Elisabeth Sladen has died

ah no R.I.P.

Very sad, always liked her in the original Dr Who, and my kids love Sarah Jane Adventures.
RIP.

I remember as a 9 year old seeing my first Dr Who story It was 1975 and the story was the Monster of Peladon,without Sarah Jane the Dr lost his charm.you will be sadly missed.

Very sad news

Absolutely shocking news!

I didn't even know she was unwell.

RIP!

Its very sad indeed!

Have a safe onward journey Elisabeth, you'll be missed as Sarah Jane! May your family find some form of solace at this horrible time! Sleep well x

some of us are older than we think - the super channel repeats were in 1987 - i remember them well.

sarah janes character is where i started with who. My brother got the cassette version of the Genises of the Daleks LP back in the late 70's and I used to listen to it for hours and hours. Sarah and Harry, both now gone, hard to believe.

I posted on another forum that Sarah's character was gutsy, intelligent, very much a friend and not overwhelmed by her Doctors. She screamed, but she was not a "screamer" companion. She was a journalist who got into adventures by herself, a trait that survived and was an important part of the Sarah Jane Adventures. Her character in the 1970's was only in her early twenties (although born in 1980 lol) but she was a proper person.

In the SJA's Sarah battled the effects of post-doctor-syndrome, loneliness, advancing age, and the series and character drew hints that there was a sad enough life having been had, given the way she reacts with Luke and with the chance to be married. Although very deftly handled and subtle and the product of the brain of RTD I thnk Liz Sladen brought a great deal of humanity, maturity emotion and pathos to her role of Sarah Jane in the last four years. As I said last night, and in retrospect I guess it is easy to spot these things, it must have been known to the production crew that she was ill, and as we have spotted, the last show of the last run has an added meaning in that retrospective revision.

It also explains the rather odd way that series four and five have been filmed. Perhaps, to quote the fourth doctor, the moment has been prepaired for, and we shall see in the Autumn how this turns out.

Also, in retrospect, the change in Liz's appearance from School Reunion to the end of the last run of SJA's is fairly clear. I had put it down to the stress of doing all those shows and the usual peer pressure from appearing to have to look great on tv (did you see David Tennant on Graham Norton last week looking a lot healthier than he did during the last Specials he did, in fact looking as he did in the Christmas Invasion?) but it was probably some signs of illness.

The character of Sarah Jane will live on. She was a great character, and the more she went on the greater she became, and the influence of Liz Sladen was there in every moment and was a joy to see. She joins now almost all of the old Unit gang in the big production office in the sky. In the past couple of years we lost Barry Letts and also recently Nick Courtney, having lost Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado many moons ago.

It has an added sadness, as did those deaths, for those of us in our late 30's and upwards. The people we knew as children on our tellys are passing beyond. That said, and the biggest tribute you could perhaps give Liz Sladen, is that my kids were saddened at her death too. She has been a big part of their childhoods too. I dont think, back those decades ago, that we could ever have seen that one coming, and it is very much down to her that we did.

Just heard about this now, THE Doctor's companion has left us.

RIP