😐6️⃣ = NOT ENJOYABLE!

Barking through time and space, one adventure at a time!

Following plenty of brainwashing and threats of having my Doctor Who Fan Licence revoked, I decided it was time to tackle this infamous, unofficial Australian Doctor Who spin-off K-9, which aired 26 episodes in 2010 and follows the adventures of the Doctor’s robotic canine friend. The series mixes live action with animation and sees John Leeson return as the voice of K9.

“THE BEGINNING OF A TRAINWRECK!”

The opening credits sequence is very Naughties in style, and I sort of like it.

The writing is really simple—introduce the characters and how they meet K9, include an alien danger, and then get to the end—and while it certainly sets things in motion, it does next to nothing to actually develop the characters. The dialogue is clunky too.

What the heck is going on in the second half, in the weird white realm? It’s as if the episode runs out of plot after 10 minutes.

I can already tell from the first few scenes that the acting is going to be horrendous. The two leads, Starkey (henceforth Bad Starkey, in contrast with the good one, Dan) and Jorjie (Forgettable Girl), are pretty atrocious, and the adult actors are hardly any better. This Professor Gryffen type (Dull Professor) is supposed to be a slightly nutty professor (sort of a take on Professor Marius, who created K9 in the parent show; see The Invisible Enemy), but the performance is too understated to hit that mark.

The Darius kid (The Annoying Kid) is already grating in his introductory scene.

John Leeson seems to put real effort in as the voice of K9, and he’s never bad when doing it. Too bad that the new K-9 model introduced halfway through is pretty bad (why did they add those bunny ears?).

There are these monsters (Jizen), but there is no explanation as to what they are, where they come from, or what they want.

The production is very shoddy. The editing and camera work in the monster attack scenes look horrible. The incidental music plays way too loud all the time.

This isn’t a good start to the series, but it’s not completely hopeless either. It's never funny or exciting, and it’s not boring even if there isn’t a lot going on.