The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete First Season (2008)

The Sarah Jane Adventures:

The Complete First Season (2008)

Dirs: Various | Episodes: a one-hour pilot + 10 episodes, approx 25 mins each.

A Doctor Who spin-off aimed primarily at teenagers might not sound overly exciting, but The Sarah Jane Adventures is something very special. It addresses questions that many longtime Doctor Who fans have probably asked themselves at least once: what happens to the travelling companions after they leave? When they go back to a 'normal' life, how do they readjust after the wonders they've seen?

Created by Russell T Davies, the man credited with making the parent show such a renewed success, it offers the same kind of action packed flights of fantasy, grounded regularly by relatable emotions and characters guided by concern for each other.

It exists within, and expands upon, the same fictional universe, populated by the same kind of threats, and through it all remains faithful to the existing continuity, while creating some of its own. You can think of it as Doctor Who diluted, if you want to, but it's arguably just as exciting as the real thing, no matter what age you are.

It stars Elisabeth Sladen as the titular character, Sarah Jane Smith. She's a kind of surrogate mother figure to more than one of her young co-stars. She first appeared in a four-part Doctor Who story called The Time Warrior, alongside the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, and stayed as his travelling companion for a while, even after his regeneration into Tom Baker. For adults of a certain age watching the show, she may even provide a link to their own childhood.

- Despite being aimed at kids, the show doesn't skimp on creepsome.-

Elisabeth is fantastic in the role. She has no convenient TARDIS to hop around in, so unlike the Doctor she's localised, meaning you'll need to accept that all the danger happens within close proximity of her house, but I found it to be an easy adjustment to make.

The series strikes a comfortable balance between teenage concerns and adult concerns; there are references to growing old that teens probably won't notice, and there are references to the trials of adolescence that the teens can relate to and the adults will be sympathetic to, provided they haven't forgotten what it was like to be that age.

The stories get progressively darker in tone as the first season nears its end. It begins to feel more like a regular Doctor Who episode that's undergone some minor rewrites. The two-part episode Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? (Dir. Graeme Harper) is especially notable.