Inspired by this post:
If I have a mortgage secured on my house, and then sell said house to you, but neglect to use the proceeds of the sale to pay off the mortgage, does the lender of my mortgage still retain a claim on the house which you have bought?
Tenant starts off here as Cheeky Chappie rather than Boy Wizard, and Rose is not completely reassured (and neither is the audience, or at least this member of it
My exact reaction was: “Oh no, it’s that creepy Barty Crouch Junior guy from Secret Smile!”
My Daughter didn’t see Secret Smile but she watched that depressive singing cop show and liked David so she had the exact opposite reaction.
Anyway, I stopped watching, until I saw the previews for School Reunion. I still watched Sarah Jane Adventures until Sy Fy lost it, and then Torchwood started on BBC America. I thought I was going to hate Torchwood, because I never took to the Jack who traveled with Rose and Nine, and the show was dodgy in spots but by the end of Torchwood Season One I was a fan.
NB that consecutive stories in this block provide the foundation myths for both Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures.
The reconstruction of the Doctor / Sarah relationship is just sheer delight, with an emotional freight to Sladen’s performance in particular that is exceptional. (And I don’t believe for a moment that she spent the intervening decades mourning the Doctor, though of course it seemed that way to her when they met again.) The only reason I could swallow this plotline was because of Mrs. Sladen’s performance and her good natured attitude towards the “new” canon.
In the States we got the Sarah Jane Adventures and Season One with the Ninth Doctor episodes at the same time. In fact that is how it was scheduled on the Sy Fy station on Friday nights: SJA 1/2 followed by Doctor Who. There was no reason for the audience in the USA to assume that SJA were based on anything but Sarah Janes’ experiences with Doctors Three and Four as the way it aired it seemed more like Sarah Jane was carrying on the fight from Bannerman Road–without UNIT, and then the Doctor shows up in Rose.
Torchwood did merge come out of Season One–the Parting of the ways, as we see Jack waking, but the TARDIS leaving without him.