One alien hand, one possessed Sarah Jane, and one very awkward goodbye that still makes fans tear up — or mutter about the Doctor’s terrible sense of geography.
Short Synopsis
Sarah Jane picks up an alien fossilized hand, which promptly takes over her mind and tries to reassemble its owner, Eldrad — a crystalline alien bent on revenge. The Doctor and Sarah must stop Eldrad before Earth becomes one big quartz countertop… but in the end, the real heartbreak is Sarah leaving the TARDIS.
Extended Storyline
Things kick off with Sarah Jane and the Doctor arriving at a quarry. (Yes, yet another quarry — but this time the BBC didn’t even bother disguising it as an alien planet; it’s literally just a quarry.) A controlled explosion nearly kills Sarah, but instead of being grateful she’s still alive, she picks up a weird fossilized hand. Bad move.
The hand belongs to Eldrad, a silicon-based alien criminal with a grudge and more attitude than sense. Even severed, the hand has enough power to hypnotize Sarah into helping it regenerate. This leads to some great “possessed Sarah” moments where Elisabeth Sladen gets to go full creepy mode, marching around in a trance and scaring the Doctor half to death.
Once the hand regenerates, Eldrad appears in full crystalline form, looking like the world’s angriest geode. Initially played by Judith Paris, Eldrad struts around, demanding obedience and explaining in detail how the people of Kastria betrayed her. Naturally, the Doctor agrees to help her return home, because when has bringing a vengeful alien back to their planet ever gone wrong?
Sure enough, when they reach Kastria, Eldrad reveals she wants to reclaim power, conquer Earth, and basically redecorate the universe in shades of quartz. Unfortunately for her, Kastria has been dead for centuries, and her people left behind booby traps specifically to make sure she’d never rule again. Eldrad gets punted into an abyss after the Doctor and Sarah play a game of “alien crystal, meet big pit,” and that’s the end of her.
But the real kicker comes afterward. The Doctor gets a telepathic summons from Gallifrey and tells Sarah she can’t come along. In a bittersweet farewell, she storms out of the TARDIS in frustration — only to discover he’s dropped her off not in Croydon, but Aberdeen. Oops. Fans are still joking about that navigational blunder decades later.