It’s hard to believe she could be gone. She was such a vital, strong, engaging screen presence, seemingly as youthful in her 60s as she was in her 30s, but with more poise and wisdom. I found her fascinating to watch, a warm, captivating lead, and the news of her passing feels like losing a friend.
It’s hard for me to imagine the
Doctor Who universe without her, and I think I’ve realized why. It’s more than just the pivotal role she’s come to play in the franchise these past few years. Sarah Jane was my first
Doctor Who companion. In fact, she was the first
Doctor Who character whose face I saw onscreen, and the second whose voice I heard. When my PBS station began running the show back in the ’80s, they began with the most popular Doctor, Tom Baker, and his debut story, “Robot.” And the first face we see in that episode (after a still of Baker’s face in the opening titles) is that of Lis Sladen as Sarah Jane watches the Doctor begin to regenerate. ... At the time, I didn’t really appreciate her as much as some companions I discovered later (my favorite to this day is Katy Manning as Jo Grant), but still, she was the person who taught me what a “companion” to the Doctor was, a key component of my earliest experiences with
Doctor Who. And since seeing Sladen’s triumphant return in the modern
Doctor Who, I’ve gained a new appreciation for how strong and exceptional a companion she was, the first female companion to be treated as an equal partner to the Doctor (though it took a couple of years for her to really come into her own, to go from having strident speeches about women’s equality stuck in her mouth by the writers to actually
showing her equality through her character and actions). And that was reportedly due to Sladen herself campaigning for the role to be written better. As io9 put it in
their lovely tribute article, “In many ways, she paved the way for all of the show’s more intelligent, resourceful companions in the 21st Century.”
But it was in
The Sarah Jane Adventures that Sladen truly shone. Her greater maturity and experience made her a stronger actress, a more compelling presence, and in many ways a more striking and beautiful woman. She’d begun a whole new career as something more than a former companion of the Doctor, as a heroine and world-savior in her own right, and it feels like she was just getting started.
