Long before companion dynamics in Doctor Who became exercises in timey-wimey flirting or existential angst, there was Sarah Jane Smith. She didn’t just walk into the TARDIS; she kicked the door open with a reporter’s notebook in one hand and a raised eyebrow in the other. Played with boundless charm, grit, and intelligence by the late, irreplaceable Elisabeth Sladen, Sarah Jane wasn’t just a companion. She was the companion, the standard-bearer, the one every other character, consciously or not, has been echoing ever since.
Let’s rewind. When Sarah Jane first appears in 1973’s The Time Warrior, she’s pretending to be her own aunt to sneak into a top-secret research facility. That alone tells you she’s not here to play the passive tagalong. While her predecessors had largely fallen into two camps (decorative screamers or reflecting information back to the audience, such as “But Doctor, what doses that mean?) Sarah Jane immediately established herself as someone with agency, curiosity, and no tolerance for condescension, even when that condescension came from a 900-year-old Gallifreyan with a velvet jacket and a superiority complex. She challenged, questioned and contributed.
By the time Tom Baker rolled in with his colorful exponentially long scarf and his huge smile, the dynamic between the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane felt practically symphonic. They didn’t flirt. They bantered. They didn’t just run from monsters. They argued philosophy, wrestled with moral dilemmas, and even debated feminism, a rarity in 1970s British scifi. Yet Elisabeth Sladen never overplayed it. She infused Sarah with a mix of warmth, stubbornness, and wide-eyed wonder that made her relatable even as she stood firm against killer mummies, Daleks, and the occasional cybernetic death squad.
Behind the scenes, Sladen wasn’t given full scripts during her audition. In fact, she was brought in as a last-minute replacement when production ran out of time looking for the “right” new companion. The irony is delicious. They were chasing something generic and instead found someone legendary. Sladen’s chemistry with both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker is proof of her adaptability, but it’s Baker and Sladen’s rapport that remains iconic. Watch Genesis of the Daleks or The Hand of Fear, and you’ll see two actors who trusted each other implicitly. She could ground Baker’s manic brilliance without dampening it, and in return, he never overshadowed her, a rare feat in a show with a title character literally called “The Doctor.”
Sarah Jane’s departure in 1976 was devastating, both for viewers and, it seemed, the Doctor himself. The Time Lords’ sudden recall of him to Gallifrey meant she was left behind in Croydon, of all places, with nothing but a goodbye that was as heartbreaking in its restraint as it was in its execution. No swelling music, no dramatic fade. Just “Don’t forget me.” She was impossible to forget.
And audiences didn’t. When she returned in School Reunion (2006), it wasn’t just fan service. It was catharsis. Seeing Sarah Jane confront the Tenth Doctor brought twenty-first-century weight to a relationship forged in the grainy hues of 1970s television. And what’s more, Sladen never missed a beat. Older, wiser, yes, but still Sarah. Still brave. Still nosy. Still the emotional spine of a show that, even with all its aliens and regenerations, has always been about the people the Doctor leaves behind.
That return wasn’t just a one-off. It led to The Sarah Jane Adventures, a spin-off that allowed her character to grow into something rare: an adult lead in a children’s sci-fi series who never patronized her audience. She was a single mom, a defender of Earth, a voice of calm in the chaos, and somehow still the same woman who once argued with a robot mummy while trapped in a tomb.
Sarah Jane Smith didn’t change the show’s mythology with a grand prophecy or a hidden Time Lord origin. She didn’t need to. Her superpower was compassion wrapped in courage, and Elisabeth Sladen made sure you never doubted it for a second. The fact that generations of fans, old and new, still cite her as their favorite companion isn’t nostalgia. It’s truth.
Found on FB, written by AI, re-written by AI to fix it and edited by me.
