Sarah Who

So - a result of the Time War was that the Doctor was left without any other Time Lords to talk to other than the Master, the Daleks somehow survived (three cases so far) and Sarah Jane Smith (or Sarah as we used to call her, regardless of her Sunday name) turned into a female version of the Doctor.

Sarah Jane Adventures is with us from Monday 24th September, and it's interesting to see how the series is being marketed. First off, let's look at the obvious bit - Lis Sladen returns to play Sarah Jane Smith, who has gone from companion of days of yore to a female microcipher of the Doctor. How has this happened? Why does she need a "Sonic Lipstick"?

Then we've got "Mr Smith" the battle computer which plays such a part in the BBC's Sarah Jane Adventures website. That must have been like a dream come true at first for the website designers, until they realised that the site would have to be redesigned as a web based Mr Smith is just too unwieldy.

SJA is part of the CBBC imprint of BBC One, which also has it's own channel, so don't expect to miss any of it - although the CBBC budget may well begin to tell by episode 3.

Of course, placing the Slitheen into their rightful home is a masterstroke by Gareth Roberts and RTD, who seems to be having better luck in measuring the tone of this series than he did Serioes 1 of Doctor Who.

Try to ignore the fact that a 57 year old lady playing what is basically a female version of the Doctor completely laughs in the face of Davies' assertion that an over 40 male couldn't lead Doctor Who in this day and age...