A Girl’s Best Friend
K-9 and Company Pilot Episode
K-9 and Company is a very early run at The Sarah Jane Adventures that is just too boring to catch on.
The Review
Apparently in the 70s, it was K9 mania (or should I say K-9, I think the hyphen has been slowly dropped but it is K-9 and Company on the Season 18 blu-ray). The first problem with this story was that it is supposedly centered around K9 the character with its own silly theme song where K9 just says his name over and over again. I do like K9, but he is a supporting character, no way would his creators do some unofficial Australian tv show with him or anything. So of course, we need an actual human to be the star of the show, and the genius idea is to bring back Sarah Jane Smith. It is a joy to see Elisabeth Sladen as always, and in this proto-phase between the classic and new series. Like The Sarah Jane Adventures would be, this show should’ve been focused on all on Sarah Jane. You could have her as an investigative reporter, throw K9 in there, she’s encountering alien threats on Earth and all that. So from the beginning I think the idea of the show was taken in a wrong direction, I don’t know anyone who really wanted a K9 show. It does give us the plot thread of K9 now being associated with Sarah Jane, so thank this story for that.
The other problem with this pilot episode is that it’s just boring, fifty minutes long and maybe twenty too long. Too much time is spent in old cluttered English homes with tans and beiges in the wallpaper, all pretty uninteresting. The plot of the episode is this small English town that Sarah Jane’s aunt has moved to (impressive continuity with Aunt Lavinia throughout the years), secretly has a group of cultists who support the dark arts to get crops to grow. This would be more interesting if The Stones of Blood hadn’t just done a very similar plot. It turns out practically the whole town was in on it and prepared to sacrifice the ‘ward’ of Aunt Lavinia, Brendan, because they mistakenly thought K9 was a hell hound of Hecate or something. The only people not in on it are Lavinia’s two friends, who the show tries very hard to make us think are in on it. With all the problems about focusing on K9, it could’ve been picked up for a series if this episode was any interesting but unfortunately it just isn’t really at all. K9 firing his laser a bunch of scared cultists is pretty funny though. Also, Sarah Jane thinks her aunt has been kidnapped or something, but turns out she was really just on a lecture tour in America. This story isn’t that good!
A fascinating piece of Doctor Who history, but nothing else
6/10 The Sarah Jane Adventures is much better
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 