Timeless Wedding Crasher

Ah, yes, there was one time when the Doctor Who series was thought as a children's show. Something to be carted off to the youngest, the little tikes who would be ushered into the living room at tea time. The wee generation of tottlers.

Children would be following the time traveler who didn't exactly express himself as the best role model for kids. Well, he did steal the TARDIS from his own people! Sort of a mortal sin, isn't it? That's against one of the old ten commandments if you really want to get all puffy about it.

But here you are, forty years later, it's sparked off one children's show in the form of “Sarah Jane Adventures.”

If you're like me, old and doddering, maybe not that old, but you'll remember Sarah Jane as being the smart, very expressive girl, a journalist. So she's no dummy. Fact is, she's able to hold off on her own against the wily Doctor in her time. I'm talking about the Doctor in the form of Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.

That's a pretty tough time. If you're a young, perky girl who was an erstwhile companion to the third and fourth Doctors, you're in good company. You had to be pretty smart if you're hanging around with the Doctor anyway.

Now this. She's having her own wedding in her own series last week in the episode “The Wedding of Sarah Jane.”

Mind you, it's a bit of a forward step for the young, brash journalist who spent most of her time being alone, minding her own life, always writing, spending her time between the paper factory, chasing her stories. Or, what the reporters would often call it, the Enterprise story. That's when you're harking after your own story, in hopes that the editor will like it enough to throw it into print. Maybe even carting it off on the front page.

But who would have thought that Sarah Jane might consider marriage? She's not the type, really. But that's what she is doing in the episode.

However, some creepy old creature, a kind of tempest, calls himself the Trickster, is trying to tie the final knot between Sarah Jane and a solid, old gentleman who happened to have died in a car accident.

However, in the last few sends before the big words “I do” came straight out of her mouth, she's once against affronted by a certain party pooper as the Doctor comes crashing in on the party. It's sort of something he would do.

Now, this is Sarah Jane Smith's third time she is meeting up with the tenth Doctor well acted by David Tennant with tons of energy and spunk. Who knows where all that manic energy and craziness is coming from?

It's sort of a nice wedding gift in the form of David Tennant if you're really thinking about it. With only three more one hour specials to go under his belt, he'll be soon relinquishing his role. That means the era of the tenth Doctor only has less than a couple months. I'm still pissed at Tennant for leaving after four years in the part.

But he puts in all his effort and attention into the part. And it's not just a small cameo he's doing. It's an full on role where he is a prime mover of the plot and story. And he's still very good in the part, rather dashing. So in a way, it's an added one hour and time and footage of the tenth Doctor. For fans of David Tennant and Doctor Who alike, don't miss this one. It's worth the effort in catching up with what the time traveler is doing, seeing how he is spending his time.

It's sort of sad how Sarah Jane asks the Doctor if this will be the last time she'll be seeing him. And it's a foreshadowing of things to come when the tenth Doctor gives a faint, “I don't know.”

So if you can't get enough of the Doctor in this episode, you might want to check out what the Brigadier has been doing in his retirement days, another nice nostalgic moment for Sarah Jane and her gallant crew of youngsters, even an adopted son Luke she's been sharing in her life. You can find it in the episode “Enemy of the Bane.”

They're fun shows. Go ahead. Take a trip down on memory lane with these couple of shows and ask yourself, “Are these really children shows?”

I do believe that the Sarah Jane Adventures have found their its, a little bit of maturity that has been developing in this series. Either way, it's not a bad idea to spend a few last moments with Doctor Who before things get crazy for him in the Thanksgiving episode, Christmas and finally New Year's Eve before there's going to be plenty changes when Tennant's leaves the Doctor Who series.