K-9 and Company

If one can get past the jarring credit sequence and theme tune(a guilty pleasure of mine, I must confess!)this is a fun special updating us on what's happened to our beloved Sarah Jane Smith(Elizabeth Sladen) since she left the fourth Doctor at the end of 'The Hand Of Fear'.

She has gotten on with her life, and is visiting her aunt's home at Christmastime, when she gets involved in a witch cult of all things, but the unexpected discovery of a forgotten crate(a gift from the Doctor) brings welcome help in the form of K-9 Mark III(voiced by John Leeson), the lovable robotic dog from the series, which arrived in the Tardis after Sarah's time.

The only official spin-off from the classic series is most enjoyable!

After wading through several ideas for Doctor Who's one `official' spin-off (including a UNIT series I believe), John Nathan-Turner decided to base a series on K9. After all, there were times when the metal dog had received more fan mail than Tom Baker.

In short, the pilot episode has an older and wiser Sarah Jane Smith returning to her home village. She finds a box that the Doctor sent her years ago containing K9 Mark 3. Being the nosy investigative journalist she is, Sarah Jane soon become involved in stopping the activities of a coven of witches. Thank goodness she has K9 and her geeky cousin Brendan helping her.

It doesn't look promising from the first second of the theme song (something I'm sure Nathan-Turner wrote during lunch one day), and the plot is not all that engaging. In fact, there are times it seems you're watching bits of some of the Earthbound Doctor Who episodes cobbled together. Perhaps because of these factors, K9 & Company didn't make it to Episode 2.

For completists only.

Hmm some people really have it in for K9 AND COMPANY the first - And to date - only spin off from DOCTOR WHO . I guess if there was any potential spin offs from the legendary fantasy show then two would spring to mind . The first one obviously being a series featuring the Daleks . Terry Nation actually approached American television studios in the late 1960s seeking funding for the metallic meanies but since America never experienced Dalekmania you can see why they wouldn't want to invest in a concept they have no knowledge of . It would have probably been too expensive anyway and almost certainly unfilmable . The recent series of DOCTOR WHO contained breath taking Dalek sequences but that's because television technology has moved on in the last 40 years . The other obvious spin off would have been a show featuring Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart and UNIT but again the amount of military hardware involved would probably have made it prohibitive on financial grounds ( though THE X - FILES isn't a million miles removed from this premise when you think about it ) so instead of what we might have got we ended up with a former journalist and a robotic dog !

I was never keen on K9 during the fourth Doctor's tenure . Every time Tom Baker would be chained to a wall about to be tortured you just knew that K9 was going to appear out of the shadows and shoot the villains with his blaster . So in other words he was a plot device used by very lazy writers during the poorest period of the show seen at that time . As for Sarah Jane Smith I always thought she was slightly overrated as a companion ( She wins every single poll as favourite companion ) possibly because she was the Doctor's sidekick when the show achieved its highest ratings and most critical acclaim in the mid 1970s . I guess John Nathan Turner thought he was onto a winner by resurrecting two popular companions in a pilot for a proposed series

What is very clear by watching this pilot is how self limiting the format is . It's set on present day Earth with no monsters with the villains being pagan worshipers . If it had gone to a full series we'd have seen Sarah and K9 and girlie boy Brendan tackle mad scientists and .. and .. and ... maybe they'd have brought back pagan worshipers for a rematch . Or maybe JNT could have had an alien invasion every third week to break up the monotony of mad scientists and pagan worshipers . No doubt Sarah could have tackled the aliens with her karate ( Where did she learn that ? ) and if that wasn't enough K9 could zap the aliens with his laser - As long as the aliens didn't run up a flight of stairs or hide behind a greenhouse or were able to run faster than three miles per hour .

Despite the poor format there are some good points to this pilot . It contains some impressive night filming which lends itself to some atmospheric moments such as the policeman gingerly walking down a lonely country lane and it's nowhere as badly acted as some people claim , I mean try watching some DOCTOR WHO from the mid to late 1980s to see what bad acting is . Sean Chapman as Peter Tracey has a scene where he bursts into tears of despair and I often think that crying must be difficult for an actor to portray convincingly but here Chapman manages it . I'm not saying he deserves an Oscar but think of all the scenes you've seen on television and in movies where an actor is supposed to be crying and you're asking yourself if their character is laughing or crying ? As for the really crap title sequence or more appropriately the music that goes with it blame Ian Levine , someone who would later produce records for Take That , aka Robbie Williams and those other blokes

Hardly brilliant but not as bad as some people claim K-9 AND COMPANY gets six out of ten

Most of the other reviewers here can't seem to get past the theme song--yeah, it's silly but hardly something you would want to commit suicide over! The producer John Nathan Turner wanted a Hart To Hart opening credit sequence and that was a bit of a bad idea considering that the two leads in this are a woman and a mechanical dog! However, there is something bizarrely funny about it that acually draws you in. Maybe it's the camera zooming in on K-9 sitting on a stone fence--just how the hell did he get up there?! All of that aside, the actual story of witchcraft in the English countryside is rather fun stuff. There is some nice nightime atmosphere surrounding the coven's ceremonies and the actors who portray the various locals are all well cast. The only real negative is the short running time which is why there is not a lot of tension built. If one reads the novel it can be seen there was much more going on in the background to create tension but this does an acceptable job. Anyone who takes this too seriously or gets mad over this needs to relax and take a few deep breaths. This is great fun in the solid tradition of Doctor Who and it is too bad it never became a series.

I think K-9 and Company was a good idea,and Elisabeth Sladen always gives a great performance although Sarah-Jane seems a bit more grumpy than her normal self in this spin-off. John Lesson's voice gives K-9 a life of his own and he makes K-9 very endearing,the opening credits are very bizarre and I am sure not meant to be as funny as they come across. Thngs do seem to take a long time to start,there is a lot of running around until Sarah-Jane opens the box containing K-9. Having recently saw the pilot of The Sarah-Jane adventures,at least K-9 and company wasn't full of annoying kids! and people overacting. It was a good idea,it wasn't a failure,it got respectful viewing figures and K-9 remains a very popular character of DR.Who even today.