School Reunion

Dear Gary—

Sarah Jane Smith! K9! Now we’re cooking with gas, as my dad would say. Now this is a Doctor Who story. I have no complaints. Oh, there are a few quibbles with the plot, but who really cares why both Mickey and Sarah Jane keyed in on the school with the flimsiest of evidence or how Rose and the Doctor found it so easy to get jobs there, especially Rose given the bad stuff going down in the cafeteria. Any good Doctor Who script can be full of holes and unanswered questions yet somehow rise above. School Reunion rises above.

I have to start with the return of Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. She steps into the role as though she had never left, except with an added maturity. “I got old,” she tells the Doctor, but she has aged with grace. She meets the Doctor on a more equal footing, something only a few companions have ever done (Barbara, Ian, and Romana to name the select few).

Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart made a habit of returning to Doctor Who and always elevated the story when he did so. However it is not merely the presence of Sarah Jane that enriches School Reunion, but also the emotional depths mined as a result of the character’s return. The episode resonates with love, regret, longing, and loss; it explores the nature of companionship with the Doctor and the inevitable heartbreak that accompanies it, both for him and the companions who invariably get left behind.

“You can spend the rest of your life with me,” the Doctor tells Rose, “but I can’t spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on; alone. That’s the curse of the Time Lords.” That’s the first time I ever really thought about it. Prior to this I took the revolving line of companions as a matter of course. Companions come and companions go; some leave, some get left, some, a very few, even die; the Doctor always carries on. There have been brief moments of reflection as the Doctor takes his leave of the departing, but another always arrives to fill the hole and the action always sweeps us up and former followers quickly become nothing more than pleasant memories.

I have to go back to the First Doctor, to William Hartnell, for the two partings that took the hardest toll upon the Doctor. The first was Susan, his granddaughter; his flesh and blood; his last link to his home and his own people. After considered thought he left Susan behind for her own good at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth; he gave her a future and a life that she could never have in her aimless travels with him. It was bittersweet with deep felt loss but with the promise of hope (“go forward in all your beliefs . . .”). Second there was the parting from Barbara and Ian in The Chase. To this day I regard this as the most devastating. From all indications these two were his first true companions. Susan had been, well his family, his granddaughter. They had been on their own in exile from their home planet when Barbara and Ian stumbled upon them and into TARDIS life. It started out hostile, but the four soon became close friends. These were people the Doctor could share experiences and adventures with, people he came to care deeply for. And they were people who left him.  With joyous heart they returned home, Doctorless, and William Hartnell’s elegantly understated “I shall miss them” spoke volumes.

Jump ahead to the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker in The Hand of Fear saying goodbye to Sarah Jane Smith: “Oh, Sarah, don’t you forget me.” Sarah didn’t want to leave; oh, in a fit of pique she packed her bags and threatened to leave, but she was only trying to get a rise out of the Doctor; she never expected to be unceremoniously dumped back on Earth. The Hand of Fear is very much Sarah Jane’s story and the freeze frame at the end highlights the poignant nature of companionship with the Doctor. Tom Baker’s warm, “Oh, Sarah, don’t you forget me,” combined with the affectionate moments he had shared with Sarah during the episode and the lonely quality of the following, The Deadly Assassin, deftly characterize the loss the Doctor feels without ever overtly stating it.

However life and adventure goes on for the Doctor and new companions find their way into the TARDIS and these brief moments of angst are forgotten. School Reunion, however, brings them front and center.

“How lonely you must be, Doctor,” Finch tells him. How many friends has he seen come and go from his life? In hindsight and with the explicit statement of School Reunion, it is more understandable why many of the Doctor’s relationships were slightly contentious (and in particular I’m thinking Tegan).

It is a beautiful moment when the Doctor first spots Sarah across the teacher’s lounge. He has not forgotten her; neither has she forgotten him. “I used to have a friend who sometimes went by that name,” she tells him when he introduces himself as John Smith, and she continues, “He was a very uncommon man.” And then Sarah sees the TARDIS and all those memories well up as she turns to find the Doctor, a new Doctor with a new face and a new companion, but still the Doctor, her Doctor. “It’s you.”

The Doctor has not forgotten, but he has moved on. He can look on Sarah Jane with fondness and pride. Sarah, however, has some unresolved feelings that manifest in moments of, not anger exactly, but more reproach. “You could have come back,” she charges. I don’t picture Sarah Jane Smith pining away just waiting for the day the Doctor returns; I’m sure she got on with her life; but I’m also sure that she thought of him every day and wondered. “I waited for you. I missed you.” How could she not? “I thought you must have died.” She had no closure. Oh, and I really do hate that modern invention of ‘closure,’ Gary. Life is messy and chaotic and does not follow a script. It is convenient, though, as a shorthand way of saying that Sarah had an extraordinary man come into her life one day, sweep her off into untold adventures in the stars, and then left her behind with so many questions unanswered and so many expectations unfulfilled.

Now she knows that he did not die; he just never returned. He was off living his life.

“You could have come back.” It is an accusation.

But she also understands. “I couldn’t,” the Doctor tells her. He had to spell it out for Rose, but all Sarah needs is that simple, “I couldn’t,” and the look of sorrow in his eyes. Sarah understands. And so she deflects the pain with humor and a playful reproof: “It wasn’t Croydon. Where you dropped me off, that wasn’t Croydon.” (It was Aberdeen.)

The presence of Sarah also demands an inspection of the Doctor’s new relationship with Rose. Rose is as usual jealous at first sight of Sarah Jane and it brings out her cruel side: “Well, he’s never mentioned you.” But then she begins to internalize and process. If he has traveled with Sarah in the past and never mentions her in the present, what does that mean for her? “I thought you and me were . . .” Rose is thinking in her typical teenage romance mentality.  “No, not to you,” the Doctor reassures her emphatically when she asks if her fate will be the same. It’s rather rash and irresponsible of him, because inevitably it can’t be anything else but, but Rose isn’t ready for that truth.

Rose does come to some measure of understanding, not through the Doctor but through Sarah. It starts with her customary high school approach (fitting that they are in a school). Sarah tries to counsel her but Rose becomes defensive and combative. She briefly drags Sarah down to her level as they compare experiences with the Doctor.

“Mummies,” Sarah begins. “I’ve met ghosts,” Rose counters. “Robots; lots of robots,” Sarah returns. “Slitheen—in Downing Street,” Rose tops. “Daleks,” Sarah answers. “Met the Emperor,” Rose triumphs. In the end, though, it is Sarah who wins out with: “THE Loch Ness Monster,” (Terror of the Zygons). The two end up sharing a laugh as they compare Doctor notes. I can only hope that the maturity of Sarah is wearing off on Rose.

It’s not just Sarah Jane Smith who returns, though; it is K9 as well. The tin dog. “Oh my God, I’m the tin dog.” K9 meet Mickey Smith. The secondary companion. Because the Doctor does not always travel with a single companion. Sometimes there is a K9. Sometimes there is a tin dog.

Mickey does not have the respect that even a tin dog has, however. Mickey has been used and abused by both Rose and the Doctor. It is wonderful to see K9; it is wonderful to have John Leeson return as the voice of K9; it is even more wonderful to see Mickey come into his own. “I’m not the tin dog,” he ultimately concludes, “and I want to see what’s out there.” He wants to travel with the Doctor, not as an afterthought or a joke, but as a full-fledged partner. And it is not Rose that is the draw for him; if it were Rose he would have jumped on board long ago; and it is not just the Doctor; it is a new-found sense of self worth and confidence that prompts him.

I view this episode as both Rose and Mickey finally growing up; as Mickey and Rose moving past their school years.

Given all that is going on with the return of Sarah and K9 and the exploration of what it means to be a companion of the Doctor, there is still a plot that is unfolding, and as Doctor Who plots go it is passable. There are some problems, but overall, with everything going on, they are worth the overlook.

Anthony Head as the main baddie Finch contributes greatly to this act of absolution.  As the headmaster of the school and the leader of the Krilitanes he is magnificent. “But we’re not even enemies” he reasons with the Doctor. It is a bit uncharacteristic of the Doctor to be dead set against an alien without even knowing its motives. Granted, he turns out to be right, but that is only courtesy of the script.

“Show me how clever you are; work it out,” Finch challenges the Doctor. Using the intelligence and imagination of the children, Finch and the Krilitanes are out to crack the Skasis Paradigm, otherwise known as “the god maker; the universal theory.” Skepticism aside regarding whether such a code exists or could be cracked by several dozen kids on computers, who is the Doctor to decide that a race can or cannot utilize such a theory if they can figure out a way to crack it? If such a code exists and it is so easily cracked, someone is bound to crack it sooner or later (Daleks or Cybermen anyone?). Why not Finch and the Krilitanes? At least they are offering the Doctor some say in their New Universe Order. However, I can understand why the Doctor turns them down in their ‘god maker’ proposal. Finch uses the presence of Sarah Jane, suggesting the possibility of everlasting youth and beauty, and he dangles the promise of re-writing Time Lord History. But the Doctor has a time machine; he has the TARDIS. He could re-write history any time he wanted to. He has never and will never do that and has stated as such. There is no true lure there.

But Anthony Head and the bats and the kids and the music and the rats and the thrill—it’s all good. It keeps the heart pumping and the pimples goosing.

“Forget the shooty dog thing.” Ah, that makes everything good.

The school is blown up, the Krilitanes are blown up; K9 is blown up. The Skasis Paradigm is uncracked. There are no gods made. All is right with the Doctor Who universe.

“Goodbye, Doctor.” Sarah Jane is taking her leave. Sarah Jane is grown up. The Doctor isn’t quite ready to say goodbye, but Sarah forces him. “Everything has its time,” she told the Doctor earlier, “and everything ends.” Her travels with the Doctor are at an end and she has moved on. This is one lesson she has taught the Doctor.

The lesson she teaches Rose: “Some things are worth getting your heart broken for.”

And finally, her own reward: “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” (Along with a fresh K9 model courtesy of the Doctor.)

Goodbye, Sarah Jane.  I wouldn’t have missed you for the world.