K-9 and Company

Spin-offs rarely get anywhere, and "K-9 and Company" is no exception. Now that I have the videotape, I've seen this. I liked it; it's very true to the spirit of "Doctor Who," with a touch of "The Avengers" thrown in. I always was a fan of both K-9 and Sarah Jane Smith; the chance to see them together was simply irresistable.

This takes the tried-and-true "Doctor Who" formula of a mysterious cult with supernatural powers terrorizing the local populace -- "Image of the Fendahl," "Masque of Mandragora," and "Stones of Blood" all toyed with this.

This one takes a more detective-like approach, and benefits well from it.

Unfortunately, I think this pilot was doomed by its opening sequence. The theme song will make you want to beat your head against the wall, because anything else is prefereable to listening to the theme. "K-9. K-9. K-9." That's the lyrics. I think this failed pilot works quite well to support my thesis that unpopular or failed spin-offs generally have really stupid theme songs, while the original show has some terribly memorable and catchy thing.

John Nathan-Turner's time as producer of Dr Who (1980-9) was a frightful mess. Clearly out of his depth, his period at the helm was characterised largely by thrashing around with gimmicks to compensate for small budgets, miscasting, poor scripting and uncertainties of tone, whose accumulation had begun during Graham William's tenure, but which accelerated dramatically from Nathan-Turner's first season (season 18) onwards.

One problem that Nathan-Turner faced was that the audience was ageing, and sci-fi nerds were beginning to define the show to the detriment of its universal qualities. It was therefore potentially a shrewd move to develop the one-off TV movie K9 and Company, coupling Dr Who's favourite companion, Sarah Jane, who still lingered in the memory, with his most asinine, for younger viewers. If this reached fruition as a series, maybe a new younger audience could be cultivated?

Of course, he muffed it. The filming does not appear to have been a happy experience, at least for Elisabeth Sladen, according to her memoirs. But the appalling script, the embarrassing public school nephew Brendan, the weedy attacker Peter, a goodly set of well-known character actors reduced to oo-arrr dialogue, and a set of unintentionally comic pagans all combine to kill it anyway. The wonderful support actress Mary Wimbush is particularly wasted. The execrable title sequence is a microcosm of the failure of the whole enterprise.

Lots of people watched it; I was one of them. I wanted to love it, especially as it came shortly after the very disappointing season 18. I hated it. I assumed I was just growing too big for Dr Who, but, now we can watch these shows again on DVD, it is clear that Dr Who was leaving its audience, not the other way round.

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.

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.

I rather enjoyed this pilot episode of this proposed "Doctor Who" spinoff series. Too bad the BBC didn't pick it up as a series because I think it showed promise.