I think
plenty of people are suckers for a good “it’s the family you choose” narrative,
and in this case, the chosen family is very literal. Sarah Jane Smith and her adopted
made-by-aliens son provide a lot of heart for The Sarah Jane Adventures, especially in its first season as both
muddle along together, figuring out how to be a family (a few Sarah Jane-Luke
spoilers.)
Sarah Jane’s
appearance on new Who in “School
Reunion,” prior to The Sarah Jane
Adventures starting up, shows us one important aspect of her post-companion
life that carries over into her own series:
she’s maintained her spirits of adventure, curiosity, and justice,
investigating and combatting minor alien threats on Earth after parting with
the Doctor. However, it shows us a more
unhappy aspect as well – since her time with the Doctor, she’s been largely
isolated, fighting the fight with only Mr. Smith and K9 for company. The first season of The Sarah Jane Adventures, in large part, is about her journey to
letting non-mechanized/computerized people into her life again, learning not to
resist the friendship offered by her new young acquaintances and allowing them
a window into her adventures. Naturally,
Luke is instrumental to this plot.
While
Sarah Jane has intentionally isolated herself because she doesn’t know how to
relate to people after her incredible experiences with the Doctor, Luke awakens
to the world fully formed and completely alone.
A human boy grown by the Bane in order to study humans for the purposes
of perfecting their invasion, Luke is a science experiment, never intended to
live in his own right. When a freak
situation in the lab brings him into consciousness, however, he comes into life
with no experiences but ready to absorb everything like a brainy sponge. Language, mathematics, and facts come easily
enough for him, but social interactions are an ongoing struggle. That said, if he doesn’t understand at first
how humans interact, it in no way lessens his desire to do so. When their initial adventure is over and the
Bane have been defeated, Sarah Jane is the warier of the two about the prospect
of her adopting him.
But as I
said, Luke and Sarah Jane’s early relationship is about learning together how
to be a family, and the two quickly begin puzzling out what works for
them. There are growing pains on both
sides – Sarah Jane not wanting Luke to call her “Mum,” Luke distressing over
the ways he’s different from other children, trial and error over the best means
of giving Luke a normal human life – but it’s also clear that the affection is
there pretty much from the start. Even
as both make mistakes and are unsure what to do, both of them want to make the effort to get there and
they find their way together, accepting that it’s okay for each to admit these
uncertainties to the other. In this way,
their relationship grows by leaps and bounds.
On this
sci-fi show featuring a kid who was grown by aliens, it’s actually a really
nice story about adoption. Because,
despite how Luke came into the world, and even though we only see a few seasons
of them becoming and being a family, they love each other absolutely, and
there’s no doubt that they’re family
through and through. These two are one
another’s biggest fans and would do anything for each other. While you can never really forget that Luke
isn’t exactly a standard-issue human, you could easily forget that Sarah Jane
has only been his mom for a few years.
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