• Invasion of the Bane
• Revenge of the Slitheen
• Eye of the Gorgon
• Warriors of Kudlak
• Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?
• The Lost Boy
• The Last Sontaran
• Day of the Clown

• The Thirteenth Stone
• The Glittering Storm
• The Ghost House
• The Time Capsule

Prior to October 2006, when Torchwood exploded onto the small screen, the only television spin-off from Doctor Who had been the unsuccessful K9 and Company from 1981, which failed to proceed beyond the pilot episode.

Written by Terence Dudley, the single fifty-minute episode (A Girl's Best Friend) had seen former Doctor Who companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) investigating a witch's covern in the small village of Hazlebury Abbas. Assisting her was the third version of the metallic dog K-9, which had been left for Sarah as a present by the Doctor.

Despite the ratings for the story beating every single episode of the then most recent season of Doctor Who, the series was never picked up for a full run, and with the exception of a small scene in the 20th anniversary Doctor Who special The Five Doctors in 1983, the characters were not to be seen together again on screen for over twenty years.

But with the newly revived Doctor Who proving to be a ratings smash on its debut in 2005, plans for a second season were swiftly put into motion, with the announcement in August 2005 that both Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 would be starring in an episode of the television series the following year. School Reunion, by Toby Whithouse, was eventually broadcast at the end of April 2006, with the characters proving popular with fans both young and old.

September 2006 subsequently saw the announcement that a second live action spin-off from Doctor Who was going into production. The Sarah Jane Adventures would, unsurprisingly, feature everyone's favourite investigative journalist, although K-9 would only be appearing the first story as his creators, Bob Baker and Dave Martin, were firming up plans for an animated K-9 series.

Invasion of the Bane, co-written by Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts, was broadcast on New Year's Day 2007 and introduced a number of new characters who would also be regulars in the already announced ten-part series which was to follow later in the year — chief amongst them being teenager Maria Jackson (Yasmin Paige) who had just moved into a house opposite Sarah's with her father Alan (Joseph Milson). The only other character to carry across to the the series proper was Luke Smith (Thomas Knight) who was adopted by Sarah at the end of the story, having been created by the villains of the piece, the Bane.

The one-off episode proved immensely popular, and all eyes then turned to the ten-part series which would be broadcast later in the year, in the form of five two-part stories, which would be broadcast at the rate of an episode a week. The only new character to be introduced was Clyde, played by Daniel Anthony, who would go to the same school as Maria and Luke.

Unsurprisingly, the series followed the same pattern as Invasion of the Bane, with the characters inevitably being caught up in the machinations of whichever alien race happened to be causing trouble, with several old Doctor Who foes putting in an appearance including the Slitheen, who had appeared in three episodes of the 2005 season (Aliens of London / World War Three / Boom Town) and the Graske who had previously only been seen in the interactive game Attack of the Graske at Christmas 2005.

As with Torchwood on BBC Three, The Sarah Jane Adventures was remarkably popular, setting new audience records for the episodes which debuted on the digital CBBC channel. And Eye of the Gorgon, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? and The Lost Boy were arguably far better than anything written for the first season of the adult Torchwood!

But before a second season could be shown, there was just time for several crossover scenes with Doctor Who, as both Sarah and Luke appeared in the parent show's Season 30 conclusion The Stolen Earth / Journey's End, which also featured the surviving characters from Season 2 of Torchwood.

The twelve-part Season 2 of The Sarah Jane Adventures finally began broadcasting in September 2008, with Maria being written out after the first story, when her father, Alan, acquired a new job in the United States. Unsurprisingly, the following story, Day of the Clown, saw the Chandra family moving into the Jackson's old house on Bannerman Road, with teenager Rani (Anjli Mohindra) joining Luke and Clyde's year at school. Needless to say, it wasn't long before she was one of the gang.

As with Season 1, a number of familiar enemies returned, beginning with a Sontaran survivor from the Doctor Who episodes The Sontaran Strategem and The Poison Sky. The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith saw a return for the Trickster and the Graske, in a follow up to the previous year's Whatever happened to Sarah Jane?, while the season-ending Enemy of the Bane featured the return of both Mrs Wormwood from the pilot story and the long-awaited appearance of Doctor Who favourite Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney). Special praise should be reserved for Rani's first story, Day of the Clown, which owed a clear debt to the television adaptation of Stephen King's IT, and provided some of the creepiest scenes ever in either The Sarah Jane Adventures or Doctor Who itself.

Season 3 has now been confirmed as starting on 15 October, with each story now being shown over two consecutive days. Also new is that, for the first time, the series has been produced in HD, allowing a simultaneous screening on the BBC HD channel. Of special interest is that the third story, The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, will feature a major guest role for David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, shortly before the transmission of the next Doctor Who special, The Waters of Mars. Season 3 will also see the permanent return to the series of K-9.