The Sarah Jane Adventures was a children's science fiction series that was created for the BBC's children's channel, CBBC, by Russell T. Davies. It ran from January 1, 2007 to October 18, 2011 for five seasons.
Series summary[]
Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), a former investigative reporter, investigates the strange with the help of her supercomputer, Mr Smith (Alexander Armstrong) and, on occasion, her robot dog, K-9 (John Leeson). After adopting Luke Smith (Tommy Knight), a cloned boy with a genius IQ, she also finds herself joined by his friends, Maria Jackson (Yasmin Paige), Clyde Langer (Daniel Anthony) and, later, Rani Chandra (Anjli Mohindra).
Together, Sarah Jane and her team tackle all manner of alien invasions, strange plots and threats to Earth.
Parent[]
The Sarah Jane Adventures spun off of Doctor Who; Sarah Jane was originally a companion of The Doctor in the 1970s-produced episodes, and was reintroduced (along with K-9) in the 2006 episode "School Reunion". An earlier attempt to give Sarah Jane and K-9 their own show was the poorly received K-9 and Company, which never made it past the pilot stage. Although it is not officially a continuation of K-9 and Company, The Sarah Jane adventures is very much its sister show.
Spin-off[]
Sarah Jane's Alien Files was a one-season series shown on CBBC in which a character from the series quizzes Mr Smith about the various aliens seen in the show. Just six 25-minute episodes were produced.
Westphall connections in The Sarah Jane Adventures[]
- In the pilot episode, "Invasion of the Bane", Sarah Jane is shown talking to a glowing purple alien; the same species turned up in the Torchwood episode "Greeks Bearing Gifts".
- There are many, many references to, and characters from, Doctor Who, the show's parent series. Most notably: The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) made appearances in "The Wedding of Sarah Jane" and "Death of The Doctor", respectively; the character of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), last seen in the 1993 Doctor Who charity story "Dimensions in Time", appeared in "Enemy of the Bane"; Jo Grant, a companion of The Doctor's from the early 1970s, also appeared in "Death of The Doctor".
Westphall connections to The Sarah Jane Adventures[]
- Sarah Jane returned to Doctor Who after the start of The Sarah Jane Adventures in the episodes "The Stolen Earth", "Journey's End" and "The End of Time". Clyde also appeared in "The End of Time".
- In Torchwood: Miracle Day, Jack Harkness kills a parasite sent to drive the president of the US insane. He reveals it to be part of 'The Trickster's Brigade' - The Trickster being a recurring villain in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
- Another member of The Trickster's Brigade turned up in "Turn Left", an episode of Doctor Who.
- Luke Smith and Clyde Langer appeared in Chute! "Dan Anthony and Tom Knight (as Clyde Langer and Luke Smith)".