Despite good ratings, the show was not taken further, but Sladen was soon reunited with Pertwee for Doctor Who's 20th anniversary story, The Five Doctors, a pair of Radio 2 drama series (19), and the Children in Need special, Dimensions in Time (1993).
Her return to the Doctor Who cosmos came in 1981, when the popular robot dog K-9 was given his own pilot programme, K-9 and Company, and so needed Sarah Jane as a human lead. She also presented 98 episodes of the children's series Stepping Stones (1978-79) for Yorkshire TV. Work continued, in the drama Send in the Girls (1978, appearing opposite Miller), in comedies – Take My Wife (1979) and In Loving Memory (1980) – and in the classic serials Gulliver In Lilliput (1982, as Lady Flimnap) and Alice in Wonderland (1986, as Dormouse), both for Letts at the BBC. When the moment came for her to leave the programme, she did so in an impressively underplayed scene of suppressed emotion with Baker. It was a daunting time for the newcomer, and he greatly appreciated her kindness. Her professionalism and versatility in the latter led to a recommendation to Letts, for whom she provided stability when Jon Pertwee handed over the role of the Doctor to Tom Baker. When Miller got a West End job, the couple settled in London, and in the early 1970s, after six episodes as Len Fairclough's barmaid girlfriend in Coronation Street, Sladen obtained television roles in Special Branch, Public Eye, Doomwatch, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Z-Cars. Repertory company work in Manchester – notably as Desdemona in Othello – and Liverpool was followed by two seasons working for Alan Ayckbourn in Scarborough.
She became an assistant stage manager for the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company, where she met the actor Brian Miller, and in 1968 they married. Born in Liverpool, Sladen attended drama and dancing courses at the Elliott-Clarke school from an early age, making an appearance with the Royal Ballet, and performing as an extra in the 1965 film Ferry Cross the Mersey.
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