Death of the Doctor

"Echoes of the Doctor all over the world. With friends like us, he's never going to die."

Writer: Russell T Davies
Format: TV
Broadcast: 25th-26th October 2010
Series: SJA 4.03

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Sarah Jane, Clyde, Rani, Jo

Synopsis

When the Doctor is declared dead, old companions Sarah Jane Smith and Jo Grant meet for the first time and join forces to discover the truth. As an interstellar conspiracy gathers around UNIT HQ, Clyde finds he holds the fate of the Time Lord in his hand - quite literally!

Verdict

Death of the Doctor was an absolutely wonderful story! It really was beautiful and will probably go down as my all time favourite story of the Sarah Jane Adventures. We really were given a dream of a story as far as I'm concerned as not only did Sarah Jane get to meet the Eleventh Doctor, but Jo Grant was also back! Well, Jo Jones following the events after The Green Death but that just provided some fantastic dialogue. The idea of the Doctor being dead has been explored before but I thought it was put to excellent use here. Hasty arrangements meant that it was just Jo and Sarah Jane that were the past companions attending the funeral and I loved how they got to the reminisce on their time in the TARDIS. There were so many mentions of Classic era stories with the likes of The Time Warrior and The Masque of Mandragora getting a little mention. The moment that Sarah and Jo talked about their travels to Peladon was also a magnificent moment. There really was just so much nostalgia here. It was a fanboy's dream. We saw flashbacks of the first four Doctors which was great and I also liked how this adventure had links with The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith which is where Clyde and Rani got to first meet the Doctor. Amy and Rory were on their honeymoon so the Eleventh Doctor was on his own here and the image of him with Jo and Sarah really was mesmerising. Matt Smith was phenomenal as per usual and I thought it was brilliant that Russell T Davies got to write for the Eleventh Doctor. He did so fantastically. The Shansheeth were intriguing villains and their plan to get control of the TARDIS and eradicate death was quite disturbing. They were going to use Sarah and Jo's memories and a memory weave to reproduce the TARDIS key which I thought was terrific. The Doctor managed to save the world from behind a locked door which was really great. A moment that was touching was Jo's reaction to Sarah revealing that she had been reunited with the Doctor following School Reunion. She was even more shook when she realised it wasn't the time that the Doctor had come to see Sarah Jane. The idea of the Tenth Doctor going back and seeing all of his ex-companions at the time of his death in The End of Time is really quite staggering but one I absolutely adore. Sarah Jane had been doing research and name-dropped some brilliant former companions and one thing I really liked was the idea of Ian and Barbara never having aged since the '60s following their departure in The Chase. I'm not quite sure when that happened but I'm all for it. A 'Dorothy something' having a charity called A Charitable Earth was also very, very clever. I loved pretty much everything about this story and I really could go on and on but I fear I wouldn't be able to stop. Overall, an outstanding adventure! The very best of the SJAs.

Rating: 10/10