In which Sarah Jane Smith, Clyde and Rani rush to the landing site of a meteorite, following an alert from Mr Smith. There is a fear that it may carry alien pathogens. It proves to be harmless, but they are confronted by a woman who has also come to investigate, and claims to be helping save the planet from aliens. She speeds off in a red sports car, and later they discover that she has moved in to a house around the corner from Bannerman Road. They go to confront her and learn that her name is Ruby White and she has moved to the area because of all the alien activity which Sarah and her friends have been dealing with over the last couple of years. She cold shoulders them and orders them out of her home - accusing them of being little more than amateurs.
The next day Sarah finds herself forgetting that Luke is away at university when she talks to Rani's mother. Gita. Then she forgets K9's name when she later talks to her son.
There is another alert from Mr Smith, sending them to a junkyard where a trio of Dark Horde warriors materialise. Sarah discovers that she has forgotten to ask Clyde to bring the sonic lipstick, and she realises they are defenceless. Ruby suddenly appears and gets Clyde and Rani to help her to chase the Horde off, using a hand-held AI device to make them think they are up against superior forces. Clyde nicknames the device Mr White, after Sarah's Mr Smith.
They invite Ruby back to the attic, where she apologises for her earlier cold attitude towards them. She wants to be friends, and even Mr Smith and Mr White seem to get along. That evening, Sarah becomes increasingly worried about her memory lapses, and asks Mr Smith to conduct a medical scan on her. He notifies her that she has a degenerative brain condition. Not wishing to put Clyde and Rani at risk, as she did at the junkyard, Sarah decides to retire. She invites Ruby to her home and asks her to take over from her. After ordering Mr Smith to delete her command protocols, she gets ready to leave on an extended holiday. However, she finds herself transported to a cellar where Ruby chains her to the wall. In an alcove is a massive fleshy lump - Ruby's stomach. She is really an alien Qetesh, creatures who feed on the emotions of others. Ruby has been attacking Sarah for some days, causing her memory problems, and Mr White had tampered with Mr Smith to give the false medical scan diagnosis. She has abducted Sarah as she had led the most exciting life of anyone on Earth. Afterwards she will feed on the entire planet...
Instead of stopping alien invasions, she will facilitate them - to create more emotions upon which to feed. Clyde and Rani see a fake video message from Sarah telling them that she has gone away for good, but Clyde is suspicious as she would never abandon Luke. Mr Smith then attempts to warn him but Ruby shuts the computer down and Mr White teleports Clyde away from the attic. He finds himself in a pod floating in space above the Earth - a prison capsule from which Ruby has escaped. He has a limited amount of oxygen. Mr White had been an entertainments console left by her captors, but she reprogrammed it to aid her escape.
Worried about his mother, Luke arrives at Rani's house. Luke contacts K9 back in Oxford and gets him to trace Clyde's phone, and they discover he is in space. Rani must get her mobile close to Mr White, so that K9 can hack into it. Mr White is reprogrammed to return Clyde to Earth, but Ruby escapes. Luke, Rani and Clyde go to her house and find Sarah in the cellar, where the stomach is still feeding off her. Mr White is used to create a hologram of meteor strikes hitting the planet, and the huge wave of emotion generated is too much for Ruby's stomach to absorb. It shrivels up, releasing what it had taken from Sarah back to her. Ruby vows revenge, but is sent back to her prison in space.
Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith was written by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman, and was first broadcast on 15th and 16th November, 2010. It marks the end of Series 4 of The Sarah Jane Adventures - what would prove to be the last full season of the show. Hickman is best known for being the editor of Doctor Who Magazine (from 2002 to 2007, so in post to oversee the return of Doctor Who to the airwaves, and a huge redesign for the publication). He's also well known for his design work - including the covers for the Classic Doctor Who DVD range. You'll have seen him in a few of the DVD extras as well.
Every series of SJA has had a story with "Sarah Jane Smith" in the title, written by Roberts. This is the first one not to feature the Trickster. This is the first season in which he hasn't appeared. Instead, a new character is introduced - a sort of anti-Sarah Jane Smith who at first appears to do everything she does, only better, and looks more glamorous to the youngsters. Mr White is a small hand held gizmo, as opposed to Sarah's huge attic-dwelling computer, and Ruby White drives a flash red sports car as opposed to Sarah's - a retro-looking Nissan Figaro.
After a few cameo appearances on video links in the last couple of stories, Tommy Knight returns as Luke, and K9 also features. This would be K9 Mark IV's final appearance on screen (and therefore John Leeson's final vocal work in the televised Doctor Who universe, at least to date).
We only have two guest artists in this story, principal of whom is Julie Graham. She's Scottish, so naturally her first TV work was an episode of Taggart. Genre appearances include the revamped Survivors, a remake of Terry Nation's 1970's drama series, and Bonekickers. that dreadful archaeological adventure series.
Voicing Mr White is Eddie Marsan (Mr Norrell in the BBC adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell amongst many, many others).
It's a surprise that neither guest artist has been called upon to appear in Doctor Who itself.
Overall, another quality addition to The Sarah Jane Adventures. It's tragic in hindsight, watching this knowing that Lis Sladen was already ill, as we see Sarah physically and mentally deteriorate. The title is painfully apt, as this was the last thing we had seen before Lis's untimely death.
Things you might like to know:
- Series 5 would have bucked the trend of not having a story with "Sarah Jane Smith" in the title, as we have a record of what the unmade stories would have been called.
- Roberts and Hickman were collaborating on another story for that season when Sladen died and production was stopped.
- Ruby White was clearly set up for future return appearances, as the last we see of her is her vowing revenge on Sarah.
- Clyde maintains the tradition of someone being slimed during the story.
- Yet another reason to ignore the whole UNIT dating controversy, as Sarah states that she was 23 when she first met the Doctor. The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith shows that she was born in 1951 - meaning the events of The Time Warrior take place in 1974.
- Julie Graham went to school with Eric Potts (Oliver Charles in Aliens in London).
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