Death of the Doctor
The Sarah Jane Adventures Season 4 Episodes 5-4
The Eleventh Doctor makes his spin-off appearance for a fun story that remixes a bit on School Reunion.
The Review
RTD is back as writer, Matt Smith is here as the Doctor, and almost more excitingly: Katy Manning is back as Jo Grant for the first time. Her entrance is classic Jo, accidentally dropping her vase of flowers, and admiring the Sansheeth aliens. Sarah Jane’s grin when she realizes it’s Jo Grant (or sorry, Jones), is wonderful. The clips of the Third and Fourth Doctors is nostalgia bait, but it’s fun seeing Jo and Sarah Jane, two of the best companions, interacting. One of Jo’s twelve (soon thirteen) grandsons Santiago also gets to meet Rani and Clyde. Both think the other has an amazing life, Jo and Santiago’s family protesting injustice and constantly traveling while Rani and Clyde fighting off aliens and being home in time for tea.
The villains are the Sansheeth, giant vulture aliens who are basically evil funeral home directors which is a pretty great concept. The idea that the Doctor has died is interesting considering how Series 6 is going to go. We have an evil UNIT colonel too, though Laila Rouass is pretty one-note evil. Their whole plan is they stole the TARDIS and are going to use it to stop death, which sounds like a good idea if you think about too hard. Really, the best moments come from Jo heartbroken the Doctor returned for Sarah and not her, and then the Doctor saying he checked in on Jo and was so proud of her. Unsurprisingly since RTD’s writing the Eleventh Doctor feels the most Tenth Doctor like here, but the fact that Matt Smith got to share the screen with Elisabeth Sladen is just wonderful.
It’s a fun adventure, highlighted of course by the return of Jo. It’s a shame the show ended before more classic companions could return, but we’ll get there.
9/10 Jo and Sarah Jane got to go to an alien planet again!
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 