Oh, Sarah Jane...

[The Doctor and Sarah are in the TARDIS.]

DOCTOR: [operating controls] Steady, old girl... These temperatures must have affected her thermo-couplings.

SARAH: [rubbing legs] Likewise my toes. Kastria must be the coldest planet in the galaxy.

DOCTOR: I think that distinction belongs to Basberus. No place, that, for a winter holiday - entire surface is covered in power stations.

SARAH: Power stations?

DOCTOR: They run a lot of electric fires.

SARAH: Oh, naturally.

DOCTOR: Luckily, at about five degrees on the Kelvin scale, there's no problems building super-conductive electro-magnets.

[The Doctor does a strange highland fling dance as he sings an advertising jingle.]

DOCTOR: "Our kilowatts are cheap today, cheaper than yesterday..."

[Sarah stares at him.]

DOCTOR: Not bad for 750, eh?

SARAH: 748, you said last time.

DOCTOR: Ah. I did? Yes, well, it varies, according to which sector of the time continuum...

[The Doctor freezes, hearing the a distant sound like a gong.]

SARAH: Doctor? [She shakes him] Doctor, what's the matter?

DOCTOR: [dazed] The call.

SARAH: Doctor, you're not regenerating again, are you?

DOCTOR: After all that I've done... the call.

SARAH: What are you talking about?

DOCTOR: [turns to console] Must get you home. Before...

SARAH: Before what? What's happened?

DOCTOR: I've been summoned to a place.... I can't take you with me, Sarah. Humans aren't allowed.

SARAH: Something to do with the Time Lords?

[Shaken, the Doctor nods.]

SARAH: Well, I'm sorry Doctor, but I'm not leaving you in this state.

DOCTOR: I'm all right now.

SARAH: You're sure this isn't one of your little jokes?

DOCTOR: [sighs] I wish it were.

SARAH: But you can't say what it's about?

[The Doctor checks no one's listening and then nods.]

DOCTOR: I'm forbidden to say. [grins] Regulations.

SARAH: [smiles sadly] I see. So this is...?

DOCTOR: I'm afraid so.

[Sarah looks around the TARDIS wistfully.]

SARAH: Funny... I knew it would end, one day, but...

DOCTOR: [gently] I understand.

SARAH: [perky] Won't you ever come back?

DOCTOR: [shrugs] You know me, Sarah. Always popping up.

[The Doctor opens the scanner to show a London street.]

DOCTOR: We've landed.

SARAH: Yes.

[The Doctor suddenly rummages in his pocket and pulls out a package.]

DOCTOR: Before you go, Sarah - a little present for you.

SARAH: Um, what is it?

DOCTOR: Open it and see!

[The Doctor watches on excitedly as she unwraps it. Sarah recoils at the white furry object inside.]

DOCTOR: It's a lucky squirk's foot.

SARAH: But what's it for?

DOCTOR: Luck. Or you can use it as a paperweight.

SARAH: That's what people always say about totally useless objects.

DOCTOR: [hurt] Oh. Well, I... I'm afraid I didn't have anything very much...

SARAH: Doctor. It doesn't matter. [hands the foot over] You keep it. With the scrapes you get into, you need all the luck that's going.

DOCTOR: Well. If you're sure.

SARAH: I'm quite sure.

[Sarah opens the door and heads for them. She pauses on the threshold.]

SARAH: Goodbye, Doctor.

[A pause.]

DOCTOR: Goodbye, Sarah. Is has been fun, hasn't it?

SARAH: Yes. [smiles] Yes, Doctor, it's been fun.

[Sarah leaves. The Doctor sadly closes the doors. On the scanner, Sarah can be seen walking down the street. She stops and waves back. The Doctor activates the controls and the scanner image breaks up.]

[Outside, Sarah watches the TARDIS dematerialize.]

SARAH: Cheerio, Doctor.

[She turns and walks away. We follow her until she is swallowed into the traffic...]

- Robert Holmes' original end to The Hand of Fear

She's gone...

This now makes Goodbye Sarah Jane Smith the final of The Sarah Jane Adventures, which is particularly painful if you've actually watched it - an alien gives SJ induced Alzheimer's and then leaves her to die in a cellar... No doubt, of course, BF will produce the unmade fifth series as part of their Lost Stories range, with the stories completely out of order and everything important changed... GOD DAMMIT, ACE LEFT IN THE ICE WARRIOR STORY! IF YOU CAN'T STICK TO THAT, THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN BOTHERING FOR?!?

Always assuming they hadn't actually made any of that season... I dunno. Could we be in for a Blake's 7 type of deal with Clyde and Rani fighting the good fight with Mr. Smith at their side? The Eleventh Doctor and Jo returning for the funeral? Christ, now we will NEVER know how she got off that space shuttle hurtling into the Mandragora Helix now... maybe Chris McKeon's idea the dying Ninth Doctor saved her will be canon now?

...

This is so freaking unfair.

And she had cancer. Like my mum. Re above this being "freaking unfair".

I can do no better than Adam Spencer's replaying of SJ's first scene which does sum up their relationship rather well...

DOCTOR: I read your paper on the teleological response of the virus. A most impressive piece of work.

SARAH: Thank you.

DOCTOR: Particularly when I realise you must have written it when you were five years old.

SARAH: Ah. Er, yes, that is rather difficult to explain, isn't it.

DOCTOR: But you're going to try, aren't you?

SARAH: Well, my Aunt Lavinia is in America on a lecture tour, you see. She had an invitation to visit here. I took her place.

DOCTOR: Why?

SARAH: Well, I thought all this might give me a good story. I'm a journalist. Sarah Jane Smith.

DOCTOR: You realise this is a very dangerous place to be in?

SARAH: Well I can't help that. I'm stuck here now...