Oh, Sarah
Jane. I met her completely backwards –
first with her appearances on new Who,
then the fourth-season story on The Sarah
Jane Adventures that Eleven appeared in, then The Sarah Jane Adventures, and then
classic Who – but that doesn’t mean I
love her any less. One of my favorite
classic-series companions, and I love, love, love seeing what she made of
herself on The Sarah Jane Adventures.
From the
first, Sarah Jane is take-no-prisoners, an enterprising young woman who goes
after what she wants and takes care of herself.
That doesn’t mean she excels at everything she does – far from it. But I like that about her. I like that she cons her way onto a UNIT site
by passing herself off as her highly-credentialed aunt, despite the fact that
it’s a transparent lie that’s easily discovered. I like that, when she finds herself
accidentally transported on her first TARDIS trip (and the Doctor heads out
before realizing she’d been on board,) she makes logical if incorrect guesses
about where she is.
Sarah
Jane is a companion who succeeds and screws up in probably equal measure – not
as awesome as, say, Leela or Romana, but a more relatable companion. She brings her nerve, natural curiosity, and
stubborn determination to the TARDIS, jumping into adventures but not being
immune to some good-natured complaining when she feels it calls for it. While she gets along well enough with Three,
it’s Four who really becomes her Doctor.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about their rapport (what it is
about most Doctors and their most well-suited companions, really,) but you know
it when you see it. When things are
exciting and wonderful, Sarah Jane will soak in all the universe has to offer,
and when they’re crazy and terrifying, she’ll gripe her way through it, but she
won’t quit because the Doctor’s at her side and she wouldn’t have it any other
way.
Which is
in part what makes her such an excellent companion when it comes to looking at
her post-Doctor life. She misses the
traveling, dearly, and she misses him, and she spends too much of her life
chasing that old feeling without ever quite finding it. It’s after a chance encounter with Ten,
decades later, that she starts figuring out why it wasn’t working on her own. Over the years, she managed to become quite
the unofficial Earth-defender – she’s definitely more knowledgable, capable,
and awesome on The Sarah Jane Adventures,
which makes sense after decades of honing those skills – but the universe, both
its incredible parts and its dangerous parts, are meant to be shared. Sarah Jane, to me, was always most about her
friendship with the Doctor, and so it’s only fitting that her own series is
about her taking the lead in introducing her new young friends to the universe
as he once did for her.
And
really, Sarah Jane just rocks. She’s
still nervy, curious, and determined, and to that, she adds a huge helping of
mad skills and – need I mention? – sonic lipstick. The
Sarah Jane Adventures was a kid-aimed genre show starring a smart, tough
60-year-old heroine. Yes, the young’uns
are awesome as well and do their own share of world-saving, but she’s not the
wise mentor on the side that they come to consult. She’s leading the charge, in the thick of it,
going toe-to-toe when anyone who threatens Earth. Think for a moment about the fact that that
was a show that actually existed. Thank
you, Sarah Jane.
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