doctor Adventures
Past Doctor Adventures

Short stories

Comics

References

  1. ^ Robertson, Cameron (2006-04-18). "Dr Who's 'cut-out' girl back". The Daily Mirror. Retrieved 2006-04-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ "Russell T Davies creates new series for CBBC, starring Doctor Who's Sarah Jane Smith" (Press release). BBC. 2006-09-14. Retrieved 2006-09-14. {{cite press release}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Milmo, Cahal (2006-04-24). "Doctor Who's K-9 sidekick is dragged into 21st century in computer-designed cartoon". The Independent. Retrieved 2006-04-24. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Lyon, Shaun (2006-07-18). "More on K9 Series". Outpost Gallifrey News Page. Retrieved 2006-08-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Nazzaro, Joe (2006-09-28). "Who's Sarah Jane Gets Own Show". Sci Fi Wire. Sci Fi Channel. Retrieved 2006-09-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ "11 December, 2006". Blue Peter. 2006-12-11. CBBC. {{cite episode}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |episodelink= (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
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