New Who has sometimes struggled to hit the right notes with their Doctor- and/or companion-lite episodes. Some of them are absolute bangers, while others fall pretty flat. Hats off to The Sarah Jane Adventures, because the Sarah Jane-lite story in every season is really good. I’m sure it helps to have an ensemble cast instead of just a main duo or trio, so there are more characters to work with when the star has limited screentime. But all these stories are excellent, starting with this one back in series 1.
Overnight, the world changes. Sarah Jane Smith has disappeared from time, and Maria is the only one who remembers her. She’s unsettled by Andrea, the new neighbor living in Sarah Jane’s house that everyone seems to know. Luke is gone, and she and Clyde aren’t friends anymore. This is devastating enough on a personal level, but Maria also knows the world won’t survive long without Sarah Jane there to protect it. So it’s up to her to figure out what happened and find a way to bring Sarah Jane back.
“What would the world be like if this person wasn’t in it?” is a popular storytelling trope. You have your classics, like It’s a Wonderful Life, and new Who does its own take on this story in “Turn Left.” It’s good multiverse fodder, seeing what happens to the fabric of the universe when a single thread is pulled out of the tapestry. This is an interesting version of that story, because it’s not just the removal of Sarah Jane—it’s the addition of Andrea, which deepens the mystery.
Although I cited The Sarah Jane Adventures’ ensemble as an asset that helps the show navigate its Sarah Jane-lite stories, this one is especially Maria-centric. One of the most immediate effects of Sarah Jane’s removal is how it shrinks Maria’s circle of close friends. Sarah Jane wasn’t there to rescue Luke from the Bane, so he’s gone too, and there were no adventures to bring Maria and Clyde together. Clyde still appears in this story, but it’s as a distant acquaintance, a classmate and nothing more—Maria is largely on her own. Even her relationship with her parents is strained here, because her frantic insistence about a non-existent neighbor no one can remember has Alan worried about her mental health. Maria is really isolated, forced to dig deep to solve the mystery and figure out how to fix the world.
Both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures add some really excellent characters to the larger Whoniverse, but I think the Trickster might be my favorite baddie who’s introduced in the spin-off shows. He’s since been referenced on Torchwood and Doctor Who—there were moments during Fifteen’s first season when I wondered if we were somehow leading up to a Trickster Big Bad reveal, and I was definitely here for it! This is his first appearance in the franchise, and the story does a nice job introducing him and showing us what he’s about.
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