jeriendhal | How I met Sarah Jane

I'm eight years old or so. It's a weekday afternoon, early summer I think, and I flip on the TV and turn the dial (the dial) on the front to WETA Channel 26, expecting to see the last couple of minutes of Mister Roger's Neighborhood which even to my eight-year old self is stupifyingly dull, while I wait for ZOOM to come on. Instead I see what looks like a typical British drama, with two adults in an Edwardian room fiddling with an old-fashioned radio. I think I was a little annoyed. Masterpiece Theater and Mystery typically repeated earlier in the afternoon when I was outside playing. Late afternoon before dinner was for my shows.

Then a robot mummy bursts through the door, knocks the man aside and starts choking the life out of the woman. My jaw drops, and then a high pitched, screaming sound starts as the credits begin to roll. I don't remember what exactly I thought then, but it could have easily been "What the hell was that? And is it on tomorrow?"

So, love at first sight basically

That's how I met Sarah Jane Smith, that's how I was introduced to Doctor Who. When Sarah left the show and Leela in her doeskin bikini came aboard the TARDIS it did interesting things to my young male hormones, but she was savage and alien. Sarah Jane was comforting and normal, and her easy interaction with Tom Baker's Doctor was what I always thought Doctor/Companion relationships should be like.

Goodbye Liz. You, and the piece of my childhood you represented, will be missed.