At some
point, I’ll probably have to do another Big Damn Hero Moments post for Sarah
Jane, since she had such a long and beloved tenure in the Whoniverse (RIP,
Elisabeth Sladen.) So someday, you’ll
quite likely see a Sarah Jane Adventures
edition of this post, but today, we’re looking strictly at her time as a
companion (spoilers.)
Drugging the Food (Series 11, Episode 4 – “The
Time Warrior: Episode 4”)
First,
Sarah Jane does a nice job talking her way into the kitchen, adjusting her
cover story a couple times to keep from being thrown out, and once she’s there,
she manages to mix a knockout powder into Irongron’s food as well as that of
his guards. Her “clever” distraction
method – shouting, “Look at that great spider!” – kills me every time, but she
gets the job done, putting Irongron and his men handily out of commission.
Demonstrating the Fake Space Ship (Series 11,
Episode 9 – “Invasion of the Dinosaurs:
Episode 5”)
Sarah
Jane is so smart here. The people
suckered by the Golden Age folks are convinced they’re on a spaceship heading
for a new planet on which to start over, and when Sarah Jane is knocked out and
wakes up there, she’s sold the same story.
But she keeps working to convince Mark that what he’s been told is a
lie. When he counters every argument she
makes – they’re able to travel to another solar system because one of their
members invented super-fast space travel, she still has the bruise she got
“three months ago” because she’s been in suspended animation – she ups the ante
and steps out of the airlock to prove
to him that it’s not real. Did I say
smart? I meant smart and ballsy; even if
she’s 99% the spaceship is a fake, it’s no small thing to risk death in the
vacuum to prove that.
Bringing the Cable to the Transport Ship
(Series 12, Episode 8 – “The Ark in Space:
Episode 4”)
The
humans need to get a power cable across a wide area of the ark in order to
power a transport ship, and the only way to do that while avoiding the Wirrn is
to crawl through a narrow air duct. As
the smallest, Sarah Jane takes on the job, squeezing her way through the dark,
claustrophobic vent with Wirrn just on the other side of her. Even if she needs a push to make it through
the last leg, the Doctor knows the way to help her get over her fear is to
instead make her angry, goading her into action just to prove him wrong.
Planning to Escape the Thals (Series 12,
Episode 12 – “Genesis of the Daleks:
Episode 2”)
In an
incredibly tight spot, Sarah Jane plays smart.
After the Thals capture her and a bunch of Mutos, they force their
prisoners to load radioactive fuel rods into their missile, with the plan of
literally working them until they drop.
But Sarah Jane isn’t down for that!
Once the grueling, deadly work starts, she recognizes they have to act
fast or they won’t have enough strength to mount a resistance. And as the Mutos poke holes and argue that
there’s no way out, she realizes the one escape route that no one’s
looking: straight up the scaffolding,
past the nose cone of the rocket and over the top. This is a plan that requires some major guts,
and in proposing it, Sarah Jane doesn’t even blink.
Shooting the Gelignite (Series 13, Episode 11 –
“Pyramids of Mars: Episode 3”)
The
Doctor and Sarah Jane have realized that their best way of stopping Sutekh’s
plan to set off a missile is to blow it up themselves before it launches, but
while they find some gelignite, they have no fuses or detonators. So, the Doctor disguises himself as one of
Sutekh’s robot mummies to place the gelignite near the missile, and Sarah Jane
attempts to detonate it from afar with a rifle.
It has to be said that this doesn’t work, but it also has to be said that this isn’t remotely Sarah Jane’s fault –
although she hits the gelignite dead on, Sutekh holds in the explosion by sheer
power of will. That doesn’t stop this
from being a classic moment, though. I
love how coolly and confidently Sarah Jane handles the rifle and how
immediately she points out that she knows
she hit it when the gelignite fails to go off.
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