Meet Mr Smith was to have been the fourth story of Series 5 of The Sarah Jane Adventures. However, due to the death of Elisabeth Sladen in April 2011, only half of the series was filmed, resulting in The Man Who Never Was being the final story of the series.
It was planned to be written by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman, who together wrote Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith (the sixth and final story of Series 4 of The Sarah Jane Adventures).
Synopsis[]
While the gang are together in the attic, an alien called Ozmo secretly releases a mutagen bomb in Sarah Jane's attic which latches on to Mr Smith's keyboard and causes an explosion which suddenly turns Mr Smith into a human, who wears a bowler hat and a pin-stripped city gent suit, looking like the spitting image of John Steed. Mr Smith embraces his newfound humanity by referring to himself as "Smithy" and is very eager to explore in his new form. This leads to him experiencing joy with human life and eventually developing a romance with Carla Langer which displeases Clyde. However, Smithy is forced to secretly do work for Ozmo which involves stealing valuables and tech pieces as Ozmo blackmails him with stabilising shots that maintain his human form while the gang realises how much of a struggle it is to protect the Earth without relying on Mr Smith.
Part 1 would end with Sarah Jane catching Smithy in the act of stealing a diamond in a Maximum Security area at the Asquith Bank Vaults as she'd secretly traced his suspicious activities. But before she could do anything, Smithy catches her off-guard and relieves Sarah Jane of her sonic while locking her in a bank vault. As Sarah Jane is trapped, she bangs on the door and tries to plead with Smithy, while Ozmo's hologram secretly watches her and states that she would be better off in there as he declares he has sinister plans in store for Earth. Part 2 would involve Sky leading the team and taking charge as she tells Rani and Clyde that the three of them need take on the role of Mr Smith by looking through data resources, newspapers and clues that can urgently help them find Sarah Jane and Smithy.
Ozmo's true intentions would later be revealed in the second part where the gang discover that he was building a teleporter relay with the intent to attract aliens who were interested in buying the Earth, which even surprises Smithy as Ozmo deceived him to believe that he was building it to escape Earth. Smithy's behaviour would also make Clyde and Rani question their trust in people they confide in (as both them and Sarah Jane would often reveal their personal secrets to Mr Smith whenever they were alone with him in the attic). Sarah Jane was also onto Smithy from the start, but kept him on a long leash as she still wanted to trust him just a little. While Smithy tries to desperately cling on to his human life, Clyde would also question whether Smithy was testing out his new emotions on Carla.
Beforehand, Ozmo would provide Smithy with a shot that could make him human permanently but events would escalate and eventually end with Smithy (Mr Smith) reverting back to his Xylok form after Sky convinces him that using the shot would result in him becoming a human slave like the rest of society, which leads to him sacrificing his last stabiliser shot to stop Ozmo. This would however, come at the cost of breaking Carla's heart, which later leads to a heartbroken Clyde having to come up with an excuse to explain Smithy's absence to his mum. Smithy would then say his goodbyes to the gang and tell Clyde to look after Carla before turning back to his normal form. Just before Ozmo is compromised and teleported away to an intergalactic prison, he attempts to warn Sarah Jane about Sky being the "child of chaos" which would be another hint to Sky being the daughter of the Trickster as it would have previously been hinted in a deleted scene with Sky and Plark in The Man Who Never Was (The Sarah Jane Companion Volume Three). The episode would conclude with Carla emotionally reading a goodbye letter with flowers dedicated to her from Smithy, which Clyde had written (Carla would be hearing Smithy's voice as she reads the letter).
Characters[]
Notes[]
- This episode would have featured Alexander Armstrong, the voice of Mr Smith, making a live-action guest appearance as the computer's human form. Had the episode been produced, it would have marked Armstrong's first physical performance in a DWU story, predating his appearance as Reg Arwell in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe later that year.
- Meet Mr Smith had a draft script of the whole episode (part 1 and 2) and was due to have a second draft prepared but it ended up being stuck in mid-rewrite due to the show's suspension at the time. RTD initiated a rewrite to avoid the story being too comedic and to provide better synergy with Smithy's comedy balancing out with Ozmo's dangerous nature which would escalate to him being a sinister threat as the story progressed.
- Smithy (Mr Smith) would end up stealing a replacement relay from the National Museum at the request of Ozmo, who required it to fix his teleporter relay. This relay would be mistaken and mislabelled as a Mayan artefact at the same Challis museum, where the Pandorica was kept in The Big Bang episode.
References[]
REF: The Sarah Jane Companion Volume Three
Shannon Sullivan: A Brief History of Time Travel