History Recap / DoctorWhoS28E3SchoolReunion

Not knowing that they are being trailed by Mr. Finch and another bat-creature, they go in Sarah's car to a nearby café, where the Doctor repairs K9. Mickey teases Rose about her jealousy, while Sarah asks the Doctor if she did something wrong since he never came back for her after his visit home. In an intense moment, the Doctor tries to brush it off, saying that she was getting on with her life, which Sarah disagrees with, as the hardest thing for her was adjusting back to mundane life after all she had seen.

** What does Sarah Jane say to K9 as they walk off at the end of the episode? "We've got work to do." Word for word what the seventh Doctor said to Ace as they walked off at the end of the classic series.

* EvilTeacher: Mr. Finch and the new staff are exploiting and eating the children.

* PreMortemOneLiner: Combined with FacingTheBulletOneLiner, we get this brief exchange between Mr. Finch and K9 after the robot drenches the Krillitanes with their oil.

* CarFu: Mickey needs to get inside a locked school taken over by aliens. He manages to reactivate K-9 and asks if he has some kind of lockpicking device, but K-9 just reminds him they're in Sarah Jane's car. Repeatedly. "Fat lot of good you are... wait a second. We're in a car."

Mr. Finch receives a visit from a journalist, Sarah Jane Smith, who is interested in writing a profile on him. Finch explains that one of the policy changes he has made is free — but compulsory — school dinners. He calls her a "woman of vision"; she replies that she can "see everything, Mr Finch, quite clearly." Unlike many, ''she'' isn't fooled — something is going on and, being the sneaky sneak that she is, Sarah Jane intends to find out.

->'''Sarah Jane:''' No, say it. This time, please, say it.\\

** When Sarah Jane is given a rebuilt K9, she tells them; "Come on...We've got work to do!", a possible Homage to the monologue from the Seventh Doctor in ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E4Survival Survival]]''.

* InstantlyProvenWrong: When Rose wants to call an ambulance because one of the kitchen staff gets in contact with the mysterious oil, a woman assures her that this is not necessary because the victim is quite alright. Cue an explosion and a scream coming from the other room.

* MeaningfulEcho: In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld "The End of the World"]], the Ninth Doctor said of Cassandra "Everything has its time, and everything dies." The line is repeated almost word-for-word by Sarah Jane to the Doctor in this episode.

* MundaneSolution: To get past a locked door, with coaxing from K9 Mickey just rams it with a car; then to shut down the alien-influenced supercomputer, he pulls the power plug.

* PoweredByAForsakenChild: They use children to crack the code because adults lack the imagination.

'''Rose:''' Yeah, yeah! I'm like, "Do you two want to be alone?"

-->'''Cafeteria worker:''' It's fine. She does that.

* CallBack:[=K9's=] repeated stating of [[CarFu "we are in a car"]] in response to Mickey trying to figure out if there's a piece of technology they can use to break into the school appears to hark back to a similar moment in [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the 1996 telemovie]], in which the Master simply solved Chang Lee's dilemma of how to surmount a police barricade by shouting that they're currently in an ambulance.

* {{Flanderization}}: Due to how Russell T. Davies tended to [[LoveInterests write most of the female companions during his run]], Sarah Jane comes off more as a jealous ex than an old friend of the Doctor's, seemingly just to make Rose jealous, for no reason.[[note]]Though Elizabeth Sladen herself said Sarah Jane and the Fourth Doctor "shagged over every square-inch of the TARDIS", so make of that what you will.[[/note]] Granted, there ''was'' a more than twenty-year gap from the last time she met the Doctor. Mercifully, after the immediate territorial pissing match, the two women get giggly over the Doctor's idiosyncrasies and Sarah Jane is nothing more than platonic with the Doctor forever after.

** He's also [[Film/RepoTheGeneticOpera incredibly good at murder and secrets]].

[[caption-width-right:350:Well... this is awkward.]]

The one where the old series meets the new series, and vice-versa. Also the one where ''every single fan ever'' starts crying in absolute glee.

[[caption-width-right:350:... awkwarrrrrd...]]

** When Sarah Jane is given a rebuilt K9, she tells them; "Come On...We've Got Work To Do!", a possible Homage to the monologue from the Seventh Doctor in Recap/DoctorWhoS26E4Survival.

* CallBack: [=K9's=] repeated stating of [[CarFu "we are in a car"]] in response to Mickey trying to figure out if there's a piece of technology they can use to break into the school appears to hark back to a similar moment in [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the 1996 telemovie]], in which the Master simply solved Chang Lee's dilemma of how to surmount a police barricade by shouting that they're currently in an ambulance.

** Sarah referring to the Doctor's companion as his "assistant". When Sarah met the Doctor he was stuck as UNIT's scientific advisor, hence he had lab assistants instead of (travelling) companions.

Mr. Finch receives a visit from a journalist, Sarah Jane Smith, who is interested in writing a profile on him. Finch explains that one of the policy changes he has made is free — but compulsory — school dinners. He calls her a "woman of vision"; she replies that she can "see everything, Mr Finch, quite clearly." Unlike many, ''she'' isn't fooled - something is going on and, being the sneaky sneak that she is, Sarah Jane intends to find out.

That night, Sarah Jane Smith having, quite correctly, worked out that something strange is definitely going on, breaks into the school to explore, and the Doctor, Rose and Mickey do the same. The Doctor sends Mickey to the maths room and Rose to get a sample of the oil, while he checks the headmaster's office. There are sounds of flapping and the occasional shriek. Winged shadows flit across walls.

Sarah, trying to break into Mr. Finch's office, notices she is being watched. She enters a storeroom — where she finds the TARDIS. As thirty years come roaring back to her, she backs out of the room into the gym and, cue the obvious pun, guess Who she finds? They exchange pleasantries which are cut short by a piercing scream. They meet Rose along the way. The Doctor introduces the two, and Sarah comments on Rose's youth.

Mickey and Kenny rush to the pupils. Finch shrieks, summoning the other Krillitanes, who transform into their bat-forms. Mickey and Kenny meet up with the others and run into the cafeteria, chased by the Krillitanes. Finch tells his brothers he wants the Doctor alive, but to eat the others. As the Krillitanes attack, K9 shoots down one of them with its blaster. The Doctor tells K9 to hold them off while they retreat. However, K9's battery is failing and Lassar tells the Krillitanes to ignore [[BuffySpeak the shooty dog thing]] and get the others.

Brother Lassar and his brethren enter the kitchen in human form, searching for the Doctor. Lassar mocks K9 when he sees him, but K9 shoots a barrel, spilling the toxic oil over the aliens. Lassar snarls to K9, "You bad dog"; [[TakingYouWithMe the dog replies, "Affirmative"]] and, for a brief moment, shows just ''who'' built him - Four, the Lord and Master of Snarking! The explosion takes out a large chunk of the school and K9 with it. The pupils cheer the school's destruction and hail Kenny as the hero who did it. Sarah weeps over K9's sacrifice as the Doctor comforts her.

* BigDamnReunion: More of a subdued reunion: the Doctor reunites with Sarah Jane Smith, although she doesn't know the guy is the Doctor... till later in the story when she sees the TARDIS.

* DeadpanSnarker: K9 regularly snarks. It's made ''more'' awesome by the fact he's a ''robot dog'' and ''not meant to show emotion at all''.

** Then again, ''Four'' built K9. Are any of us ''actually'' surprised that the Snark Lord made his dog snarky too?

* InstantlyProvenWrong: When Rose want to call the ambulance because one of the kitchen staff gets in contact with the mysterious oil, a woman assures her that this is not necessary because the victim is quite alright. Cue an explosion and a scream coming from the other room.

* MadeOfIron: K9 survives being ''smashed through a window. In a car. With no seatbelt on.'' Possibly {{justified|Trope}} in the sense that [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E2TheInvisibleEnemy a robot from the distant future]] [[{{Zeerust}} (as depicted in 1977)]] would likely be built to withstand that level of blunt force trauma.

* MeaningfulEcho: In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld The End of the World]]", the Ninth Doctor said of Cassandra "Everything has its time, and everything dies." The line is repeated almost word-for-word by Sarah Jane to the Doctor in this episode.

* StockNessMonster: During the argument between Sarah Jane and Rose over who endured the most "space stuff", Sarah Jane mentions she went up against [[PunctuatedForEmphasis THE. LOCH NESS. MONSTER!!!!]] Rose couldn't top it.

-->'''The Doctor:''' ''[pointing at the ceiling, where "teachers" sleep in their [[GlamourFailure true alien form]]]'' Well... [[OhCrap They do]].

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Sarah Jane's reappearance was spoiled by the trailer at the end of the Christmas special.

* WhamLine: When Mr. Finch catches the Doctor off guard, instead of planning to keep all the power for himself, he offers to share it with the Doctor:

'''Mr. Finch:''' No. By someone like ''you.''
* WhamShot: It's not a surprise for the viewers, but Sarah Jane gets one when she sees the TARDIS for the first time in ages.

While this is going on, the Doctor is in the staff room speaking to Mr. Parsons, head of the History department, who tells him of the extraordinary knowledge of his students since Finch became headmaster. One of his students gave him the exact height of the walls of Troy in cubits. But there's also been some very strange staffing shifts. The day after Finch arrived, just three months ago, seven teachers came down with flu, and were replaced by new hires of Finch's. Except for the one the Doctor replaced, who somehow won the lottery despite the fact that she never played (the Doctor is implied to have been behind that one). Mr. Finch brings Sarah into the staff room. When the Doctor sees her, he smiles delightedly at unexpectedly seeing his old friend, but introduces himself as John Smith. Sarah remarks that she once knew a man who went by that name. When she learns "Smith" is a new teacher, she asks if he has noticed anything odd. She has lost none of her inquisitive nature, and the Doctor is elated, although he does not reveal his real identity to her.

Brother Lassar and his brethren enter the kitchen in human form, searching for the Doctor. Lassar mocks K9 when he sees him, but K9 shoots a barrel, spilling the toxic oil over the aliens. Lassar snarls to K9, "You bad dog"; [[TakingYouWithMe the dog replies, "Affirmative."]] The explosion takes out a large chunk of the school and K9 with it. The pupils cheer the school's destruction and hail Kenny as the hero who did it. Sarah weeps over K9's sacrifice as the Doctor comforts her.

Mr. Finch receives a visit from a journalist, Sarah Jane Smith, who is interested in writing a profile on him. Finch explains that one of the policy changes he has made is free — but compulsory — school dinners.

That night, Sarah Jane Smith breaks into the school to explore, and the Doctor, Rose and Mickey do the same. The Doctor sends Mickey to the maths room and Rose to get a sample of the oil, while he checks the headmaster's office. There are sounds of flapping and the occasional shriek. Winged shadows flit across walls.

Sarah, trying to break into Mr. Finch's office, notices she is being watched. She enters a storeroom — where she finds the TARDIS. As between twenty-three and thirty years come roaring back to her, she backs out of the room into the gym and, cue the obvious pun, guess Who she finds? They exchange pleasantries which are cut short by a piercing scream. They meet Rose along the way. The Doctor introduces the two, and Sarah comments on Rose's youth.

Sarah, trying to break into Mr. Finch's office, notices she is being watched. She enters a storeroom — where she finds the TARDIS. Stunned at seeing the ship again, she backs out of the room into the gym, and runs into the Doctor. They exchange pleasantries which are cut short by a piercing scream. They meet Rose along the way. The Doctor introduces the two, and Sarah comments on Rose's youth.

The return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9 Mark III, who (on screen) last appeared in "[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]" in 1983. This episode pretty much singlehandedly spawned ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'', giving another generation of children the gift of Creator/ElisabethSladen. It also holds significance as the first episode of the modern era of ''Doctor Who'' to absolutely, explicitly confirm that the new series was set in the same continuity as the 1963-89 original series (prior to its broadcast, fandom was split on this issue — though [[PromotedFanboy the producers never were]]).

* TheBusCameBack: Sarah Jane Smith returns after a [[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors 23-year absence]].

* ContinuityCavalcade: Sarah Jane and Rose trying to one-up one another. Sarah Jane wins.

* {{Flanderization}}: Due to how Russell T. Davies tended to [[LoveInterests write most of the female companions during his run]], Sarah Jane comes off more as a jealous ex than an old friend of the Doctor's, seemingly just to make Rose jealous, for no reason.[[note]]Though Elizabeth Sladen herself said Sarah Jane and the Fourth Doctor "shagged over every square-inch of the TARDIS", so make of that what you will.[[/note]] Mercifully, after the immediate territorial pissing match, the two women get giggly over the Doctor's idiosyncrasies and Sarah Jane is nothing more than platonic with the Doctor forever after.

* GenreSavvy: Sarah Jane gets ''two'' moments of this: One is when she realises (off-screen) that something is going on and needs to get into the school... which she achieves by doing exactly what the Doctor does — ''flattering the bad guy's ego!'' The second time occurs when the screaming begins; she immediately puts two and two together to come up with Ten — bad stuff and screaming? Who ''else'' is it going to be?
* HeroicSacrifice: Poor K9 is lost to the explosion. Since he's a machine, the Doctor repairs him.

* InstantlyProvenWrong: When Rose want to call the ambulance because one of the kitchen staff gets in contact with the mysterious oil, a woman assures her that this is not necessary because the victim is quite alright. Cue a scream coming from the other room.
* IWillWaitForYou: Sarah tells the Doctor rather reproachfully that she waited for him. [[WhatTheHellHero He'd actually had no intention of coming back.]]

* MadeOfIron: K9 survives being ''smashed through a window. In a car. With no seatbelt on.''

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: AvertedTrope. It's important to remember in the wake of ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' that this ''wasn't'' a PDP for that show. In fact, Sarah Jane's appearance wasn't supposed to lead to a spinoff, but was more to link New ''Who'' with the old show (to show that it was an continuation of the old show, not a new version of it). The fact that the episode was successful and RTD decided to create a Sarah Jane spinoff was just a very happy accident.

-->'''Sarah:''' THE. LOCH NESS. MONSTER!\\

* VillainRespect: Finch has a healthy respect for the Doctor's intellect, and he is the only character that Finch actually treats as an equal, even a superior — as part of his temptation of the Doctor, he says, "The paradigm would give us power, but you could give us wisdom." [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Of course]], Finch is a top class ManipulativeBastard, so he might just be playing on the Doctor's ego — either way, it almost works.
* WeCanRuleTogether: Mr Finch gives the Doctor a sales pitch Mephistopheles would be proud of — and when Sarah Jane intervenes, shifts gears like lightning, pinpointing her own regrets and insecurities and offering her a similar sales pitch as part of the Doctor's.

* WhamShot: It's not a surprise for the viewers, but Sarah Jane gets one when she sees the TARDIS.

* ZeerustCanon: K9's dated look is lampshaded by Rose as "disco". The Doctor finds this ''very'' offensive.