All About Audio by Theresa Gauthier

The Sarah Jane Adventures Collection

The Sarah Jane Adventures was a spinoff of Doctor Who created by show runner Russell T Davies and originally broadcast on New Year’s Day, 2007. The show featured Elisabeth Sladen, Classic companion to the Third and Fourth Doctors, reprising her role as investigative reporter Sarah Jane Smith. Her first appearance in Doctor Who was in 1973 in the Jon Pertwee story The Time Warrior. She remained with the show until the 1976 episode with Tom Baker in The Hand of Fear. A fan favorite, Sarah Jane popped up from time to time, notably in the special K-9 and Company, the Doctor Who 20^th Anniversary special The Five Doctors.

She reappeared in New Who in the David Tennant episode School Reunion, and it was from here that her own spinoff series grew. 

The premise for the new series had Sarah Jane working as a journalist but also seeking out strange and unexplained phenomena, helping lost or stranded aliens, or thwarting aliens with more hostile intentions. In the pilot episode, she rescues a child genetically manufactured by an invading alien species, and adopts him. The boy and his friends help her in repelling alien invasions. 

The audio adventures, and the show itself, are intended for children, but Doctor Who fans of all ages have embraced them. 

1. The Glittering Storm — Sarah Jane investigates a series of burglaries being committed by people who later don’t remember doing it. Uncovering a plot to take over the Earth, she and her teen colleagues, must find a way to stop it.

2. The Thirteenth Stone — A school trip to visit a set of standing stones seems innocuous enough, but soon Sarah Jane and company have discovered the legend about the stones are true, and a malevolent entity is about to escape.

3. The Time Capsule—Sarah Jane finds her neighbor is controlling her team.

4. The Ghost House—A house on Bannerman Road, the street where Sarah Jane lives, has transformed into a Victorian Era home. 

5. The White Wolf—Sarah Jane receives a letter from an old friend of her aunt’s, but Sarah Jane and this friend don’t remember ever meeting, though there is evidence that they did. What does the White Wolf carved into the hillside have to do with anything?

6. The Shadow People—When Luke and Clyde miss a bus that was supposed to take them on a class trip, Sarah Jane sacrifices her quiet weekend in order to drive them to their camping destination. Once there, they find their friend Rani in two different places. 

7. Deadly Download—An alien computer virus is downloading onto the computers on Bannerman Road.

8. Wraith World—Rani is staying with Sarah Jane while her parents are out of town. She and Sarah Jane visit a bookstore where Rani’s favorite author is appearing. She tries to interview him for her school newspaper, and he gives her his notes on continuing the series of books he’s written. It’s when she starts to use his notebooks that she begins to change.

9. Children of Steel—Sarah Jane et al go to an auction where Sarah Jane ends up in a bidding war with another woman over a Victorian brass head.

10. Judgement Day—An alien race called the Veritas put Sarah Jane on trial for keeping the truth about aliens from the people of Earth.

I’ve listened to all of these stories, and they’re just like the episodes of the television show. Full of gadgets, aliens, running, chasing, humor, victory, and of course fun. If you’re a fan of Doctor Who and never tried The Sarah Jane Adventures, you need to take a chance on these audio adventures.