On the Passing of Doctor Who's Elisabeth Sladen

I remember my first episodes of Doctor Who so well. I was about seven when I learned the trick of turning the antenna. On good days, if you pointed in the right direction, you could pick-up the Orlando station in addition to normal local stations.

One Sunday afternoon, I did the usual rotary move (by hand as we couldn’t afford one of the fancy mechanical turners) and found the strangest thing. It caught my attention straight away. In brilliantly clear black and white (once again all we could afford in the mid-'70s) I caught a riff of a bizarre theme, slightly like a theremin. The first scene I ever saw was with the crazy-curled coif of Jon Pertwee’s opera cloak-clad Doctor and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith...

But, Sarah Jane wasn’t your typical sex object. In the age of women’s liberation, she was an independent women who survived by her wits. It was often her role to play the rational foil to the Doctor’s off the planet nuttiness. For that, she became more than just a companion. For a generation of sci-fi obsessed geeks, she became an icon...


http://blogcritics.org/video/article/on-the-passing-of-doctor-whos1/

Nice obit, BTW.

Rest in Peace, Sarah Jane.