The Sarah Jane Adventures
The Sarah Jane Adventures is a British science fiction television programme produced by BBC Cymru Wales for CBBC, created by Russell T Davies, and starring Elisabeth Sladen. The programme is a spin-off of the long-running BBC science fiction programme Doctor Who. It focuses on the adventures of Sarah Jane Smith, an investigative journalist living in Ealing, London, who, as a young woman, had numerous adventures across time and space with the Doctor. The show ran for five years until Sladen's death in 2011.
The series debuted on BBC One with a 60-minute special, "Invasion of the Bane", on 1 January 2007, and broadcast until Sladen's death in 2011. It was nominated for a British Academy Children's Award in 2008 in the Drama category, and for a BAFTA Cymru in 2009 in the Children's Drama category. The programme won a Royal Television Society 2010 award for Best Children's Drama.
As of 2024, all episodes are on BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom and HBO Max in the United States until July 31, 2025.
Series
A full series of ten 25-minute episodes began on 24 September 2007. The first series consisted of five two-part stories, and a second series, comprising six two-part stories, began airing on 29 September 2008. A third series, of six two-part stories aired from 15 October to 20 November 2009.The fourth series was aired from 11 October 2010. An episode of another spin-off series, Sarah Jane's Alien Files, was shown immediately after each of the first episodes of the stories.
Filming for three of six two-part serials planned for the fifth series was completed prior to Elisabeth Sladen's death on 19 April 2011. The BBC stated that no further episodes would be produced. This final series was broadcast between 3 and 18 October 2011 on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Background and development
In 2006, Children's BBC expressed an interest in producing a Doctor Who spin-off. Their initial idea was "a drama based on the idea of a young Doctor Who", but Russell T Davies vetoed this. "Somehow, the idea of a fourteen year old Doctor, on Gallifrey inventing sonic screwdrivers, takes away from the mystery and intrigue of who he is and where he came from", said Davies. He suggested instead a series based on the Doctor's former companion Sarah Jane Smith.The character of Sarah Jane Smith, played by Sladen, appeared in Doctor Who from 1973 to 1976, alongside both Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. A pilot episode for another Doctor Who spin-off series, K-9 and Company, made in 1981, featured Sarah Jane and the robot dog K9; a full series was never commissioned. Sarah Jane and K9 returned to Doctor Who in various media many times over the years, most notably in the 20th anniversary special "The Five Doctors", and in episodes "School Reunion", "The Stolen Earth" / "Journey's End" and "The End of Time".
Sarah Jane is frequently voted the most popular Doctor Who companion by both Doctor Who fans and members of the general public.
The series was first confirmed to be in development by the BBC's in-house newsletter, Ariel, in early August 2006. These early rumours were associated with the working title Sarah Jane Investigates.
K9's only appearances in the show's first two series were a cameo in the special and an appearance in the last episode of the first series. This was due to the concurrent development of the independently produced children's series, K9, which features a remodelled version of K9 with only indirect nods to Doctor Who. In 2009, K9 appeared with The Sarah Jane Adventures cast in a sketch for Comic Relief, and K9 appeared in six episodes of the third series, followed by two more appearances in the fourth series. He did not appear at all in series 5.
Production
Production on the full series began in April 2007. Two of the five two-part stories were scripted by the special's co-writer Gareth Roberts. Bad Girls and New Captain Scarlet writer Phil Ford wrote two stories and Phil Gladwin wrote one. Creator and executive producer Russell T Davies was going to write one story but was forced to drop out due to other work commitments.Tenth anniversary
For the tenth anniversary of the show, an event was held 29 July 2017 at Cardiff University Students' Union, with proceeds going to Ty Hafan Hospice for Children. A total of £6643.35 was raised by the sale of tickets to the event and merchandise. Members of the cast and crew that took part in the event were Tommy Knight, Anjli Mohindra, Yasmin Paige, Sinead Michael, Mina Anwar, Katy Manning, Paul Marc Davis, Phil Ford, Gary Russell, Joe Lidster, Sam Watts, Richard Wisker, Cheryl Rowlands, Scott Handcock, Brian Miller, John Leeson, Mat Irvine and Chris Johnson. The event was recorded and was released onto DVD and Blu-ray and could be bought exclusively through the event's website.Cast and crew
In addition to Sladen, the first series of the programme stars Yasmin Paige as Maria Jackson, Sarah Jane's 13-year-old neighbour in Ealing, west London, and Tommy Knight as a boy named Luke, who is adopted by Sarah Jane at the conclusion of the introductory story. The third member of Sarah Jane's young entourage is 14-year-old Clyde Langer, played by Daniel Anthony, who is introduced in the first episode of the full series. Actress Porsha Lawrence Mavour briefly played Maria's friend, Kelsey Hooper, in the 2007 New Year's Day special Invasion of the Bane which was created before the start of the series. Maria and her family are written out of the series in the first story of the second series, The Last Sontaran, but Maria and her father return briefly in the second part of The Mark of the Berserker. In the second story of that series, The Day of the Clown, several new regular cast members are introduced: Rani Chandra and her parents, Haresh, and Gita. This happened as the character Alan Jackson left the series, along with Chrissie and Maria Jackson.Joseph Millson appears throughout the first series as Maria's recently separated father, Alan, with Chrissie Jackson, Maria's mother, played by Juliet Cowan. One other regular is Alexander Armstrong of comedy duo Armstrong and Miller, who provides the voice of Mr Smith, an extraterrestrial computer in Sarah Jane's attic. The 2007 special featured Samantha Bond as the scheming villain Mrs Wormwood and Jamie Davis as her PR agent Davey. The first series included among its guest cast Jane Asher as Sarah Jane's childhood friend Andrea Yates, Floella Benjamin as Professor Rivers, who returned in Series 2, Series 3 and Series 5, and Phyllida Law as Bea Nelson-Stanley. The second series guest starred Bradley Walsh as an evil alien clown in the story The Day of the Clown and Russ Abbot as a sinister astrologer in Secrets of the Stars. Also appearing in the second series were Gary Beadle and Jocelyn Jee Esien, who portrayed Clyde's parents Paul and Carla in The Mark of the Berserker; Esien reprised her role briefly in Series 4 and more prominently in series 5. Samantha Bond returned as Wormwood in Enemy of the Bane.
The original executive producers for The Sarah Jane Adventures were Phil Collinson, Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner. Susie Liggat produced the pilot, but Matthew Bouch worked as producer of the series. Co-writer Gareth Roberts, writing in Doctor Who Magazine, said, "We're all determined that this will be a big, full-blooded drama; that nobody should ever think of it as 'just' a children's programme." Sue Nott was the executive producer of the second series for CBBC.
In December 2007, the BBC released a statement that Julie Gardner would be replaced by Piers Wenger as executive producer for Doctor Who in January 2009, but that she would continue to executive-produce Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures through 2008.
The fourth series in 2010 was executive produced by Russell T Davies and Nikki Wilson, and the producers were Brian Minchin and frequent writer Phil Ford. During this series, Cyril Nri was introduced as a new recurring character called The Shopkeeper. The production team remained in place for the completed episodes of Series 5, which were shot concurrently with Series 4. The show's abbreviated fifth and final series introduced a new main character named Sky, played by Sinead Michael. The episode that introduced Sky also featured a return appearance by the Shopkeeper, but the fact that the second half of the series was never produced left his story arc, as well as other ongoing plot points, unresolved. A special edition of Doctor Who Magazine, The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3, published in August 2012, detailed the plotlines of the three unfilmed stories.
''Doctor Who'' characters
As well as Sarah Jane, some characters from the past or current run of Doctor Who appear in The Sarah Jane Adventures. K9, voiced by John Leeson, guest stars in the New Year's special as well as the series 1 finale, appears regularly in the third series, and makes two further appearances in series 4. The Doctor appears twice in the series, with David Tennant featuring in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, and his successor Matt Smith in Death of the Doctor. The latter episode also guest stars Katy Manning as Jo Jones, reprising the role she played alongside the Third Doctor between 1971 and 1973. The episode Sky was originally to have featured Smith, but scheduling prevented his appearance. Nicholas Courtney appears as Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in Enemy of the Bane, his final appearance as the character prior to his death in 2011. Various newsreader characters who appear across Davies' tenure as Doctor Who showrunner also appear in The Sarah Jane Adventures, namely Lachele Carl and Trinity Wells, Jason Mohammad and Anthony Debaeck.Numerous others have been referenced in dialogue. Several former companions of the Doctor are referenced in the story Death of the Doctor, and the episode also includes brief on-screen flashbacks showing the Third, Fourth and Tenth Doctors. Companion Harry Sullivan is referenced separately in dialogue on several occasions and a photograph of the character is visible in one episode. In an issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Sophie Aldred was read an email from Russell T. Davies, in which he declared his plans to bring Ace into a story had the show continued, and she was alluded to at the end of The Death of the Doctor when the fates of Harry Sullivan, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Ben Jackson, Polly, Tegan Jovanka, and Ace are revealed.