The Doctor's Companions (Sarah Jane Smith)

The Doctor's Companions

Sarah Jane Smith

The Time Warrior - The Hand of Fear, The Five Doctors, School Reunion, The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, The End of Time

Sarah Jane Smith was an independent and very resourceful young freelance journalist. She first encountered The Doctor whilst impersonating her aunt Lavina Smith, a famous virologist, in a ploy to gain access to a top secret UNIT scientific establishment so as to follow a lead for a story on the disappearance of several high-ranking scientists. Aggravated by The Doctor's apparent chauvinistic attitude towards her - informing her after exposing her deception that she can stay because the other scientists would need someone to make the coffee - and being anxious to gain her 'scoop' she is suspicious of him.

The Time Warrior

Being certain that he is involved she kept a careful watch on him, eventually finding herself inside the 'Police Box' The Doctor kept in the dormitory shortly before The Doctor dematerialised the ship to travel back to Medieval England. Not realising what the TARDIS is Sarah thinks that she has ended up in a set for a film. It takes her a long time before she realises what has happened and that The Doctor is also not responsible for the disappearances. Initially annoyed at Sarah for stowing away The Doctor soon realises that she means well and that she can be of use to him ("The Time Warrior").

Despite their shaky start they soon make an excellent team and they both soon respect each other. Even though Sarah thought that she could stand up for herself in the beginning, she did need a bit of comfort and protection at times. She was not frightened to get fully involved and she had ample opportunity to demonstrate her bravery, versatility and unwillingness to give up, a particular example of this being when she rallied a group of prisoners to try and escape Thal captivity in "Genesis of the Daleks". She was also quite willing and able to use her feminist opinions to help others, as seen in "The Monster of Peladon" when she tried to get Queen Thalira to stand up for herself. However, this sometimes backfired like in "The Time Warrior", when, despite eventually realising she is in fact in the 12th Century she is horrified about a serving woman's attitudes 'You're living in the Middle Ages!' she yells in desperation before realising how stupid this comment is.

Planet of the Spiders

After witnessing The Doctor's third regeneration she continued her travels in the TARDIS with the Fourth Doctor, accompanied for a while by UNIT's medical officer Surgeon Lieutenant Harry Sullivan. They had a good rapport together, despite Harry's insistence on calling her 'Old Thing'; indeed, it was stated on one occasion that Harry was half in love with Sarah without consciously registering it, his feelings pushed aside by the knowledge that Sarah mainly saw him as a slightly irritating faithful family friend rather than a potential partner. Despite this, the three travellers became a brief but effective team in their time together, Sarah often handling the more stealth -based aspect of their adventures - such as climbing along an air vent in "The Ark in Space" - while Harry helped to handle the more physical side of things, The Doctor as always representing his usual multitude of talents.

Sarah had the uncanny ability to quickly put together minor pieces of information to realise what was happening, as seen on occasions such as her quick deduction that a ‘spaceship’ she was travelling in was actually a fake despite her ‘fellow passengers’ being able to provide possible explanations for all her objections ("Invasion of the Dinosaurs"). Despite this, she always ended up having to rely on The Doctor when things got out of hand. She was also able on occasions to be there by his side reminding him of what is right and wrong. This is well demonstrated in a famous scene in "Genesis of the Daleks" when The Doctor was having second thoughts about destroying the embryonic Daleks, Sarah trying to remind him of the evil that the Daleks would commit in the future even as The Doctor contemplated whether he had the right to wipe out an entire species. She always managed to bring out the best of those she met; even a Giant Robot developed a fondness for her, as well as such diverse individuals as a Muto - a victim of the radioactive mutation caused by the prolonged civil war on Skaro ("Genesis of the Daleks") - and a London gang leader ("Amorality Tale").

The Ark in Space

This aspect of Sarah’s personality can even be seen in her relationship with The Doctor after his regeneration into his fourth incarnation; although the Fourth Doctor was less interested in working at UNIT than he had been in his previous body - reflecting that he was too old to be constantly running around in response to The Brigadier’s calls for help ("Pyramids of Mars") -, he simultaneously appeared far closer to Sarah than before, to the point where he once described her as his ‘best friend’ ("The Seeds of Doom") after previously referring to his companions as just his friends. For her part, Sarah later implied that she had actually fallen in love with the Fourth Doctor, commenting to the Tenth Doctor when he asked if she had ever had children that she had travelled with this ‘one man’ who was a ‘tough act to follow’ ("School Reunion"), and mentioning to her new friend Maria Jackson that there was only ever one man for her ("Invasion of the Bane"), although she never expressly said ‘I love you’ to the Time Lord or admitted her love for him to anyone else.

Terror of the Zygons

She was a strong willed and very independent companion. Being a plucky journalist allowed her to be inquisitive, and so legitimately ask questions, without appearing to be unintelligent. Used to getting her own way her curiosity frequently got her into trouble as she insisted on going where she was not supposed to and finding out things that others wanted kept hidden. Her inquisitive nature allowed her to become fully involved in dangerous situations without the need to be continually alongside The Doctor, ranging from working undercover as a barmaid in 1952 to investigate strange gas-related deaths ("Amorality Tale") to infiltrating an asylum to question a man who may have witnessed strange events that had occurred a month before her and The Doctor’s arrival ("Wolfsbane"). With an infectious smile she had an air of conviction about everything she did, even though she had a habit of jumping before thinking, such as trying to photograph a captured Tyrannasaurus Rex and unintentionally provoking it into escaping its bonds (“Invasion of the Dinosaurs”) or digging down to investigate what appeared to be Harry Sullivan’s grave - wanting to ‘prove’ to The Doctor that she and him would go back in time to save Harry so that he would only be assumed to be dead - only to be nearly buried alive ("Wolfsbane"). She could be aggressive when called upon, but was nevertheless down-to-Earth when she had to be.

The Hand of Fear

Despite this talent for connecting with people, Sarah found herself hypnotised by a Sontaran, nearly sacrificed twice, cocooned in the larder of the Giant Spiders of Metebelis 3, trapped in a decompression chamber and stalked by service robots that looked like Egyptian mummies. She was also impersonated by the Kraals, stalked again - this time by a hideous monster while blind - ("The Brain of Morbius"), nearly infected by a Krynoid ("The Seeds of Doom") and taken over by Eldrad ("The Hand of Fear"). Unfortunately, perhaps as a result of these continued attacks, towards the end of her time in the TARDIS, Sarah began to develop an almost over-reliance on The Doctor, tending to simply stick close to him and follow his lead rather than taking action herself, her clothing appearing almost childish compared to the attire she wore in the beginning as though to reflect this lack of her original independence, although she regained her old maturity after departing from The Doctor and being encouraged to stand on her own once again.

The Five Doctors

Her long association with The Doctor did however come to an abrupt end. Fed up with travelling she announced to The Doctor that she wanted to leave the TARDIS. However, as soon as she learned that The Doctor had been urgently summoned back to Gallifrey she changed her mind as she wanted to visit his home planet. Unfortunately for Sarah, The Doctor insisted that this was not possible and so she found herself back in her own time, in 1977, even though it was not South Croydon as The Doctor had stated ("The Hand of Fear"). The Doctor however, never forgot her and sometime later he sent her a rather unusual present, a Mark 3 K9. However, her association with The Doctor was not quite over. Ignoring the advice of her mechanical protector she found herself transported to the Death Zone on Gallifrey and involved with four incarnations of The Doctor, The Brigadier and some of her fellow companions ("The Five Doctors"). She went on to have a brief meeting with the Eighth Doctor in 1996 when investigating an alien group called the Remote, subsequently providing The Doctor’s current companion Samantha Jones with a place to live until she could return to her family (Sam having vowed to leave the next time the TARDIS landed on Earth but forced to wait until her past self left with The Doctor in 1997). In a later trip to Hong Kong, Sarah was briefly reunited with the Seventh Doctor, currently posing as a Triad gang leader to help a group of Tzun soldiers repair their ship, culminating in the two of them having to thwart a rogue branch of UNIT called the Cortez Project who believed that all aliens were an automatic threat even if they had no hostile intentions towards Earth.

Sarah Jane Smith
(1973 – 1976, 1983, 2006, 2008 & 2010)

Elisabeth Sladen

Born in 1948 Elizabeth Sladen spent 2 years in drama school before joining repertory theatre in Liverpool. She also worked with the Royal Ballet in 1959. Television appearances then followed including Coronation Street in 1970, Doomwatch in 1972, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em in 1973, Public Eye in 1974 and Z Cars also in 1974. On leaving Doctor Who other television work followed including Stepping Stones in 1977 and Alice in Wonderland in 1985. She also appeared in the 1980 film Silver Dream Racer. She has returned to Doctor Who 7 times. Twice in 1976 in the Argo Records audio adventure Doctor Who and the Pescatons and then in the schools education programme "Exploration Earth: The Time Machine" - both with Tom Baker. Then in the 1981 spin-off programme K9 and Company: A Girls Best Friend and then in the 20th anniversary special "The Five Doctors" in 1983. She was also in two radio plays, along with Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney, "The Paradise of Death" in 1993 and "The Ghosts of N-Space" in 1996. She also made a brief appearance in the Children in Need charity special "Dimensions in Time" in 1993. Since the birth of her daughter, Sadie, in 1985 she has made only the occasional television appearances including The Bill in 1989. She returned to the part of Sarah once again in the Reeltime Pictures video production Downtime along with Deborah Watling who reprised her role as Victoria in 1995. She was also in the Big Finish Productions audio drama Walking to Babylon in 1998. Then in 2006 she returned to Doctor Who, as Sarah Jane Smith, in "School Reunion", before starring in the spin-off show The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Unfortunately Elizabeth Sladen died in April 2011 at the age of 63.

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School Reunion

Most recently, when investigating the goings on in a local school, Sarah discovered the TARDIS in the basement and so finds herself helping, along with K9, the Tenth Doctor to deal with a Krillitane invasion; although she had a briefly confrontational relationship with new companion Rose Tyler, the two eventually formed a certain friendship with each other, Sarah and The Doctor reconciling over his abrupt departure from her life while she and Rose bonded over their amusement at some of The Doctor’s antics (After an ‘argument’ over the creatures they’d encountered with him ended when Sarah revealed her meeting with the Loch Ness Monster ("Terror of the Zygons")). Following the Tenth Doctor’s departure, she began to take a far more active role in her life once again, using alien technology - such as the sentient supercomputer known as ‘Mr Smith’ and a ‘sonic lipstick’ The Doctor had given her as a gift in the rebuilt K9 - to help defend Earth against alien threats, using more subtle methods than UNIT’s current, more violent policy of dealing with alien invaders. She has even adopted a young boy who was genetically engineered by a group of aliens called the Bane, naming him ‘Luke’, and tackling various alien excursions with the aid of Luke and his school friends (K9 assisting only intermittently at first as he was initially operating outside of time to negate an artificially-created black hole, although the black hole was later drained away to power a crashed alien ship ("The Mad Woman in the Attic")).

The Stolen Earth/Journey's End

Even when acting alone several years after leaving The Doctor, Sarah has demonstrated significant resolve, having already defeated such enemies as the Sontarans ("The Last Sontaran") and the Slitheen ("Revenge of the Slitheen"), as well as facing her own adversaries such as the ‘Pied Piper’ - which had actually influenced Sarah’s past to give her coulrophobia so that she would have trouble facing it - ("The Day of the Clown"), the Gorgon ("The Eye of the Gorgon"), the Ancient Lights ("Secret of the Stars"), and the seemingly omnipotent time-manipulator known as The Trickster ("Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane Smith" and "The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith"); she was even briefly united with The Brigadier when she sought his help to infiltrate the UNIT archives to recover a dangerous alien artefact to save Luke ("Enemy of the Bane"). During the recent Dalek attempt to steal Earth, Sarah not only acted as one of the many past companions who came together to defeat the Daleks, but she also had a brief, chilling reunion with Davros, who commented on how ‘appropriate’ it was that she, who had witnessed the creation of the Daleks, should be present at the moment of their greatest victory ("The Stolen Earth/Journey's End"). Sarah and The Doctor met again when the Trickster attempted to manipulate her into a wedding that would allow him to erase her memories of her old life to leave Earth open to attack, the Tenth Doctor working with Luke and his friends to save Sarah, later assuring his old companion that she and her ‘team’ still had many more amazing adventures waiting for them in their future ("The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith"). As her adventures in Earth’s defence continued, Sarah found herself collaborating with Jo Grant - her immediate predecessor as The Doctor’s companion - as the two of them attended The Doctor’s ‘funeral’, the funeral being exposed as an attempt by The Shansheeth to use Jo and Sarah’s memories to recreate the TARDIS key so that they could use the ship for their own ends, the Eleventh Doctor praising Jo and Sarah’s accomplishments once again before he departed.

Sarah was the last of the UNIT family of companions and she was also the last human to travel with The Doctor for a considerable time.

The Sarah Jane Adventures
(Revenge of the Slitheen)

The Sarah Jane Adventures
(The Last Sontaran)

The Sarah Jane Adventures
(The Mad Woman in the Attic)

The Sarah Jane Adventures
(Death of The Doctor)

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Memorable Moment

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

In the original series, Sarah’s most memorable moment was her role in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", when she was abducted by Operation Golden Age and taken to the fake space ships the group’s leaders had created, the founders of the project intending to turn Earth’s history back and erase Earth’s environmental damage at the cost of all life on the planet. Despite all the evidence against her, Sarah refused to accept the reality she was presented with - pointing out such anomalies as a still-healing recent wound on her forehead and the distance that any ship would have to travel to reach another galaxy -, to the extent that she willingly opened what was believed to be an airlock even though she would have been killed if she had been wrong.

In the modern series, even counting some of the memorable adversaries Sarah has faced in The Sarah Jane Adventures, her most memorable moment has to be her return to the show and reunion with the Tenth Doctor in "School Reunion", serving as not only an excellent moment to remind new viewers of the existence of the classic series, but also allow for a touching reunion as The Doctor admits to the depth of his feelings for his old companions and his sorrow at their parting.

Television Stories

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