The Sarah Jane Adventures

Story

Investigative journalist, Sarah Jane Smith, knows all about the existence of aliens thanks to her time spent with The Doctor. Left back on Earth with her son, Luke and their neighbour, Maria, she holds down the fort protecting the Earth from danger while The Doctor is away.

Why we chose it

A Doctor Who spinoff for younger children which featured characters from the world of Dr Who – even the Doctor himself in a couple of episodes – but which was popular and successful in its own right for its strong storylines, aliens with attitude and the character of Sarah Jane, one of the Doctor’s most popular companions now back fighting alien threats from her London home.

Where it came from

The Sarah Jane Adventures are a spin off from hugely popular series, Doctor Who. Sarah Jane was The Doctor’s companion between 1973 and 1976 when The Doctor left her behind when he went to fight the war. In 2006 they ran into each other again, and the character was so popular that The Sarah Jane Adventures followed as a spin off series for younger children.

Where it went next

The series ran until 2011, when Elisabeth Sladen who played Sarah Jane, sadly died. Only half of series 5 had been filmed at the time and the series producers decided not to make any more episodes and left the series open ended. Russell T Davies has since revealed several plans for future episodes which were never completed. The Sarah Jane Adventures continued in audiobooks, ebooks, novels and comics

Associated stories

There have been a number of Doctor Who spin off’s over the years. The Sarah Jane Adventures was one of the most successful. Following the 2005 re-boot of Doctor Who Russell T Davies also created Torchwood which was much darker and designed for adults. It centred on Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman who had appeared in a number of episodes of Doctor Who. K-9 and Company released in 2009 in association with an Australian production company proved less successful despite the popularity of the robotic dog K-9 who subsequently featured in a storyline in the rebooted Dr Who and became a character in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Class in 2016, written by Patrick Ness, was a Young Adult addition to the Dr Who inspired programming.