Such A Remarkable Life

 Jason was up in Elgin, on business, on Tuesday night and we were in the Muckle Cross, about 8.20 ( for what he calls "my fortnightly dose of West of Scotland normality") when I got a text from David Steel saying he'd just heard that Elisabeth Sladen had died. I was very saddened by the news, particularly because the Sarah Jane Adventures had been such a success and she seemed so agelessly luminous.
Although my Who memories extended as far back as Victoria in the Evil of the Daleks repeat in 1968, I must confess it was Leela and the first Romana who had really made a big impression on me as "Who Girls" during my adolescence. I was ten years old when Sarah Jane Smith made her debut and thirteen when she was unceremoniously  left behind so I didn't appreciate her 'til much later.

I think that moment was when my friend Paul Caputa asked me one night- in 1997 ?- what my favourite Who story was. I'd been buying videos for a year or so by than but I'd bought up most of the Virgin New Adventures and the new Eighth Doctor/Past Doctor series. I had really fallen hard for the show all over again. Nonetheless, I'd never actually been asked that question and the answer surprised me: It was a tie between Robots of Death and Pyramids of Mars. And my very favourite scene is the "I walk in Eternity" sequence where she punctures Doctor Tom's sonorous pomposity by playing with a veil. It's sweet, spontaneous, funny and clever.

The most remarkable thing about the character of Sarah is that she had adventures with four different Doctors (six if we include numbers Two and Five in The Five Doctors). Other companions have also bridged regenerations- Ben and Polly, Peri, er, Mel or Rose Tyler... but none seriously can challenge her for the position of his Best Friend - not even the Brig, whom we also lost so recently.
Also, previous Who girls had tended to be weedy, teen screamers- apart from Liz Shaw but I never watched the show in 1970: Phoenix Five was on STV. Frosty space agent Sara Kingdom, meanwhile, isn't  even a companion,  to my mind, any more than Lieutenant Scott in Earthshock. An obvious Cathy Gale knockoff, we are meant to be surprised when Kingdom turns out to be female. In any case, a trained killer would have made an improbable foil for grandfatherly Billy Hartnell ( Big Finish, please note: some dynamics should remain fanfic- cf. Elizabeth Klein, the Nazi in the Tardis).
Sarah Jane was designed to be a Modern Liberated Woman of the 70s, with a career and an independent identity. She tended to dress a little butch and bang on about Women's Lib wherever she went.

Intelligent and resourceful, she doesn't quite click with Doctor Jon, however. The avuncular relationship he had with Jo Grant isn't replicated with Sarah. And she doesn't get much help from Wardrobe:

I'd argue however that Elisabeth Sladen is the best actress to play a companion since Jacqueline Hill in 1963. Even if the character isn't as hippy-dippy as Jo, she has a fondness for the Doctor that blossoms into a playful and warm relationship with the Fourth Doctor. He knows exactly how to push her buttons when she's stuck in the conduit on the Ark in Space but will risk ritual sacrifice to save her sight in Morbius ; another fantastic moment in Pyramids is their delightfully comic and perfectly-timed about-turn.
But then comes her abrupt and touching departure in the Hand of Fear, just weeks after a possessed Sarah makes such an impression. One of the most memorable exits for a companion:

Over  the next two decades however, Sarah Jane Smith didn't quite disappear; like the Brig, she popped up several times. Firstly, in  1981 Christmas special K9 and Company and then two years later, reunited with Doctor Jon in The Five Doctors. Then, on radio in the 90s: The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space, kitschy, slightly misfiring homages to Pertwee's Who. It was as if, in one of the most self-aware, self-mocking eras of Britsh pop culture, Dr. Who could only be seen as an endearing , slightly embarrassing relic of childhood.
The 2001  BBC novel Bullet Time, a very dry techno-thriller set in Hong Kong, actually appeared to kill off Sarah, although the ending was very ambiguous- or not very well written , YMVV. An interminable story arc in the Eight Doctor novel series may have undone that pointless shocker. In any case, Big Finish brought "S.J." back on audio in 2002  for two series of conspiracy-thriller adventures; I've only heard extracts of these but from what I gather, the character went through several frightening and challenging situations. Delightfully, Ms. Sladen's own daughter Sadie played her companion, Natalie.

The "Good for you, Sarah Jane Smith" moment in 2006's School Reunion was the first scene I thought of when I read of her death on my phone. Not only was Doctor David beautifully moved by his encounter with his old friend, I was also finally convinced that this bequiffed, chinless Britpop holdover with the Mockney accent was the same Doctor who wore celery in his lapel or walked in Eternity.
Of course, it overlooks -or probably just forgets -The Five Doctors and portrays a rather needy Sarah; it seems out of character for this staunch feminist to feel threatened by the nubile Rose, shop girl and dinner lady. But the final scene makes me tear up every time- and now, more than ever.  Marvellously, while it looked like a farewell to the Classic series, it actually led to a brand new life for Sarah.

The supremely irritating Kelsey aside, the garish and breathless premiere of The Sarah Jane Adventures took a rather remote and guarded woman and redefined her through her own set of companions; none more so than Luke, the boy genius who becomes her adoptive son. One of the most delightful things about SJA, aside from the monsters, have been its meditations on love and ageing, which have been profound and sensitive given its shrill, self-conscious beginnings. We saw Sarah's girlhood, met her deceased parents; and the character gained terrific dignity from the plots and from the playing. Just as the kids matured, so did the series, ranging from Luke's separation from Sarah in a callous Slitheen scheme to the small and personal tragedy of her doomed romance with the Trickster's pawn, Peter.

Sarah Jane and Luke also appeared as part of the Doctor's extended surrogate family in The Stolen Earth; again, the continuity with the classic series was sold to me by Sladen's performance, the way she evoked Sarah's fear of Davros and the Daleks. The Brig made his final appearance as a grandfatherly figure in SJA and of course, at the end of his life, Doctor David saved Luke from being run down.
While that (lengthy) sequence seemed elegiac, the Doctor encountered Sarah one more time, in the company of her predecessor, Jo Jones:

Not only was there a lovely reversal, given the ages of Katy Manning and Matt Smith, but he managed to effortlessly pull off the same trick as Tennant four years earlier, convincing me that he really was the reincarnation of Pertwee. In another beautiful scene, Russell T gives Sarah a wonderful speech where she lists the remarkable lives of several past companions, some portrayed by actors who had passed on. It's amazing that what originally looked like middle-aged people's rather forced attempt to recreate 70s kids telly turned out to be so popular and compelling .

I've read that the heavily-trailed new series of Who will be bookended by tributes to Elisabeth Sladen this Saturday. In the vein of Death of the Doctor, I would prefer that Sarah and the Brig are simply assumed to be continuing their defence of the Earth. Now that Tom Baker has joined Big Finish's roster of audio Doctors, adventures with Leela and Sarah were planned and now, sadly, the latter won't be recorded. But there are some episodes for the fifth series of SJA that are ready for transmission and hopefully, we will see them soon. Ms. Sladen's generations of fans would find that the most fitting memorial, I think, for the Ultimate Doctor Who Companion.
"There is strangeness to be found, wherever you turn. Life on Earth can be an adventure too... you just need to know where to look!"

 

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