The Sarah Jane Adventures

The Sarah Jane Adventures is a spin-off series, produced by BBC Wales for CBBC, starring Elisabeth Sladen and created by Russell T. Davies. The programme focuses on the adventures of investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith. The series debuted on BBC One with a 60-minute special on 1st January 2007.1 A full series of ten 30-minute episodes followed later in the year. 2

The series is set in present-day West London. In addition to Sladen, the programme stars Yasmin Paige as Sarah Jane's 13-year-old neighbour Maria, Porsha Lawrence-Mavour as Kelsey and Thomas Knight as the young boy, Luke. The pilot episode featured Samantha Bond as the scheming Mrs Wormwood.

The executive producers for The Sarah Jane Adventures are Davies and Julie Gardner. Susie Liggat produced the pilot, but Matthew Bouch produced the series; Phil Collinson held the title of Series Producer.

Co-writer Gareth Roberts, writing in Doctor Who Magazine, said, "We're all determined that this will be a big, full-blooded drama; that nobody should ever think of it as 'just' a children's programme."

Background and development
In 2006, Children's BBC expressed an interest in producing a Doctor Who spin-off. Their initial idea was "a drama based on the idea of a young Doctor Who", but Russell T. Davies vetoed this. "Somehow, the idea of a fourteen-year-old Doctor, on Gallifrey inventing sonic screwdrivers, takes away from the mystery and intrigue of who he is and where he came from," said Davies. He suggested instead a series based on the Doctor's former companion Sarah Jane Smith.

The character of Sarah Jane, played by Sladen, appeared in Doctor Who from 1973 to 1976, alongside Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, and later Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. A pilot for another Doctor Who spin-off series, K-9 and Company, made in 1981, featured Sarah Jane and the robot dog K-9; however, the option to make a series was not picked up. Sarah Jane and K-9 returned to Doctor Who in various media many times over the years, most notably in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors (1983) and in the 2006 episode School Reunion. Reports of a spin-off series first appeared around the time of "School Reunion"'s original airing, with the series having the working title of Sarah Jane Investigates.

K-9 appeared in the special, but only appeared as a cameo in the series. This is due to the concurrent development of the television series K-9, which is not associated with the BBC and will not feature any Doctor Who connections beyond K-9 himself.

Special
The 60-minute special (not a pilot, as a series had already gotten comissioned), entitled Invasion of the Bane, is co-written by Russell T. Davies and Gareth Roberts. The story focused on Sarah Jane's investigation of a popular and addictive soft drink called Bubbleshock. The Highest Science, a 1993 Doctor Who novel by Roberts, featured an addictive drink named bubbleshake.

Season 2
A second series has been confirmed it will have twelve episodes each in two parts. Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart will return in at least one episode along with the Sontarans in the same episode who are the first classic series Doctor Who monsters to appear in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Coincidentily the Sontarans were mentioned in the SJA story The Eye of the Gorgon. The Brigadier has also been mentioned in Revenge of the Slitheen and last mentioned in the Doctor Who episode The Poison Sky which again featured the Sontarans although the Brig was said to be in Peru.

Also David Tennant is said to have filmed a scene.

Connections to Doctor Who

 * The family Slitheen appear in Revenge of the Slitheen and The Lost Boy. They appeared in Doctor Who in the episodes Aliens of London, World War Three, Boom Town, Attack of the Graske (minor) and have been referenced a lot in the new series.
 * A Graske appears in Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, and appeared in the Doctor Who interactive adventure Attack of the Graske.
 * The Sonic lipstick is exactly like the Sonic screwdriver, but in disguise as a lipstick.
 * The Sontarans are referenced in Eye of the Gorgon.
 * K-9 makes a cameo appearance in Invasion of the Bane and The Lost Boy.
 * UNIT are referenced a lot, including when Sarah Jane is on the phone, she says "love to the Brig" Also, a picture of Brig is pinned onto Sarah jane's attic wall. (Invasion of the Bane)(Revenge of the Slitheen), a book called UNIT in Sarah Jane's attic (Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?) and a police officer says "you have some very powerful friends" to Sarah Jane when she is in custody. (The Lost Boy)
 * Slabs appear in Warriors of Kudlak, and they previously appeared in the Doctor Who episode Smith and Jones.
 * Sarah Jane reunited with the Doctor and several other companions in The Stolen Earth and Journey's End. Luke, Mr. Smith and K-9 also communicated with Sarah Jane and the Doctor, though they didn't meet him directly. Brief dialogue references are made to other characters in SJA.

Novelisations
Although the BBC has so far (as of 2008) refrained from commissioning novelisations based upon episodes of the revived Doctor Who or Torchwood, All but two of the serials from the first series of The Sarah Jane Adventures have been adapted as novels by Penguin Character Books, including volumes written by stalwarts Terrance Dicks and Gary Russell, which were published in late 2007. The remaining two stories from the first season will be released as novelisations in late 2008, marking the most intense period of episode novelisations since the end of the Target Books era in the early 1990s.