Continuity
- The Trickster is a returning villain. He targeted Sarah Jane in series one's Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? and (by proxy) the Doctor via Donna Noble in the Doctor Who episode "Turn Left".
- Flashbacks to the events of "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?" are shown and Yasmin Paige makes an uncredited archive footage appearance in these as Maria Jackson. The Trickster appears again in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, opposite the Doctor.
- By going back in time, Luke meets his young maternal grandmother and infant mother, just as Ace McShane had done in The Curse of Fenric. Also similarly, their respective grandmothers hurry off in automobile, and their maternal grandfathers' deaths are described.
- By going back in time, Sarah Jane meets her infant self and young father, just as Rose Tyler had done in "Father's Day". Also similarly, their respective fathers voluntarilly die in automobile collisions to correct the timeline.
- Sarah Jane refers to how many innocent people have accidentally been abducted by random time fissures and rifts. This situation was previously explored in the Torchwood episodes "Out of Time" and "Adrift". When recounting all the people she has saved, she mentions the events of the Doctor Who serial The Monster of Peladon and the series one premiere "Invasion of the Bane". Clyde also recounts various adventures he has had, including Revenge of the Slitheen, The Lost Boy, The Last Sontaran and Warriors of Kudlak.
- Sarah Jane's infancy in 1951, coupled with her statement in 1974 that she was 23, indicate that the Third and Fourth Doctors' stories with UNIT took place more-or-less contemporaneously to their original broadcasts. But see UNIT dating controversy.
- The TARDIS is mentioned for the first time by name on the show. In part 2, Sarah Jane encounters a genuine police box and briefly mistakes it for the Doctor's TARDIS. During this sequence, the Doctor's Theme was also played. The Eleventh Doctor himself mistakes a police box for his TARDIS in "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe".
- Sarah Jane is aware of the paradox effects that may occur if she held herself as a baby. This was further explored in the Doctor Who stories Mawdryn Undead and "Father's Day".
- As she periodically did in 1973–1976 episodes of Doctor Who, Sarah Jane mentions having been brought up by her aunt, Lavinia Smith, who appears on-screen only in 1981's K-9 and Company. The description she gives of Lavinia, "never in one place long enough to lick a stamp", is the same description that Lavinia gave of Sarah Jane herself. Sarah Jane and Clyde each periodically imply in the series that Lavinia Smith is deceased; Sarah Jane explicitly says so in the 2002 Big Finish audio drama, Sarah Jane Smith: Comeback.
Read more about this topic: The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith
Famous quotes containing the word continuity:
“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To “see the light” too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Only the family, society’s smallest unit, can change and yet maintain enough continuity to rear children who will not be “strangers in a strange land,” who will be rooted firmly enough to grow and adapt.”
—Salvador Minuchin (20th century)
“Every society consists of men in the process of developing from children into parents. To assure continuity of tradition, society must early prepare for parenthood in its children; and it must take care of the unavoidable remnants of infantility in its adults. This is a large order, especially since a society needs many beings who can follow, a few who can lead, and some who can do both, alternately or in different areas of life.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)