The Sarah Jane Adventures: Season 1

I want to let everybody who considers buying this first series of "The Sarah Jane Adventures" that they need to make one other purchase before starting to watch. The show started as a New Year's Day special called "Invasion of the Bane". That is also available through Amazon. This story gives the childless Sarah Jane an adopted son named Luke. ounding out things are Maria Jackson and her estranged parents across the street. The character of Kelsey used in the special does not carry on to the first series. To replace her, they came up with character of Clyde Langer. For those not aware, the late Elisabeth Sladen played journalist Sarah Jane Smith, one of the longest serving companions to the Doctor on Doctor Who. The character was introduced in "The Time Warrior" that introduced the Sontarans and named the Doctor's home planet as Gallifrey. She stayed through the story "The Hand of Fear". Sarah Jane appeared in "The Five Doctors". Years ago, the BBC tried a spin-off called "K9 & Company" with Sladen to showcase the character's popularity. The special never went to series. When Sarah showed up in the Doctor Who Series 2 story "School Reunion", also with K9, a Sarah Jane special was green lit for New Year's Day 2007. When the special actually became a series, the alien Slytheen family have taken over a British public school. When reading the episode synopsis for the first two part story, Amazon incorrectly calls the Slytheen an alien race. They are a nasty bunch from another planet. We will meet another alien family from the same planet in a later season. Amazon needs to correct this error as if they had never seen the three Slytheen Doctor Who stories that preceded it. The Slytheen would be back again. The second story "Eye of the Gorgon" deals with some very unpleasant nuns hiding a Gorgon. I found that story somewhat boring. The third story "Warriors of Kudlak" made me think of old movie "The Last Starfighter" with video games being used to recruit Earth kids. The Kudlak aliens looked very stiff. In probably the strongest story "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane", the alien Trickster fools around with Sarah Jane's childhood where Sarah Jane was killed as a girl from a fall that previous had killed her friend Andrea Yates. As Andrea gets a a chance at life she never got to live, Maria has to find a way to bring Sarah Jane back from a limbo. You really feel bad for Andrea thanks to the performance by Jane Asher. The final story of Series 1 "The Lost Boy" gives background on Sarah Jane's super-computer Mr. Smith as it teams up with more Slytheen to harness poweres Luke possessed. It is a nice cast and the adult actors as much to the show. That is all I have to say on this season.

The longest running female character played by the same actress, Elisabeth Sladen, in BBC History.Sarah Jane Smith is a character from the long running TV Series 'Doctor Who', she was his most beloved companion, and a fan favorite. Sarah Jane traveled with the Doctor from 1973-1976;1983;2006;2008, and has met various Doctors (1st-5th;10th)and various companions (Susan, Victoria, The Brigadier, Harry, K-9, Tegan, Turlough, Rose, Jack, Martha and Donna) along the way.Sarah Jane was considered the Doctor's bestfriend, and even at one time voted the best side kick by TV Guide, beating out Burt Ward as Robin from the 1966 Batman series.Sarah Jane was given K-9 Mk3, in the original spin off series 'K-9 and Company' (1981), as a gift from the Doctor. Sarah later appeared with K-9 in the 20th Anniversary episode 'The Five Doctors' (1983)After a break from the TV screen for 10 years, but featured in various novels, Sarah Jane would return alongside the Brigadier and the 2nd Doctors former companion, Victoria Waterfield in 'Downtime'(1993).The New Series of 'Doctor Who' returned in 2005, and Elisabeth Sladen was again asked to reprise her role as Sarah Jane Smith alongside K-9 in the episode 'School Reunion' where she met the 10th Doctor (David Tennant).This spawned another Sarah Jane spinoff 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'. Sarah Jane is given a son, who was created by the Bane mother in 'Invasion of the Bane' (2006), which she name Luke Smith. Together they shared, which can only be described as a series of 'classic era Doctor Who' adventures.Sarah Jane and Luke Smith returned to 'Doctor Who' in the 2008 2-part series finale 'The Stolen Earth/Journey's End' in an attempt to help stop the Daleks. K-9 was given a brief cameo in the end.The Sarah Jane Adventures proved so successful that it was given the green light for a second series which begins in 2009.A surprise announcement for the series, was that another former friend of Sarah Janes and the Doctors, would be returning to series two, again played by Nicholas Courtney, fan favorite 'The Brigadier'. Doctor Who - The Time Warrior (Episode 70)Comeback (Sarah Jane Smith)The Sarah Jane Smith Adventures Sarah Jane & General Kudlak Action Figure SetDoctor Who - The Complete Second SeriesDoctor Who: The Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company: A Girl's Best FriendDoctor Who: The Brain of Morbius No. 84Doctor Who - The Five Doctors (25th Anniversary Edition)Doctor Who - Planet of Evil (Episode 81)Doctor Who - The Sontaran Experiment (Episode 77)Doctor Who - Robot (Episode 75) Doctor Who - Genesis of the Daleks (Episode 78)Doctor Who - The Hand of Fear (Episode 87)Doctor Who - The Ark In Space (Story No. 76)Doctor Who - Pyramids of MarsK-9 Remote Control Dog

I was saddened to hear that the great Elisabeth Sladen had passed away. She was a remarkable actress and all I can say to her and her family is my condolences. I had not heard the news until scrolling thru Wikipedia. I also learned about Nicholas Courtney's passing. Also very sad.But this first season was fantastic. The introduction of the new characters and Bubbleshock drink and Maria Jackson and the cloned boy who would be named Luke made the series for me. The writing, production and editing of this series was top notch. I like how they spent most of the time developing Maria in the first few episodes as we already know Sarah Jane and what she does from her long stint with Doctors Three and Four as well as her previous appearance on the short-lived series K-9 & Company. This allowed the series to grow on its own without being forced on us.The addition of Clyde Langer sealed the show's stellar cast. All of them work well together and I can honestly say this series has grown on me. I'm so glad that I decided to buy the DVDs. Thus far I've seen the first two seasons and I'm going to start the third season by Monday. If you like Doctor Who I can honestly tell you that this is a show that will grab and hold your heart. Buy it and you won't be disappointed.A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.

I'm a big fan of Doctor Who (both new and Classic series)but have been putting off buying this for a while due to the fact that i had never seen the show & its aimed at children.So i picked up the first series second hand and for a good price to check it out and see what all the fuss is about..I needn't have worried as the show itself is a cracker and my eight year old daughter (and myself) love it almost as much as the Doctor - So a win - win situation all round.

As good as i remember it being when it was on the telly....my kids used to love it.co -incides with the dr.who's that were on at the time...ones that were easy to understand ....without the complicated plots that we now have.

An imaginative interpretation of the Doctor Who universe, in a terrestrial setting but retaining the gadgets, supercomputers, aliens and adventures. Definitely aimed at children but appreciable by adults either nostalgic for the Tom Baker era or keen on the modern Doctor's more humorous and light-hearted stories.The collection starts with the `Invasion of the Bane', a 60 minute special that see the transformation of the title character from a lonely, heart broken investigative journalist to an initially awkward though loving mother with her very own `Doctor Who'-esque companions. And like the Doctor needs his grounding human companions, Sarah Jane needs her imaginative, open minded teenagers.The series proper starts with the relatively disappointing `Revenge of the Slitheen'. Whilst I appreciate that the monsters were popular with children, a little more appropriate continuity would be nice, i.e. use the monsters but perhaps a new `family' and, more importantly, a fresher story? Instead, the writers directly draw on Aliens of London, World War Three and Boom Town but ignore the latter's single surviving Slitheen talking about being all alone. Ah well, the Slitheen get the story they deserve at the end of the series.Much better is the `Eye of the Gorgon', a nice use of the reality-behind-the-myth formula and complete with the amusing reference to the funny looking Sontarans ##oon to be resurrected Doctor Who badies#. Following this is the equally strong Warriors of Kudlak, an interesting play on the warriors-who-can't-stop-fighting scenario, though in this case its more because the commanding officer is actually a confused computer rather than being unable to accept defeat...`Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?' is by far an away my favourite story. Evil temptation incarnate, the Trickster offers a terrified child the impossible choice of whether to die or sacrifice your friend to save yourself. With maturity and reflection, complete with a bit of ethical prompting from a teenager #nicely reversing the adults-educating-children-about-right-and-wrong norm# comes altruism and, luckily for our heroine, sacrifice for #rather than of# your friends. Plus there's a silly little monster running around for the kids. Excellent.The series ends strongly with `The Lost Boy'. A good episode that causes the viewer to doubt the previously established story line as the gang is rudely torn apart by the grounding intrusion of real world establishments - a sonic lipstick isn`t half as effective against the police or social workers as it is against two metre tall, green aliens that hide in a skin suit. Oops, just given away who is behind it all. Or have I? All I'm saying is that it's a good thing that robot dogs now come equipped with teleports.

I have left the 5 stars based on seeing the series on TV I have bought this to watch in the winter months and I can cuddle up with my dogs, chocolates and a drink and enjoy watching Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane.

Besides the fact that I really like this show and appreciate the great work that was put into it by the DW creators, I'm gonna focus this review on the DVD boxset.Since the show was intended mainly for children (even though I consider it has more dramatic and realistic situations than other spin-offs), CBBC has included a great package setting, cool interactive menus (far better than the repetitive TARDIS console menu on the firsts DW seasons) and tons and tons of extras. As a long-time fan of this long-running universe, I think it is very cool that they've created the "Mr Smith section" with a retrospective documentary on the life of Sarah Jane for those who didn't knew her before her apparition in the 2006 episode School Reunion.