Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Elisabeth Sladen Passes















At the end of the new episode of Doctor Who there was a dedication to Elisabeth Sladen. Sladen had died earlier in the week. For long time Doctor Who fans she was Sarah-Jane Smith. She was on the show from 1973 to 1976, opposite both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.

I have to say she was one of my favorite campanions. I didn’t stumble on to Doctor Who until the mid to late 1980s. The show was run on one of the local public broadcasting stations WHUT which is owned by Howrd University. Each night during the week there would be an episode. So it was important to see each one or you’d miss some of the action. The effects and sets of the show were not exactly first rate but the premise and the acting was first rate.

Doctor Who ran on WHUT for four or five years and then it went off the air. A few years later WETA started running the show on Saturdays. WETA ran each story as one episode. They also ran all the episodes of the show. They started with the first one and went from there. The public television station in Chicago was doing the same thing so I had my parents record some of the shows for me and send them to me. It was such a great show to watch.

Eventually the show ran it’s course and the last show was in December of 1989 with the final Sylvester McCoy. That is of course until 2005 when it was started all again.

And who should show up in some of those epsiodes but Sarah-Jane. The scenes between her and David Tennant, who plays the Doctor, when they meet again after so many years are in my opinion some of the best in the whole series.

Here’s a great article on Elisabeth Sladen
.

And a wonderful remembrance from Tom Baker.

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