The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Fifth Season (2012)

The Sarah Jane Adventures:

The Complete Fifth Season (2012)

Dirs: Various | Episodes: 6 episodes, approx 27 mins each.

NOTE: THIS SECTION CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS FOR SEASON FOUR.

The fifth season of TSJA is both the shortest and the last of them - not because it was losing its appeal, but because the actress that played the title character, Elisabeth Sladen, sadly passed away. Of the planned twelve episodes, six were finished.

Luke (Tommy Knight) is still away at university, but Sky (Sinead Michael), the young girl that Sarah Jane and her team rescued at the end of Season Four, is still around, bringing the number of human helpers the reporter has back up to a comfortable three.

Well, four, if we count the times when Luke is back on Bannerman Road. He gets paired with Sky in the season's best two-parter (Eps 5+6); they're both Sarah Jane's 'adopted children', so it seems logical.

And it works really well; the duo, despite their differing backgrounds and ages, have a number of things in common (such as not being human, for a start) and they've a wonderful brother/sister onscreen chemistry, as believable as the more-than-friends bond that developed between Rani (Anjli Mohindra) and Clyde (Daniel Anthony) in the previous years.

- The newest addition to the family, Sky. -

Thematically, the short season includes musings on identity and upbringing (e.g. while we're unable to choose who our birth parents are, we can choose to be not like them as we grow and mature). The issue of homelessness is given some attention; it's slight but may well be enough to make a youthful audience notice its existence in the streets and/or built-up areas where they live or visit. It even touches on how relationship break-ups can leave a hole.

As an adult viewer it was pleasing to see the inclusion of something that's often overlooked: Sarah Jane's journalistic skills aren't just useful for researching aliens, they're also what pay the bills. I'm sure Mr Smith costs more than a penny to run. Furthermore, again as an adult viewer, I noticed an unusual level of innuendo in the final episode.

I'll miss the series. I loved the opening music, the creepy stories, the sonic-lipstick jokes, and, of course, Elisabeth, who brought to the role a distinctive level of sincerity and gentleness that was all her own. The final episode ends with a moving montage of moments that give credence to that feeling. The Doctor Who franchise will endure for as long as there's money to be made from it, but I feel that the extended universe will be lessened without Elisabeth Sladen's presence.