The Sarah-Jane Adventures

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Lis Sladen’s final regular appearance in “classic” Doctor Who was The Hand of Fear and the thing about hands is that they come in pairs. As that story only referred to one hand of fear, Gareth Roberts said in an interview in DWM 306 published in 2009 said that the other hand must still me out there and one day it will come knocking at Sarah Jane’s door.

Whether Roberts was being serious or in jest when he said about the other Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane Adventures has now come to an end and the other hand was not in any of the SJA stories including ones written by Roberts. It could be possible that Roberts may have written about the other hand in one of the three unproduced stories for the last season (as SJA came to an abrupt end with Lis Sladen’s passing) but whether this turns out to be true remains to be seen.

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SFX has created a new award the Elisabeth Sladen Award named after the late SJA star and at its 2012 awards the inaugural holder of this award is none other than SJA itself.

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In DWM 410, Russell T Davies wrote about David Tennant’s last work as the Doctor in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith and mentioned that it also featured Zienia Merton from Space: 1999.
Considering that he wrote this in DWM, he somewhat made an oversight of not mentioning that Zienia Merton was in Doctor Who in Marco Polo in 1964.
He also overlooked the fact that with her appearance in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith in 2009, it – being 45 years – is the longest gap for someone’s Whoniverse appearances.

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2.2 Snow Blind:
Snow Blind is the second episode of the second season of Big Finish’s Sarah Jane Smith audio series.
Released in February 2006 and written by David Bishop.
I listened to Snow Blind almost three years after listening to the previous episode Buried Secrets in 2009.
It has taken me this long to finally get Snow Blind so the fact that I listened to it before, during and after the first anniversary of Lis Sladen’s passing on April 19 2012 was merely a coincidence.
Snow Blind takes place in Antarctica (the setting of which is indicated by the story’s title) and of course Sarah has been in Antarctica before in Seeds of Doom, something that is alluded to by Sarah in Snow Blind. Seeds of Doom itself has been said to be a rip-off of The Thing and coincidentally I have been watching the 2011 version of The Thing whilst listening to Snow Blind. So The Thing has influenced my thinking of Snow Blind’s setting.
While the “snow” part of the title is a reminder of Sarah’s previous visit to Antarctica in Seeds of Doom, the “blind” part is undoubtedly a reminder of Sarah being in that state in Brain of Morbius.
Along with Jeremy James as Sarah’s own companion Josh Townsend, Snow Blind also featured Tom Chadbon as Will Sullivan, Harry’s stepbrother who was introduced in the previous episode Buried Secrets and Big Finish and Doctor Who TV series stalwart Nick Briggs.
Here Briggs plays Gideon Munro and he must have a liking to the name Gideon since he had played a Gideon Crane in the Eighth Doctor story Minuet In Hell.
Despite Sarah’s return to Antarctica, Snow Blind is not a sequel to Seeds of Doom. It is instead its own good little mystery of what went on with the base personnel.
The main plot of Snow Blind is complemented well with the news bulletin which reported on what went on in Antarctica and among other things a millionaire (played by Blake’s 7 alum Stephen Greif) going into space. The millionaire briefly appeared in Buried Secrets and again here in Snow Blind and I suspect his part in Sarah Jane Smith season 2 story arc would be expanded on later on.
The final scene featuring another Blake’s 7 alum Jacqueline Pearce provides the story’s biggest shock of all.

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The Mad Woman In the Attic Part 2:
When Sam said that Luke was like Frankenstein, Luke makes the distinction between Frankenstein the scientist and the monster.

It is good that SJA informed its audience most particular the children's audience about this distinction between creator and monster. In contrast, the Disney shows in particular did not bother to inform its children's audience of this distinction because whenever I see the monster depicted or mentioned in their shows it is always Frankenstein being the name of the monster.

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2.3 Fatal Consequences:
Fatal Consequences is the penultimate episode of the second season of Big Finish’s Sarah Jane Smith audio series.
After brief glimpses in the two previous episodes Sir Donald (Stephen Greif) has a much more substantial appearance here.
Quite some revelations here especially as it all to do with what Sarah said when she was with the Doctor (the clue being the name of the company being mentioned here) and a certain information about Josh.
Quite a thrilling instalment as things reaches its climax in the lead up to the series finale Dreamland.

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The Thirteenth Stone:
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01kpx3m/The_Sarah_Jane_Adventures/

The Thirteenth Stone is an audio story read by Lis Sladen.
Released in November 2007 meant this adventure featured Maria along with Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde, prior to her departure in the season 2 opening story The Last Sontaran the following year. It was so good to hear Maria’s presence in this story even if it didn’t have Yasmin Paige portraying her here.
The Thirteenth Stone feels similar in premise to Mona Lisa’s Revenge shown two years later and which I am coincidentally rewatching on DVD. Things that both these stories have in common is that it involved a school trip and historical items.
The Thirteenth Stone plays out well the mother-son relationship between Sarah and Luke and the battle Luke has in fighting against the villain here.
Very enjoyable and it was quite funny the name that came up to explain what had just happened.

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From the Doctor Who News Page:
DWM has revealed what would have been the last three stories of Sarah Jane Adventures season 5 if it weren’t for Lis Sladen’s untimely passing.
In Volume Three of DWM’s The Sarah Jane Companion the last three stories of season 5 would have been Meet Mr Smith, The Thirteenth Floor & the season would have ended with The Battle For Bannerman Road.
Also in this Volume of The Sarah Jane Companion is the article The Untold Tales in which Russell T Davies and Phil Ford discussed how the series would have progressed into a sixth season.

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2.4 Dreamland:
Dreamland is the final in Big Finish’s Sarah Jane Smith audio series starring Lis Sladen as the title character.
Written by David Bishop and was released in April 2006, five years to the months prior to Lis Sladen’s passing.
Dreamland sees the return of Lis Sladen’s real-life daughter Sadie Miller as Sarah’s friend Nat after being absent in the previous two episodes. Not a reflection on Sadie Miller but I never really liked Nat. In Dreamland I was not impressed with her when she asked Sarah whether she has heard from him Sarah thought “him” refer to Harry but Nat says no and meant Josh instead. Nat could at least asked whether Harry had called Sarah but didn’t and was so disappointed by that.
Dreamland begins with resolution to the cliffhanger to the previous episode Fatal Consequences and a certain revelation about why Josh worked for Sir Donald.
Upon hearing of Nat’s experience on the death of her mother felt very prophetic to Sadie’s own experience with her mother Lis Sladen’s own passing.
Dreamland refers to the nickname given to Area 51 and sets up well the cliffhanger at the end.
The cliffhanger wasn’t resolved as Dreamland was released in the same month as Lis Sladen’s TV return as Sarah in Doctor Who: School Reunion and then eventually to The Sarah Jane Adventures. I like to think that Sarah’s TV return took place sometime after Dreamland.

Dreamland was mentioned in the SJA 2009 season opener Prisoner of the Judoon but it wasn't a reference to the audio story but a foreshadowing of writer Phil Ford's own animated Doctor Who story Dreamland and it is the same Dreamland that is Area 51.

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According to Andrew Pixley in DWM's Sarah Jane Companion Volume Three, the unmade Sarah Jane Adventures story The Thirteenth Floor, unmade due to Lis Sladen's passing, has been adapted as a story for SJA's successor in production terms Wizards vs Aliens. Probably good chances that elements of the other two unmade SJA season 5 stories Meet Mr Smith & The Battle of Bannerman Road have also being adapted for Wizards vs Aliens.

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Sky:
Read in DWM's The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3, the Sarah Jane Adventures production team had hoped that Matt Smith would appear as the Eleventh Doctor for the final scene of the final season opener Sky in which it would have revealed that it was the Doctor who sent the infant Sky to Sarah for her to look after.

Matt Smith had previously appeared as the Eleventh Doctor in SJA for the previous season's Death of the Doctor but a reunion between the Eleventh Doctor and Sarah in Sky was not possible as the filming for Sky clashed with filming of the Doctor Who 2010 Christmas Special A Christmas Carol.

Due to the unavailability of Matt Smith, the Doctor's spot in Sky was then filled by the Shopkeeper whom Sarah had met before in the previous season's Lost In Time.

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The Curse of Clyde Langer:
Playing the homeless girl Ellie in The Curse of Clyde Langer was Lily Loveless. It is really hard not to think whether her surname had an influence in her casting as Ellie considering that homeless people are not thought about a lot by non-homeless people in general.

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The Curse of Clyde Langer:
In The Curse of Clyde Langer, Doctor Madigan mentioned the Curse of Tippecanoe otherwise known as Tecumseh’s Curse.
As explained by Andrew Pixley in DWM’s The Sarah Jane Companion Volume Three the curse suggests that US Presidents who have been elected or reelected in years divisible by twenty would die in office beginning with William Henry Harrison elected in 1840 but served only a month after his inauguration in 1841 when he died of pneumonia. I would leave to people to look up in detail why this curse came about.
Bizarrely enough seven of the eight US Presidents who had died in office (the exception being Zachary Taylor elected in 1848 and died in 1850) had been ones who had been elected or reelected in the years relating to the curse. In fact four of the seven presidential deaths came as a result of assassinations.
The curse however wasn’t completely successful because while attempts were made on the lives of Ronald Reagan (1980) and George W Bush (2000) both of them survived. Reagan died in 2004 more than a decade and a half after leaving office and Bush is still very much alive.

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The Man Who Never Was:
Read in DWM’s The Sarah Jane Companion Volume Three that The Man Who Never Was began its life as a script submitted by Russell T Davies for the second season of Bugs (1995-99):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_(TV_series)

However it was turned down by the Bugs production team.

The Man Who Never Was in its original form had been presented by Davies as a Bugs script but when it came to become the final SJA story due to Lis Sladen’s death Davies handed the responsibility of writing the script to Gareth Roberts.

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Goodbye Bannerman Road: Remembering Elisabeth Sladen:
vimeo.com/32978876

Goodbye Bannerman Road: Remembering Elisabeth Sladen is a documentary released on the Sarah Jane Adventures season 5 DVD release which had some of the cast and crew paying tribute to the late Lis Sladen whose passing brought about the hastened end of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

This was quite moving tribute to Lis Sladen.

Somewhat saddening to hear from Daniel Anthony (Clyde) that Lis Sladen never knew how good she was in her performances and with her passing bringing SJA to an abrupt end, this documentary is certainly very good as a coda to the series.