''Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith'' is the sixth and final serial of the fourth series of the British science fiction television series ''
The Sarah Jane Adventures''. It first aired in two parts on
CBBC
CBBC is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 to 12. Its sister c ...
on 15 and 16 November 2010. It is the last story to feature
John Leeson as the voice of
K9, and , the last to feature the character in any televised media.
Plot
Ruby White is a Qetesh, an alien that feeds on the heightened emotions of people. She was exiled and imprisoned by her race, and she reprogrammed the holographic entertainment system on board called Mr White to make the prison her spaceship. Ruby moves into
Sarah Jane's neighbourhood, and uses Mr White to create holographic
visual effects
Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of
a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production.
The integration of live-action footage and other live-action fo ...
and fake saving the day by apparently destroying a crashed meteor with germs inside and helping the gang with defeating a warrior race named the Dark Horde. Every time Ruby encounters Sarah Jane she weakens her and causes her memories to fail to the point where she is unfit to save the world.
Sarah Jane hands over her attic and alien technology to Ruby, which Ruby also intends to use to monitor alien incursions. Instead of fighting aliens, she would feast on the humans' emotions by helping aliens cause their suffering and destruction. Ruby teleports Sarah Jane to her cellar and causes her to weaken further when Ruby's stomach, a separate entity to her human form, absorbs more of her life force. When
Clyde is suspicious of Ruby's cover story of Sarah Jane leaving so quickly, Ruby teleports him to her ship, which has limited oxygen.
Rani
''Rani'' () is a female title, equivalent to queen, for royal or princely rulers in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It translates to 'queen' in English. It is also a Sanskrit Hindu feminine given name. The term applies equally to a ...
has a phone call with
Luke and
K9, who use the proximity of Rani's phone to Mr White to reset Mr White's functions and save Clyde. Luke then uses holograms to make meteors visible to everyone on Earth, overloading the capacity of Ruby's ability to absorb emotions, and restoring Sarah Jane's life force to normal. Ruby is returned to her prison; the gravity lock is disengaged, sending her hurtling towards the Sun.
Production
This story was the last to air before the death of
Elisabeth Sladen.
Writers Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman wrote ''Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith'' as a replacement for their earlier attempt at a sequel to the ''Doctor Who'' story ''
Planet of the Spiders'' (1974), which featured Sarah Jane Smith. Roberts and Hickman were assigned to the Spiders sequel after the previously assigned writer, script editor
Gary Russell, could not make it work. When Roberts and Hickman could not make the Spiders sequel work either, they then replaced it with ''Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith''. Roberts and Hickman just used one element from the Spiders sequel outlines on ''Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith'', namely Sarah Jane's tiredness and forgetfulness.
[''Doctor Who Magazine – The Sarah Jane Companion'' Volume Three]
References
External links
*
{{K9 stories, selected=Television
2010 British television episodes
The Sarah Jane Adventures episodes
Films with screenplays by Gareth Roberts (writer)