Sarah Jane

Sarah Jane Smith has traveled with the Doctor during various incarnations. She continues to be an important part of his travels, but after years of waiting for him to return, she has finally found her place in Ealing. With her adopted son, Luke, Rani Chandra, Clyde Langer, and K-9, she has built a new type of family to face the threats here on Earth.

Biography
Orphaned when she was three months old, Sarah Jane Smith was raised by her aunt, Lavinia Smith, a renowned virologist. Sarah Jane was a strong-willed and enthusiastic supporter of women’s rights, and became a journalist, joining Metropolitan magazine by the age of 23. Investigating the disappearances of top scientists, she infiltrated a secret re search center. There she encountered the Doctor, who she suspected of kidnapping the scientists.

Hiding aboard the TARDIS, Sarah Jane was taken to medieval England, where a stranded Sontaran had been stealing the scientists from the future as he attempted to repair his his spaceship. Eventually persuaded that the Doctor was one of the good guys, Sarah Jane joined him on his travels, and was with him when he regenerated.

As the Doctor recovered from his regeneration, Sarah Jane returned to her work as a freelance journalist, although she still made time to visit UNIT HQ to check on her friend’s progress, taking the opportunity to ask the Brigadier to issue her with a UNIT pass to the National Institute for Advanced Scientific Research, known as Thinktank. So it was Sarah Jane who stumbled on Thinktank’s scheme to arm robot K1 with a disintegrator gun and use it to steal operating codes for the world’s atomic missiles. Although UNIT arrested the Thinktank director and the Doctor aborted the launch of the missiles, the robot decided to continue with the destruction of humanity. It had, however, responded to Sarah Jane’s concern for its wellbeing, selecting her as the sole human survivor. Sarah Jane was upset when the Doctor was forced to destroy the robot, but took him up on his offer of another trip in the TARDIS, unexpectedly accompanied by UNIT’s new medical officer.

The Third Doctor had had a fatherly, protective relationship with Sarah Jane – one which she frequently reacted against, often ignoring his instructions and investigating on her own. But she and the new, younger-seeming Fourth Doctor had a more equal friendship, delighting in exploring time and space together. The Doctor was now less worried when Sarah Jane took initiative, though he never lost his concern for her safety. And Sarah Jane’s own devotion to her friend continued and increased. Her greatest fear, perhaps, was that he would go one step too far once too often, and she was distraught when she thought he had died – which happened with alarming regularity, as the Doctor narrowly escaped death at the ahnds of Ice Warriors, Sutekh, or the Sisterhood of Karn. After a while, this even became a joke between them – ‘You thought I was dead, didn’t you?’ The Doctor once commented. ‘You’re always making that mistake.’

This sort of banter was typical of their relationship. Aboard Space Station Nova, Sarah Jane volunteered to crawl through narrow service ducts with a vital power cable, but she was on the point of giving up when the Doctor conned her into continuing by telling her that he had been wrong to think he could depend on a foolish girl. Only when she had managed to force herself through did she realized he had tricked her.

Sarah Jane shared the Doctor’s instinctive desire to resist oppression and aggression. In her first adventure she had rallied the despondent Sir Edward and persuaded him to resist the local baron Irongron, before leading a party to recapture the Doctor from Linx the Sontaran. On Skaro, she led a party of prisoners in an attempted breakout, and later tried to persuade the Doctor to complete his mission to destroy the Daleks before they fully developed.

The Doctor once described Sarah Jane as his best friend and, if anyone had asked her, she would probably have said she would travel in the TARDIS forever. But when the Doctor received a summons to Galliffrey, where non-Time Lords were forbidden, it marked the end of Sarah Jane’s travels. The Doctor attempted to drop her off at her Croydon home –unfortunately, he missed by several hundred miles and left her in Aberdeen. Sarah Jane had to adjust to life back on Earth, incorrectly assuming that she would never see her best friend again.

Staying at her aunt Lavinia Smith’s house for Christmas. Sarah Jane Smith discovered that the Doctor had not forgotten her. Waiting for her was an unexpected gift – K-9 Mark III. Together, Sarah Jane and K-9 unmasked a black magic coven. K-9 stayed with Sarah Jane for many years, but time took its toll and the robot began to rust and malfunction. There was no way for Sarah Jane to repair him and, by 2007, he had broken down completely…

After the Doctor left her in Aberdeen, abruptly ending their travels, Sarah Jane Smith struggled to adjust to life back on Earth. She felt abandoned by the man who, she realized, had been her life, though she never lost her bravery, sense of justice, or nose for a news story. Reports of strange lights in the sky and abnormal school results brought her to Deffry Vale High School, where she met the Doctor for the first time in a quarter of a century. The fight against the Krillitanes and the chance to talk things through with the Doctor helped make Sarah Jane more willing to make the most of her life away from the TARDIS and, by the time the Doctor next saw her, she had an adopted son, and alongside his school friends, K-9 and a supercomputer, was once again helping defend Earth from hostile aliens. When the Earth was transported to the Medusa Cascade and the Daleks attacked, Sarah Jane surrendered so she could get to the Dalek command ship. She was armed with a Warp Star and was prepared to use it to destroy the Daleks if all else failed.

Family

 * Luke Smith - Son