It is with great sadness that I found out last night that Elisabeth Sladen had died at age 63. Her portrayal of Doctor Who companion Sarah Jane Smith is still held up as the gold standard for the role, and with good reason. She imbued the often thankless job of getting into trouble, screaming at monsters and asking questions to the Doctor with a humanity and depth of expression all her own. Sarah Jane was a real person, not someone who read out lines or stood clumsily around. Her popularity would endure beyond her 3½ seasons with the 3rd and 4th Doctors, returning in both the 20th Anniversary special and in a pilot for her own show, K-9 and Company (she was the Company). Though that didn't work out, her reappearance in New Who's "School Reunion" would propel her to new heights as the star of her own popular series, The Sarah Jane Adventures, which I think had been picked up for a fifth year.I'm looking at my autographed picture of her on my wall, right over my computer right now, misting up. She will be missed. My thoughts go out to her friends and family. For us fans, she has been forever immortalized as perhaps (no, as surely!) the Doctor's greatest companion ever, as beautiful and as positive a heroine in the last few years as she was in the mid-70s. Thanks for all the memories, Ms. Sladen.
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