A great sadness: RIP Elizabeth Sladen…

Updated on April 19, 2011 By Ken Begg 15 Comments

Gone at the much, much too young age of 63.

When I was a kid, I knew a lot of Trekkies. I even knew a guy obsessed with the Gil Gerard Buck Rogers TV show. However, I was a Doctor Who guy, even though the show, broadcast Monday through Friday in Chicago at 5:30 in the afternoon on our local PBS affiliate, drew little attention or respect even from my fellow geeks.

I still remember the very first, quite small Doctor Who con I attended, downtown Chicago at the Congress Hotel. There several hundred Doctor fans basically milled around, entirely satisfied by the evidence that, yes, other people were also watching the show. (Remember, this was loooong before the Internet.) It was a blessed Eden for a few years, until I went to a third yearly con and suddenly all the people in costumes started showing up, along with the sniggering jackasses who lived only to remember the name of each and every planet the Doctor visited in each episode, and to snidely mock those (like me) who couldn’t be bothered. That was my last such con.

Even so, even so. Every Doctor Who fan has His (or Her) Doctor, and every fan His (or her) Companion. My Doctor was Tom Baker (no great originality there), and my companion Sarah Jane Smith. Without meaning to denigrate other people’s Companions, previous assistants like Jo Grant did little for me. Nor did a later parade of pretenders. To me, Sarah Jane was to Doctor Who what Diana Rigg was to The Avengers. Sarah Jane hung around an atypically long time, as well, being a companion to both the third and fourth Doctors.

Clearly I wasn’t alone; the revival of the show featured a loving tribute to Sarah Jane, and she was even recently awarded her own TV series. Liz Sladen still looked damn good in the role, and her stunned gasp when she stumbled across David Tennant’s TARDIS, and her subsequent diatribe spilling out several decades’ worth of bewildered rejection and abandonment at the Doctor’s deserting her at the end of The Hand of Fear, touch something deep inside me. And deep inside quite a few others, I expect.

All too recently we lost one of Sarah Jane’s compatriots, the Brigadier, in the person of actor Nicholas Courtney. Now Liz Sladen too has shuffled off this mortal coil. God bless, Liz. And thank you.

[Thanks to Fish Eye no Miko, Eric Balzer and Michael Conroy for the sad news]
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  • fish eye no miko

    Yeah, I was stunned when I read this news. She was only 63. And her spin-off show, The Sarah Jane Adventures, is still in production. I’ve heard some episodes have been filmed; who knows whether they’ll show them or not…

    Also, I hope there’s some acknowledgment on DW about the deaths of both Ms. Sladen and Nicholas Courtney. This season has been filmed, but they might add a note. Or they might address it in the Christmas episode or next season (season seven).

    (btw, Ken, it’s Fish Eye no Miko… thanks!)

  • Frank Bauroth

    Hell. I had not heard. I mourn them both.

  • Sorry, Fish Eye!

  • I had little exposure to Doctor Who until the early 80s, and then only briefly. It was Tom Baker, of course, and Elisabeth Sladen was his Companion. I was in college, and we had just gotten cable, and I saw the ads for Doctor Who on the WGN channel. A couple of my college friends were big fans of the show, so I invited them over to my house to watch. Good times.

    One of those friends passed away last year, far too young, and today’s news reminded me of happier times. Thank you, Sarah Jane; you will be sorely missed.

  • Petoht

    For the longest time, the only Doctor I had been exposed to was Baker, and the only companion was Sladen. For years, they were “Doctor Who” and it wasn’t until I was older that I saw other episodes with other doctors and companions. She’ll always be the quintessential companion to me, though, and it’s sad to hear of her passing.

  • I had much the same experience as you, having watched Dr. Who on the local PBS affiliate in half hour episodes every afternoon at 4:30. I never went so far as attending conventions, and I think I favored Leela over Liz, but it was still a shock to hear about her death. Even more so as I have recently undergone something of a Dr. Who revival. Having been rather turned off by the Tennant years of the new series (more preachy than the Davison years that almost lost me as a fan many years ago), I avoided the show completely for a while, but in the past few months, thanks to some good deals on used DVDs, I have been working my wat through the Pertwee and Baker years. (Especially as there has been little enough to watch on normal television.) So it seems surprising to hear about this, as in my mind she is still as she was back in the early to mid 70’s, far too young to be gone.

  • I mean Leela over Sarah Jane, not sure where my mind is tonight….

    By the way, not exactly on topic, but it is fun to see my son, coming into the room while I am watching, reacting to the low budget gothics such as “Talons of Wen Chiang” or “Brain of Morbius”, with the same mix of wonder, fear and amusement I felt when I was about the same age and watching them in my grandmother’s living room after school. Even with all the advances in special effects, he seems as forgiving of the low budget silliness as I was at his age. (Of course, this is the boy who, at four years old, made me go to badmovies.org site and play the clips from Starcrash and The Giant Claw over and over for him. So maybe it is genetic…)

  • GalaxyJane

    I am just sitting here stunned. Sarah Jane was my first companion and to me “Real” Dr. Who will always be her, the Brig and Jon Pertwee’s Doctor. May they all rest in peace. My day is now just that much sadder.

    I still want to be Sarah Jane Smith when I grow up.

  • Gamera

    Wow, yeah she was my favorite companion too, I have to admit to having a bit of a crush on her when I was younger.

    RIP (sigh)

  • I have actually been buying and watching her spin off show. I guess it’s a goner. My doctor is Peter Davison and my companion is Teegan, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate Sladen’s prowess as companion. She did, indeed, break the cycle of the useless screamers Liz Shaw and Jo Grant, setting the stage for later, much stronger companions, such as well … Leela, Teegan, and so forth. We didn’t get back to the useless screamers again until Peri.

  • GalaxyJane

    There is a really selfish part of me that is most upset because this means no more Sarah Jane Adventures. I just really feel that it often better captures the spirit of the original Who series than NuWho does, especially under RTD.

    Slightly off topic, but Sandy I would argue that not ALL the pre-Sarah Jane female companions were useless screamers, Barbara and Zoe particularly come to mind. In fact I think Jamie took that role more often than Zoe, despite the kilt.

    And I like Liz, I know that puts me firmly in the minority, but hey, terminal smart chick here, need to have a scientist chick to emulate.

  • GJ — I don’t think it’s selfish at all, as it’s really a tribute to how much their work touched people. I would imagine they’d be honored by that. It’s even worse in a way when a favorite author dies, because he or she tend to take an entire universe (or several) with them.

    I did pause for a moment to real especial sympathy for Sladen’s husband Brian Miller. They’d been married since 1968. A long marriage, but still cut short by her premature passing.

  • tim

    she was one of the companions in the five doctors, so technically she worked beside pat troughton and peter davison, too. she was my first character crush when I was younger. I liked how she was smart and funny.

  • Marsden

    I used to love the way she called Harry. I remember my mom and me trying to emulate it, the closest I could get was to try to almost make half a d sound in between the r s.

    When the Doctor dropped her off I was a bit in shock. I liked Leela (can’t say/type that without thinking of Futurama, now) and Teegan but Sarah Jane was my first companion and I never thought they would replace her. Ignorant American thinking Tom Baker was the only Doctor. Ha. I did get to see John Pertwee but missed the first two Doctors completely. I saw Davidson and remember him changing into the next Baker but didn’t actually get to see any after that until the latest incaration. I was really happy when they brought her and K-9 back.

    I didn’t even get to see the Sarah Jane Adventures, I hope to someday but now I can’t see how they would continue.

  • John Campbell

    As with most of you, Sarah Jane Smith was my first and favorite companion. I do agree with GalaxyJane that they all have there merits and places in the series as a whole. I think Liz Shaw and Jo Grant were great.

    And I confess that as I’ve sat and read this at my desk at work I’ve shed some tears.

    Truly the end of a great era is coming to pass.

    I still get that shivery thrill when I hear the Doctor Who theme. It doesn’t get any better than the Doctor.

    I recently converted my fiancee into a Whoite with the newer series. Now to convince her to jump back in time for some early Doctor Who’s!

    RIP Elizabeth