Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?

"If it wasn't for Sarah Jane we'd all be dead."

Writer: Gareth Roberts 

Format: TV

Broadcast: 29th October - 5th November 2007

Series: 1.05

Featuring: Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria, Clyde 

Synopsis 

One day, Sarah Jane Smith exists. The next, only Maria Jackson knows of her. Andrea Yates takes her place, but Maria knows that Andrea has done something to remove Sarah from the space/time continuum. It is up to Maria to uncover the identity of the "Trickster" if the human race is to survive. But with Sarah and Luke wiped from existence and Clyde having lost all knowledge of his former adventures, Maria must save the world single-handedly. But she finds it may be time to tell her father about her secret life with Sarah if the whole world is to survive.

Verdict 

Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? was an excellent story and the best adventure of the spinoff series so far! After an extremely consistent opening four stories, this adventure finally saw the Sarah Jane Adventures reach what I would consider to be the upper level of my ratings. It is definitely the best story from the show so far and even though I'm only five adventures in, it's always great to be able to say that what you've just watched is the best. But it really was. The Trickster was a superb enemy and his appearance is just so perfectly evil for a monster in a Doctor Who universe story. The face was devoid of features because it didn't have any! Just a mouth that was full of sharp teeth was what accompanied a blank face. The Trickster was quite opposing and standout with his height and stature and being dressed in all black made his evil intentions well noticed. His desire and need for chaos was interesting but what better way than to destroy the Earth for no reason at all. There was a meteor heading for Earth that the scientists of the world weren't able to detect so could do nothing to deal with it. But Mr Smith had the solution and with that Sarah Jane would save the world without anybody realising. That's how she liked it much to Maria's shock. I thought it was a lovely touch of Sarah Jane to give Maria the Verron puzzle box as it was her that she trusted the most. Maria just needed to remember and that's exactly what she did when the Trickster struck and altered the timeline. Sarah Jane now failed to exist beyond the age of thirteen and that really would mean a bundle of chaos for the Trickster to feed off. I'm not sure how the life of the Doctor during his third and fourth incarnations would have been altered but I'm sure it would have caused quite a substantial effect! The Trickster soon caught on about the Doctor and wondered what chaos the universe would be in if the Doctor never existed. With this being broadcast in 2007, I do wonder if that was a foreshadowing of the events of Turn Left. Life without Sarah Jane would also prove pretty fatal to the human race as here it would mean the destruction of the planet at the hands of a meteor. Without Sarah Jane there would be no Mr Smith and that meant the meteor couldn't be dealt with and Earth would be destroyed. The military missile strike failed and it seemed that the planet would be goners, but there was one women who could save the Earth. A women who died in 1964 at the age of thirteen. Andrea Yates. She had struck a bargain with the Trickster whilst hanging from a pier and it meant that Sarah Jane would die in her place. Andrea was made to forget her awful decision but Maria soon brought the memories flooding back and when she did we saw how terrible of a person she really was as she also agreed and even went out of her way to see that Maria was moved from time. Alan though was protected from the Verron puzzle box as the Graske arrived and provided some humorous chase scenes with Maria. I liked how she ended up in 1964 and saw a young Sarah Jane but I also liked the resolution with Alan and particularly Sarah pushing Andrea to break her bargain. In a climactic ending she did in an emotional way and the timeline was restored and the meteor averted. Overall, a quite excellent story! The best SJA yet.

Rating: 9/10