20 years later: She’s back, and it’s about time.
Or rather, about aliens invading Earth.
In August 2005, the unthinkable was announced. Sarah Jane Smith, played once again by Elisabeth Sladen, would be returning to Doctor Who, in an episode of the second series to be broadcast in 2006. A companion who had left the show some two decades previously would make a single reappearance opposite David Tennant and Billie Piper.
Of course, no-one believed a word of it.
Rumours began almost instantly that Sarah Jane would be receiving her own spinoff series, in addition to the episode (now entitled School Reunion) already announced. Rumours increased in May 2006 when it was announced that both Doctor Who and Torchwood would be recorded in a new lavish six studio facility named Upper Boat. With the BBC Wales team firmly in charge of Upper Boat, it seemed ridiculous just to house two shows under its roof… didn’t it?
While fans guessed at a Sarah Jane and K.9 show to follow on from School Reunion, Bob Baker threw a spanner in the works by once again promoting his idea for a child-friendly semi-CG K.9 TV series… would the world be big enough for two shows with K.9 in it?
After behind the scenes wranging over ideas (including a Rose Tyler spinoff that never made it past an initial discussion), BBC Wales announced on August 1st that Sarah Jane Investigates would shortly be going into production – a 60-minute pilot from BBC One and CBBC, to be written by Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts, directed by Colin Teague and produced by Susie Liggat. And naturally featuring the return of Elisabeth Sladen.
Following a script readthrough on 9th September 2006, pre-production of the special ran through October with discussions on the character development of Sarah Jane, Maria, Luke and Kelsey (the names of which were announced to fandom in late October) throughout the whole series forming part of the plans. Also announced in October was some of the casting: Yasmin Paige (The Mysti Show) would be playing Maria, Samantha Bond (James Bond) as evil Ms Wormwood, newcomer Porsha Lawrence Mavour as Kelsey and also Jamie Davis (Footballer’s Wives), Joseph Millson (Peak Practice) and Juliet Cowan (The Queen’s Nose) as unnamed characters (ultimately announced to be playing Davey and Maria’s parents respectively). It was also at last confirmed that a full 10-part series would go into production in Spring 2007, produced by Matthew Bouch (replacing Susie Liggat) and Phil Collinson and that the title had been changed to The Sarah Jane Adventures. We even found out that K.9 would be relegated to little more than a cameo. Quite a month!
Following the four-week shoot, and in the lead up to Christmas 2006, some last minute announcements were made (Sam Watts would be providing the music, alongside Murray Gold’s theme tune, and relative newcomer Tommy Knight would be playing Luke, also listed as The Archetype in some magazines) and publicity photos were made available to all.
After the successful New Year’s Day broadcast of Invasion of the Bane, which won an audience of 2.9m (beaten only by Deal or No Deal that hour), pre-production on the first series began. The format (five two-part stories) was formally announced, with Gareth Roberts writing two stories, Russell T Davies one and Phil Ford another. Shooting was slated for April.
In February 2007, BBC Audiobooks confirmed they would be releasing Sarah Jane Adventures stories on CD, although no details were given at the time. The following month, directors Alice Troughton and Graeme Harper were announced as two of the directors working on the show and on April 16th, filming finally began…
Small titbits began to trickle through over the following months:
April 2007: Alice Troughton would direct episodes 1 and 2 (by Gareth Roberts) and 3 and 4 (by Phil Ford), the latter of which would guest star Phyllida Law and Beth Goddard.
June 2007: Kelsey’s character had been dropped in favour of a male character (to tip the gender scales) named Clyde Langer, portrayed by Daniel Anthony. Graeme Harper was now underway directing episodes 7 and 8 (by Gareth Roberts) and an unnamed director would soon shoot episodes 5 and 6 (by Phil Gladwin) and 9 and 10 (by Phil Ford).
July 2007: Charles Martin announced as the third and final director.
August 2007: Guest characters in one of the stories would include Mr Grantham, Kudlak and The Mistress. Story titles were also released: Although the first remained secret until a few weeks prior to transmission, the remainder were revealed as Eye of the Gorgon, Warriors of the Kudlak, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? and The Lost Boy.
In the final days before the broadcast of Revenge of the Slitheen, the official website (which had been given a bland launch in the New Year) was seriously overhauled, with exclusive video footage, games and wallpapers released over the following ten weeks.
