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Episode Guide
- 1. Revenge of the Slitheen Sep 24, 2007
- Can Sarah Jane help when smelly aliens invaders threaten to destroy the earth?
- 2. Revenge of the Slitheen Sep 24, 2007
- The children race back to Sarah Jane's house to plan their attack against the Slitheen.
- 3. Eye of the Gorgon Oct 1, 2007
- Sarah Jane investigates after hearing that a nun's ghost has been spotted at an old folks' home.
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Created by Russell T. Davies. With Elisabeth Sladen, Daniel Anthony, Alexander Armstrong, Tommy Knight. Investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith, with the help of her adopted son, his friends, and an intelligent supercomputer, combats evil alien forces here on Earth.
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A British science fiction TV show based on Doctor Who's companion Sarah Jane Smith, created by Russell T Davies and starring Elisabeth Sladen. The series ran from 2007 to 2011 and featured K9, a robot dog, as a recurring character.
Eluding Kudlak, Sarah Jane discovers from her computer Mr. Smith that Kudlak is from the Uvodni race, sent to Earth to recruit warriors in his peoples' fight against the rival Malakh.
- Premise
- Development highlights
- Production team
- Cast
- Cast changes
- Series
- International broadcasts
The show followed Sarah Jane Smith sometime after she met the Tenth Doctor in School Reunion. Like UNIT and Torchwood, Sarah Jane had decided to deal with aliens in her own way. She was assisted by teenagers from her neighbourhood who unknowingly involve themselves in her life, such as Maria Jackson, Clyde Langer, and Rani Chandra. Also, through he...
The development of SJA never attracted the same level of minute coverage of its parent programme. Whereas the production of individual Doctor Who stories was often known in great detail, behind-the-scenes information about SJA was considerably harder to come by.
The project appeared to have started in 2006, slightly prior to the broadcast of School Reunion. At that time, the CBBC 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. Reports of a spin-off series first emerged around the time of School Reunion original airing, with the series having the working title of Sarah Jane Investigates. Indeed, Sladen herself was still calling the programme Sarah Jane Investigates as late as an October 2006 BBC interview.
That said, some production milestones were known:
•SJA was invited to submit a sketch for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day appeal in 2009. This made SJA the first Doctor Who spin-off to spawn a mini-episode. From Raxacoricofallapatorius with Love had a viewership of over 9 million, making its audience about 9 times greater than the best audience in SJA history, and about 15 times greater than the average SJA audience.
•In a speech to BAFTA members in March 2009, Davies revealed that production of Series 3 had nearly been cancelled on three occasions due to budget cuts to children's programming at the BBC.
•The SJA broadcast schedule dramatically altered in series 3. Previously aired at the rate of one episode a week, the show switched to a one serial a week rate. This chopped the series broadcast duration in half.
Producers
The original executive producers for The Sarah Jane Adventures were Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner. Susie Liggat produced Invasion of the Bane, but Matthew Bouch took over for Liggat for series 1 "proper". Phil Collinson held the title of "Series Producer" during the first year. Gareth Roberts — a sort of "uncredited producer" — said of the initial series, Bouch remained a producer through series 2. For the following year, Nikki Wilson replaced him, and Piers Wenger, Julie Gardner's replacement as Head of Drama at BBC Wales, joined Gardner and Davies as executive producers. By the fourth series, however, both Gardner and Wenger were no longer credited on the show. RTD was the only exec who remained of the initial main production team. Brian Minchin had become the producer and Nikki Wilson was now RTD's producing partner. She was also the only executive producer actually resident in Wales since RTD was living in Los Angeles during the production of the last two series of SJA, executive producing Torchwood: Miracle Day. Other important production figures included Phil Ford, who was credited as "co-producer" after series 1, and Debbi Slater, who served in a variety of key production positions over the five series, including those of associate producer and production manager.
Other departments
The writing staff was fairly stable throughout the programme's run. The job of the head writer was effectively shared between Phil Ford, Gareth Roberts and Russell T Davies for most of the five years — though none of these men actually got a credit as "head writer". Davies did intend to write more stories for the show but on different occasions was forced to pull out being busy with writing Torchwood and Doctor Who, this meant he only ever was credited for writing two stories. Joseph Lidster, Clayton Hickman and Rupert Laight were also frequent contributors. Production design was handled in the first year by Ed Thomas, alongside Tim Dickel for the series proper, though these duties were eventually given to others in the Doctor Who art department — chiefly Arwel Wyn Jones, who formally succeeded Thomas, and eventually to Keith Dunne. Likewise, the initial casting director was Andy Pryor, but he, too, allowed primary casting responsibilities to eventually fall to his Doctor Who junior, Andy Brierley. Though the theme music was by Murray Gold, most of the incidental music was actually by Sam and Dan Watts, composers not previously connected with the DWU. Similarly, the cinematography was initially handled by Doctor Who regular, Rory Taylor, but the most prolific director of photography eventually came to be Mark Waters.
Main
Ordered in terms of most number of appearances, the main cast consisted of •Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen •Clyde Langer - Daniel Anthony •Mr Smith - Alexander Armstrong •Luke Smith - Tommy Knight (series 1-3; recurring 4-5) •Maria Jackson - Yasmin Paige (series 1; recurring 2) •Rani Chandra - Anjli Mohindra (series 2-5) •K9 Mark IV - John Leeson (series 3; recurring 1 and 4) •Sky Smith - Sinead Michael (series 5)
Recurring
•Haresh Chandra - Ace Bhatti (series 2-5) •Gita Chandra - Mina Anwar (series 2-5) •Alan Jackson - Joseph Millson (series 1-2) •Chrissie Jackson - Juliet Cowan (series 1-2)
The kids
During the life of SJA, three kids were edged out of the production, but no official statements were issued by the British Broadcasting Corporation about any of these cast changes. Kelsey Hooper was apparently the original "third kid" in Invasion of the Bane, but she was quietly replaced in series 1 "proper" by Clyde Langer. No reason was ever given by the BBC for this cast change. However, it is possible to believe that Kelsey was never actually intended as a permanent cast member since Invasion actually wrote her out as unable to handle the "Sarah Jane Smith lifestyle" in its final scenes. Maria Jackson was the next kid to leave. Though she appeared on much of the series 2 publicity material, and appeared or was heard in three of that year's stories (being referred to in two others), she ceased to be a regular after the first story of the second season. Though rumours have swirled for years about why this character — and, by necessity, her parents — were written out, the BBC has never offered up an explanation for the actor's departure. However, actress Yasmin Paige left the role during her GCSE year and decided she would concentrate on her studies, though it is not clear if she chose to dedicate herself to her scholarly life on a permanent basis and not return to the series. Finally, Luke Smith was absent for some episodes of series 3 (due to Tommy Knight taking his GSCE exams at the time) and most of the rest of the programme's run - he only appears in the series 4 opener and finale - though he was still touted as a main cast member in official BBC press packs through the end of the series. Actor Tommy Knight was also clearly part of what was essentially the last thing the BBC filmed about the series, the April 2011 Liz Sladen tribute, My Sarah Jane. This indicated, though perhaps didn't absolutely confirm, that Luke's reduced role was amenable to both the BBC and Knight himself.
K9
Another casting issue was never well understood. K9's appearances were sporadic throughout the five year run of SJA. Since K9 was owned by writer Bob Baker, its appearances had to be specifically negotiated with the writer. Just as School Reunion had raised Sarah Jane's profile, it had also ignited interest in having a K9 spin-off. Baker may have withheld rights for K9's use in SJA so as not to compromise then-ongoing negotiations for a K9 series. Why the dog was so heavily used in series 3, but otherwise little more than a featured cameo in the other series, was never the subject of an official, public announcement.
debuted on BBC One with a 60-minute special on 1 January 2007. A full series of ten 30-minute episodes followed later in the year. The second series had twelve 30-minute episodes and aired in the autumn of 2008, followed by a third in late 2009. A mini-episode for charity also aired in early 2009. Meanwhile, series four went into production in March 2010. At the same time, what was expected to be the first half of the fifth series was produced as part of the Series 4 recording block, with the second half of the series initially planned for production in early 2011.
However, because Elisabeth Sladen died on 19 April 2011, series 5 was truncated to just those three serials that had been completed in 2010. The series, therefore, ended because Sladen died, and no parties to the production of the series wished to continue without her. A decision was made to leave the story open-ended, with a caption rounding off the final episode's montage, saying "And the story goes on... forever."
Series 1 aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US and BBC Kids in Canada in 2007. In January 2010, Series 2 began airing on BBC Kids. No US broadcast of anything past series 1 ever occurred, and Canada never saw any episode past the second series. Invasion of the Bane was broadcast in Australia on ABC1. Nevertheless, in both Australia and New Zealand,...
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Watch the special and five series of the spin-off show featuring Sarah Jane Smith, a former companion of Doctor Who. She and her friends face alien threats and mysteries on Earth.
82.8K subscribers • 116 videos. From the universe of Doctor Who, welcome to the official Sarah Jane Adventures channel! Sarah Jane Smith, who once travelled across time and space as the...
Sun, Nov 16, 2008. A little boy from the early 1950s wanders through a time gap into the present and Sarah Jane returns him, finding herself and Luke in Foxgrove the village where she was born. It is the day that her parents, who left her by the roadside as a baby,will be killed in a car crash.
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