The Year That Never Was

Sarah Jane (School Reunion)

Sarah Jane (Invasion of the Bane)

The Master

Saxon Canvasser- James Lester (Primeval)

Sarah Jane's friend- Abby Maitland (Primeval)

Sarah Jane's contact- Auton

The shot of Saxon's election victory features the Primeval figures Nick Cutter, Helen Cutter, Abby Maitland, James Lester and the Editor from The Long Game. That last figure has since been customised into someone else.

1 May 2008, the day of Local Government elections in the UK as well as the election of the London Mayor. It seemed fitting as this also roughly coincides with the date of Saxon's election. (May or June 2008)

It was originally planned to be a two part adventure but when plans were made for a short Sarah Jane series, this story was originally shelved but then decided to be a 'feature length pilot' episode ahead of the series. The episode break would have been when the Toclafane invade.

THE MASTER SLAM OPENING

I always knew there was something odd about Mr Saxon. The man just seemed to good to be true. Perhaps it was his talk about alien life that made me suspicious. “We are not alone.” He would often say.

I’d secretly gathered intelligence on him, his links with LazLabs, the Valiant project but he was squeaky clean. But why wasn’t I taken in?

It was a plumber that gave me a clue. For some reason he couldn’t get a phone signal in my house. He was on the Archangel network.

“Archangel cannot penetrate my magnetic field, Sarah Jane.” Said Mr Smith. That was it! Somehow Saxon was controlling people, hypnotising them through Archangel! That’s why I wasn’t affected. But what could I do? I took my suspicions to a few friends. **** Rook, ‘metropolitan magazine editor’ but there was little we could do as election day came and went with the predictable outcome. A landslide victory. Saxon became Prime Minister. And that’s when it became really interesting. First Contact with an alien race.

It all happened so fast. One minute I was watching the historic event on TV, the next President Winters was dead, assassinated before my eyes and the sky was full of those Toclafane, cruelly gunning down the innocent.

“Get out! Get out Sarah Jane! Cried Mr Smith. Toclafane burst into the attic. I had no choice. I grabbed the Saxon file and ran, dodging laser fire I dived into the sewers and laid low.

Saxon made his demands to the world. Slave camps, forced labour. Our lives as they had been were over.

But I still had a weapon. Knowledge was power. While I avoided being caught there was still a chance I could bring him down. My first plan was to bring down the Archangel network, to expose him for what he was. But by now everyone could see that.

I managed to break into the Department of Defence offices and look at his files. The schematics of the Valiant were there, useful. But also another project in conjunction with Lazlabs.

A vast storehouse beneath London with a generator with the power of a nuclear reactor. A bunker! Perhaps this was Saxon’s secret hiding place should anything go wrong. Take that out and he’d have nowhere to run to.

It took a while to work out the location and plan a way in but I managed it. I returned to my house once more for one thing and then set out.

The year between The Sound of Drums and The Last of the Time Lords is ripe for setting stories in. I wondered what were the Doctor's other friends doing around the world to battle Saxon.

This story is also intended to open up the possibility of using the Yana version of the Master- an incarnation that deserves far more time and attention than he got in Utopia. The use of "exo-temporal shielding" means that the Master's sleeper project was not affected when time was rolled back. The clones are still out there...

The confrontation between Sarah Jane and the Master was originally to have been used in a Master-Slam on the Doctor Who forum. For the AFT version, I took the slam introduction (reproduced left) and bulked it out with Saxon's canvasser and the killer pamphlette.


The bulk of the episode- the confrontation scene was shot on 30th November upon release of first Sarah Jane figure. The release of the School Reunion version allowed us to have Sarah in a different outfit when the earlier scenes were shot in February (Abby scenes 1 Feb, Paper attack 2 Feb. Attic and Saxon election scenes 12 Feb). Both filming blocks were before the bulk of the Sarah Jane figures were released. Abby's telephone is obviously an original Star Trek communicator. Her bag, Sarah Jane's flame thrower, mugs and ornaments were also accessories from the playmates Star Trek line.
A scene that was shot but not included is where Sarah Jane is detected entering the bunker and the Master is told by his aide.
The file Sarah Jane is given contains pages on Archangel, Lazlabs and the Valiant. The map of his bunker is actually a building in Petty France, round the back of the Home Office.

One idea that was removed in the edit was Sarah Jane's death. Originally the Master was going to film it on his phone to show the Doctor later. In the absence of a phone 'prop' the intention was to photoshop one into the figure's hand. But in the end the idea was dropped and references to it in the script were removed.

This story takes place in the gap between The Sound of Drums and The Last of the Time Lords as Martha Jones is 'walking the Earth' and the Doctor is an aged prisoner of the Master aboard the Valiant. References were put in relating to the burning of Japan and the radiation in Europe.

Ofcourse the events following the invasion of the Toclafane were erased from time so Sarah Jane isn't really dead inspite of the story's rather shocking end. Incidentally this ending shows that the Master's laser screwdriver can also be used as his trusty Tissue Compression Eliminator- a device that he used on the classic series to shrink people to death. I did consider not using the final image as it does end the story on a very bleak note.