The fantastic Sarah jane Adventures has always lacked one thing, a real cross over from Doctor Who of some of the other characters. Well in this “gap year” for the 10th Doctor, Russell T davies has confirmed that David Tennant will make a crossover appearance in a two part story of the third season of The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Russell confirms that it won’t just be a 5 minute grinning appearance at the end, but a full blown participation in the story. He states that it will be a 50% Sarah and 50% Doctor story; both reunited to fight a fearsome foe.
Soldiers with gas masks and machine guns fire at and kill one another on a misty plain of rubble and dirt. From out of the mist, the Doctor waves his hands, snapping at the Time Lords for intercepting a transmat beam, something very dangerous. A Time Lord in black hood and cloak appears as the Doctor rants about the Time Lord’s continual interference in his life. The Time Lord tells the Doctor that their people have interrupted transmat beams for a long time, a simple thing for their race. The Time Lord tells the Doctor they have something for him to do for them. The Doctor won’t hear of it until the Time Lord snaps one word, “Daleks.” The Doctor then says, “Tell me more.” The Time Lords foresee a time when Daleks become the dominant creatures in the universe. They want the Doctor to avert their creation or affect their genetic development so that they become less aggressive creatures or if he cannot, to find one inherent weakness. The Doctor tells him one more time he will do their dirty work. He asks for the coordinates to Skaro so he can set the TARDIS to it but the Time Lord tells him, “This is Skaro.” He gives the Doctor a time ring so that when his mission is finished, he can return to the TARDIS. When the Doctor looks up, the Time Lord has vanished, leaving the Doctor to yell, “Don’t just disappear! What about Sarah and Harry?”
Headmaster Finch walks the staircases and corridors of his school, before approaching his office only to find a young girl sitting outside. She explains that she is ill with a headache and Matron has sent her to see him. He asks why she cannot just go home and she explains she lives in Ambrose Hall, the local orphanage. He sympathises and ushers her inside his office. It’s nearly time for lunch. As he closes the door he takes a peek back outside before closing it completely. The shadows through the frosted glass window shift and change, as the girl lets out a scream.
Elsewhere in the schoolchildren are rushing to lessons at the sound of the bell. Some of them pile into a science lab, followed by their teacher. He walks to his desk and sets down his bag before greeting his students. It’s the Doctor. Continue reading →
I’ve always considered Jon Pertwee’s last story, Planet of the Spiders, to be one of the best. My earliest memories of Doctor Who are of this story and the giant spiders were the stuff of nightmares. I was very pleased to find that iTunes have included this story as a download. It ‘s one of the Jon Pertwee stories that have, as yet, not been made available on DVD, however has previously been released on VHS.
I’ve now added this story to my digital collection of Doctor Who. I have also created a new piece of artwork, based on the Region 2 DVD covers and inspired by the original VHS cover artwork.
The plot of the story is as follows;
Sarah is invited by Mike Yates to visit him at a Buddhist meditation centre where he has been staying. A group of people there, led by a man named Lupton, are misusing the meditation rituals in order to make contact with powerful alien forces, which manifest themselves as a giant spider. The spider is an emissary from the ruling council on the planet Metebelis 3, sent to recover the blue crystal that the Doctor previously found there and that has now been returned to him by Jo.
The Doctor and Sarah journey to Metebelis 3 and aid its human colonists in an attempt to overthrow the ‘eight legs’. They then return to Earth in the TARDIS. The Doctor recognises the meditation centre abbot K’anpo as his former Time Lord guru and, at his prompting, returns to Metebelis 3, where the humans’ revolt has ultimately failed. He demands an audience with the Great One – a huge mutated spider revered by the others – and offers her the crystal.
The Great One uses it to complete a crystal lattice, which she believes will increase her mental powers to infinity. Instead, the rising power kills her. The other spiders also die as their mountain explodes. K’anpo has meanwhile been killed while protecting Yates from an attack by the spider-controlled residents of the meditation centre, only to be reborn in the form of his assistant Cho-je – his own future self.
Some weeks later, the Doctor is brought back to UNIT HQ by the TARDIS, having been fatally affected by the radiation in the Great One’s cave. K’anpo appears and, with his help, the Doctor regenerates, see YouTube clip below with updated regeneration effects.
The episode continues from the end of “The Stolen Earth”; the Doctor (David Tennant) is regenerating inside the TARDIS. Once his body has healed, he halts the transformation by transferring the remaining energy into his severed hand. The TARDIS is captured by the Daleks and transported to the Crucible—the Dalek flagship.
The Gallifrey Guardian 
