K-9 and Company

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Image:K-9andcompany.jpg K-9 and Company was the only televised spin-off of the classic series of Doctor Who (1963-1996). It featured former series regulars Sarah Jane Smith, an investigative journalist, and K-9, a robotic dog. Both characters had been companions of the Fourth Doctor, but this series was the the first time they had ever appeared together. Though its one and only serial was broadcast by BBC One as a holiday special on December 28 1981, it was produced as a pilot for a proposed series. For this reason, the phrase "K-9 and Company" has come to refer to both the series and the serial. Properly, however, the serial was called A Girl's Best Friend.

This article therefore discusses the entire history of K-9 and Company, as opposed to just detailing the specifics of A Girl's Best Friend.

Contents

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Series Origins

The series has its roots firmly in the desire of Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner to somehow get Elisabeth Sladen back into the TARDIS. On two occasions, he had attempted to woo her back to her old role. Most famously, he had wanted her to have the contract eventually awarded to Janet Fielding in late 1980. John Nathan-Turner's preferred plan for the transition from Baker to Davison was to have Sarah Jane be along for the ride from Logopolis to the second story of series 19. Sladen, though, turned down even this brief return to the TARDIS. Instead she held out for her own series. This she got, but when K-9 was abruptly added to the mix, she suddenly found herself the lead in a show that barely referenced her character in the title.

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A Girl's Best Friend

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Sarah Jane Smith finally visits her Aunt Lavinia, a semi-recurring unseen character first mentioned in The Time Warrior. When she arrives at her aunt's house, though, she finds that her learned relative has once again gone off on a lecture tour in America, Christmas notwithstanding. Sarah is thus left disappointed by the prospect of another holiday without family. Fortunately, Lavinia's ward, Brendan, breaks her moment of reflection on her aunt's sudden disappearance. After picking him up from the train station, they return to the house and discover a large crate that has been waiting for Sarah for a number of years. When they open it, they discover a mechanical dog named K-9. Upon activation, it tells Sarah that it is a gift from the Doctor.

Brendan's curiosity about K-9 is matched only by Sarah's renewed concern over Lavinia's absence. They thus split up and follow their new-found obsessions. Sarah goes into town to question the locals, and Brendan stays behind to test the capabilities of Sarah's new "pet". In town, Sarah discovers that Lavinia has become disliked by some because of her blunt letters to the local newspaper editors about a growing practice of witchcraft in the area. Brendan, meanwhile, is attacked while using K-9 to analyse soil samples in Lavinia's garden. His attackers, George Tracey and his son, Peter, are tied in to the local coven. Unfortunately, both attackers flee before Brendan can get a good look at them.

Since Tracey is actually Lavinia's gardener, he is naturally called in the next morning to investigate the damage the scuffle with Brendan caused to the garden. After Brendan attempts to brag about the pH balance of the soil, Tracey sharply comments that gardening is more about respect for nature than scientific theory. Otherwise, though, he doesn't betray his more sinister intent towards Brendan. Later that night, he sends his son out to kidnap the sleeping Brendan from the house.

This time, Brendan's attacker is successful, stealing him out from under Sarah, who is elsewhere in the house, reading up on the local practise of witchcraft.

Sarah is now increasingly suspect of Tracey, perhaps believing he would have the opportunity to commit the crime, even if she can't yet put her finger on the motive. She therefore finds a way to hide K-9 in Tracey's house. K-9 quietly monitors the household, until he eventually listens in on a conversation that implicates Tracey as a member of a coven. He also discovers that Tracey intends to kill Brendan in an act of ritual murder. When Tracey leaves his cottage, Sarah is able to retrieve K-9, who alerts his new mistress to the impending crime. Unfortunately, she has no way to enlist the aid of the local police or, really anyone else in the town, because she can't substantiate her claim of overhearing the conversation without also then having to explain who and what the anachronistic K-9 actually is.

Realizing that she and K-9 are effectively on their own, she tries to figure out how to stop the sacrifice. Her first order of business is determining the when of it. Using Lavinia's books on witchcraft, she and K-9 deduce it must occur at midnight on the winter solstice, now just a few short hours away. The where of it is more elusive, however, causing the duo to drive around the shire looking at all the churches. As the last few minutes before midnight tick away, they finally realize that there's an abandoned chapel on Lavinia's property. Rushing home, K-9 and Sarah are briefly upset at missing something that was right under their noses all along.

They arrive just in time for K-9 to use his blaster to stop the coven's Priest and Priestess from plunging a knife into Brendan's chest. Now stunned, the group's ringleaders are easily apprehended by the police.

Finally able to celebrate Christmas, Sarah receives a call from her Aunt Lavinia who at last is given an on-screen appearance since first being introduced almosst eight years previously, in December 1973. She's surprised that Sarah was worried about her, since she left a note with one of the villagers to tell her. Because that villager turned out to be the High Priest of the coven, Sarah merely laughs and tells her aunt that she has a story to tell her about why that message never reached her. Meanwhile, K-9 tries to connect with the human holiday in his own way, teaching himself to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

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Cast

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Theme music

Many Doctor Who fans remember A Girl's Best Friend most clearly for its electronic theme music, composed by long-term Doctor Who enthusiast and record producer, Ian Levine. Both the theme music and title sequence have been ridiculed by some fans. Levine, who was also the unofficial continuity consultant for Doctor Who in the 1980s, said in an interview with Dreamwatch Bulletin that the music was intended to be an orchestral score, but was instead arranged directly from his electronic demonstration arrangement by Peter Howell (who also arranged the 1980s version of the Doctor Who theme music) without Levine's knowledge.

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Broadcast results

The viewing figures for the pilot were strong, achiving a viewership of about 8.4 million Britons on its premiére[1]. This meant that it attracted more viewers than the average episode of Doctor Who during John Nathan-Turner's era as producer[2]. It was even more popular than the other seasonal special of the era, The Five Doctors, which posted a rating of 7.7[3]. Only when one looks narrowly at series 19 – the one which immediately followed the broadcast of K-9 and Company – can one find a period where sustained ratings in the parent show were higher than the ratings for this spin-off pilot.

Despite these above average ratings, the show did not go to series. The proximate cause for this was a changeover in channel controllers at BBC One. Bill Cotton, who had approved the pilot, vacated his position soon thereafter. He was replaced by Alan Hart, who simply disliked the idea and the resulting product. Further serials were therefore not commissioned.

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Alternate forms of the pilot story

The pilot episode was novelised in the late 1980s as the last in the Target Books series called The Companions of Doctor Who.

The story was released on video in the UK on 7 August 1995. It first appeared in the US in August 1998. Neither version is currently available.

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Further adventures

Template:Spoiler-season While the pilot did not lead to a series on the BBC, the concepts introduced in A Girl's Best Friend were retained by later Doctor Who writers. Subsequent nods to the team-up continue to the present series of the program. These references appeared in virtually every medium in which Doctor Who stories have been told. In production order, the somewhat linked narrative begun with A Girl's Best Friend was:

  • The Five Doctors, in which Sarah Jane was shown to be transported to Gallifrey from just outside her home, after ignoring K-9's warnings of danger.
  • "Housewarming", by David A. McIntee, a short story in Decalog 2 (Virgin, 1995). This Doctor-less story teamed K-9 and Sarah with Mike Yates in visit to a haunted house that turns out to be run by the Master.
  • "Moving On", by Peter Anghelides, a short story in Decalog 3 (Virgin, 1995), which relates how K-9 Mark III eventually broke down to the lack of parts and the emotional impact of travelling with the Doctor on Sarah. This was obliquely referenced in the Sarah Jane Smith audio play Mirror, Signal, Manouevre, also by Anghelides.
  • "The Sow in Rut", by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker, a short story in More Short Trips (BBC, 1999). This featured Brendan from K-9 and Company and also involved an encounter with ghosts, this time in and around a Lake District pub called "The Sow in Rut".
  • "Balloon Debate", by Simon A. Forward, a short story in Short Trips: Companions (2003, Big Finish), involving Sarah writing a work of fiction about being trapped in the TARDIS. However, how she comes to know so much about the Doctor's other companions is not explained.
  • Comeback, by Terrance Dicks (2002, Big Finish), which starts off the Sarah Jane Smith audio series, relating her exploits as an investigative journalist. The play mentions that Lavinia has passed away, and starts at her funeral. It also sets the stage for her journalistic "independence" by portraying her as the sole inheritor of Lavinia's estate. Not only does she get the sprawling manor and market garden shown in A Girl's Best Friend, but she also is the heir to the royalties from Lavinia's patents[4].
  • Mirror, Signal, Manouevre (2002, Big Finish), by Peter Anghelides, a 2002 Sarah Jane Smith audio adventure by Big Finish Productions. Although not named as K-9, an electronic device referred to only as a "pet" is found in storage at Sarah's house and further disassembled by the story's villain.
  • School Reunion, by Toby Whithouse, an episode of the 2006 series of Doctor Who. K-9 here is shown to still be in Sarah's possession, and in a state of disrepair.
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Possible future appearances

Template:Future Following public announcement of the return of Sarah and K-9 to televised Doctor Who, there was some limited media coverage about the possible return of a "K-9 and Sarah" series. The story was first carried in The Sun<ref>{{cite news 

 | first=Sara
 | last=Nathan
 | url=http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001320029-2006100483,00.html
 | title=Dr Who's K9 gets a lead
 | publisher=The Sun
 | date=2006-03-04
 | accessdate=2006-03-18

}}</ref>. Metro, meanwhile, has mentioned that K-9's co-creator Bob Baker has a K-9 script in his future.<ref>{{cite news 

 | url=http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=11031&in_page_id=7
 | title=Glam Gloucester Gromit writer
 | publisher=Metro
 | date=2006-03-16
 | accessdate=2006-03-18

}}</ref> The BBC has not yet confirmed this, nor have further details been added by what are generally considered to be more reputable news outlets, but Doctor Who producer Russell T. Davies is on record as saying that another idea for a spinoff series after Torchwood does exist.

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Notes

  1. K-9 is referred to as "Mark III" in this story because it is presumably the third to be owned by the Doctor. As chronicled in the main series, the first K-9 chose to stay with Leela on Gallifrey, while K-9 Mark II was forced to stay with Romana in E-Space due to being damaged by time winds. Commonly assumed to be a gift of the Fourth Doctor, nothing in any televised story yet aired precludes it coming from a subsequent incarnation.
  2. The original outline by John Nathan-Turner proposed that K-9 Mark III was in fact sent by and under the control of the Master, but this element never made it to the screen.
  3. Bill Fraser had previously appeared with Tom Baker and K-9 Mark II in the Doctor Who story Meglos.
  4. The video of this story, issued in 1995, was released as Doctor Who: K-9 and Company.
  5. Ian Sears, who played Brendan, carried on acting throughout the 1980s and later became a director, producer, writer and film editor.
  6. Peter is seen polishing his crash helmet with Mr. Sheen, a proprietary brand of furniture polish often used by motorcyclists. This is an unusual example of a product's brand name being visible in a BBC drama.
  7. There appears to be a continuity error in a section where Sarah and K-9 go out to look for Brendan in Sarah's car. Sarah leaves her aunt's house when it is dark and arrives at the Church in the dark, but the driving scene that takes place between the two is in daylight.
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References

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External links

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