*A few Doctor-Sarah Jane spoilers.*
The most beloved companions tend to earn that status for two reasons. 1) Their own cool personality and awesome capabilities, and 2) their special dynamic with the Doctor. Sarah Jane is terrific in her own right, but when you add the Doctor into the mix, everything levels up even further.
We’ll talk Sarah Jane and Three briefly, since, for lot of fans (myself included,) the Four-Sarah Jane relationship is the true beauty. After cool, calm scientist Liz and warm, hippy-dippy Jo, Sarah Jane was again an entirely different companion for the Third Doctor. An aspiring journalist with abundant hustle, she first cons her way into UNIT for a story, then slips inside the TARDIS just before it takes off, unbeknownst to the Doctor. She’s smart and ambitious, with a lot of fire, and she and the Doctor can be at odds over his at-times patronizing attitude toward her and her tendency to plow in headfirst without help.
In short, they’re a little combative, but they do care about and respect each other, Three playing the slightly stern uncle to the upstart young reporter. The bickering doesn’t stop when Four comes along—Sarah Jane has a certain threshold for nonsense that Four can exceed in his sleep—but their relationship changes, mellows a bit and gains nearer-to-equal footing.
While the Doctor likely considers most of their companions their best friend at different points in their lives, Sarah Jane is one of the few who’s expressly introduced as such (to their captors while they’re both tied up, naturally.) There’s something special about that, and watching their dynamic, it’s easy to see why. For all that they tease each other and argue over the best strategy to get out of dangerous situations, there’s a huge amount of warmth and affection between them.
Sarah Jane admires the Doctor, but she never really idolizes him, and that allows her to approach him as a person rather than a mythic figure or a hero. The Doctor in turn admires Sarah Jane, alternately being impressed and amused by her, and their partnership is one of a madcap adventure across the universe, “being daft and fixing things,” as Amy Pond would say.
When they part, it’s as humorous as it is wistful. After a harrowing adventure, Sarah Jane loudly complains that she’s had it and makes a show of gathering up her ramshackle belongings, not realizing that, all the while, the Doctor is looking at a message from Gallifrey: he’s being called back to his home planet and humans aren’t allowed. So what begins as a threat to leave in a fit of frustration becomes a forced departure. As they say goodbye, it’s sad and loving, both of them entreating the other not to forget them.
For a long time, that’s all she wrote, until the fateful day in series 2 of new Who when the Tenth Doctor collides back into Sarah Jane’s life. After an initial painful meeting, with Sarah Jane feeling hurt that the Doctor never came back for her, they fall back into their old patterns, and Sarah Jane goes on to have a fun dynamic with Ten, and later Eleven, on the select occasions when their paths cross. Truly, a Doctor-companion relationship for the ages.
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