Sarah Jane Adventures Series 4 (and 5!) commissioned

The BBC Press Office have announced that the Doctor Who Children’s Television spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures has been recommissioned for a further two series. Both series will consist of twelve, twenty-five minute episodes.

Says CBBC Controller Damian Kavanagh:

We are thrilled to be making many more episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It is been a huge ratings and critical success on CBBC and we hope our viewers are going to be hooked on Sarah Jane’s action-packed adventures for some time to come.

BBC Wales Head of English Language Programmes, Clare Hudson, added:

The idea for The Sarah Jane Adventures sprang from the success of Doctor Who and it has since rocketed in popularity in its own right, thanks to the vision, talent and hard work of the show’s brilliant cast and crew.

The fourth series starts production at the end of March (believed to be the 29th), for transmission in Autumn. The new producer has been named as Brian Minchin (former script-editor for Doctor Who/Torchwood), who will work alongside co-producer Phil Ford, with Russell T Davies and Doctor Who producer Nikki Wilson as executive producers; writers include Ford, Joseph Lidster, Rupert Laight, Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman, and the series will be script-edited by Gary Russell.

The show will feature all three main stars Tommy Knight (Luke), Daniel Anthony (Clyde) and Anjli Mohindra (Rani), as well as the title-star Elisabeth Sladen as investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith; however, no mention has currently been made of K9.

The new adventures will feature the usual mixture of thrills, scares and fun with enemies old and new, including the terrors of the Nightmare Man, the sinister Shansheeth, the series’ first visit to an alien world, and even a dangerous journey back into history.

The fifth series is expected to go into production next year.