The Sarah Jane Adventures - Series 5 Recap

Sadly, Series 5 is both unfinished, and the final series for The Sarah Jane Adventures, as Sarah Jane Smith herself (the wonderful Elizabeth Sladen) passed away from her battle with cancer before shooting could start back up. Luckily they had completed 6 episodes, 3 complete stories, and we get to enjoy Liz Sladen one last time as the immortal Sarah Jane, who was introduced to Doctor Who 38 years ago in “The Time Warrior”. She was one of the most popular companions, which is why she warranted being brought back for a failed spin off (K-9 and Company), the 20th anniversary special (The Five Doctors), a reintroduction in the new series (School Reunion), and eventually this wonderful children’s series.

SJA started off a little too kid-cheesy for me. Now I like cheese in doses, that is why I love things like Classic Who, Flash Gordon serials, Star Trek, Dick Tracy, and the Rocketeer...but that first season was pretty lame and cheesy and it talked down to kids. Never talk down to kids, kids want to be treated like adults...and when you treat them like adults they grow up to be adults.

The second improved on the first, losing the weak link character of Maria and replacing her with the far more natural Rani...as well as losing the talking down to kids factor. It even brought back the Brigadier! (Nicholas Courtney another wonderful Who vet also passed away just slightly prior to Sladen). The only sad thing is the second half of the finale fell short, and the season ended on a mediocre note. Then there was the uneven but ultimately watchable third season, before landing an absolute perfect (from beginning to end) season in Series 4.

And here we are with Series 5, the unfinished and final season to take place on Bannerman Road. It is a nice run of episodes, obviously the big finale wasn’t shot, and the story of Sky, which I’m sure would have been completed, didn’t get too much closure...but I think the episodes were solid enough. Series 4 was definitely the peak of the series but the truncated Series 5 was rather enjoyable...and the producers did a solid bit of extra editing to close the series off on a high note.

So ends the tale of Sarah Jane Smith, she will probably live on in spin off material I will never really see...but Elizabeth Sladen was a great big part of the Who universe, and she got a decent run in this surprisingly enjoyable kids show.

NEXT TIME: Christmas During the War