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Luke Smith
Nightmare3
Vital statistics
Name Luke Smith
Alias The Archetype (by Mrs Wormwood); Lukey Boy (by Clyde); Geek (by Clyde); Ashley Stafford; David Beckham (by himself in 1951); My Prince (by Mrs Wormwood); My Young Padawan (by Clyde); Lukey (by his classmates)
Status Alive
Friend/Foe Friend
Home Planet Earth
Species Human alien (created by the Bane)
Appearances List of Appearances
Actor Tommy Knight

Luke Smith is the adopted son of Sarah Jane Smith. Throughout his adventures investigating alien activity on Earth with Sarah Jane, he becomes close friends with Maria Jackson and Clyde Langer, later followed by Rani Chandra, and eventually becomes the adoptive older brother of Sky Smith.

Biography[]

Creation and Adoption[]

SJA

Luke and the gang.

Luke was created around spring-to-summertime of 2007 or 2008 by the Bane, a cephalopod-appearing species with the technology to “translate” their image in order to infiltrate the planets of other species (such as Earth). The Bane wanted to get as much of Earth’s population under their control as possible, and after studying human society created Bubble Shock, a pop drink that contained elements of the Bane Mother – this would allow the Bane Mother to control the humans that had ingested Bubble Shock. Luke was called “The Archetype” by the Bane that ran the Bubble Shock factory, in particular Mrs Wormwood who was the de-facto leader, and he was created to allow the Bane to modify Bubble Shock’s recipe so that every human would drink it, as 2 per cent of Britain’s population could not stand the taste and thought it “foul”. In order to know what elements of Bubble Shock needed changing, visitors to the factory were scanned by what appeared to be a simple metal detector; in actuality, it was scanning their entire bodies, as well as their brains, and uploading the data into the Archetype. He was woken up when Kelsey Hooper, a resident of Bannerman Road, snuck away from the visitor group and attempted to phone her friend Suki, thus setting off all of the alarms in the factory. As he sat up from his position, the technician in the room with him was knocked out by an electrical surge, allowing the Archetype to remove all the wires attached to him and run out of the room. At this moment, he was “born”.

He soon ran into Maria Jackson, who had snuck back into the factory to look for Kelsey, and took an immediate liking to her; as he had no knowledge of social constructs or how to have a conversation, he repeated everything she said (“Um, hello.” “Who are you?” “I’m lost.”). They initially hid from the security guards in the shadows the factory machinery created, but Maria suggested they hide in the female toilets, as no one would check for a boy in them.

At the same time, Sarah Jane Smith was looking for a place to hide after escaping from the Bane herself, and went into the same toilets Maria and the Archetype were hiding in. She and Maria exchanged similar shocked statements, and the three of them made a quick escape by climbing through the tiny window in the toilets, just before Mrs Wormwood, Davey and two other Bane guards entered. Once outside, they escaped in Sarah Jane’s car.

Once they returned to Bannerman Road, Sarah Jane sent Maria home, and she took the Archetype into her house. She questioned him about his origins, noting that he had no common sense of knowledge (he did not know the difference between food and drink when presented with sandwiches and tea on a tray), proper etiquette when someone sat down, and no name (he instead stated, “I am everyone.”). When a mysterious voice called out, the Archetype questioned who it was, not believing Sarah Jane when she stated that it was nobody but agreed when she told him to never go upstairs. After this, she scanned him with her wristwatch, happy to learn that he was human, but was astonished when her watch told her that he was only “born” three hundred and sixty minutes ago, though she initially read it as him being born three hundred and sixty years ago. He surprised her further when he instantaneously learnt how to read, just by flicking through a book she had on one of the many bookshelves in her living room. This was when Sarah Jane discovered that he also had no navel, prompting the Archetype to question whether that was good or bad, and she responded that she did not know, but that everyone who was born “has got a belly button.” This discovery enabled her to deduce that the Archetype hadn’t been born, but rather created. (“Sorry, but I don’t think you were born. I think … you were grown.”)

Unbeknownst to them, the Bane Davey had been watching them for some time through the window after Mrs Wormwood discovered, from Kelsey’s memories, that Sarah Jane lived at number 13, Bannerman Road, and under the guise of driving Kelsey home was able to find Sarah Jane’s home.

When Maria arrived with Kelsey and told Sarah Jane that one of the Bane was on the street, looking for her and the Archetype, she quickly ushered them into her home; the Archetype cheerfully greeted Maria and Kelsey (“Hello, Maria. Hello, screaming girl.”). After being given permission by Sarah Jane, they quickly rushed upstairs with Maria taking command of the situation (“Just shut up and move!”), fleeing from the attacking Davey. She stopped the three teenagers from entering her attic before disappearing inside to fetch something to fight it off. The Archetype remained fairly level-headed while Kelsey screamed and used him as a shield from the Bane (“This is not happening! This is so not happening!” “But that contradicts the facts.”). Sarah Jane then defended them by spraying the Bane with a strange-looking canister of a presumably alien gas until its image translator reasserted itself and showed its human form. While Sarah Jane was distracted with the black, tar-like substance the Bane had left behind, Kelsey snuck into the attic, prompting Maria and the Archetype to follow her in after she shouted, “Oh. My. God!” Sarah Jane sternly reprimanded Kelsey, telling the three to not touch anything as they explored the room. The Archetype commented that the room was beautiful, and Kelsey said that he was “not so bad [himself]”, indicating that she found him to be attractive.

While looking around the room, the Archetype noted that Sarah Jane’s wristwatch that detected aliens was detecting something new, causing Sarah Jane to follow the signal until she picked up Kelsey’s bottle of Bubble Shock. Sarah Jane discovered that there was a piece of living Bane – specifically the Bane Mother – inside every bottle of Bubble Shock, and that the Bane were behind the creation of the Archetype. Kelsey demanded that Sarah Jane do something about it, and the older woman responded that it wasn’t her fault, causing Kelsey to accuse her of just talking and not doing anything with what she has. This is when Maria, Kelsey and the Archetype are introduced to Mr Smith, an alien supercomputer hidden away in Sarah Jane’s wall, roughly where the chimney for a fireplace would be. Sarah Jane asked Mr Smith to get her a direct visual link with the Bubble Shock factory, and the computer recited the numbers for their frequency. The Archetype absorbed this information, not knowing that it would be crucial later on. Soon after the call between Sarah Jane and Mrs Wormwood was terminated, the Bane Mother activated the piece of Bane inside every person who had consumed Bubble Shock, hypnotising them and causing them to walk around with Bubble Shock, telling the people unaffected to “drink it”.

The Archetype alerted Sarah Jane and Maria to Kelsey, who had collapsed against a display and was struggling to stay upright. Horrified, Sarah Jane said that, “it [was] beginning.” Kelsey succumbed to the Bane Mother’s control, and Sarah Jane ushered Maria and the Archetype out of the attic. As they headed outside, Maria saw her dad come out of their home, and was distraught to find out that he had also been taken over. She joined Sarah Jane and the Archetype in Sarah Jane’s car, and the three of them headed to the Bubble Shock factory to stop the Bane.

Upon arriving at the factory, Sarah Jane told Maria and the Archetype to stay in her car, but Maria protested. Unfortunately, Mrs Wormwood had deadlock-sealed the building, and the main gates to the premises were shut as well, trapping the trio between the Bubble Shock factory and a group of hypnotised people. Upon reflecting about “what [would] the Doctor do,” Sarah Jane noticed that the Bubble Shock factory coach for picking up tourists was parked nearby, and she had an idea.

Inside the factory, Mrs Wormwood was commenting on what would happen to the humans that did not submit to the Bane, when she heard the music of the Bubble Shock coach getting louder. Moments later, the coach crashed through the wall of the factory, with Sarah Jane sat triumphantly behind the steering wheel. Maria and the Archetype were also on-board. When the Bane Mother attempted to attack Sarah Jane, Maria exited the bus, with the Archetype following close behind. Mrs Wormwood noticed that he was stood there, and Sarah Jane asked her why he was created in the first place. Mrs Wormwood responded that he was an assembly of thousands of humans – “a montage, you might say. A collage.” She explained that every guest was scanned upon entry into the factory, including both Sarah Jane and Maria, and that the strengths and weaknesses of nearly ten thousand people were fed into him; he stated that “[he was] everyone.” When Maria asked why, Mrs Wormwood further explained that the Bane needed to know why two per cent of the population wouldn’t touch Bubble Shock, and that by uploading everyone’s information into the Archetype, he could tell them how to modify Bubble Shock. However, as he was no longer needed, she activated her ring, causing him to stumble as he started to die. Sarah Jane wrapped her coat around him to keep him warm.

When Mrs Wormwood stated that Sarah Jane’s lonely life had lead her to that point, Maria responded by saying that she wasn’t on her own, before standing up and activating her phone. However, it didn’t have the same effect as Kelsey’s phone did, as the Bane Mother had become stronger after activating the pieces of Bane in Bubble Shock, and instead the Bane Mother was angered, reaching down its tentacles to pick up a long pipe and attempt to swing it at Maria, who was pulled back down out of harm’s way by Sarah Jane. As the Bane Mother began to descend from its place in the ceiling of the factory, the Archetype revealed that he had brought the communications device from the Star Poet with him. He likened it to a mobile phone that could call across the stars, and that it must be a million times more powerful than a standard Earth mobile phone. Confidently, Mrs Wormwood stated that it was a good thing he did not know their frequency; however, the Archetype had remembered it from when Mr Smith said it out loud earlier that afternoon, as he had the memory and brainpower of ten thousand humans; he quickly began to input the frequency into the device, and - once it was activated – stood up and aimed it towards the Bane Mother. The signal that was produced was powerful enough to affect not just the Bane Mother, but also Mrs Wormwood and the rest of the Bane in the factory, who all began stumbling around in distress and covering their ears. Mrs Wormwood cried out, “The Bane Mother! You’re killing her!” She attempted to order him to stop, but Sarah Jane responded that they had made him human, and that “he [was theirs].”

Shortly after, Sarah Jane, Maria and the Archetype fled the factory as it started to go into meltdown. Unbeknownst to them, Mrs Wormwood was also able to flee. The trio made it outside just in time – the factory exploded, and they celebrated that the Bane’s control over the Archetype was gone, and he was free.

The Archetype met Maria’s parents, Alan and Chrissie Jackson, when Sarah Jane brought her home; when Alan asked who he was, Sarah Jane was initially unsure how to respond, and exchanged a quick look with Maria, but stated that he was her adopted son, and she quickly deflected any questions when the Archetype said that he didn’t have a name by saying that it was an old family joke. Before she had a chance to make up a name for him, Chrissie walked in; upon questioning from Chrissie about his clothes, he bluntly stated that they were the clothes he was born in. Unseen by Chrissie, Maria had to stop herself from laughing, but couldn’t hold back a large smile. As they started to leave, the Archetype stated that “this woman [was] rude,” and Sarah Jane quickly pulled him out of the Jackson’s home.

Later that evening, the three gathered in Sarah Jane’s garden, and the Archetype was wearing some new clothes that Maria stated were “more like it.” With a small prompt from Sarah Jane, he sat next to her. When Maria asked Sarah Jane how she was going to adopt him, she responded that Mr Smith had sorted that out, and that all he needed now was a name. He said that he liked Maria’s name, but she laughed and said, “Maybe not.” She listed a few names – Jack, Josh, Nathan – and Sarah Jane added some more – Harry, Alistair, Luke. Maria said that she liked Luke, and so did Sarah Jane; the Archetype said that if they liked Luke, “I like Luke.” Sarah Jane stated that it was the name she would have chosen had she ever had biological children, but that it never happened; Maria responded that now she was a mother. From this point on, the Archetype was known by the name Luke Smith. (Invasion of the Bane)

Adventures with Maria and Clyde[]

Just a few weeks later, Luke and Maria both started attending Park Vale School; Sarah Jane drove him to school on his first day. She was unsure about being called “Mum” and said that Sarah Jane was fine. Maria arrived soon after. Sarah Jane gave him a kiss on the cheek, but they both reacted awkwardly when the students around them laughed. This was witnessed by Clyde Langer, who was also new, as he and his mother Carla had recently moved to the area from Hounslow. Sarah Jane soon left the school premises, and Luke asked Maria why people had laughed. Maria responded that it was a bit embarrassing, but that Sarah Jane did in fact want him to call her “Mum.” Luke was confused, and responded, “But she said she didn’t.” However, Maria understood the nuance in their new dynamic and how Sarah Jane was feeling and insisted that she did want to be called “Mum.” She quickly noticed the new “flashy” technology block that had been constructed over the summer break, and Luke mentioned that there had been article about it in the local newspaper. They then entered the school and attended their first morning assembly.

After sitting down in the assembly hall, Maria and Luke shared their anxieties with each other. Luke noted that unlike him, Maria had been to school before, but she responded with, “Not this one.” They were interrupted by Clyde, who asked them to move up so he could sit down. He said he would hang around with Maria and Luke until he met some cooler people but meant it as a joke until Luke introduced himself rather formally. The three of them were confused by the headmaster’s blasé attitude during the assembly, and Clyde quietly and rhetorically asked, “What’s his problem?”

When they were being taken on a tour of the new technology block, Luke told Clyde that he had signed them up for the lunchtime science club, but Clyde did not react favourably to this. Soon after, the headmaster farted in front of them, and Luke asked Clyde why people laughed at farts, prompting Clyde to ask, “Are you for real?” They then both noticed that the building had an odd metallic smell, and Luke likened it to the smell of batteries.

After school, Sarah Jane picked him up and offered Maria a lift home, too. When they arrived back at Bannerman Road, Alan turned up at the same time from work, and immediately began ribbing Maria about catching a lift from the neighbours. Luke and Sarah Jane both watched as Maria and her father bantered back and forth good-naturedly about the headmaster’s farting. Luke stated matter-of-factually that the school smelt like batteries, and that the canteen food was mouldy. Sarah Jane quickly promised to make him a proper tea and told him to go in and get changed.

Later that evening, Luke approached Sarah Jane in the attic and stated that he kept making “social mistakes” that day, and Sarah Jane responded that she had, too, by driving him to school and giving him a kiss goodbye. Luke was distressed by the thought of having to go back to school and Sarah Jane said that she had considered home schooling him, but that she wanted to give him as normal a life as she possibly could. Luke noted that no one else was like him, as he had saved the world the day that he was born. Before Sarah Jane could reassure him, however, he asked her what she was doing, and she told him that she was investigating the firm who built the new block at the school. Sarah Jane stated that it made a change for her, as it had nothing to do with aliens.

The power went out before Sarah Jane remembered to save her work. Mr Smith was not responding either, so she decided to check the local power grid with her watch to see how long the power would be out. However, the watch also lost power, which confused her, as it had - and could - never lose power. The power came back on not long after, and the watch turned back on as well; Luke stated that it must be faulty, but Sarah Jane responded that whatever had cut the electric off had clearly also affected her watch.

The next day, Luke walked to school. His first lesson was science. He sat next to Clyde, and in response to the teacher’s question about who invented the first electrical transformer immediately raised his hand. He answered the question readily, but then expanded his response, stating that Faraday didn’t know what he could use the transformer for: “Faraday didn’t know what he’d invented. I’ve thought about too. You could get rid of the transformers, get a better system, and induct power instead.” Clyde then joked that he had nothing to do with Luke, making the class laugh. The teacher made note of Clyde’s troublemaking tendencies, and Luke asked if he should make trouble in order to be cool. When the school bell rang and the class began packing their bags to go to their next lessons, Luke did not notice that the teacher was curiously studying him.

Luke was initially the only student in the classroom at the lunchtime science club, but another boy, Carl, arrived soon after. Luke held his hand out to shake Carl’s, but the other boy did not reciprocate. When shown a diagram of a giant capacitor system, Luke believed the teacher, Mr Jeffrey, when he said it was purely theoretical, and was able to work out where the model was lacking. Still believing it to be theoretical, Luke wrote a complex equation on the whiteboard that would solve the problems the “model” had.

After school, he and Maria went to investigate the new block for Sarah Jane; Clyde tagged along, even though Maria tried to deflect his questioning by saying that she had left something in the building, but not before stating that Luke and Maria were “beyond weird.” Luke responded to that, telling Clyde to “go find some normal people, then.” While walking around the building, Clyde demanded that Luke tell him where he was from, and Luke responded with London before mentioning that the layout of the building didn’t make any sense. Clyde ignored these observations, and instead noted that Luke didn’t know farting was funny and that he let his mum kiss him in public, before asking where he last went to school. Luke answered that he’d never been to school before, and Clyde wondered if his mum had taught him at home, but Luke disputed that and added that Sarah Jane wasn’t his mum before immediately going back to wondering about the building. Clyde was confused by Luke’s statement that Sarah Jane had adopted him but didn’t want Luke to call her “Mum”. He then went on to ask about Luke’s real parents, which Luke didn’t have. Luke was still puzzling out the layout of the building, stating that the area of each room didn’t add up to the measurements of the block on both floors, noting that there must be an empty space in the building. He then told Clyde that he should go home, but Clyde ignored this. While Luke was trying to figure out how to get into the secret room, Clyde told him to stop being strange, before turning away and leaving Luke.

Pacing in front of the wall, Luke figured out that the way to open the secret room was by placing his hand on the door roughly where a door handle would be. He entered the room and looked at all the technology that was there but was startled by the headmaster asking him how he liked their “little science project”. He managed to run away as the headmaster lunged at him, darting through the closing door to the hidden room. He reunited with Maria and Clyde in the entrance hall to the building, and Maria rebuffed his attempt to tell her about the secret room, as being chased by aliens was not an ideal time. They tried to open the doors of the building, but they had been locked. Clyde started to freak out at this point, but Maria remained level-headed and ran past the stairs, just as a small alien that sounded like Carl appeared. Luke and Clyde were cut off from following her but managed to run up the stairs instead. Luke appeared to be slightly distressed at being separated from Maria. He and Clyde managed to find a place to hide as Sarah Jane called him and told him that she’d been wrong about the strangeness of the new block not being related to aliens. She explained how to distract the aliens by creating a smell, and as they ran from the aliens, Clyde asked if they were going to have to fart their way out of the building. Luke asked if that would be funny, which made Clyde exclaim, “What?!” in bewilderment. Just as the aliens found them, Clyde managed to get a can of body spray out of his school bag and sprayed its contents in the aliens’ faces. They ran past the disarmed aliens, back down the stairs, and reunited with Maria, who had managed to avoid them on the lower level. At that moment Sarah Jane arrived and used her sonic lipstick to unlock the doors. Clyde asked what it was, but responded with a sarcastic, “Of course it is!” when Luke said it was sonic lipstick. The group all clambered into Sarah Jane’s car and left the school grounds as quickly as possible, though she wasn’t happy at the thought of having to be responsible for another child (“Another life in my hands, just what I need!”).

Once back at 13 Bannerman Road, Luke and Sarah Jane headed up to the attic, where Sarah Jane began to try identifying the aliens that had attacked them all. She struggled to say the name of the planet they came from, but Luke did not. He was puzzled by Sarah Jane’s comment of, “Slitheen in Downing Street,” which she explained had been said to her once by a friend (DW: School Reunion). She was surprised by Luke cheerily saying that farting was funny but could not rebuke him as they were interrupted by the arrival of Clyde and Maria. Luke had a theory about why Coldfire Construction (the company responsible for building the school blocks) had included secret rooms in each building and asked for Mr Smith’s help plotting the location of each one on a map of London. In the background, Clyde quickly deduced that each building had been constructed near the ends of underground railway lines, and Sarah Jane asked Mr Smith to bring up a world map with every Coldfire Construction site plotted on it. Each location was not necessarily a capital city, but had one thing in common: each had underground railways. When linked together on the map, they formed a giant circuit. Luke was horrified to realise that he had given the Slitheen the answer to destroying the world. Looking at a diagram of the circuit with Sarah Jane and Maria, he said that the system didn’t work until he gave the Slitheen the catalyst equation at the science club, which he had believed to be just theory. He also realised that the power cut the night before had been a test run of the system before he gave them the solution. Maria quickly noted that the candles she and her family had tried to light also went out, even though they weren’t electric, and Mr Smith explained that the system was a giant transducer, and that once the capacitors were charged up, they could convert heat and light into electrical energy.

Luke mentioned that Park Vale was the last link in the chain for the global system, and Maria confirmed with him that the system required the whole chain to be connected in order to function correctly. Once again, piping up in the background, Clyde suggested bombing the school, but Luke, Sarah Jane and Maria ignored him. Luke knew that he would be able to shut down the system for just a second if he was able to get back in the room and use the sonic lipstick as a cutting tool. Mr Smith quickly interrupted with a news report from America, which stated that Los Angeles (one of the links in the chain) had completely lost power. Luke was distressed to note that on the day he was born, he helped to save the world, but now he had enabled the Slitheen to destroy it. Sarah Jane asked Mr Smith to give them all the information he had on the inhabitants of Raxacoricofallapatorius, the planet the Slitheen family originated from; while accessing that data, the news report from America stated that China was now without power, and that it was only a matter of time before it reached Washington D.C., before the power went out.

Mr Smith was finally able to access information about the Slitheen and noted that they were a calcium-based lifeform, but before he could give the group any weaknesses, the power went out in London, causing him to shut down. The power outage also meant that the sonic lipstick would not work, but Sarah Jane was determined to defeat the Slitheen, and said that regardless of the loss of power, they would be going back to the school. On the way out of the front door, Clyde remembered that the science teacher Mr Jeffrey, who they now knew to be Slitheen, had been scared when he sniffed Clyde’s bag that morning. He and Luke quickly deduced that what had frightened Jeffrey was the vinegar on the chips Clyde had used to make a cold chip sandwich; as vinegar is an acetic acid and the Slitheen are calcium-based, it could severely harm or even kill them. On their way back to the school, the sun suddenly turned blue and lost power from the transducer system absorbing its energy. With just over half an hour before everyone on Earth would die from the lack of heat, the group continued to run to the school.

When they reached Park Vale, they noticed that they were able to just walk in, which Sarah Jane noted was ideal, as they wanted to be there. Before they could go to the secret room, however, they were stopped by a Slitheen that sounded like the headmaster of the school. He tried to attack them, but Maria and Clyde squirted him with vinegar to hold him off, and Luke lead Sarah Jane to the secret room. Before they could shut down the system, however, they were both restrained by the Slitheen. As the Slitheen-Jeffrey started to gloat about destroying the Earth, Luke suddenly realised that the capacitors would explode trying to store so much energy from the sun. The Slitheen that was restraining Sarah Jane thought he might have been bluffing, but Luke didn’t know what she meant by that. The Slitheen, identified as Florm, said that Luke might be right, but was interrupted by the sound of one of the capacitors starting to reach breaking point. Sarah Jane told them to turn the system off, and Clyde and Maria joined them in the room, holding out their bottles of vinegar. However, Florm could smell that the contents of the bottle was actually water, and sneered at Luke that that was a bluff. Jeffrey asked Luke that if he reset the system, would Luke be able to cancel the overload, and Luke agreed. The system was temporarily shut off, which restored power to everything on the planet as well as the sun.

Luke moved to resynchronise the mega-wattage, just as Sarah Jane was able to free herself from the Slitheen’s grip and throw her sonic lipstick to Luke. This was also only the second time in two days that Luke had called her “Mum”. Luke quickly ran from the Slitheen, his smaller frame able to quickly duck through the tightly-packed capacitor system but was followed by the child Slitheen. Continuing to dodge the Slitheen, Luke was able to destroy the capacitors, causing them to overload. He, along with Sarah Jane, Maria, and Clyde, fled from the room. Before leaving the school, however, they were stopped by the father and child Slitheen – who, in human form, had been Jeffrey and Carl – that had gotten trapped in the door. Jeffrey begged Sarah Jane to open the door with her sonic lipstick and allow Carl to live, as he was only twelve. Instead of opening the door, however, she activated Carl’s teleport and enabled him to get to safety, but Jeffrey died from exposure to the overloading capacitors. The door to the secret room quickly shut, and Luke noted that the system had burnt itself out. Sarah Jane was distressed at the idea that she could have been responsible for the death of a child, and the group left the school in silence.

As the group walked back to Bannerman Road, Luke, Maria, and Clyde conversed about what they had seen in those last minutes in the secret room; Clyde mentioned that he’d seen some of the Slitheen teleport to safety, but Luke reassured him that the machine was useless as they had broken the chain. Maria noted that all those buildings across the world still had secret rooms in them, filled with alien technology, but their conversation was interrupted by Sarah Jane’s conversation on the phone. She hung up and said that she had some friends who were going to remove all the alien technology from every Coldfire building across the world. Maria asked if they were friends from UNIT, and Clyde jokingly asked if UNIT was a furniture shop, but before Sarah Jane could respond, they were interrupted by Chrissie running towards Maria. Maria quickly deflected any questions by saying the group had been in town getting burgers, and Chrissie spontaneously hugged Sarah Jane, thanking her for looking after “her” Maria.

Once back in the house, Luke called out to Sarah Jane to tell her that Maria had just arrived, and Clyde – who had been talking with Sarah Jane in the living room – told her that Luke should be calling her “Mum”.

Upon arriving up in the attic, Luke and Maria helped Sarah Jane come up with a cover story for the Slitheen’s machinations involving the phrases “freak weather conditions” and “temporary reversals of the Earth’s magnetic poles”. Before Maria managed to get Clyde to leave Sarah Jane’s house, he held out his hand for Luke to shake, told him he was good, and that if anyone said Luke wasn’t cool, he’d “set ’em right.” After Clyde and Maria left, Luke shared his misery about messing up with Sarah Jane, but she refuted this, saying that she was the one who had messed up by not recognising the signs of alien intervention when they were right in front of her, and that she had sent Luke and Maria right into a trap. Luke reassured her by saying that he would always be there and called her “Mum” as he hugged her. (Revenge of the Slitheen)

When Sarah Jane was investigating the stories of a nun haunting the Lavender Lawns rest home, Luke tagged along with her and Clyde; there, he met Bea Nelson-Stanley when she looked at him through the window into the room where Sarah Jane was interviewing Mrs Randall, another resident of Lavender Lawns. He was immediately curious, though his attention was briefly taken away from her when Mrs Randall gave Clyde a few jobs to do, finding it amusing.

A little while later, Luke saw Bea again as he stepped outside for some fresh air; he ran and stopped her from falling over when she stumbled on the steps. She asked him if he was “one of the Colonel’s chaps”, but interrupted him when he tried to answer, saying that she was looking for her husband, the Professor. She said that her husband had told her to meet him between the paws of the Sphinx, but when Luke said that the Sphinx was in Egypt, she regained some lucidity, saying that he was the “boy in the window”. Luke told her that they were visiting Mrs Randall, and asking about the nun haunting the rest home, before asking Bea if she’d seen the nun herself; Bea said that she had, and that the nun was not a ghost. She then noticed that there was something different about Luke, before reassuring him that she had met “unusual people” (meaning aliens) before. She then said that perhaps Luke could help her. Bringing him over to a tree, she told him that they had to be quick before someone saw them. When Luke asked who she meant, she struggled to remember, asking him to hold her walking stick for a moment. She then leant against the tree, and pulled a small metal box out from beneath the ivy that was wrapped around the trunk. She lamented that she knew someone might find her one day, but she couldn’t be parted from the box’s contents, before calling herself a foolish old woman and opening the box to reveal a heavy golden pendant with a blue gem set in the middle. Luke asked her what it was, but Bea didn’t verbally respond, instead gently running a fingertip along the metalwork, causing the gem to glow with a green hue. She then closed the box and gave it to Luke, begging him to not tell anyone that he had “the talisman”, and to not let “her” get it. When Luke asked her once more who she was talking about, she told him to put it away and promise her that he would do as she had asked. He did, and tried to ask her once more who was after the talisman, but Bea had suddenly – due to her Alzheimer’s – forgotten who he was. Luke, having never met someone with Alzheimer’s before, was bewildered, but followed Bea back up to the home, the talisman tucked into his jacket. Unbeknownst to him, the woman in charge of the rest home had seen them by the tree through a pair of binoculars.

When he reunited with Sarah Jane and Clyde at the car, Sarah Jane asked him where he’d been; not wanting to break his promise to Bea, he said he’d just been looking around. They all got into the car and left Lavender Lawns to head back to Bannerman Road.

After returning home, the trio headed upstairs to the attic, and Luke secretly took the tin out of his jacket and opened it to have another look at the talisman; however, Mr Smith alerted Sarah Jane to its presence. She told him to give it to her, and Luke explained that Bea had given it to him and that he’d had to keep it secret, before apologising and asking if that was wrong. Sarah Jane had Mr Smith scan the talisman to determine whether it was dangerous, but he needed to perform a deeper scan to ascertain that knowledge. Maria arrived at that point, slamming the attic door behind her. Luke told the group that Bea had told him the nun wasn’t a ghost, and that it was looking for the talisman. Sarah Jane decided to go back to Lavender Lawns and talk to Bea, taking Maria with her. Luke and Clyde remained at 13 Bannerman Road, although neither of them was happy about it.

While Sarah Jane and Maria were visiting Bea at Lavender Lawns, Luke and Clyde were visited by Sister Helena, a nun from St Agnes’s Abbey. She asked which one of them had visited Lavender Lawns and left with something from one of the residents; Clyde attempted to rebuff her, but Luke didn’t understand that she was trying to get information about the talisman from them and asked her how she knew that someone gave him the talisman. Clyde tried to get him to stop talking, but he point-blank asked Sister Helena why she and the other nuns were hunting through old people’s homes, looking for the talisman. She demanded that they give her the talisman, but fortunately Alan saw her and came over to unknowingly distract her. She left after taking a £5 note from him. Alan then asked the boys whether they’d seen Maria. Luke told him that she’d gone out with Sarah Jane, and Alan asked them to tell her that he was looking for her whenever she got back. Luke agreed and Alan left. Clyde scolded Luke for telling Sister Helena that he had the talisman, but as he hadn’t understood the nuance of her questioning, Luke said that he didn’t. Still, he said that they should call Sarah Jane and tell her what had happened, but Clyde said that instead, they should head over to Lavender Lawns themselves.

On their way over to the rest home, they were apprehended by the nuns, and Luke was manhandled into their car and taken to St Agnes’s Abbey. He was sent into the library at the abbey, where he joined Sarah Jane, who had raced over with Maria and Clyde to rescue him. She was delighted that he was alright but reprimanded him for getting into a stranger’s car. They were then joined by Sister Helena, Clyde, and Maria. Luke was very curious about the Gorgon. He and Clyde were left behind at the abbey when Sarah Jane, Maria, Sister Helena, and the rest of the nuns went to retrieve the talisman from 13 Bannerman Road. While there, Luke decided to read up on the abbey. Flicking through a book on St Agnes’s Abbey, he also answered Clyde’s question about whether Sarah Jane would really give the Gorgon the talisman and reminded his friend that Bea had been terrified of the nuns finding it. He was certain that Sarah Jane would find a way to trick them. By reading up on the history of the abbey, he was able to determine that there was a secret passage hidden in the library, and he and Clyde were able to escape through it. Once they reached the exit through the tunnels, they found themselves outside, standing in a garden full of people who had been turned to stone.

When they made their way out of the garden, the boys found themselves at the front of the abbey and witnessed the return of the nuns and the Gorgon, as well as the frail state of the Gorgon. Luke refused to leave the abbey without recovering the talisman from the nuns, and so he and Clyde came up with a plan to divide and conquer. Luke snuck into the chamber where the portal to the Gorgon homeworld was located, while Clyde waited by the belltower. Luke overheard the nuns talking about the failing strength of the Gorgon. As Clyde began ringing the bell, the nuns left to find him, and Luke managed to snatch the talisman out of the portal, only narrowly avoiding being turned to stone by the Gorgon. The duo reunited outside, and were quickly joined by Sarah Jane, but the nuns managed to surround the three of them and stop them from escaping with the talisman. They were locked in a cellar underneath the abbey, and the nuns made Sarah Jane give them her bag, preventing them from escaping using her sonic lipstick. Luke told Sarah Jane what he had seen before trying to steal back the talisman, and Sarah Jane finally understood what Sister Helena had meant when she said that the gorgons needed humanity to survive, exclaiming that she didn’t think the Abbess was actually the Gorgon, but rather the host for it. Before she could explain further, the nuns came into the cellar and requested that Sarah Jane go with them. Luke tried to stand in front of her, but Sarah Jane told him she’d be fine. Luke managed to find a trowel and used it as a screwdriver to remove the lock on the door. As they ran down the tunnel, Luke said they needed a plan, but Clyde reminded him that they didn’t have time to figure one out and instead they needed to find Sarah Jane.

They found Sarah Jane being manhandled by the nuns to accept the Gorgon, as she had been chosen to be its new host to lead the gorgon domination of Earth. They tried to save her, but the nuns were able to hold them back. Sister Helena said they could witness the transfer of the Gorgon from the Abbess to Sarah Jane, and then be its first prey. Before it could transfer to Sarah Jane, however, Maria burst into the room with a handheld mirror from Bea, and reflected the Gorgon back towards the Abbess, turning the two-hundred-year-old host to stone and breaking the Gorgon’s hold over the nuns. Luke, Sarah Jane, Maria, and Clyde all shared a group hug as the nuns asked where they were and what was happening. Sarah Jane told them that they were free, but the portal was still open, and the gorgons started to come through. Maria managed to remove the talisman from the portal just in time, and the group returned to Bannerman Road to save Alan, who had been turned to stone earlier that day. Once the talisman restored him to his original state, he passed out, and the four of them managed to get him out of Sarah Jane’s house and onto the bench in her garden before he regained consciousness.

Luke and Clyde were on the floor in the living room doing their homework when Maria, Alan and Chrissie came in; Chrissie demanded to know what Sarah Jane had done with the statue of Alan that she’d seen in the room earlier, but Sarah Jane simply said she didn’t know what Chrissie was talking about. (Eye of the Gorgon)

One day, while Luke and Maria were out in town, Luke attempted to tell a joke. When Maria didn’t laugh, he was upset, and said that he’d been studying the structure and history of jokes. Maria was very blasé with her reaction, and when Luke continued to question her, she couldn’t answer definitively. When she said she wanted to get a new bag, Luke noted that she already had lots of bags, and that he didn’t understand why she needed a new one. He paused to look at the poster for a laser tag arena, COMBAT 3000, and was startled by a man barking a question at him from behind. He meekly said that he had to go shopping, and the man – the manager of the establishment – laughed and said Luke’s response had answered his question. He and Maria were both given half-price vouchers for the arena by the manager in case they changed their minds later on before leaving for 13 Bannerman Road.

Up in the attic, Luke and Maria were laughing as Clyde messed around with Maria’s new bag; Luke attempted to use slang, but got it mixed up and was corrected by Clyde rather harshly. The teens were asked by Sarah Jane about a boy that had gone missing, Lance Metcalf. Clyde was confused about him being called their friend, as he had only been at their school for a couple of months and kept to himself. When he called Lance “The Corporal”, Sarah Jane reprimanded him, as Lance’s father had been killed while on duty in Iraq; however, Clyde revealed that it was Luke that came up with the nickname. Luke said that people had laughed when he came up with the nickname and thought that it was good, and Maria explained that no one had known about Lance’s father, as he was usually too busy playing with his Nintendo during break times. Luke was upset that he had made a joke out of Lance’s name without knowing how that might have made the boy feel, worried that he’d made Lance run away. When Sarah Jane tried to comfort him, he exclaimed that it was all his fault, and ran out of the attic. Sarah Jane wanted to go after him, but Clyde insisted he do it; after all, he had been the one to drop Luke in it.

Luke was sat on a swing in a park when Clyde found him, and the latter remarked that he thought Luke had “gone AWOL, along with Lance”. Luke didn’t understand why Clyde had been looking for him and was even more confused when Clyde said that he’d grassed him up; instead of answering his question, however, Clyde moved on from slang and tried to explain that Lance running away had nothing to do with Luke. Luke insisted that he hadn’t been trying to be cruel, but funny, and Clyde said that not everyone was cut out to be him, which made Luke smile. A short while later, they sat at the picnic bench in the park, and Luke remarked that it felt like he would never fit into the world; when he’d made a joke out of Lance’s name, it had felt like a breakthrough because people had laughed, but instead it was another social miscalculation. Clyde told him that it was a gaffe, which confused Luke as the week before Clyde had told him that “a ‘gaff’ was where a ‘dude’ lives”. Clyde told him that it was different, and Luke insisted that things were too complex. Clyde offered to explain anything Luke didn’t understand, which prompted Luke to pull out the voucher the manager of the COMBAT 3000 arena had given him. Clyde told him the best way to find out why people played games like that was to play them himself, and so they decided to go to the arena.

When they arrived, Clyde began to explain the mechanics of the game – how to play, and how to win. Luke still didn’t understand, and Clyde merely said to wait until the adrenaline kicked in, that he’d soon understand why people played games like COMBAT 3000. Once the game started, they rushed in together and started to play. Clyde taught Luke how to avoid losing lives in the game, and he picked it up very quickly, going on to win the round. Although Clyde rebuffed him, saying it was beginner’s luck, they decided to play another round. Before they could, however, the manager complimented Luke’s score and asked the boys if they wanted to have a go at Level Two, to which they both agreed. While waiting to begin Level Two, Clyde noted that several of the players were well-known in their community for physical extra-curricular exploits and said that it was like a Premier League for laser tag. When told the objective of the new level, Luke and Clyde decided to team up again, rather than work against each other. They eventually worked their way through the level to the door that was their objective, and, prepared for a surprise attack, moved in. They anticipated the ambush from surprise combatants and made it through to the corridor, where the door sealed behind them. Clyde started to feel uneasy, but Luke tried to reassure him that it was just a game. They entered the final chamber and were caught off guard by the door closing behind them. They were then teleported away from the arena.

Luke immediately felt sick, and Clyde told him that if they were handed the trophy not to puke into it. While waiting to be retrieved by the manager, Mr Grantham, Clyde started to get impatient, and Luke investigated a strange panel on the floor. He told Clyde that something felt wrong, but the door was opened, and they were greeted with the visage of two guards dressed similarly to the ambushing combatants from the game. The guards grabbed them and shoved them into a crate, before locking it and wheeling them away to another room. They removed their laser tag gear, and Clyde noted he had no signal on his mobile before asking Luke, who’s phone was dead. Luke quickly explained that he’d felt the floor vibrating slightly, and that he didn’t think they were at COMBAT 3000 anymore. They felt their crate stop moving and heard the guards all leave, and so Luke decided to grab a steel wire from his laser tag vest and use it to unlock their crate. Once they were out of the crate, Luke attempted to be facetious by saying that he didn’t think they’d gotten into the world championships. Before Clyde could respond, they heard a voice from another crate nearby; they unlocked it, opened it, and discovered a teenage girl had been locked inside. She introduced herself as Jen, and Clyde told her his and Luke’s names. They heard another voice, and Luke went to free the occupants in the rest of the crates. He found out that one of them was Lance.

Once everyone had been freed from the crates, Luke noted that they’d all played Level Two at COMBAT 3000 and ended up in this strange new place. Clyde pointed out that everyone had played all over the country – London, Brighton, Manchester, Leeds, and Inverness. Before they could determine anything further, they heard someone coming and hid behind the crates. They managed to lock a guard inside one of them, and started to run out of the room, but the guard blew the crate open with their blaster. As they began to run away from the guards, they all stopped at a window. Lance asked when the moon had turned blue, but Jen pointed out that it wasn’t the moon at all. They all realised that they were on a spaceship in orbit above Earth; Luke mused that he never thought it would be so beautiful.

Jen refused to believe that they were in space, as none of them had flown anywhere; Luke said that they had been teleported, and Jen sarcastically responded with a popular quote from Star Trek (“Beam me up, Scotty”). Before they could argue further, they heard gunfire nearby and started running through the ship again. Lance wondered how they were going to get away from the spaceship, but they were discovered by the leader, an alien soldier by the name of Kudlak. The group was taken to a new room, where they met the Mistress. Luke rebutted Mistress greeting them as warriors, stating that they were just kids, but Kudlak told him that no other captives had had the initiative to escape the holding deck and force him to return to the ship to deal with them. Clyde tried to explain that they had been playing a game in the arena, and exchanged a look with Luke, who tried to access the ship’s database while Clyde distracted Mistress and Kudlak; however, Mistress zapped his hands, stating that Luke and Clyde were extremely loyal to one another. Luke asked what would happen if they refused to fight, and Mistress told them that they would be cowards and die. They were then taken back to the holding deck.

Once there, Luke asked Clyde for his mobile, who pointed out that they were in space. He asked if he had the phone number for Captain Kirk (another Star Trek reference), but Luke didn’t understand. Clyde gave him his phone, telling him to not break it. Luke wired Clyde’s mobile into the ship’s computers and downloaded a map onto the phone. He suggested that they steal a shuttle craft to escape from the ship. The group gathered around him to look at the map, and Jen asked if he could fly an alien shuttle craft. Clyde told her to give him a chance. Lance pointed out that the door was locked, and Luke asked him if he wanted to “wager”. As the group filed out through the door, Clyde corrected him and said that the phrase was “bet”.

They ran into a group of guards, and quickly tried to lose them. They reached another door, and Luke wired Clyde’s phone back into the ship in order to open it. As he did so, he saw a message in the ship’s computers. He managed to unlock the door at the last second and tried to show Clyde the message, but they were shot at by guards and had to run. They made it to the area above the shuttle craft, and started to run down the stairs to it, but were cut off once more by Kudlak. He took them back to the room with Mistress. Luke was overjoyed to be reunited with Sarah Jane, who had gotten Grantham to teleport her and Maria onto the ship to rescue Luke and Clyde. Sarah Jane tried to tell Kudlak that the children weren’t warriors, and Kudlak told her that war changes everything, but Luke got between them and announced that the war between Kudlak’s people, the Uvodni, and their enemy the Malakh was over. He wired Clyde’s phone into the computers and brought up the message once more. The screen where Mistress had been started to display the message, sent by the Uvodni emperor. The emperor stated that the Uvodni had agreed on an armistice with the Malakh, and that they had achieved peace at last. Kudlak refused to believe it at first, but Sarah Jane pointed out that Luke had found the message in the computer’s data banks. Luke then revealed that the message was, in fact, ten years old. Kudlak was incredulous; he believed that the Mistress would have told him if the war was over and that he would have gone home. He still believed the message to be a trick. Sarah Jane insisted that despite whatever lies Mistress had told him, Earth and humanity wanted to live in peace with their neighbours. Kudlak turned to question the Mistress, and she revealed something startling: she was a computer, an artificial intelligence, created for war. Peace did not compute with her programming, and so she buried the message from the emperor. Kudlak was furious; he stated that the point of the war had been to achieve peace for their home. He refused to allow Mistress to live, as he wanted to go home and live in peace, and so he shot the computer that she was housed in, destroying her.

With the Mistress defeated, Kudlak acknowledged that by kidnapping children and sending them to fight in an alien war far away from Earth he had committed an unforgivable crime against humanity. He indicated that the Uvodni guards allow them to leave, but not before stating that his life was Sarah Jane’s to take, holding out his pistol for her to execute him. Sarah Jane did not take the gun, though, and said that taking life was never the answer. He told her that he was not an innocent but vowed to return to his home planet and try to find any human children who had survived the war in order to return them to Earth. The group left the room and were teleported back down to Earth.

Once outside COMBAT 3000, Clyde gave Luke a high-five. When he saw Jen approaching, he smiled, but was surprised when she walked over to Luke instead and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Luke asked curiously if that was a kiss, and Jen told him he deserved it after saving them all, before reconsidering and then kissing him on the lips. Clyde and Lance were astonished, and Maria and Sarah Jane laughed in the background. They took Lance back home, and wondered if he would become a soldier like his father or end up being the first human man on Mars. Luke was very quiet, and Sarah Jane asked him if anything was wrong. Back in the car, Clyde told Luke that he was brilliant; Luke commented that he felt like he belonged, but Clyde wondered why he was being so quiet. Luke said he’d been thinking about something else and asked Clyde to tell him about girls, causing Clyde to groan and grimace in response and Maria and Sarah Jane to laugh. (Warriors of Kudlak)

Sometime in the spring, Luke, Sarah Jane, Maria, and Clyde were at a local skate park where Clyde was trying to teach Luke how to skateboard. Luke didn’t understand what the point of skateboarding was, and Clyde said it was fun, tried to perform an ollie and fell over. Alan came over to the boys and tried to tell Clyde how to do an ollie properly; Clyde didn’t believe that Alan knew what he was talking about until the older man successfully performed an ollie in front of him, then bragged about being the “King of the Concrete” in Romford, back in 1992. After watching Alan on the halfpipe for a bit, the group gathered together to take some group photos.

Back at Sarah Jane’s home, Luke and Sarah Jane calmly told Maria that a meteor was heading straight for Earth; understandably, Maria was rather panicked by this information, but she was reassured by Sarah Jane that once it was in range, Mr Smith would create a magnetic pulse and rebound the meteor back into deep space. She noted that if it wasn’t for Sarah Jane, they would all be dead. Sarah Jane asked Luke to go downstairs and put the kettle on to make tea as she was parched, and he complied.

Overnight, however, Sarah Jane and anything related to her disappeared. This was due to the Trickster, one of the Pantheon of Discord, taking Sarah Jane out of time by reversing the roles between her and her childhood friend, Andrea Yates, in July 1964. They had been visiting a museum on a school trip but decided to bunk off and explore the nearby pier, even though it had been shuttered due to it being dangerous. In the original timeline, Andrea had slipped over the edge and fallen to her death, traumatising Sarah Jane for the rest of her life; however, the Trickster reversed their roles – as he could only appear to people near death, he manipulated Andrea into agreeing to swap places with Sarah Jane, which made her die instead.

This meant that Sarah Jane never grew up to meet the Doctor, nor would she go on to rescue Earth time and time again. The Trickster diverted any and all aliens away from Earth, wanting it to be destroyed by the meteor that Sarah Jane had detected, as he fed off of chaos and destruction.

Maria was the only person to remember Sarah Jane and Luke, as she had been given a small metal box by Sarah Jane after returning from the skatepark; it protected her when the Trickster took Sarah Jane out of time. Andrea found out that Maria could remember the original timeline, and asked the Trickster to remove her, as well. However, Alan found the memory box that had protected Maria, and was holding it when Maria was also removed from the timeline. He was able to rescue Maria from limbo, and they rushed over to Andrea’s home. They begged her to do the right thing, and eventually Andrea told the Trickster that she withdrew her agreement. When he tried to stop her by telling her she would die, Andrea responded, “I’ve been dead for forty years.” She threw her own memory box at the mirror on the wall where Mr Smith would have been, which shattered and freed Sarah Jane and Luke from limbo, restoring the timeline.

Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria, and Alan all collapsed to the floor in the attic, and Luke excitedly got in Alan’s face and said that their return had felt like “a spatio-temporal shift caused by extra-quantum forces”, bewildering Alan (“In English?”). Sarah Jane, Luke, and Maria quickly moved to activate Mr Smith in order to deflect the incoming meteor and succeeded just in time. Luke didn’t understand that he’d been stuck in limbo but hugged his mother all the same. Clyde burst into the room, jubilantly celebrating the deflection of the meteor, but stopped dead when he saw Alan standing there. The group all looked at him sheepishly as he asked for answers. (Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)

Not long after the Trickster attempted to destroy the Earth by removing Sarah Jane from time, she and Luke were in the attic watching the stars as a magnificent light show, the Kalazian Lights, was due to appear. When Maria arrived in the attic and announced that Alan had said they would have to move away from Bannerman Road – and by extension Sarah Jane – Luke pointed out that Alan was right about it being too dangerous for kids to be getting involved. Maria begged Sarah Jane to tell her father about the magic of the universe, not realising that he’d followed her. He eventually realised that he had a lot to get used to if they were going to stay, and Sarah Jane invited him over to the window to watch the Kalazian Lights. She remarked that the universe was smiling on them that night, and Alan replied that he hoped it always did.

The next day, Luke was reading a book with the television on in the background. Sarah Jane came into the living room, asking him to consider her electricity bill before wondering what he had done with the remote; failing to find it, she instead sat down with him and began watching the news. All of a sudden, a picture of Luke was shown on the screen. They were both astonished and horrified that Luke was apparently a missing boy named Ashley Stafford, and both rushed upstairs to the attic to get Mr Smith to perform a scan on Luke. Luke was adamant that the Bane had made him, as he couldn’t remember anyone or anything before waking up there and meeting Maria. Sarah Jane tried to reassure him by saying that they needed to be sure. Mr Smith scanned Luke, and determined that he and Ashley Stafford were, in fact, the same person. Sarah Jane and Luke refused to believe the result, as Luke had no navel, but Mr Smith hypothesised that the Bane would have removed his navel surgically when he was programmed as the Archetype. Luke exclaimed that Sarah Jane was his mum, and she hugged him. She started to ask Mr Smith if there was any chance he was wrong, but the computer interrupted her and said that the chances of him mismatching Luke and Ashley’s DNA were “approximately four billion to one.”

The police arrived later that day after being tipped off by Chrissie about Ashley’s whereabouts. Sarah Jane asked the officer at her door to give her a minute in order to say goodbye. Luke asked her what was going to happen, and Sarah Jane said that she expected they would both be taken to the police station, where she would be questioned and Luke – or Ashley – would be reunited with his parents. Luke still didn’t believe that he was their son, as he couldn’t remember them. Sarah Jane tried to convince him that it wasn’t a bad day, as he was going to be seeing his real parents for the first time in five months. He asked whether or not Sarah Jane loved him, and she affirmed that she did, but that he did not belong with her.

Outside, Maria, Alan and Chrissie were watching from over the road when Clyde arrived. He asked Maria if it was true that Luke was actually Ashley Stafford, and Maria non-verbally reminded him about Luke’s lack of a navel. Before they could discuss things further, Chrissie pointed out that the parents had arrived. Luke was ambushed by the people proclaiming to be his mother and father – which he still didn’t believe – and he asked his ‘mother’ whether he had been born from her womb. His ‘father’ asked if he could remember them, and Luke said that he couldn’t. The woman then tried to attack Sarah Jane, but the police held her back. Over the road, Maria proclaimed that it was Chrissie’s fault this was happening, but Chrissie pointed out that she didn’t go around kidnapping young boys, and Alan reprimanded her for her tactlessness. Sarah Jane tried to explain that Luke – Ashley – had had an accident and lost his memory, but his ‘father’ said that people like her made him sick. Sarah Jane was then taken to the police station, while Luke was driven back to Ashley’s home, despite fighting to stay with Sarah Jane. Before being placed in the car that had brought Ashley’s parents to Bannerman Road, Luke exchanged one final look with Maria and Clyde.

When they arrived home, Ashley’s dad told him that they had Spurs on the coming Wednesday. Luke was confused, and his ‘father’ explained that they would be watching a football match with pizza and cokes. Luke protested that he didn’t like football, but his ‘mother’ said that he loved it, and showed him a photograph of him in a football uniform. She then asked her husband what “that woman” did to him. Later that evening, they had pizza for dinner, and Luke picked all the peppers off of his slices, but noticed his ‘parents’ watching him, and guessed that he ‘used to’ like them, too. He said that he was tired, and asked to go to his bedroom, which they allowed. He looked around the room, but then heard his bedroom door get locked. He tried to open it, without success.

The next morning, while getting dressed for school, Luke’s bedroom door was unlocked and his ‘father’ walked in, cheerily greeting him. Luke asked why his door had been locked, and his ‘father’ reminded him that he’d run away once. Luke said he didn’t remember, and wondered why he would run away from home, and he was told that as he had lost his memory, they would never find out the truth. At the same time, his windows were locked as well. He was told to forget about going to school, and that he would be staying at home. Luke protested that he wanted to see his friends, and his ‘father’ said their names – Maria and Clyde. Luke was immediately suspicious, as he’d never mentioned their names the night before. Before leaving the room, his ‘father’ said that he would never see them again.

Around lunchtime, Luke saw Clyde through his bedroom window – the other boy had bunked off school to come see him. Luke tried to get his attention by furiously banging on the glass and calling his name, but Clyde couldn’t hear him. When his friend had left, Luke decided to break out of his bedroom by using a metal ruler to undo the lock. Before he could, however, he heard the front door be opened and someone come into the house. He continued to break out of his bedroom, and tried to sneak down the stairs, but they creaked under his weight and he was discovered as he tried to reach the front door. He was grabbed and thrown into the living room by his ‘parents.’ This was when he met Nathan Goss, a so-called child genius, and discovered that they – his ‘parents’ and Nathan – were all actually Slitheen, and that Nathan was the Slitheen child that had been able to teleport away from Park Vale a few months prior.

The next day, Luke was taken by the Slitheen to the Pharos Institute, a research facility set up 20 years previous that investigates the paranormal. While travelling to the Pharos Institute, Nathan reasserted that this was his mission, and was furious that the older Slitheen wanted to wait and follow the orders of “the Xylok”. Luke, not knowing what a Xylok was, asked, but was rebuffed with laughter about how humans were stupid. When they were close, Nathan placed a pair of ear defenders on Luke’s head; this prevented him from being knocked out when Nathan used an alien device to render the security guard unconscious.

Once inside, a telekinetic energiser device was placed on Luke’s head – the Slitheen planned to take all of Luke’s energy, bottle it up and sell it. They started up the device, and within seconds, the amount of energy in Luke’s brain had filled up two storage tanks. The Slitheen were prematurely celebrating their success when Luke managed to overload the system, send the Slitheen named Dax Fex Fize flying across the room away from him, and broke his own restraints. He managed to escape the room and ran from Nathan, who had removed his human disguise and begun to hunt him. Luke was successfully able to lock Nathan in a room as he fled from the Pharos Institute, and once outside ran back to Bannerman Road.

When he arrived back home, night had fallen, and the only light on in the house was in the attic. He called out for Sarah Jane, but was answered by Mr Smith’s voice instead. He went up the stairs to the attic, but once inside Mr Smith shut the door so that he couldn’t escape. The computer told Luke that Sarah Jane had left something for him, and revealed the prototype of the telekinetic energiser headset that he’d had Sarah Jane steal from the Pharos Institute. Luke immediately refused to put it on, but was shown an image of Clyde trapped inside Mr Smith. He was told once more to put the headset on, or Mr Smith would kill Clyde. With no other options, Luke resigned himself to putting the prototype headset on, and Mr Smith started to use his brain and telekinetic energy to pull the moon onto a collision course with the Earth. As it started to move towards the planet, its gravitational effects on the celestial body started to cause devastating natural disasters, such as spontaneous forest fires, avalanches, freak storms and tidal waves across the globe.

Luke was unaware of Sarah Jane using a teleportation crystal from the Slitheen to reach the attic, and Mr Smith releasing Clyde from his imprisonment within the Xylok’s databases. Mr Smith continued to use him to bring the moon crashing down on Earth, even as he fought with K-9, whom Sarah Jane had recalled from space to protect her so that she could upload the virus Alan had given her to Mr Smith’s systems. He remained unaware as Mr Smith started to forget all of his knowledge, and as Sarah Jane gave the Xylok a new purpose – to save the Earth. Mr Smith shut down to recover his memory banks, and Luke collapsed into Sarah Jane’s arms.

After he recovered, Luke gathered with Sarah Jane, Maria, Clyde and Alan in the garden to watch the Slitheen ship leave Earth for good. As they watched the stars, Clyde asked if they could ever trust Mr Smith again, and Sarah Jane told them that he would reboot with the purpose of safeguarding the Earth. Chrissie appeared through the gate, and Sarah Jane invited her over to watch the stars. (The Lost Boy)

On a Saturday sometime after Mr Smith was repurposed to save Earth, the planet suddenly moved. When it was over, Sarah Jane and Luke had stumbled into opposite corners of the attic; when she asked him if he was alright, Luke responded that the tremors had felt like a form of cross-dimensional spatial transference. Sarah Jane then noticed that the sky had turned dark, even though it had been eight o’clock in the morning. When Mr Smith was activated, he told her to look outside, and that the visual evidence would be “most conclusive”. They rushed outside to look at the sky, and Sarah Jane said that it was impossible. What they saw was a brand-new sky, with twenty-six celestial bodies in orbit. The Earth had been removed from its original place in the solar system to another point in space.

Back up in the attic, Mr Smith had identified an artificial construction at the centre of the planetary bodies; Sarah Jane mused that it must be some sort of space station. Luke approached and told her that Maria and Alan were still in Cornwall, Clyde was with his mother, and that he’d told them all to stay indoors. Mr Smith suddenly detected movement above the Earth, and received a communication from the Earthbound ships. Sarah Jane told him to let them hear it, and was horrified to hear the robotic voice of the Daleks. Having had experience with the Daleks before, she knew that there was nothing Earth could do to defend itself from them; she began to cry, as she had never anticipated a fourteen-year-old having to defend himself from them.

Barely an hour later, Mr Smith relayed the information that Earth had surrendered to the Dalek Fleet, as well as instructions from the Daleks: any humans selected for testing would follow Dalek instructions.

However, the Xylok picked up an electronic signal; over a subwave connection came a voice that had faded from public view after the destruction of the Sycorax ship on Christmas Day, 2005. Luke pointed out that Mr Smith was beginning to process an image. Once it was fully developed, Luke and Sarah Jane were able to see the visage of Harriet Jones, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Harriet managed to split the feed into four so that everyone she had connected to could talk to one another; this was the first time Sarah Jane and Luke met the last surviving members of Torchwood Three (located in Cardiff) between 2008 and 2009 – Captain Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper – as well as Martha Jones, another former companion of the Doctor.

Unseen, however, was Rose Tyler, who had managed to return to her original Earth from the parallel world she had become trapped in after the events at Canary Wharf in 2006, which was also the last time Earth had faced not just the Daleks, but the Cybermen, too; she was hiding with Sylvia Noble and Wilfred Mott, the mother and maternal grandfather of Donna Noble. (Army of Ghosts, Doomsday)

Jack complimented Sarah Jane and Luke’s work with the Slitheen, and she pointed out that she’d been avoiding Torchwood due to their propensity toward violence. Regardless, Jack (ever the flirt) complimented Sarah Jane and said she was still “looking good, ma’am”. Sarah Jane was flattered by this, which amused Luke and Martha and exasperated Harriet. The former prime minister began to explain what they were communicating over: a sentient piece of software called the Subwave Network, designed to find and connect anyone who could help to contact the Doctor should he not be around when the Earth was in trouble. Martha worried that the Daleks could hear them, but Harriet told her that the network was undetectable. Impressed, Sarah Jane asked her if she’d created it, but Harriet replied that she had merely developed it further from its initial creation, and that it had been created by a company called the Mr Copper Foundation.

Jack pointed out that they needed a weapon in order to defend themselves against the Daleks, and asked Martha what she had been given by the general at UNIT’s New York base before teleporting to her mother’s home in London. Martha revealed that it was one of five Osterhagen Keys, but Harriet quickly demanded that the key was to never be used, and that everyone should forget about it. She reiterated that they needed the Doctor, and Sarah Jane recalled that he had deposed Harriet after she gave Torchwood One the order to destroy the fleeing Sycorax ship two and a half years ago. (The Christmas Invasion) Harriet agreed that he had, but that she stood by her actions because she knew that one day the Earth would be in danger, and he would fail to appear. She pointed out that she’d even said this to him herself and that he hadn’t listened. Martha mentioned that she hadn’t been able to get through to her old mobile on the TARDIS, and Harriet explained that it was why they needed the Subwave – to bring everyone together and combine forces as the Doctor’s secret army.

Jack suddenly had an idea to boost the phone signal through the central tower, which was also their Rift Manipulator, of Torchwood Three using the power of the Rift – a rip in time and space located in Cardiff – and Luke piped up that he and Sarah Jane had Mr Smith, and that he could connect with every phone on the planet to make them call the Doctor all at once. Ianto realised that if they did this, the Subwave Network would become visible to the Daleks, and Harriet agreed. She said that they would trace it back to her, but that her life didn’t matter – not as long as they saved the Earth. Jack saluted her, and they all began to work.

With Torchwood connected to the UK’s national electricity grid, they were able to connect the power of the Rift to Mr Smith, combining every telephone network on the planet; Martha sent everyone the number linked to her old mobile that was in the TARDIS, and Harriet opened the Subwave Network to maximum, to have the best chance of the call breaking through whatever technological barrier the Daleks had in place. Without their knowledge, however, Rose – as well as Sylvia and Wilf – also began calling the Doctor. Once everything was in place, Torchwood powered their central tower and sent the call out.

It worked; whatever the Daleks had done to prevent the Doctor finding them caused a series of technological overloads at Torchwood, with monitors and cables shooting out sparks all over the place, and Jack realised they had gotten through to the TARDIS. Mr Smith also started to overload, as he reached a 200% power-draw. Over the network, Gwen revealed to the group that a Dalek saucer had locked on to Harriet’s location; the former prime minister said that she knew, but that she was using the Subwave Network to mask Torchwood and Mr Smith’s transmission. Daleks blew out the windows in her office, and she transferred control of the network to Torchwood. She asked Jack to give the Doctor a message from her: that he had chosen his companions well, and it had been an honour to work with them. Everyone was privy to the Daleks assassinating Harriet in her own home, and her last words – “You know nothing of any human, and that will be your downfall.”

After Harriet was killed by the Daleks, the Subwave Network connected with the TARDIS, and everyone started talking over each other as they saw the Doctor and Donna appear on their screens. The Doctor briefly wondered who Luke was. Donna commented that the network was akin to an outer space Facebook, and the Doctor noted that everyone was there except for Rose. Before they could talk further, the Subwave Network was hijacked by the Daleks, and Sarah Jane heard someone else that she hadn’t seen since her adventures with the Doctor when she was younger: the creator of the Daleks, Davros. This terrified her, as she had believed him to be dead. After the Doctor’s conversation with Davros resulted in the closure of the Subwave Network, Mr Smith revealed that the TARDIS was heading for a location not too far from Bannerman Road, and Sarah Jane resolved to go and find the Doctor. Luke protested, saying that there were Daleks out in the streets, but Sarah Jane said that she had to find the Doctor. Mr Smith vowed to protect Luke, and Sarah Jane told her son to remember that she loved him should she die. (The Stolen Earth)

As he had remained at the house, Luke never found out just how close Sarah Jane had come to being killed by the Daleks. Thankfully, she was saved by the recently arrived Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler, who destroyed two Daleks with the guns they had brought with them from their own parallel world. They reached the TARDIS’s coordinates just in time to watch it be transferred via a temporal prison to the Dalek ship known as the Crucible.

An unidentified amount of time later, Luke and Mr Smith were contacted by the Doctor in the TARDIS. The Doctor asked Mr Smith to harness the power of the Rift Manipulator from Torchwood and loop it around the TARDIS; this would enable the Time Lord’s ship to act as a tow truck for the Earth and pull it back to its correct place in the universe. Unfortunately, Mr Smith did not have access to the TARDIS basecode numerals, but Sarah Jane called out for K-9, who teleported into the attic and, at the Doctor’s word, gave Mr Smith the basecode. The effect of the TARDIS pulling Earth home was felt by everyone across the globe; Luke protected himself by sitting beneath Mr Smith’s main console and holding on to K-9, and the teen couldn’t help cheering. Upon their return, daylight returned to the countries that had been facing the sun when the Daleks moved the Earth. (Journey’s End)

Clyde and Luke

Luke and Clyde

Maria's Departure[]

Several months after the events of the attempted Dalek invasion, Sarah Jane walked in on Luke and Clyde using Mr Smith to play a game recreating the historical battle between Boneparte and Wellington at Waterloo. They stated that they had to give a presentation in their next history class on the different strategies used in the battle. Clyde mentioned wanting to do a project on the Battle of Hoth from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, but that their history teacher didn’t think Star Wars was historically accurate. Sarah Jane told them she needed to talk to Mr Smith and asked the computer about a news story on a rural village named Goblin’s Copse where people had reported seeing lights in the sky the previous night. She asked if the Xylok had detected any alien spacecraft in the vicinity of the village, and Mr Smith had not, reminding Sarah Jane that ‘lights in the sky’ could have a number of different causes, not just aliens. Clyde joked that an alien computer de-bunking flying saucers was rather unbelievable, and Mr Smith responded, saying that if all UFOs reported were actually alien spacecrafts, Earth would be at the centre of a solar grid-lock backing up to the outer rings of Saturn. Sarah Jane asked if, since his reboot, he’d gained a sense of humour. Regardless, Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde decided to visit Goblin’s Copse, as a research telescope was based in the village. Before they left, Maria arrived and asked what was happening. Sarah Jane asked her if she wanted to come along for the ride, and Maria replied in the affirmative, saying that she’d “better catch it while [she could]”.

Upon arrival at the telescope, Sarah Jane explained the Tycho Project – a network of radio telescopes around the world, looking out to the stars for friendly alien life, and that the one at Goblin’s Copse had been converter from a Cold War listening station. Luke noted that now, instead of listening for the Russians, it was listening for aliens. Clyde wondered why the Tycho Project had never spotted any extra-terrestrial life when they (the gang) were always running into aliens bent on invading the Earth, kidnapping humans or destroying the planet, and Luke reminded him that space was enormous – there was no way all the radio telescopes on Earth could accurately monitor it all. Clyde summarised that the telescopes were, therefore, always looking the wrong way, and Maria pointed out that most aliens coming to Earth didn’t want to be seen. The group realised just how quiet the area was – not just because of the lack of city bustle they were used to from their everyday lives, but also how there was no one around. Clyde felt uneasy, and that they were about to be ‘jumped’ by another alien, but the group headed into the telescope.

Once inside, they discovered that the telescope was empty – no one was there. Luke noted that everything was operational. Clyde wondered if whoever was working at the telescope had gone on a tea break, picking up a mug left on the nearby desk, but Sarah Jane touched it and said it was stone cold. Sarah Jane mused that it was as though whoever had been there the night before had just gotten up and left, and Clyde joked that they must have won the lottery; at the disapproving glance from Sarah Jane, he said he was just trying to positive. Luke managed to gain access to the telescope’s computers, and explained that there had been a burst of interference while the telescope had been positioned to monitor Rigel Beta-5. Sarah Jane noticed that the burst occurred at ten o’clock the previous night, which was when villagers had reported seeing lights in the sky. Clyde continued to joke about the situation, saying that the telescope experiencing interference was akin to paparazzi being flicked on the nose. Maria commented that the gang’s adventures wouldn’t be the same without him, and Clyde said it was a good thing he wasn’t going anywhere.

Suddenly, a young woman came running into the facility, and managed to gasp out about something being in the woods, before collapsing on the floor. The group took her into a smaller room, and once she’d recovered enough to sit upright on her own Clyde gave her a glass of water. She asked them all if they had seen her father, but Sarah Jane told her that the telescope had been empty when they arrived. She introduced herself to the young woman, who returned the niceties and told them all that her name was Lucy Skinner, and that her father, Professor Nicholas Skinner, ran the observatory. Lucy told them what she and her father had seen the previous night – that there had been two lights in the sky, circling the telescope, and that they’d followed those lights into the woods. She said that she’d gotten separated from her father, and that she’d been chased by something else before she fell and hit her head. She started to panic that whatever had chased her must have her father, and Sarah Jane tried to calm her; Lucy explained that whatever ‘it’ was had been there, and not been there, at the same time. Luke surmised that it was invisible, and Clyde offered to go into the woods with Luke and look for Lucy’s father. Before the boys left the observatory, however, Sarah Jane stopped them and said that she didn’t want either of them going into the woods until she knew what they were dealing with. Luke theorised that Clyde was trying to impress Lucy, as he clearly thought she was quite pretty; however Clyde rebuked this, stating that Lucy’s father might be injured out in the woods and need medical attention. Sarah Jane told them to just look around the observatory buildings and to not enter the woods, and Clyde agreed.

A few minutes later, after checking the outside of the observatory, Luke realised that Lucy’s dad wasn’t there, and Clyde noted that he was most likely out in the woods. Luke reminded him that Sarah Jane told them not to go in, but Clyde tried to make out that she had meant they couldn’t go all the way in and that they’d only explore the edges. Inevitably, they did not. Deep in the woods, Clyde grumbled that he hated it, missing the city and civilisation; Luke pointedly asked why they hadn’t just stayed on the edges like he said they would, but before Clyde could answer, they heard a twig snap nearby. Luke wondered if it was Professor Skinner, but Clyde said that he could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Luke didn’t quite understand what Clyde meant, but he agreed, saying it was strange. Clyde clarified that it wasn’t strange, but “one hundred per cent creeped-out to the max”. Luke mused that it may also be the result of an electrostatic field, and that something was right there with them. Something thudded onto the ground behind them, and they could just make out the shape of something that was cloaked. Clyde hoped that it couldn’t see them, but Luke disagreed, knowing instinctually that it could. It seemed to be studying them; it then disabled its cloak and withdrew its weapon. The boys took off through the woods, and managed to get far enough ahead that they could hide under some dried foliage and evade their tail.

Trying to find their way out of the woods, Clyde pointed in one direction and said if they followed a trail, they were bound to find the road, but ended walking into something solid that had been cloaked from view. Holding his hands out, Luke felt for whatever it was that Clyde had walked into, and found it. Clyde joined him, and they were able to find their way around the object by touch. Once they were away from the object, Luke called Sarah Jane and asked her and Maria to come and join him and Clyde. When they reunited, Sarah Jane scolded them for going into the woods when she had explicitly told them not to, and Clyde asked her if she had really thought they would. She replied that she hadn’t, and it was why she was cross with herself. Luke then guided the group back to the cloaked object in the middle of the woods. The boys explained that they initially thought it was a forcefield, but had realised it had a shape to it, which is how they were able to get around it and find their way out of the woods. Clyde mentioned that it was round, and Sarah Jane got the teenagers to stand behind her, took out her sonic lipstick, and disabled the cloaking matrix. When she did, Sarah Jane insisted that the group had to go back to the car and that she needed to contact UNIT. The teens were confused, as she had never wanted to contact UNIT before and that she didn’t like the military, but Sarah Jane explained that it was a Sontaran space pod, having met Sontarans twice before when travelling with the Doctor (The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Experiment). She hoped she would never see one on Earth. Before they could return to the car, however, they were apprehended by the pod’s operator. He introduced himself as Commander Kaagh of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet. Sarah Jane presumed that Kaagh was responsible for the lights around the telescope the previous night, which he confirmed, before stating that they were his prisoners and started to guide them away. However, Maria pointed over his shoulder and shouted, “Look, UNIT!” When Kaagh turned around to check, the group split into two – Luke running with Maria, and Clyde with Sarah Jane – and fled from Kaagh.

Luke and Maria made it back to the observatory safely; Luke asked Maria how she knew that Sarah Jane would be there, and she told him that his mother would have wanted to make sure Lucy was safe; she surmised that the observatory was also deeply ingrained in Kaagh’s plan. Luke pointed out that Kaagh would have come back to the observatory as well, and Maria said that they needed to find a way into the building to hear his plan without him knowing or seeing them. They then spotted an old service hatch not too far from them and used it to enter the telescope. Inside the tunnel, they were able to spy on Kaagh’s conversation with Sarah Jane and Clyde. They could do nothing but watch as Kaagh shot Sarah Jane, but he told Clyde that she lived; he would take her back to Sontar with him and have her pay for the Doctor’s crimes against the Sontaran Empire in his defeat of the Tenth Battle Fleet a year ago when they attempted to turn the Earth into a clone world using the ATMOS devices they developed with Luke Rattigan (The Sontaran Stratagem, The Poison Sky). While Sarah Jane was taken to another room and locked up with Lucy, Luke and Maria startled Kaagh by flinging open the grate to the service tunnel, allowing Clyde to free himself from Kaagh and join them. They were chased by Kaagh through the tunnels until they reached a different exit to the one Luke and Maria had entered through. Luke apologised for taking a wrong turn somewhere and getting them stuck, but luckily they managed to get outside and bar the door just in time.

The trio managed to make their way into the middle of the forest, and Maria phoned her father, asking for his help. Alan put them through to Mr Smith, and they asked him to tell them about Sontarans. Luke asked if they could be beaten, and Mr Smith reported that as Sontarans intake food through a probic vent at the base of the skull, it was their sole weakness. Before they could formulate a plan, however, Maria’s mother revealed that she had followed Alan into the attic. Alan ended the call with Maria, and Clyde sarcastically commented that Sarah Jane was “going to be so happy” when she found out that Chrissie had seen the attic. Luke told him that at that moment, all that mattered was saving Sarah Jane, and Maria guided the trio back to Kaagh’s pod. She reminded the boys that Kaagh had mentioned having a laboratory in his pod, and that if Luke could synthesize a knock-out gas, they would be able to use it against Kaagh. Clyde pointed out that as the pod was alien, they weren’t going to know what any of the chemicals on board were, but Luke revealed that he did know due to having chemistry lessons with Mr Smith. All of a sudden, an alarm started beeping, and they realised that Kaagh would have been alerted to them breaking into his pod. Luke couldn’t rush the creation of the knock-out gas, so Clyde decided to play look-out and attempt to direct Kaagh away from the pod.

While Luke worked on the gas, Maria told him that she didn’t think she would ever meet anyone like him ever again; not understanding what she was trying to say, Luke replied that she wouldn’t need to, as she already had him. This was when Maria told him that Alan had been offered a job in Washington D.C.. Luke, suddenly distraught, asked if she would being going with him, but Maria told him that she didn’t know yet. He tried to tell her that she couldn’t go – that he didn’t want her to go – but she reminded him that it was her dad. She reassured Luke that if she did go with her dad to America, she would obviously miss him, as well as Sarah Jane and Clyde, but that none of it would matter if they didn’t stop Kaagh. A few minutes later, the knock-out gas was fully synthesized, and they headed back to the observatory. Maria asked if the gas would work on Kaagh, and Luke revealed that although he had no knowledge of Sontaran physiology, the gas was strong enough to knock out a human for at least two hours, and that they only needed a few minutes. Before they could get into the observatory, though, Kaagh’s drones discovered them, and they tried to lose them in the forest without success. Fortunately, they were saved by Clyde and Sarah Jane, who had regained consciousness earlier and managed to escape with Lucy. Luke immediately hugged her, as did Maria. Sarah Jane told Maria to go with Clyde to try and disable the antenna dish, and Luke joined Sarah Jane back at the observatory. They rejoined Lucy, who had had no luck breaking through the encryption to disable the telescope; she was dubious when Luke told her to let him have a go, and mentioned that he was a kid, but Sarah Jane pointed out she wasn’t that much older than him, could see the flaw in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and had had practice with saving the world before. As Luke sat down and started to attempt breaking the encryption on the server, Sarah Jane wondered why Kaagh wasn’t in the control room to see his plan succeed.

As the timer started to reach the lower single digits, Sarah Jane told Luke that he needed to hurry, but he explained that as the code was based on non-Earth mathematics, he had to try progressive cross-referencing number bases. Suddenly, he remembered that Sontarans have three fingers on each hand, which meant the base number the code required was six. Lucy was confused, and so he quickly explained that humans use a decimal system based off of having ten fingers. With just three and a half minutes to spare, he was able to crack the encryption and disable the program that would have brought every satellite orbiting Earth crashing down into the numerous nuclear power plants across the planet. Before they could celebrate, though, Kaagh and Professor Skinner reappeared in the room, with Clyde and Maria in tow. The Sontaran admitted to being impressed by the team’s spirit, and remarked that he would remember them favourably on his return to Sontar. Sarah Jane stated that his plan had failed, as Luke had cracked the code and stopped Kaagh from being able to deploy his plan; however, Kaagh revealed that he’d had a secret sleeper agent all along – Lucy. He revealed one of the many Sontaran rules of war was to infiltrate within the enemy, then infiltrate deeper still. Lucy – now under Kaagh’s control – plugged her iPod into the computer systems, and began downloading a back-up of the program. Once it was fully loaded, Kaagh explained that it would automatically transmit to every satellite, triggering their fall into each nuclear installation across the globe. Sarah Jane tried to reason with Kaagh that annihilation gained the Sontarans nothing – after all, if Earth was decimated by nuclear fallout it would be useless to the Empire – but the soldier was determined to wipe the Sontaran defeat with ATMOS from history. Kaagh yelled that Earth would not be allowed to have victory over Sontar, and nothing would stop the Sontarans in the end.

He was wrong, because at that moment, Chrissie ran into the room – Alan hot on her heels – and rammed the heel of her shoe into the probic vent on the back of Kaagh’s neck (“Try my size fives, Humpty!”). The shoe penetrated deep enough that there was a small electrical discharge, and Chrissie was thrown back into the observatory’s machinery, where she slumped to the floor. Kaagh collapsed as well, with the heel of Chrissie’s shoe still lodged in his probic vent; Sarah Jane took the opportunity to deactivate his control over Lucy and her father, and Luke unplugged Lucy’s iPod from the computer, just moments before the program finished downloading. The gang gathered around Chrissie, where Alan thankfully revealed that she was alive. Sarah Jane was quietly furious that someone else knew her secret, and wanted to know how Chrissie knew exactly where to hit a Sontaran, but determined that it could wait. She started to come around, and Maria asked Luke for the knock-out gas – if they could all get her back to the Jackson’s home before she came around, they might be able to convince her that none of what she’d seen had ever happened. Sarah Jane commented that she would have saved the world and never know, but Alan said it would be better if she didn’t, otherwise she would never let any of them forget it. As Chrissie started to come around, Maria sprayed the gas in her face, and she immediately passed back out. Not long after, Lucy and Professor Skinner regained consciousness, and Sarah Jane stated that Commander Kaagh had been "decommissioned".

A short while later, Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria, Clyde, Lucy and Professor Skinner escorted a bound Kaagh back to his ship, where Sarah Jane disabled the weapons and warned him not to try coming back. Kaagh was disgusted by the notion that he had been defeated by “a female and half-forms”; nevertheless, he agreed to leave Earth, but with a final threatening message for Sarah Jane – he wouldn’t forget her. With that, he entered his ship, and everyone ran to cover as he took off and left Earth. Maria wondered if it was the last they had seen of him, and Sarah Jane said that she hoped so; she then mused that with some people, it didn’t matter how far they travelled, because they never really left.

Six weeks later, Maria and Alan left for America. As the taxi taking them to the airport drove away, Chrissie revealed that she remembered everything that had happened with Kaagh, but that she wouldn’t tell anyone, as her daughter and ex-husband deserved a new start. Later that night, up in the attic, Luke said that he would miss Maria, a sentiment Clyde agreed with; Sarah Jane revealed that a long time ago, someone told her that if she were ever missing someone to look up at the night sky – whoever it was, wherever they were, chances were they were looking at the stars too. Sometimes, for all its size, the universe isn’t such a big place after all. (The Last Sontaran)

Rani's Arrival[]

A few months after Maria and Alan moved to America, Luke was reading an email from his friend when Sarah Jane came into the kitchen and placed a copy of The Ealing Echo on the table, commenting that there were worse things in the universe than aliens – the front page story concerned a third child in the area who had gone missing. Sarah Jane asked Luke how Maria was and whether she liked living in Washington D.C., to which Luke replied that Maria had said it was “awesome”. Sarah Jane commented that it sounded as though Maria was going to fit in perfectly in America, but before she could read the email herself Luke closed his laptop. She tried to reassure him that even though having a good friend move out of his life was hard he would see her again, as Maria was going to be coming back to England to attend Chrissie’s wedding. Luke pointed out that it wouldn’t be the same, but Sarah Jane reminded him that one of the best things about life was it was always surprising people. At that moment, Clyde came into the kitchen and told them about the new family moving into Maria’s old home.

Outside, the trio watched the removal men unloading the new family’s belongings into number 36, and Clyde commented that whoever had bought the house would be completely unaware about what they were moving in to. Sarah Jane sharply told the boys to never tell anyone about what they did as the defenders of Earth, and Luke mused that it wasn’t like Maria had moved back before telling Clyde that they were going to be late for school.

Once they got to school, Luke vehemently denied having a crush on Maria and said that he just missed her. Clyde agreed that he did, too, but reminded him that people inevitably moved on in life. Luke pointed out that he had never lost anyone before. Clyde mentioned that their lives wouldn’t be the same without her, and joked about who he was going to have to save from Sontarans, the Slitheen and Gorgons. Before Luke could answer, a girl accidentally walked into Clyde. Luke was amused at Clyde’s immediate reaction to her, as she was quite pretty. She apologised and said that she was looking for a particular form room, and Luke told her that it was his and Clyde’s class. She said that she was new and starting at the school that day, and Clyde joked that her running into him was one way to start at a new school. The girl immediately gave it back to him: “Yeah. Like starting the hundred-metres in the Olympics and tripping over your laces.” Luke laughed, and introduced them both to her, saying that Clyde thought he was cool. The girl introduced herself as Rani, and said that her family had just moved into Bannerman Road. Clyde commented that Sarah Jane was right about the universe continuing to weird people out; Rani tried to ask who Sarah Jane was, but Luke cut her off and offered to take her to their first class. Before they got too far, however, Rani asked if the boys had seen “that”; as they hadn’t, she said that it didn’t matter, and that she shouldn’t be late to class on her first day.

In the classroom, their teacher mentioned that after the school football team was beaten, they were hoping for better news in the National Schools Science Challenge, and that he expected to see Luke’s name on the list of participants. This caused the students to start cheering Luke’s name ("Lukey! Lukey! Lukey!"); Rani asked him if he was a “bit of a brain-box”, and Clyde joked that there wasn’t a box big enough for him. As the students began to laugh, however, the new headmaster, Mr Chandra, entered the classroom and barked an order for silence. He explained that Park Vale was now his school, and that the students came to learn, not play; he also mentioned that standards at the school appeared to vanish when the last headteacher, Mr Blakeman, disappeared (Revenge of the Slitheen). As Mr Chandra began to liken his rule of the school to being a captain on a ship, Clyde joked to Luke and Rani that he had a very serious “sinking” feeling, but this caught the new headteacher’s attention, who noted that Clyde was the “joker in the pack”. He responded that he did his best, explaining that it took brains to be funny, but Mr Chandra rebuked him and said that intelligence was knowing when to be quiet and listen to his elders. He also reminded the class of the third child that had gone missing, and asked the students to be careful and report anything or anyone suspicious to the police.

Sometime later, Luke and Rani were outside during breaktime. Rani asked Luke what the previous occupants of her new home, “Mr Jackson and his daughter,” were like, and Luke said that they were nice, and he missed Maria. Rani assumed that Luke had fancied Maria, which he denied, and then explained that he, Maria, and Clyde had been a tight-knit trio. Rani pointed out that they could be friends, too, but Luke said it wouldn’t be the same. Rani was slightly hurt, and Luke apologised, remarking that he hadn’t mastered inter-personal relationships. Rani told him that he was strange, and Luke said that he wasn’t strange, just different. Rani then mentioned that what was truly weird was the three kids that gone missing in the past two weeks. Luke tried to reassure her that statistically the chances of her being abducted were very remote, but Rani commented that she wasn’t worried – she was interested. She said that she was into “weird”, and asked Luke if he had ever seen anything like that around the school. Before he could answer, however, they were interrupted by Clyde accidentally throwing a basketball into the back of Mr Chandra’s head and being sent to his office.

After school was over, Clyde told Luke what he had seen while waiting to be called into Mr Chandra’s office: a clown in the reflection of a trophy cabinet, then at the end of a corridor, and finally in the mirror of the boys’ toilets. Luke asked him if they should tell Sarah Jane, and Clyde pointed out that their new headmaster had called the police, but that they wouldn’t be looking for a clown that comes out of mirrors. Clyde then mentioned how kids had been kidnapped by aliens before – after all, they themselves had been sent into space by General Kudlak (Warriors of Kudlak) – but Luke wondered why an alien would be dressed as a clown. Before they left the school premises, however, Clyde saw the clown once more, and started to chase it, Luke following close behind. They chased the clown down several side roads, even though Luke himself couldn’t see it, but eventually they lost it; all that was left was a red balloon tied to a nearby bin. Before Clyde could grab hold of it, Rani appeared and told them not to touch the balloon. When asked why, she couldn’t explain, and the balloon burst right in front of them.

Walking down Bannerman Road, Luke asked Rani why she hadn’t told anyone that she’d seen the clown. She incredulously asked him if he wanted her parents to get her “locked up”; unfamiliar with the concept of people being admitted for psychiatric help, Luke wondered why they would do that, and Rani rebuked him, asking Clyde: “What planet is he from?!” Clyde responded that Luke was from Earth, “mostly,” and Rani sarcastically remarked that with Clyde’s inability to resist cracking a joke, it was no wonder the headteacher loved him. Crossing the road to Rani’s home, Clyde told her that they should leave the investigating to the police, but Rani reminded him that the police didn’t believe that the clown they had seen even existed. Luke tried to tell her that it had nothing to do with them, but Rani implored the boys that she had to know what was happening. Just then, a car pulled up outside the house, and Rani told them that there was something about her the boys ought to know. Clyde said that he’d already guessed that she was from another planet, but Luke – who had just recognised the driver – informed him that what Rani had to tell them was actually much worse. Clyde turned around, and miserably asked Rani why their new headteacher had just pulled up outside Rani’s home, and that it didn’t involve the word “dad”. Rani laughed and said that her father, Mr Chandra, was alright, really, and that he just took his job very seriously. Her mother Gita came out of the house then, asking how Rani’s first day at school went and whether Haresh (Mr Chandra) had gone “Captain Bligh”. Rani confirmed that he had and introduced Luke and Clyde to her mum. Haresh realised that Luke was the Luke Smith whose school results had impressed him so much, and praised his academic prowess to Sarah Jane, who had just come outside. When Gita revealed to Rani that Sarah Jane was a journalist, the teenager mentioned that she was very interested in becoming an investigative reporter when she grew up and asked if she could come over to Sarah Jane’s any time to learn the tricks of the trade. Sarah Jane rebuffed her, saying that she was very busy, and Clyde introduced himself to Gita as the joker in the pack who apparently saw clowns “that don’t exist”.

A short while later, Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde went up to the attic, discussing the clown that Clyde had seen. Clyde wondered why an alien would choose to disguise itself on Earth as a clown, as it wasn’t a very low-profile appearance, and Luke pointed out that perhaps whatever the alien was knew that children were supposed to like clowns. Sarah Jane revealed that they had always given her nightmares. Luke mentioned that the fear of clowns was called coulrophobia, and that the actor Johnny Depp suffers from it, too. Clyde asked him where he learnt that titbit of information, and Luke told him that he’d read it in Heat, a popular magazine. Sarah Jane suggested talking to someone close to Dave Finn (“Finney”), the kid that had gone missing from the school premises that afternoon, and Clyde revealed that as it was a Monday, his friends would all be at football training. Luke pointed out that Rani had seen the clown as well, and was determined to find out what was going on; he also mentioned that she might be in danger because of her interest. Sarah Jane agreed that someone should keep an eye on her, and Clyde immediately volunteered, but Luke reminded him that he and Haresh hadn’t gotten off to a great start.

When he went over the road to Rani’s home, he offered to help her with unpacking. Upstairs in her room, Rani mentioned seeing the clown again in her kitchen, and that she felt like it was getting closer to her. She showed him Finney’s schoolbooks, which Haresh had brought home to look through in case something had been troubling him, and each one had multiple drawings of clowns on it. She told Luke that Haresh was going to take the books to the police, but she didn’t think they would be looking for size twenty footprints. Luke commented that if the police did take the idea of the clown seriously, there might not be anything they could do, which prompted Rani to exclaim that the clown must be supernatural. Luke doubted that the clown was supernatural, and Rani said he had a closed mind, explaining that the supernatural was just science they couldn’t understand yet, using life on other planets as an example. Luke pointed out that alien life was different to the supernatural. Rani professed that she had to do something about the clown, as Finney had been seeing the clown like her, judging by the drawings in all of his books. Turning a page, Luke discovered a ticket to Spellman’s Magical Museum of the Circus in the book he was leafing through, and Rani revealed that she had a ticket, as well; she realised that only people who had tickets to the museum could see the clown, like herself, Clyde and Finney. Without really giving him a choice, Rani asked if he was going to join her in investigating the museum.

As they arrived at the museum, Luke tried to tell Rani that they shouldn’t go in, but she pulled herself free and told him that she would go in on her own. With no other options, he followed her inside. They quickly ran into Sarah Jane and Clyde, who had decided to investigate the museum themselves after speaking to one of Finney’s friends. Clyde asked them what they were doing there, which Rani threw back at him, and Luke reminded Sarah Jane and Clyde that they had told him to stay with her. Clyde told him that they’d also asked him to keep Rani away from trouble, but right then, one of the clown figures grabbed her arm. All of the clown waxwork figures in the room started to move, and the group fled towards the exit. Sarah Jane theorised that Spellman, the owner of the museum, was most likely operating the figures with his mind, like they were puppets. Rani asked who Spellman was, and Luke replied that he was probably an alien.

Sarah Jane froze the figures temporarily with her sonic lipstick, and the group moved through them towards the exit. Rani was shocked that Luke had essentially confirmed that aliens existed; Clyde pointed out that his friend had only mentioned one alien, and Sarah Jane reminded them that whatever it was, the alien was still somewhere in the museum, before ushering them out to the front doors. When they got there, they found the doors had been sealed, and Luke realised that Spellman was most likely using telekinesis to keep them trapped in the museum. They were confronted by Spellman, who revealed he was not only an alien and the owner of the museum, but Odd Bob the Clown, and the original Pied Piper. Before he could make them disappear and feed on their fear, however, Rani’s phone rang and froze him in place. This broke his telekinetic hold on the doors, and they all ran outside, got into Sarah Jane’s car, and raced away from the museum.

Back at Bannerman Road, Luke told Sarah Jane that she had to tell Rani everything as she had seen too much as the museum. Sarah Jane offered Rani a choice – either go home and live life the way she had before her family moved to Bannerman Road; or come into the house with her and the boys and realise that nothing would be the same ever again. Rani told her that she wanted to know the truth, and Sarah Jane smiled, telling Rani to tell her mum that she was giving her daughter some work experience. As they entered Sarah Jane and Luke’s home, Rani commented that it was huge, and Clyde cheekily smiled, stating that she hadn’t seen anything yet. Walking up the stairs, Rani looked at all the framed copies of articles Sarah Jane had published over the years; before heading up into the attic, Luke paused at one of the photos he, Sarah Jane, Maria, and Clyde had taken at the skatepark the previous year (Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?).

Sarah Jane explained that together she, Luke and Clyde helped to defend the Earth from malicious aliens and help those who were friendly or lost get home. Luke revealed that together they had saved the world around twelve times since becoming a gang. Rani was then further surprised by the summoning of Mr Smith, who Luke explained was a crystalline alien lifeform and “just about the smartest in the galaxy”. He began to bring up old news reports from America during the 1930s about children going missing in relation to appearances of Odd Bob, a travelling clown. Rani wondered about Odd Bob’s connection to the Pied Piper, and Sarah Jane quickly introduced her to him before repeating the girl’s question. Mr Smith explained the origins of the Pied Piper story – how a travelling entertainer had assisted the people of Hamelin in Lower Saxony by ridding the town of rats, but when they refused to pay him for his services enchanted away all its children in retaliation. Sarah Jane asked if the story had any truth to it, and Mr Smith brought up the fact that Hamelin losing all its children was a matter of historical fact. Sarah Jane then asked Mr Smith to scan the museum ticket, and he detected traces of an alien energy, but it was too weak for him to identify a species or even a region of space it might be from. The group were then shown the historical extra-terrestrial records for Lower Saxony around the time the Pied Piper came to Hamelin, and the map showed a meteorite fragment that landed in 1283, the year before the Piper arrived. Rani then exclaimed that the Piper must have been in the meteorite, but Mr Smith dismissed her theory, as the meteorite only had a diameter of just over thirty centimetres. Sarah Jane asked if there was any more information about the meteorite available, and Mr Smith revealed that it was on loan from the University of Munich to the UK; Luke realised that the Piper had come with the meteorite from Germany. Mr Smith then said that if he were able to analyse a fragment he could give Sarah Jane more information about it and – potentially – the Piper. He told Sarah Jane that it was currently at the Pharos Institute.

Later that night, Luke accidentally startled Sarah Jane as she was looking through photos of clowns on her laptop before bed. He mentioned that Odd Bob had scared his mother, which was something he’d never seen before, and Sarah Jane told him about her childhood. Her aunt Lavinia had raised her, and her bedroom was filled with Lavinia’s old toys, one of which was a marionette of a clown. Sarah Jane said that she always felt as though it was watching her, and that one night, during a terrible storm, it appeared to move of its own accord. She explained that she had screamed for her mum and dad for the first time that night, and Luke hugged her as she cried.

The next day at school, Luke, Rani, and Clyde were chatting in the playground during lunch about defending the Earth from aliens; Rani asked if Maria had been a part of their gang too, which Luke confirmed, and Rani realised that that was what he had meant the previous day when he said they couldn’t be friends in the same way. Just then, they noticed that red balloons on string were floating in the sky and coming towards all of the students; as each one was grabbed, the students fell silent and motionless. As the trio watched, every student that was holding a balloon was hypnotised into walking away from the school grounds, and they realised that Odd Bob had enchanted them and was going to make them disappear, just as he had with the children in America, and earlier still as the Pied Piper in Hamelin. They followed the students, trying to stop them from being taken by the Piper; Luke called Sarah Jane and told her to get to the circus museum as fast as she could.

They united with Sarah Jane not too far from the museum, and she explained that Spellman was controlling the students like he had done with the clown mannequins. Luke asked what he was going to do with the children, and Sarah Jane told him that he was going to make them disappear like the other children he had made vanish throughout history, as he required the fear their disappearances created to survive. As they reached the museum, Spellman appeared, confident that Sarah Jane couldn’t do anything to stop him, but she phoned Mr Smith, who had collected the phone numbers of every student at Park Vale and called them all simultaneously; the ringing of their phones was on a similar frequency to Spellman’s, disrupting his control of them and thus foiling his plan to abduct the children and create fear for him to feed off of. As the students dispersed, Spellman told Sarah Jane that she meddled with him at her own cost. She replied that she wasn’t scared of him, nor of Odd Bod, but Spellman asked her if she really thought she had conquered her fear. As she, Rani, and Clyde looked away for just a second, Odd Bob snatched Luke.

Trapped inside the Hall of Mirrors, Luke could only bang on the glass and call out for help. Every time Sarah Jane approached him, his image would vanish and relocate to another mirror. After a while, however, he was able to find his way out; Spellman had been defeated by Rani’s idea to have Clyde tell jokes, and was now trapped inside the fragment of meteorite that Sarah Jane had taken. Back in the attic, the group gathered together as Sarah Jane sealed the meteorite fragment inside a box of Halkonite steel, where nothing – not even thoughts – would be able to get through it. As they ventured outside, Sarah Jane finally accepted Rani into the team, but they were interrupted by the appearance of Haresh and Gita. The headmaster asked her where she had been, thinking that she would have been more sensible than the students who had taken part in the walkout, which confused the group. Haresh then explained that it was a prank the students had pulled – wander into town, then return a couple of hours later claiming not to have known what they were doing – and insinuated that Clyde had been the mastermind behind it as a way of “winding up the new headteacher”. Rani then deflected his assumption with a quick lie: the trio had had free periods that afternoon, and that they’d been at the library, doing some research for a project. Gita said that it was why Rani hadn’t answered her phone, and Sarah Jane added that she’d been at the library herself and offered them a lift home. Gita then mentioned that she’d seen on the news that all the children who had gone missing in recent weeks had reappeared like nothing had ever happened, and that it was weird. Rani told her mother that it wasn’t weird, but surprising: “The universe is a surprising place.” Luke, Clyde, and Sarah Jane were then invited over to the Chandra’s house, as Haresh was making vegetable chilli for dinner. Sarah Jane deflected by saying that she had to get on with work but pushed Luke and Clyde into accepting the invitation. As they walked over the road, Gita linked an arm with Luke and said that Haresh was always cooking too much food anyway, and Luke shared a smile with Rani. (The Day of the Clown)

Adventures with Clyde and Rani[]

Sometime after Rani joined the gang, she, Clyde, and Luke went to see a performance at the New Theatre in East Acton by the astrologer Martin Trueman. As they walked in, Rani commented that everyone checked their star signs, explaining that she was an Aries before asking when Clyde’s birthday was. Clyde tried to rebuff her question, but Luke said that Clyde was born on the 5th of June. Rani worked out that he was a Gemini and remarked that members of that zodiac group were known to be funny and popular, but also lazy and shallow. They started to climb the stairs to the upper level, and Rani asked Luke. He began to say that astrology had no scientific basis, and it was a “fundamental misunderstanding of the way the universe works,” but Rani clarified that she meant to ask what his sign was and when he was born. Luke revealed that as he wasn’t born, he didn’t have a birthday, and therefore no star sign. Before either Clyde or Rani could respond, a member of the show guided them towards a table and asked them to write down their names and dates of birth, stating that it was an essential part of the show. Luke asked what he should write down, and Rani said that she’d forgotten he wasn't born, before asking if he had considered the day that he was activated to be his ‘birthday’. Clyde moaned about why he was there, complaining that seeing a show about astrology was no way to spend a Friday night and that he should “be out there moving, shaking”. Before he could continue, he was interrupted by the appearance of Haresh and Gita as the headmaster asked if he should be doing his homework. Rani was surprised to see her father there, and Gita stated that he was extremely narrow-minded and had asked him how he could dismiss something without first giving it a chance. Luke noted that Sarah Jane was also there even though he hadn’t expected her to, as she had appeared next to him, and she commented that it was nice to spend some time with other adults for a change, before remarking that Trueman had come from nowhere and managed to pull in everyone who was attending, and that there might be a story for her to write about. Gita then commented that Sarah Jane worked too hard and that she had told her neighbour she needed a night out. They were interrupted by the announcement that the show would begin in five minutes, and the group headed into the theatre to watch the show.

Once in their seats, Luke read the leaflet to Clyde and how Trueman had “moved through life without meaning” before he felt the “power of the stars”. They were joined by Rani and Sarah Jane, and Luke moved over so that he was sat in front of Haresh with Sarah Jane on his right. Just then, the show started. As Trueman walked toward the stage, Luke whispered to Clyde that he was a bit “milky”, and Clyde corrected him by saying the word was “cheesy”. They were surprised by Trueman thanking Clyde for coming and putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder, making Rani and Sarah Jane laugh. As the show began, Trueman asked if anyone in the audience was born on the 29th of May, the 16th of June, and the 5th of June. As each birth date was spoken, the person in the audience stood up; Clyde was the last. Trueman then told them to sit down, which they did automatically, then repeated the process of getting them all to stand and sit a couple of times. Once he’d had his fun, Trueman had them all sit down for good, and the audience’s laughter caused Clyde a great deal of embarrassment. He wondered how Trueman had been able to do that, and Sarah Jane said that it was the power of suggestion, just a simple “parlour trick”. Clyde told them that they were to never mention that again. Rani told him not to worry, as he was funny, and Clyde retorted that he chose when he was funny, not Trueman.

As Trueman read out a birth chart and spoke to a member of the audience, Sarah Jane commented that she was “a plant”. Luke was confused, as the woman didn’t look like a vegetable lifeform, but Sarah Jane explained that it meant Trueman knew her and that he had “planted” her in the audience to make the show look more impressive. Rani looked over her shoulder at the woman and commented that she looked genuine. As the woman sat down, Trueman read out Rani’s name, and Gita, rather excited, pointed her out. As Rani stood up and the spotlight was placed on her, Trueman asked her to confirm that they had never met, which she did. He thanked her and stated that her chart indicated she had just moved house (again, also true), as well as noting that she now saw the world in a new light, and it was exciting. He also noted that there was a powerful and anchoring influence in her life from a Taurus man, “someone very calm and reliable. Is it your dad? A teacher?” Once more, Gita pointed out Haresh. As Rani sat down, Trueman stated that he was strangely drawn to Sarah Jane, and as she acknowledged his interest, he noted that she was a Taurus, and she had travelled many years ago. He then stated that there had been a man in her life, but that it wasn’t a romance, and that there had been laughter and adventure with him, and all the while Sarah Jane prayed that her time with him would never come to an end, although it inevitably did. Behind her, Gita whispered to Haresh that she’d known there was a man out there somewhere who had broken her heart, but Haresh noted that Trueman was upsetting Sarah Jane. Trueman then stated the man’s name – the Doctor. He asked if he was right, and Sarah Jane stated that he was, but threw the question back at him, wanting to know how he knew all of that. Trueman just vaguely stated that it was “all in [her] stars”, and he then stated that she was a keeper of secrets. Sarah Jane asked him if he was so clever to tell her about the future, and Trueman stated that she was about to enter battle once more, but this time she would lose.

After the show was over and everyone began to leave, Luke asked Sarah Jane how Trueman had known so much about her, and Clyde wondered how the astrologer had made him “bounce up and down like that”. Luke noted that if Trueman knew about the Doctor, then he himself could be an alien, but Sarah Jane stated that she had scanned him and found him to be human.

Once they returned to Bannerman Road, Sarah Jane asked Mr Smith to scan the area around the New Theatre and look for anything unusual or alien. Clyde asked about psychic energy, which they had experienced before when Mr Smith and Luke had almost brought the moon crashing down “with [Luke's] almighty brain”, but Sarah Jane stated that Trueman was nothing like that and that he could see into peoples’ lives and destinies. Clyde said it was by mind-reading, but Luke said that it was actually by calculating the positions of the stars and planets at the time a person was born, which was impossible. Mr Smith completed his scan, and stated that he had not detected any irregularities, but Sarah Jane refused to believe it. Mr Smith reiterated that there had been no events such as atmospheric disturbances or energy spikes. Clyde asked that if astrology was real then how could they detect it, as they didn’t believe in it, stumping Luke in the process. Clyde celebrated finally confusing his incredibly intellectual friend as Sarah Jane realised that Trueman was most likely using a bio-damper, an alien device that could shield high technology emissions, and she asked Mr Smith to locate Trueman.

The next day, as Sarah Jane was preparing to leave and see Trueman, she noticed that Luke was very quiet, sat on the sofa. She asked him what was wrong, and he said that he’d felt left out the previous night when everyone was talking about their star signs. Sarah Jane said that she could give him a birthday, and that she’s put the day she had found him on the adoption forms. Luke was still upset about it, however, as he felt that because he was activated instead of born, it was one more thing to set him apart from everyone else. Sarah Jane reminded him that birthdays weren’t about celebrating the day but the person. Luke retorted that where a person came from, how their childhood was, made people who they were, and that he had come from nowhere, as he was never a baby. He continued by saying that he thought fitting in with the rest of humanity would get easier with time, but instead new things were always coming along to make him feel different, such as the astrology show the previous night. Sarah Jane told him that he was strong – her brilliant son – and as she began to leave, she asked him what he was going to do that day. He stated that he was going to read up on astrology with Mr Smith and look for some clues.

Up in the attic, Mr Smith explained to Luke that the origins of astrology were lost in the mists of time. Luke stated that the book he was reading explained the earliest records of astrology on Earth had been found in the ruins of Babylon, from the 16th century BC; Mr Smith commented that it was much older than that and not limited to Earth – primitive cultures across the universe had charted the patterns of the stars, and the Xylok showed him the zodiac charts from the planets Ventiplex and Draconia. Luke was amazed that astrology was a part of other cultures on other worlds, and Mr Smith agreed, stating that almost every inhabited planet had some form of astrology.

A short while later, Sarah Jane and Rani came into the attic, and Rani showed Luke her denim jacket which had a hole burnt into it, stating that Trueman had been the one to do it. Sarah Jane asked Mr Smith to analyse the fabric and tell them what had caused the damage. Mr Smith scanned it and stated that the fabric had been burnt by nothing. Sarah Jane pointed out that it had been burnt, and Luke said that it was clearly something the Xylok couldn’t detect. Rani then reminded the group of what Clyde had said the previous night – how could they detect something they didn’t believe in? She then asked if the Ancient Lights – something Trueman had said as she and Sarah Jane fled his residence – had something to do with astrology. Sarah Jane remarked that astrology couldn’t be true, and Luke said that it was contrary to the laws of physics. Rani stated that she was going to call Clyde, as he wouldn’t want to miss this adventure, but when he didn’t answer she stated that he must have his phone on silent. Luke incredulously stated that Clyde never put his phone on silent – not even in school – and that he must have his headphones on. Sarah Jane brought their attention back to Rani’s burnt jacket, and the teenager suddenly had an idea. She stated that astrology breaks the laws of physics, and Luke asked her what she was trying to say; Rani continued her line of thought by asking if the Ancient Lights could have possibly come from somewhere else where the laws of physics were different to Earth’s. Luke was sceptical, stating that it was like saying someone could break the law of gravity. Rani pointed out that maybe it was why Mr Smith had said “nothing” had burnt her jacket, and wondered if the Ancient Lights was a different kind of energy to everything they knew. Sarah Jane remarked that the laws of physics were the same across the universe, but Luke pointed out that they were same across “our universe”, asking if perhaps the Ancient Lights were from another universe. He stated that Mr Smith had told him many cultures across the universe had a form of astrology, and wondered if astrology was a memory of a time before the current universe. Rani asked him to explain, and he said that thirteen billion years ago the universe was created by the Big Bang. He then asked her and Sarah Jane what had been there before, and Sarah Jane answered that no-one knew. He then asked if there had been another universe, and Rani piped up, stating that the laws of physics must have been different, and that astrology worked. Sarah Jane started to come around to the idea, stating that the Ancient Lights must have survived the Big Bang. Rani stated that they were very ancient and wondered what they had been doing for the last thirteen billion years; Sarah Jane added on the question of why they had chosen Trueman. Just then, Mr Smith asked to make a suggestion – if Luke’s theory was correct, then the Ancient Lights had been waiting for the right astrological conditions across the universe; he added that Trueman’s birth chart was a vital part of the equation, and that he was the channel the energy needed. Luke wondered why the energy had waited that long, and what for, and Rani mused that it couldn’t have waited thirteen billion years “just to appear on a stage in Acton”. Mr Smith then relayed the image of a presenter on television – Lisa Trotter on Paranormal Planet – walking through the New Theatre and beginning to interview Trueman. Sarah Jane said that she didn’t like what she was seeing, and Rani joked that, as it was “only the psychic channel”, when Mr Smith started to show them the image, they had probably doubled their ratings. Mr Smith then reported that the programme was being broadcast on all channels around the world. As they continued to watch, they saw Trueman put Lisa to sleep and begin speaking pseudo-directly to them, stating that he had cast a horoscope for a “client” and that right now, she was going to be having quite a difficult time. He said that her (Sarah Jane’s) problem was that she couldn’t help herself from asking questions. Rani wondered how he was able to broadcast the programme on every channel, and Mr Smith said that he couldn’t detect any interference with the television channels. Luke remarked that it was the power of the stars from the old universe, so of course Mr Smith wouldn’t be able to detect it.

Sarah Jane decided that the three of them were going to go to the theatre to stop Trueman, and Rani asked how they would be able to do that; just then, Clyde came into the room, and stated that they couldn’t stop him. Sarah Jane wondered where he had been, and he stated that he had turned to the stars. As he lifted his hands, the attic began to shake, and a furious wind ripped through the room. Sarah Jane asked Clyde what Trueman had done to him, and he responded that the astrologer had given him power. Rani cried out for Mr Smith to tell them what was going on, but as the Xylok couldn’t detect the energy of the old universe, he just continuously stated that nothing was happening. While Sarah Jane, Luke, and Rani huddled together, Clyde stated that it was the dawning of a new age, and that the power of the Ancient Lights had been reborn; he aimed his hand towards Sarah Jane and stated that she must be destroyed. Sarah Jane begged for the real Clyde to listen to her, and to remember all that they had been through as a team, and he lowered his hands, which stopped the power of the Ancient Lights from making the attic shake. Luke moved towards Clyde, but his friend raised his hand once more in his direction and told him to stay still. Rani asked him what he was doing, but he told her to be quiet. Sarah Jane told Clyde that they were a team – a gang – and that they all relied on one another, they would never hurt each other. He told her to stay back, shot a blast of energy at the skylight, and said that he would destroy her if she didn’t listen to his warning. Sarah Jane realised that Clyde had orders from Trueman to deal with her, but that they didn’t include Luke or Rani, and told him to let them go. The teens refused at first, but Rani decided she would go and try to find someone to help. Luke didn’t want to leave his mother, but she ordered him to go. As he approached Clyde, Luke reminded him of what his friend had said at the show the previous night about astrology being rubbish, but Clyde simply replied that he hadn’t understood then. Luke wondered what Trueman had done to his friend. Before he had a chance to leave the attic, however, Mr Smith rebooted and began to show the broadcast that Trueman had hijacked. As they watched, Trueman started to take over the star signs one by one, starting with Gemini and then moving on to Cancer. He stated that at the coming of the Ancient Lights, he would be king of the world, and ended the broadcast.

Sarah Jane turned to Clyde and told him that what had possessed him was more alien than anything they had met in past adventures, and Luke explained that the Ancient Lights came from before the Big Bang. However, Clyde responded by saying to Sarah Jane that anything they didn’t understand was called “alien”, that she had told the group the world was much more than most people would ever be aware of, so why not the Ancient Lights. She said that he was Trueman’s slave and asked if he really wanted to be a slave forever. Clyde said that Trueman was the chosen one and he would follow him, before reiterating that the astrologer and vessel for the Ancient Lights had ordered him to destroy Sarah Jane. She reminded him that he knew her, deep down, and he knew that she wouldn’t submit, before informing him that she would fight the Ancient Lights; if it was necessary, she would destroy it. Luke implored her to be careful, but she told her son that she knew what she was doing, before asking Clyde if he really could destroy her. As she started to walk towards the door, Rani reappeared, stating that Trueman and the Ancient Lights had taken over Gita and that lots of people were just walking in the streets. Clyde tried to stop Sarah Jane as she had her back to the door, and Luke begged him to think about what he was doing, coming up behind him. He placed his hand on Clyde’s shoulder as his friend told Sarah Jane that she shouldn’t have forced him to destroy her, but before he could do anything he collapsed. Luke immediately grabbed Sarah Jane in a hug. Clyde sat up, a hand to his head, wondering about what he had been doing. Sarah Jane informed him that the power was gone and that he was now free, and Rani asked if that meant her mum and everyone else affected were free too, but Mr Smith explained that he was receiving news reports from around the world of people still being hypnotised under Trueman’s control. As they watched, Trueman gained control over people with the zodiac of Leo, and Sarah Jane said that Trueman wanted a world of slaves. Luke wondered if the Ancient Lights had controlled people in the old universe. Rani reminded them that there were people all over the world being taken over by Trueman’s control of the zodiac, and Sarah Jane reiterated that they had saved Clyde. Luke couldn’t figure out how they had saved their friend, and pointed out that the Ancient Lights survived the Big Bang, asking Sarah Jane how Clyde could have possibly stopped them. Clyde didn’t have any clue either. Rani asked that he must know something, and Clyde explained that he had felt as though he was in a dream, and that he couldn’t believe Trueman’s control had made him say everything he did. Sarah Jane asked him how he had felt when the power left him, and Clyde replied that it had felt like he was hypnotised before suddenly the real him had regained control of his own body, saying that it seemed as though the hypnotised version had been switched off. He apologised for not being able to give them any clues, and Sarah Jane briefly mentioned that she knew how hypnotism felt, having been taken over by aliens herself in the past. Rani sadly stated that as they didn’t know how they had saved Clyde, trying to help her mum and everyone else was hopeless, but Sarah Jane disagreed, telling Rani that there was always hope. She then realised that she had pushed Clyde while he was hypnotised, knowing that in actuality he couldn’t – and wouldn’t – harm her. He was confused, and she explained that she had forced him to do something he could never normally do, and that was the push his real self had needed to break free from the Ancient Lights’ control. She said that she had to try the same thing with Trueman – force him into a corner and get him to confront what the Ancient Lights were making him do to the world.

As they left the house to go to the New Theatre, Rani pointed out that Sarah Jane didn’t know Trueman, whereas Clyde was her friend, and asked how Sarah Jane thought she would be able to get through to Trueman. Sarah Jane told her that she had to try, but Rani reminded her that Trueman was taking over all of the star signs, one by one, and that it was only a matter of time before they themselves were taken over. Luke then realised that he was using the television broadcast to amplify his energy around the world, and that in order to break his control over people not in and around the theatre they needed to stop the broadcast, which was being controlled from the theatre itself. Rani added that if they cut off the electricity in the theatre, Trueman wouldn’t be able to transmit the programme or his energy, before wondering if it was a stupid idea, but Sarah Jane reassured her that it was brilliant.

When they arrived at the theatre, Luke asked how they were going to get past the people who had been hypnotised into standing in a circle around the theatre and holding hands. Clyde pointed out that as he was a Gemini, he was considered one of Trueman’s inner circle and that he could get all of them into the theatre. Sarah Jane said that she couldn’t ask him to take that risk, but Clyde said that she hadn’t asked – he had offered. As they approached the theatre, Sarah Jane noted that there were so many people who had been taken over, and Rani told Clyde that he had to look emotionless. Once more, Sarah Jane tried to convince him not to go through with his plan, saying that it was too dangerous, but Clyde reminded her that there was no other way into the theatre, and that if she was in his shoes she would do it. Sarah Jane couldn’t argue with him on that point, and finally accepted that Clyde was their best chance at getting into the theatre unharmed.

Walking towards the circle of people guarding the front doors, Clyde got into character so well that when Luke tried to tell him to copy their faces his friend told him to “be quiet, boy”. They were asked why Clyde had brought Sarah Jane, Luke, and Rani, and that they weren’t among the chosen signs, but Clyde stated that he was a member of Trueman’s inner circle as a child of Gemini, and that Trueman had sent him out to bring the trio to the theatre as prisoners. A woman guarding the doors told them nobody could go into the theatre, and that they had orders to stop anyone who tried. Clyde told them that they could not harm him, but the woman pointed out that Sarah Jane, Luke, and Rani weren’t chosen, and said that Clyde was lying. Clyde raised his hand to copy her, and reiterated that he was one of the inner circle, before making up a prediction of planetary alignments and ordering the people to step aside. They finally did, telling Clyde and the others to go into the theatre quickly; once they had, the circle was made whole once more.

Inside the theatre, Clyde said that he wasn’t bad, but Sarah Jane corrected him and said that he was brilliant, before telling Luke, Clyde, and Rani to go backstage and find the power supply for the building and switch it off. Luke and Rani did as she asked, but Clyde stayed with her, telling her that it was too dangerous to go to Trueman on her own. However, they were discovered by Trueman’s assistant Cheryl, who said that Trueman wanted to see Clyde and that he would be delighted to see Sarah Jane, thinking that there would be no way for her to defeat him now.

Luke and Rani made it backstage, and Rani pointed out that they had to be quick, as once Trueman reached Aries she herself would be taken over. Luke then said that as the theatre was a public building, the health and safety regulations stated that the emergency switch for the power had to be somewhere accessible in case of a fire or flood. Rani asked him how he knew that information, and Luke pointed out that it was on a noticeboard at school and that he remembered everything he read. As they made it upstairs, they saw that Trueman had found Sarah Jane and Clyde, and had them trapped on the stage. Rani mentioned that she didn’t know what it was they were looking for, and Luke answered that it was the emergency main switch, but that he didn’t know what it looked like, before asserting that it most likely wasn’t in the room that they were currently in. They managed to make their way backstage, and quickly exchanged a look with Sarah Jane and Clyde on the stage, and Rani noticed a series of electrical sockets and plugs. They ran down the stairs to them, and started to pull every plug out of the socket. Luke then noticed a switchbox, and said that it was the emergency main switch. Rani tried to shut it off, but discovered that Trueman had placed a barrier around it, which prevented her from moving it. Before they could figure out what to do, Trueman took over Aries, and Rani was hypnotised to head down to the stage and join the other hypnotised people – including her mother – on the stage. Luke tried to grab the switch himself, and found that the barrier didn’t prohibit him from holding on to the handle; he turned the handle and switched off the power in the theatre. Luke followed Rani down to the stage and realised that what had broken Clyde out of Trueman’s hypnosis wasn’t Sarah Jane pushing him to do something he never normally could, but Luke himself when he had put his hand on Clyde’s shoulder. He then moved towards the inner circle, and joined hands with Gita and Cheryl. In joining the circle, he broke Trueman’s control over them, causing them all to collapse, and Rani too was freed, which astonished the astrologer. Trueman fell to his knees and asked Luke how he had defeated the power of the Ancient Lights, and Luke stated that he hadn’t been born and therefore had no birthday. Clyde added that it meant Luke didn’t have a star sign, either, and Luke explained that because of his uniqueness astrology didn’t work on him. He likened the circle to an electrical circuit, and by him joining it he broke the power. Rani, kneeling by her mum, realised that Luke had shorted the power before when he had touched Clyde’s shoulder in the attic. Trueman asked what Luke was, and Sarah Jane told him that he was her son, and the centre of her universe. Trueman couldn’t believe that Luke hadn’t been born, and Luke told him that he had thought not being born was a bad thing until that moment. Sarah Jane said that Trueman had had everything planned out in the stars, but because Luke had no star sign, Trueman didn’t even know that he was there. The astrologer miserably stated that this moment in time had been the Ancient Lights’ only chance to return to the universe, and that the conjunction was already over; he could feel the Ancient Lights moving on, their knowledge leaving him forever. Sarah Jane told Trueman to let the power go, but he refused, stating that there was nothing left for him on Earth, and asked Sarah Jane to let him go to the stars. As they watched, Trueman dissolved into light, and left Earth with the Ancient Lights.

Turning on a small torch, Sarah Jane commented that even at the end Trueman wouldn’t let the power go, and that he must have wanted it so much that he was willing to die. Clyde wondered what had happened to Trueman, and Sarah Jane remarked that perhaps the Ancient Lights had destroyed him, or perhaps he had ascended and joined the Ancient Lights. Just then, Gita and the rest of the people from Trueman’s inner circle started to come around, and the group decided to bail out from the theatre before they had to answer any questions.

Later that evening, Clyde was reading an emergency print of The Ealing Echo – the front page had a photo of Trueman on it and the title “TV Hypnosis Stunt Full Story”. He commented on the astrology section of the paper getting a daily prediction for Gemini wrong (“You will find love in a laundrette.”). He said that he had saved the world, and Sarah Jane pointed out that he hadn’t done so single-handed. Clyde corrected himself and said that he had helped to save the world, as a member of the “world-saving team”. He held up the front page of the paper and said it was a great cover story. Luke then tried to get Clyde to stand up and sit down on his orders; Clyde asked him what he was doing, and Luke wondered if his friend was under his control now. Sarah Jane said it was a good idea, and that they could get Clyde to clean her car. Clyde then said that they had agreed to never mention Trueman’s up-down stunt in the show again, but Luke pointed out that they had never actually agreed to anything. Clyde stood up, saying that it was time for him to go as he had agreed to meet up with Finney, but before he left, he realised that his phone was missing – the last person to have it was Trueman. After Clyde had left, Luke picked up the paper he had left behind. He said that Trueman had waited for so long to achieve something – anything – but they had just stopped it from happening. Sarah Jane said that perhaps them stopping Trueman was destiny, but Luke remarked that he didn’t believe in destiny. She asked him if he still missed having a birthday, and he told her that that day, his being different had saved the world, and asked if they should celebrate that day as Luke’s “birthday” instead. Sarah Jane agreed, and Luke excitedly asked if he could have presents, and Sarah Jane said he could he have whatever he wanted – cards, cakes, lots of attention, even a party. (Secrets of the Stars)

[Additional information is required]

Towards the end of 2009, all of humanity was changed to become copies of the Master’s latest incarnation – a man of average height and build, with short sandy blonde hair, light brown eyes and scruffy stubble. This included the likes of Sarah Jane, Luke and the rest of their gang. While like this, they all shared thoughts with the actual Time Lord himself, and were therefore incapable of independent thought. However, after the Time Lord President Rassilon (also known as Rassilon the Resurrected) restored humanity and the Master saved the Doctor and Earth by returning Gallifrey and the Time Lords to the time-locked Last Great Time War, Luke told Clyde over the phone while walking down Bannerman Road that Sarah Jane still couldn’t figure out what had happened; she had gotten Mr Smith to put out a story saying that Wi-Fi had gone mad all over the planet and given everyone hallucinations. However, he wasn’t concentrating on where he was walking and would have been hit by a car had someone not grabbed him and pulled him to safety. When he looked up, he realised that it was the Doctor who had saved him; this marked the second time in one year that Luke met the Doctor in person. The Doctor never said a word, but Luke checked to make sure it was safe before running over the road and calling out for Sarah Jane. She came outside, and Luke directed her attention towards the Doctor and the TARDIS, parked on the pavement over the road. All three of them shared a look as the Doctor waved goodbye before entering the TARDIS, and Sarah Jane smiled tearily, knowing that the Doctor was about to regenerate. (The End of Time)

Departure and Subsequent Adventures[]

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Luke continued with his studies at the University of Oxford, graduated with top marks, and went on to get a job as a scientist at UNIT under the leadership of Kate Stewart, the daughter of Sarah Jane’s old friend the Brigadier, Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. He and his friend Sanjay from Oxford started dating – with a little push from Sarah Jane – sometime before graduating, and eventually got married. It is not known whether they have any children.

Death of Sarah Jane[]

At some point, Sarah Jane passed away, and it is implied that the cause of her death was an attempt to prevent an alien invasion. Luke was working at UNIT with his husband Sanjay, Clyde had been in San Diego, attending Comic Con as a comic artist, Rani was working as investigative reporter, Sky was off-planet and Maria was still living in America. They all reunited for her funeral – with Maria and Alan attending via video link from America – and everyone who attended got up to speak about Sarah Jane and the impact she had on their lives, including the likes of other former companions Jo Jones (nee Grant), Dorothy “Ace” McShane, Tegan Jovanka, Martha Smith (nee Jones), and Jack Harkness.

Even though the funeral was briefly interrupted by the Trickster attempting to destroy the Earth, everyone (bar Gita and Haresh) teamed up for one final confrontation and were able to take him down for good. Later, as everyone started to leave the funeral, they stopped and spoke to Luke, Clyde and Rani, who were stood at the door. Jo mentioned that she wasn’t surprised the Doctor didn’t turn up, because if he had attended, both his hearts might have broken – besides which, he was probably busy saving an asteroid from a giant squid; Gita said she was saddened by how much quieter Bannerman Road had become in the wake of Sarah Jane’s death; and Dorothy remarked that she found out about Sarah Jane while trapped with the Doctor, and that he’d told her out of everyone in the universe he’d met he missed Sarah Jane the most, before she left with K-9.

Later that day, Luke, Clyde, and Rani went back to 13 Bannerman Road, and they reminisced about their adventures with Sarah Jane. Luke said that he felt so lucky because he had the best mother, that she showed him the whole world, and that Sarah Jane was the one who told him that Sanjay was looking at him “in that way,” that she was the one who told Luke to go and talk to him, and that now they’d been married for five years. He stated that it was the greatest gift she had ever given him: “I may have been created by the Bane, but Mum? She gave me life.” (Farewell, Sarah Jane)

Nightmare Man and Luke

Personality[]

Luke is extremely clever due to the Bane’s methods of creating and enhancing his intelligence; however, throughout his earlier adventures, he often feels out-of-place due to the alienness of his origins, and he shares his feelings openly. When he first meets Clyde, he has no concept of humour and approaches people rather formally (Revenge of the Slitheen); over time, he begins to loosen up and absorb some of Clyde’s sense of “coolness”. Luke is also extremely empathetic, as his emotional state often reflects that of the people around him. He initially has no concept of societal gender constructs, as his initial choice for a name was Maria (Invasion of the Bane). As he grows, he develops into his own person, which is reflected in his starting to behave like a typical human teenager (Mona Lisa’s Revenge). He very rarely gets angry but will fiercely defend his friends and family (The Enemy of the Bane, Prisoner of the Judoon, Mona Lisa’s Revenge, The Nightmare Man, Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith, The Man Who Never Was).

He experiences confusion over his parentage and how he should explain it to people should they ask.

He has a very strong friendship with Maria, Clyde, and Rani, even though Clyde making fun of Luke sometimes annoys or upsets Sarah Jane. He is also extremely protective of Sky, as he tried to defend her when they thought Plark was going to attack them for discovering that the Skullions were controlling the hologram of Joseph Serf. In his earlier years, he could be quite gullible, but as he grows and matures into a young adult his gullible nature is replaced by a natural shrewdness that comes with investigating aliens on a constant basis, which he picks up from Sarah Jane.

Abilities[]

  • Enhanced intelligence
  • Hacking
  • Immunological resistance
  • Empathy

Relationships[]

Family[]

Sarah Jane Smith[]

Sarah Jane Smith and Luke met when she discovered him and Maria Jackson hiding in one of the toilet cubicles in the Bubble Shock factory. He implicitly trusted her from the moment they met, having no reason to believe she meant him any harm, as the only other person he had met was Maria. After the destruction of the Bubble Shock factory, Sarah Jane had Mr Smith create some adoption papers, and she took him into her home.

She was initially unsure about being called “Mum” and said that Sarah Jane was fine; they both reacted awkwardly when the students around them laughed after Sarah Jane gave Luke a kiss on the cheek. Luke asked Maria why people had laughed, and she responded that it was a bit embarrassing, but that Sarah Jane did in fact want him to call her “Mum.” Luke was confused, and responded, “But she said she didn’t.” However, Maria understood the nuance in their new dynamic and how Sarah Jane was feeling and insisted that she did want to be called “Mum.” Later that afternoon, Sarah Jane and Luke watched as Maria effortlessly joked with her father. After Luke and Maria both went inside their respective homes, Sarah Jane asked Alan how he and Maria “got like that”, trying to ask for guidance without verbally asking, and he responded that they’ve always had a very jokey relationship. Later that evening, Luke stated that he kept making “social mistakes” at school, and Sarah Jane responded that they were both new to being mother and son. However, she was still able to give him some advice and reassurance, stating that even if he makes more mistakes, he won’t make the same ones again, and that anyone is nervous starting a new school or job. Still unsure, Luke asked Sarah Jane if he had to go to school, and she said she had considered home schooling him, but wanted Luke to live as normal a life as she could give him. It wasn’t until they defeated the Slitheen that Sarah Jane began to feel comfortable being called “Mum”.

They grew very close very quickly and were always there for one another should they need it; very rarely would they argue.

[Additional information is required]

Sky Smith[]

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Eddie and Barbara Smith[]

Eddie and Barbara Smith were Luke’s adoptive maternal grandparents. They died in 1951, when Sarah Jane was only a few months old.

In 2008, when helping a child return to his home through a time fissure, Sarah Jane discovered that he had come from her birthplace, a small town called Foxgrove, in 1951, the year that she was born. Though she tried to resist the temptation to have a look around the place, she ended up giving in. Luke caught her when she tried to sneak out of the house to go back to the time fissure, and joined her. He initially agreed to stay behind, as Sarah Jane said she only wanted to look around for a few minutes, but the moment she went through the fissure, it started to close behind her; Luke had no choice but to leap through it after her before it closed. Having no choice but to head into Foxgrove, he joined Sarah Jane in exploring where she had been born and would have been raised had her parents not died. They discovered that the town was having a fete, and headed toward the village green to participate. Along the way, Sarah Jane explained that as it was merely a few years after the end of the Second World War, families and communities were still recovering from the effects of rationing. Shortly after they arrived at the fete, they heard someone saying Sarah Jane’s name, and they turned around to see a woman gently rocking a baby in her arms – Barbara Smith, who was running a stall where people tried to guess the amount of sweets in the jar. Luke encouraged Sarah Jane to go over and meet her, and they introduced themselves as Victoria and David Beckham. Barbara encouraged Luke to have a go at guessing the number of sweets in the jar, and, as he did so, curiously examined the pound coin he had placed in a tray, unlike any coin she had seen before. She was further surprised to hear his mathematical reasoning in working out the number of sweets, and distractedly told him to write his answer down.

[Additional information is required]

Lavinia Smith[]

Dr. Lavinia Smith was Luke’s adoptive maternal great-aunt, and the sister of his grandfather Eddie Smith. She died between 1998 and 2001, several years before the Bane arrived on Earth and created Luke.

Friends[]

Maria Jackson[]

Maria Jackson was the first human Luke ever met; they ran into each other while trying to find their way out of the Bubble Shock factory. He immediately became very attached to her, initially copying everything she said and did. When Maria returned to Sarah Jane’s house after Kelsey was dropped off at Bannerman Road by the Bane Davey, Luke greeted her cheerfully, although Maria was understandably preoccupied with the alien trying to force its way into Sarah Jane’s home. Luke copied everything Maria did, such as not entering the attic until she did. Maria also defended him from Kelsey, and said that it was “bad, very bad,” in response to Luke’s question when Kelsey said that “he’s [hers]”. They both followed Sarah Jane off of the Bubble Shock bus after she drove it through the factory’s wall, and Maria was very upset when Mrs Wormwood tried to “deactivate” him, shouting “No!”. They and Sarah Jane all celebrated together when they defeated the Bane and blew up the factory. Maria had to hold back her laughter when Luke told her mother Chrissy Jackson the clothes he was wearing were the ones he “was born in”. Later that evening, Maria was the first to react favourably to Sarah Jane’s suggestion of the name Luke.

Luke and Maria quickly became very good friends. They both started school on the same day and shared their anxieties about it with one another. They were interrupted by the arrival of Clyde Langer, who sat with them for their first morning assembly. Maria and Clyde were both visibly confused by the headmaster’s speech and actions, but Luke, having had no prior experience with traditional British public schooling, was more uncertain than outright confused. Maria often defended Luke from Clyde’s jabs, such as when Luke realised that he had given the Slitheen the answer to destroying the world.

Maria tried to teach Luke about humour, but it didn’t really stick, as whenever he tried to make a joke she wouldn’t laugh and thought he was going about it wrong by over-analysing how to construct a joke.

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Clyde Langer[]

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Rani Chandra[]

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Mr Smith[]

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K-9[]

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Alan Jackson[]

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The Doctor[]

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Allies and Acquaintances[]

Kelsey Hooper[]

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Chrissie Jackson[]

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Carla Langer[]

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Paul Langer[]

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Gita and Haresh Chandra[]

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Sam Lloyd[]

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Eve[]

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Ship[]

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Peter Dalton[]

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Plark[]

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Romance[]

Sanjay[]

Sanjay was a student at the University of Oxford at the same time as Luke; though it’s not known where they met, he apparently lived just down the hall from Luke in the university accommodation block. They quickly bonded over their enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge and became fast friends, which Luke teased Clyde about on at least one occasion. Luke considered Sanjay to be “cool” and “funny”, and noted that “he makes me laugh”. (Death of the Doctor)

At some point, he introduced Sanjay to Sarah Jane, Clyde, Rani, and Sky, and explained their adventures with aliens to him, which he reacted to favourably. Possibly during the latter years of their studies, Sarah Jane told Luke that Sanjay was looking at him “like that” (indicating that Sanjay fancied Luke). They started dating, got jobs together at UNIT post-graduation, and eventually married, as they had been wed for five years by the time Sarah Jane’s funeral took place. (Farewell, Sarah Jane)

Enemies[]

Mrs Wormwood[]

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The Trickster[]

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Androvax[]

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Mona Lisa[]

[Additional information is required]

The Blathereen[]

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The Nightmare Man[]

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Ruby White[]

[Additional information is required]

John Harrison[]

[Additional information is required]

Planned character developments[]

Had the series not ended with the death of Elisabeth Sladen in April 2011, Russel T. Davies had planned to have Luke come out as gay in series 6 of The Sarah Jane Adventures, as CBBC had requested to have a gay character on CBBC and believed that Davies was the best person to bring that vision to life. Davies selected Luke as the most likely character to come out as gay, as he thought the multitude of scenes where Luke displays social awkwardness could be a reference to it, and Clyde had already been written as being slightly infatuated with Rani. However, Davies had clearly also planned to have Luke come out as gay – or at the very least begin exploring his sexuality – earlier than a sixth series, as the following lines were cut from The Nightmare Man:

Sarah Jane: Have a lovely time at university. You’ll grow up, find a girlfriend.

Luke: (offhandedly) Oh, could be a boyfriend!

Sarah Jane: Well, as long as it’s not a Slitheen, I don’t care!

Unofficially, the scene that Davies had planned where Luke came out to Clyde was repurposed for another CBBC show, Wizards VS Aliens, where the character Benny Sherwood comes out to his best friend, Tom Clarke.

The webcast epilogue Farewell, Sarah Jane confirmed that Luke was gay, stating that he’d ended up marrying Sanjay, a fellow student at university.

Trivia[]

General facts[]

  • Luke has only dreamt twice on-screen; both times predicted an enemy coming – the first was Mrs Wormwood in The Enemy of the Bane, and the second was the Nightmare Man in The Nightmare Man.
  • Luke reads the magazine Heat.
  • Luke watches Loose Women.
  • Luke is a voracious reader, able to quickly digest any book due to having the brainpower of 10,000 humans.
  • According to Clyde, Luke is terrible at stocking his own cupboards with food at university.
  • Though it was never overtly stated throughout the running of The Sarah Jane Adventures, it was widely assumed by fans that Luke was gay, as he had never shown attraction to any female characters in the show. The airing of the epilogue Farewell, Sarah Jane confirmed this, stating that Luke had ended up marrying Sanjay.
  • Luke is sometimes seen as a form of representation for people with autism, as his earlier appearances and mannerisms resonate with many who have Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD.

Quotes[]

"Hello, Maria. Hello, screaming girl." -- to Maria Jackson and Kelsey Hooper

"Is that good or bad?" -- in response to many things

"You designed this?" -- to Mr Jeffrey

"Hi, Clani!" -- to Clyde and Rani

"Sky. Hi. Hi, Sky." -- to Sky Smith upon meeting in person

"Sorry, Clani, family outing!" -- to Clyde and Rani about being able to attend the launch rehearsal for the SerfBoard

“I may have been created by the Bane, but Mum? She gave me life.” -- to Clyde and Rani after Sarah Jane's funeral

Filming[]

Luke is portrayed by actor Tommy Knight throughout The Sarah Jane Adventures. Knight also made an appearance alongside Elisabeth Sladen in the two-part Doctor Who story episodes The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End. The duo made a brief appearance at the end of the second part of The End of Time, which was filmed before The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, making The Sarah Jane Adventures the last Whoniverse-inspired show that David Tennant filmed for before his role as the Doctor was taken over by Matt Smith in 2010.

Luke was written out of the show as a series regular after Knight told Davies and the rest of the management that he wished to focus on his education; he continued to appear throughout the show from Knight’s real-life university dorm room (Death of the Doctor, Sky). He made two final in-person appearances in the show – the series 4 finale, Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith, and the series 5 finale, The Man Who Never Was.

Knight, Yasmin Paige (Maria Jackson), and Sinead Michael (Sky Smith) are the only regular cast members of The Sarah Jane Adventures to not work with Smith; Paige and Michael have not worked with Tennant, as Paige left before Tennant was invited onto the show, and Michael was cast as the teenage Sky after filming for Smith’s episode was completed, although Davies’s original plan for the episode Sky had included an appearance from Smith’s Doctor; unfortunately, Smith was not available at the time.

Knight, Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Mina Anwar (Gita Chandra), and Sophie Aldred (Dorothy “Ace” McShane) all reprised their roles from both Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures for the webcast episode Farewell, Sarah Jane, which was narrated by Jacob Dudman. The story acted as an epilogue to the series, and was produced as a tribute to Elisabeth Sladen, airing on the Doctor Who social media channels on 19 April 2020, nine years after Sladen lost her second battle with pancreatic cancer. The episode’s credits thanked Sacha Dhawan (who is in a relationship with Mohindra and portrayed a new incarnation of the Master throughout Jodie Whitaker’s iteration of Doctor Who), Scott Handcock (a Big Finish audiobook writer) and Stuart Humphryes.

External Links and References[]

To be added

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