N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? presents us with a puzzle box, a faceless stranger and Jane Asher living in Sarah Jane’s house. There’s also a meteor on the way, ‘some Graske activity’ and a nowhere limbo that’s somewhat reminiscent of the first episode of The Mind Robber.
“You can’t help thinking if it wasn’t for Sarah Jane, we’d all be dead.”
Maria, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, Part One
So there’s a fair bit packed in!
It’s also the equivalent of Series Three’s Blink — a Sarah Jane-lite story — with first Maria, then Maria’s Dad Alan taking the lead to save the day.
Thankfully, the puzzle box isn’t the Lemarchand Configuration — the consequences of solving that puzzle certainly wouldn’t be suitable for a children’s show — although the Trickster could quite easily pass for a Cenobite.
Indeed, the puzzle box is the key to Maria’s remembering Sarah Jane, and Alan subsequently remembering Maria. But Cenobites or no, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? still manages to be the scariest Sarah Jane Adventure yet. There’s even room for a bit of Evil Dead-style camera work at one point!
“Imagine if the Doctor had never existed. What chaos there would be across the stars.”
The Trickster, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, Part Two
What of the Trickster? Is that even his name? Or does he adopt the moniker after hearing Alan referring to him as such? Is this another instance of the Chumbley effect — where one character names another and that name sticks?
While the Trickster mentions that the Bane never came to Earth in this timeline, hence no Luke, what other events would have been changed if Sarah Jane’s life had ended at age thirteen?
Do the events of The Time Warrior play out differently as a result of Sarah not sneaking back to medieval England onboard the Doctor’s TARDIS? Who is there to counsel Queen Thalira on the Doctor’s return visit to Peladon? Does the Doctor still regenerate after the events on Metebelis 3? Who is Harry Sullivan going to call ‘old thing’ on the Nerva Beacon or in Piccadilly Circus 10,000 years hence?
So many questions!
But the implications these questions hint at are only part of what makes Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? so great. It’s well-written, well-acted and well-directed (by Who alumnus Morbius Doctor Graham Harper, no less) and as such, easily rises to being my favourite Sarah Jane Adventure so far!
All this and it even ends on a sort-of cliffhanger — with Alan realising there’s more to their neighbour across the street than he’d previously realised.
