Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith (SJA episodes)

[Doctorwhovian]

Just saw this, does it strike anybody that it's sort of a "Father's Day" lite? Like Rose, Sarah Jane saves her parent(s) who originally died in the past, resulting in an evil destructive force being released in the past that screws up everything (which in turn, invokes sort of a bit of the alternate 1980 from Pyramid Of Mars). Although instead of the reapers we get SJA's recurring enemy the Trickster-who looks sort of like Emperor Palpatine meets the Mouth of Sauron from LOTR.

Sarah, like Rose, of course lets fate run it's course after a heart to heart with her parents who find out who she is, and then which returns everything to normal, just like Rose sort of did. Funny bit with the TARDIS lookalike Police Box though.

The 'grandfather paradox' has been done a few times before in WHO (Mawdryn Undead and Curse Of Fenric being the best examples I think) but it just seemed like Gareth Roberts was just reusing elements from Paul Cornell's regular WHO story. Anybody else feel this way?

 

[Christopher]

Every story uses elements from earlier stories. Cornell's was surely drawing on earlier influences as well. They're just variations on the classic trope of a character getting a wish fulfilled, finding it has disastrous consequences, and learning to be satisfied with the way things are -- It's a Wonderful Life being a famous example. There have certainly been plenty of time-travel stories about people going back to save lost loved ones and finding it has dire consequences. Star Trek's "The City on the Edge of Forever" comes close, and there was once an ST:TNG comic by John DeLancie and Peter David where Q let Picard go back and save his dead brother (before he was given a different brother onscreen) only to find the brother had grown up into a horrible dictator. Then there's DC's Flashpoint, where Barry Allen trying to save his mother created a horrible dystopian present, but that came after the Who-verse episodes we're discussing. Still, it's a widespread trope. Arguably it's just a sci-fi remix of older folklore about the evil consequences of resurrecting people who are meant to be dead.

It's a given that works in the same genre are occasionally going to use similar tropes and ideas, so any long-running series in a given genre is going to have episodes that resemble each other.