Years after her travels in the TARDIS ended, Sarah Jane Smith has resumed her job as an investigative journalist, though her stint with TV network Planet 3 ended in disgrace after one of her exposes was proven to be based on false evidence. Fired by her network, Sarah’s troubles didn’t end there, as her identity, bank account and her employability were systematically erased. With the help of Natalie, her former Planet 3 producer, Sarah is still on the trail of a big story, but now she’s trying to find out who tainted her last big story – and her paranoia is growing. The trail leads to a bank where Sarah assumes a new identity and takes a job – but her cover is blown by the police when the bank is robbed. Sarah receives a message from her friend Ellie, an environmental activist, to meet her the next day at an isolated village, and Ellie’s friend Josh insists on accompanying Sarah, especially after she goes to meet with the bank manager again and finds him dead – with a note on his desk also referring to the village where Sarah is supposed to meet Ellie. Sarah and Josh go to retrieve her car, which she’s taken to keeping hidden in a garage away from her home for security reasons, only to see a man break into it and blow it up. They decide at this point that public transport might be a safer way to get there, and when they do arrive, they find Ellie’s environmentalist group preparing to protest a French biochemical company’s gradual plan to take over the entire village. Only some of Ellie’s environmentalist colleagues have gone missing, and the corpses have begun piling up near the village’s legendary healing well…
written by Terrance Dicks
directed by Gary Russell
music by David DarlingtonCast: Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy James (Josh Townsend), Sadie Miller (Natalie Redfern), Robin Bowerman (Harris), Juliet Warner (Ellie Martin), Alistair Lock (Mr. Venables), Matthew Brenher (Bank Robber), David John (Bank Robber), Nicholas Briggs (Mr. Hedges), David Jackson (The Squire), Peter Sowerbutts (Reverend Gosforth), Patricia Leventon (Maude)
Notes: Sadie Miller is Elisabeth Sladen’s daughter. David Jackson was better known to British SF fans as the gentle giant Gan during the first two seasons of Blake’s 7, and played minor roles in two episodes of Space: 1999; he died in 2005. Guest star Peter Miles has played characters who have crossed Sarah’s path before; during Jon Pertwee’s final season, he played Professor Whitaker in Invasion Of The Dinosaurs, and Davros’ right-hand man Nyder, who terrorized Sarah in Genesis Of The Daleks, during Tom Baker’s first year as the Doctor. The character of Ellie Martin, still played by Juliet Warner, was originally intended to be Samantha Jones from BBC Books’ early eighth Doctor novels, but the character was changed when it posed too many continuity problems for Big Finish; Ellie also shows up in the Doctor Who Unbound audio play He Jests At Scars… as the ill-fated human traveling companion of the Valeyard.
LogBook entry by Earl Green