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Post by matsee on Jan 3, 2013 5:26:08 GMT
Meet Mr Smith
Meet Mr Smith is an unproduced story by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman and was intended to be the antepenultimate story of what turned out to be final SJA season, a production that was precluded by Lis Sladen’s passing.
While Meet Mr Smith did not get made DWM presented what the story would have looked like when it published the first drafts of the scripts for the two-part story in The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3.
7/5.7 Part 1:
When a sphere latched onto Mr Smith he gets turned into a human being. Had this been made Mr Smith voice actor Alexander Armstrong would have appeared on-screen as the human Mr Smith.
The remarkable development of this script was that it had the human Mr Smith romancing Clyde’s mother Carla much of course to the displeasure of Clyde.
The human Mr Smith would have been made to look like John Steed of The Avengers and Armstrong does not look dissimilar to TV series Steed Patrick Macnee and movie Steed Ralph Fiennes.
The character Ozmo makes for a good adversary and not a bad cliffhanger of Sarah Jane being locked up in a vault with Ozmo spelling doom for planet Earth.
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Post by matsee on Jan 29, 2013 22:30:12 GMT
7/5.8 Meet Mr Smith Part 2:
A very good conclusion to the story.
It is probably guess at already but Smithy does eventually turned back into Mr Smith. This was done in the process of beating Ozmo and what a punishment that Ozmo got as a result of being defeated and his plans for Earth foiled.
Unfortunately Smithy turning back into Mr Smith was done at the potential happiness for Clyde’s mother Carla especially since the way things ended between her and Smithy wasn’t exactly ideal. Clyde however being a good did his best to soften the blow for his mother.
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Post by matsee on Feb 7, 2013 3:02:49 GMT
Read in DWM’s The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3 that the unmade SJA story The Thirteenth Floor by Phil Ford, which was intended to be the penultimate story of the 2011 season if it had not been for Lis Sladen’s passing, had as an inspiration The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
Based on when the three stories of the 2011 season was originally transmitted, if the two part story The Thirteen Floor had been made for SJA, it could have been transmitted on October 31 (Halloween)/November 1.
Ironically not long after this date came the 2011 Doctor Who Christmas Special The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe and it is obvious from its title that it had a same inspiration with The Thirteenth Floor.
The irony is further emphasised with the Doctor Who Christmas Special being written by Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat who never had any involvement with SJA.
Quite a coincidence that the writers of both stories set in the same universe had both a same inspiration for their respective stories and also remarkable that both stories could have celebrated a particular occasion.
Whilst The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe celebrated Christmas 2011, The Thirteenth Floor had it been made for SJA could have celebrated Halloween in the same year.
While The Thirteenth Floor had to be abandoned as a SJA story due to Lis Sladen’s death, it can however still be seen as a story of Wizards vs Aliens, SJA’s in-effect successor in production terms later this year.
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Post by matsee on Feb 13, 2013 23:41:39 GMT
7/5.9-10 The Thirteenth Floor:
The Thirteenth Floor is an unproduced story by Phil Ford and was intended to be the penultimate story of what turned out to be the final SJA season, a production that was precluded by Lis Sladen’s passing.
While The Thirteenth Floor did not get made DWM presented what the story would have looked like when it published the third drafts of the scripts for the two-part story in The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3, well as much as they were allowed to publish reason of which I will explain shortly.
The Thirteenth Floor takes place in a newspaper office when a journalist disappeared in the building on the said thirteenth floor even though the building does not have such a floor listed (a reflection of buildings in the real world not having a floor designated with that number due to superstitions with the number 13). This is complemented by a very eerie janitor nearby.
Somewhat plot conveniently the next day aspiring journalist Rani comes to this same newspaper office for work experience. She soon becomes intrigue about the missing journalist but that is where DWM has to leave the story due to it being adapted as a story for Wizards vs Aliens.
In the accompanying interview Russell T Davies quite rightly says that it wouldn’t be fair for DWM readers to know the complete story before having the chance to see it made for a different series in Wizards vs Aliens.
At the time of this interview Davies says that Ford had not started work on its adaptation for Wizards vs Aliens and therefore did not know how similar the Wizards vs Aliens version would be to the SJA one. He says that once the Wizards vs Aliens version is told perhaps another article would be done by DWM to look at the rest of the SJA version to see its similarities/differences with the Wizards vs Aliens one.
As Davies has noted by looking at the rest of the SJA version sometime in the future SJA will get a little more of its afterlife.
I estimate that by the time DWM gets a chance to present the rest of the SJA version it would be two and a half to three years since SJA came to its abrupt end and that is quite a lengthy afterlife for SJA.
As to what was presented of The Thirteenth Floor in the aforementioned DWM issue it was absolutely thrilling from the read of it and look forward to seeing the Wizards vs Aliens version and to DWM presenting what the rest of the SJA version was supposed to have look like.
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Post by matsee on Feb 26, 2013 5:42:16 GMT
7/5.11-12 The Battle of Bannerman Road:
The Battle of Bannerman Road was the unproduced story that intended to end what turned out to be the final season of The Sarah Jane Adventures.
DWM in its The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3 looked at the making of the final SJA season including the stories that was prevented to go into production by Lis Sladen’s death. The Battle of Bannerman Road was one of the three stories, the others being Meet Mr Smith & The Thirteenth Floor, that did not make it into production.
However as noted by Andrew Pixley who wrote the pieces in this special issue of DWM that unlike Meet Mr Smith & The Thirteenth Floor, The Battle of Bannerman Road never reach into scripted or storyline form.
All that existed from The Battle of Bannerman are ideas which never got to be cobbled to become one coherent story.
Russell T Davies when being interview here about The Battle of Bannerman Road could only talk about these ideas and whether they could have come to fruition.
Along with the ideas Davies also talked about the prospect of cast departures with this story as both Daniel Anthony (Clyde) and Anjli Mohindra (Rani) were ready to move on from SJA but Davies wanted to keep on to them as long as possible.
If Lis Sladen hadn’t die at the time that she did it would have been curious to see how Clyde and Rani would have exited the series.
Having featured her in his 2011 story Death of the Doctor, Davies was hoping to bring back Katy Manning as former companion Jo in The Battle of Bannerman Road in which her opening scene was a direct riff on an early scene of Damien: Omen II. Frankly I am not sure it was a good idea that for a children’s programme that a scene that makes allusion to a movie that kids are not supposed to see.
I mean I remember having seen bits of Damien: Omen II when I was a kid while I was with my family staying at the home of relatives in Canada and was terrify by what I saw of that movie. Wonder if that scene from The Battle of Bannerman Road have the same effect on children had it been made.
If it wasn’t for the timing of Lis Sladen it would have been revealed on-screen that Sky is the daughter of the Trickster and can imagine I would have been shocked to see this revelation on-screen.
With this story being the intended season finale, Davies had envisaged the climax being the explosion of 13 Bannerman Road. I can imagine that this explosion would have been more spectacular than Martha’s place in The Sound of Drums.
Based on what the ideas for The Battle of Bannerman Road were, it could have easily been the greatest season finale, if not the greatest story overall, SJA never had.
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Post by matsee on Mar 10, 2013 5:59:04 GMT
In DWM’s The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3, Russell T Davies said how he would have ended The Sarah Jane Adventures if Lis Sladen hadn’t passed away in April 2011.
He said that he told Lis Sladen that when she had enough she only had to give him a year’s warning.
As he revealed to Lis back then and recounted in this special issue of DWM he would have written the SJA finale and have Sarah Jane doing something magnificent and then she’d go up.
When asked by Lis Sladen what he meant by that with her first saying, “You mean, into the sky?”
Davies said yes to that followed by “She’d go up. Onwards. Onwards into the stars. Just…up!”
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Post by matsee on Apr 4, 2013 0:17:40 GMT
Read in DWM’s The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3 that an untitled story idea from Gareth Roberts for the 2010 season of The Sarah Jane Adventures which ultimately was not used involved the gang encountering the Russian equivalent of Torchwood (so not exactly the Russian branch of Torchwood). From what has written about this story idea there were two versions to it one of which had the Russian equivalent of Torchwood allying themselves to aliens and kidnap Sarah Jane in order to force Luke and K9 to come and work for them.
As revealed by Andrew Pixley in this magazine issue this version of the storyline was inspired by The Tomorrow People story Secret Weapon which had British intelligence wanting to exploit the telepathic and telekinetic powers of The Tomorrow People.
Gareth Roberts himself is a Tomorrow People fan and had co-written the first Big Finish audio story The New Gods.
Roberts’ first SJA story was when he co-wrote Invasion of the Bane which established the series familiar elements on Bannerman Road including the supercomputer Mr Smith. Mr Smith may have been modelled on TIM the supercomputer from The Tomorrow People.
As for Gareth Roberts coming up with the Russian equivalent of Torchwood I should point out that Roberts himself hasn’t written for the Torchwood series himself. Obviously opportunities for him to write for the Torchwood series hadn’t come this way and if Roberts is forever denied the chance to write for the Torchwood series then I guess the SJA story idea was the closest he ever got to write about Torchwood.
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Post by matsee on Apr 27, 2013 1:30:22 GMT
In Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale, a collection of email correspondences between then Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies and DWM writer Benjamin Cook and in emails during January 2008 they talked about what Davies decided what was going to happen to Donna in the 2008 season finale Journey’s End and in one email Davies told Cook that Catherine Tate had been begging to appear in The Sarah Jane Adventures as it was her daughter’s favourite show.
Davies was perplexed on how Donna being on Bannerman Road was going to be explained with what he did with her in Journey’s End.
In the end Davies was not able to solve this problem with the possibility of her in SJA effectively killed off when Davies wrote her in the formal David Tennant swansong The End of Time which brought her story to an end.
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Post by matsee on May 2, 2013 7:57:19 GMT
Read in DWM’s The Sarah Jane Companion Volume 3 about an unused story idea that Gareth Roberts came up for the 2010 season called Time Team.
Time Team was inspired by the Channel 4 archaeology series of the same name and Time Team would have been about an archaeological dig lifting Sarah Jane’s Nissan Figaro from where it had been buried…..thousands of years ago.
It isn’t mentioned in this special issue of DWM itself but the premise for Time Team is very similar to the Big Finish Doctor Who story The Fires of Vulcan featuring the Seventh Doctor and written by a different writer Steve Lyons.
The Fires of Vulcan began with an archaeological team at Pompeii finding the TARDIS buried there and the TARDIS has been there since the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Just like Sarah Jane was not in her Nissan Figaro when it was found in the Time Team story idea, neither the Doctor nor his companion in The Fires of Vulcan were in the TARDIS when it got found.
The Fires of Vulcan then chronicled the events leading to the TARDIS being buried in Pompeii. I imagine the Time Team story idea would have followed the same lines of chronicling the events leading to the Nissan Figaro being buried at the site of the archaeological dig all those thousands of years ago.
Of course the Doctor, in his tenth self, would later return to Pompeii, again on the aforementioned fateful day in the TV episode The Fires of Pompeii written by yet another different writer James Moran.
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Post by matsee on Jul 23, 2013 20:15:50 GMT
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. In a follow-up to this in the same special issue of DWM, the SJA story that introduced Sky with the hope that Matt Smith would turn up as the Eleventh Doctor was originally designed as a Christmas special called Miracle on Bannerman Road. Miracle on Bannerman Road uses Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as its premise. Matt Smith was not available to appear as the Eleventh Doctor because he was filming the Doctor Who 2010 Christmas special which was ironically A Christmas Carol also based on the Dickens story! As well as the hope of getting Matt Smith in Miracle On Bannerman Road it was also suggested that another Doctor actor Tom Baker be in it as well which would have reunited him with Lis Sladen as they had travelled together as the Doctor and Sarah Jane in 1970s Doctor Who. However if Miracle On Bannerman Road had been made and Tom was available to appear in it he may not have necessarily reprised his role as the Fourth Doctor as the character that it was suggested he played was that of a spectral guide for Sarah. I am guessing the guide was to take on the form of the Fourth Doctor as a face that is familiar to Sarah. |
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Post by matsee on Dec 1, 2013 4:28:07 GMT
OT Wizards vs Aliens 2.9 The Thirteenth Floor Part 1:
Written by Phil Ford, this was originally written for The Sarah Jane Adventures but was not produced for it due to the death of its lead actor Lis Sladen.
Tom and Benny goes to a building on a pretext of work experience there to investigate strange-goings on there.
It is in this building that people have disappeared in the said thirteenth floor including Varg and Benny’s boss especially when the latter said that she has been on that floor for thirty years. Somehow this does not surprise me as that is such a typical plot device.
Benny’s boss was such a suck-up to him when he mentioned whose his father is.
Even though she is a Nekross, it is somehow worrying that Lexi in her human disguise seems to be becoming human.
Good cliffhanger when that creature turn up at the end.
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Post by matsee on Dec 2, 2013 0:46:24 GMT
OT Wizards vs Aliens 2.10 The Thirteenth Floor Part 2:
Conclusion of the story that was originally but unproduced for The Sarah Jane Adventures.
I remember reading in an article from DWM that an inspiration of this story when writer Phil Ford originally wrote it for The Sarah Jane Adventures was that of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in which time runs differently in one world to another.
This is exactly what happens in the Wizards vs Aliens version as Tom and Lexi having found themselves virtually the only people in The Thirteenth Floor ended up becoming a couple and having a son.
Eventually they return to their own world but it is something that is filled both with joy and sadness.
For Tom and Lexi they had share a life for a long time and sadly they now have to accept that this is all over now.
How much similar or different the Wizards vs Aliens version of the story was to unproduced SJA version are questions that might be answered at another time but I am glad that an unproduced SJA story finally got made albeit for an unrelated series.
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Post by matsee on Mar 12, 2014 6:25:34 GMT
Nicholas Courtney made his final televised appearance as the Brigadier in The Sarah Jane Adventures story Enemy of the Bane but it is revealed in Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale –The Final Chapter that the Brigadier wasn’t originally written in for that story.
Russell T Davies had wanted Freema Agyeman as Martha to appear in that story and she indeed had been scheduled to be in it. However she had to pull out when she signed onto Law & Order: UK which also saw her unavailability for Torchwood: Children of Earth.
With Martha unable to be used in Enemy of the Bane due to Freema Agyeman’s unavailability, Davies then came upon the idea to use the Brigadier instead.
If Freema Agyeman had been able to appear in Enemy of the Bane she would have been the only “new” series companion to have appeared in SJA and someone has pointed out to me that she would have been the only one to have done the hat trick of playing the same character for Doctor Who, Torchwood and SJA.
In fact SJA seemed to be more of an avenue for the return of “classic” series companions than the use of “new” series companions because subsequent to the Brigadier in Enemy of the Bane, Katy Manning made her televised return as Jo in Death of the Doctor and if weren’t for the passing of Lis Sladen, Sophie Aldred would also have made her televised return as Ace in SJA.
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Post by matsee on Apr 7, 2014 6:52:41 GMT
Luke and Clyde from the Sarah Jane Adventures on Chute!: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQvVU9dXD9QTommy Knight and Daniel Anthony as their Sarah Jane Adventures character Chute! shown just days after the end of the 2007 season of SJA. Interesting little piece from the realm of SJA as the two characters meets a strange but not dangerous character. |
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Post by matsee on Apr 15, 2014 20:28:50 GMT
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