A Girl’s Best Friend

I've always been a bit lukewarm on this spin-off pilot, and I still feel the same way. Whilst I appreciate the ambition, and I think there's a solid idea on paper regarding Sarah Jane and k9 investigating a witchcraft cult, it's not quite as interesting as it should be.

For a pilot intended to get audiences interested in a spin-off show, it has a surprisingly slow pace. There's not much actual cultish behaviour taking place, although it's nice to see Sarah Jane using her investigative skills.

Another problem is that Sarah Jane is uncharacteristically unlikable in places. For instance, she initially tells Brendan that he can 'wait until tomorrow' to be picked up from the boarding school, even though she was supposed to have picked him up already. It doesn't reflect brilliantly well on Sarah as a character.

Thankfully, K9's inclusion adds some character to the spin-off pilot. His friendship with Brendan is endearing, and he's introduced organically into the plot, as a present from the Doctor. K9 can never do any wrong in my eyes.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Logopolis

Doctor Who's first ever spinoff. I can see why it never went any further than this, though now I wish it had. I'm not sure who thought to pair up Sarah Jane and K9 but I find it works quite well. It is a bit of an insult in my opinion to call this K9 and Company when he isn't at all the main character. The theme song is, well, very 80s. Unfortunately it's going to be stuck in my head for ages now.

The story itself is not exceptional, but it's a fun idea and I would have loved to see how the rest of it played out. In the end, I think stories matter if you have fun with them and aside from a boring start I had plenty of fun with this.

This was just alright, unfortunately. An interesting sort of prelude that I definitely think had all the potential of Sarah Jane Adventures, yet one unfocused and oddly choosing to have K9 be the titled character even though this is very much a Sarah Jane story. Elizabeth Sladen really stands out as a performer here, but everyone else feels a lot more lacklustre. The story also just bored me a bit, being this sort of generic cult-themed plot. It kind of reminded me of an unfunny version of Hot Fuzz, actually, coupled with a complete lack of self-awareness.

It does remind me that Doctor Who is often aimed at and constructed for a younger audience, especially in the time this was produced, but I'm not sure that made much of a difference anyways. Really it just reflects the various failed and in my opinion severely misguided attempts to give K9 a spin-off. This one feels especially egregious since it is clear it is Sladen that deserved the focus of the spin-off, and it would be decades before this character and actor finally got her due.

It’s Christmas 1981, we’ve just lost the most well loved Doctor to date and the Doctor Who production team have another surprise in store for us - the show’s very first spin off (if you don’t count the 1960s movies). Sarah-Jane Smith is the ideal candidate for a spin off, as would be proved many years later, but is oddly sidelined in the title of this show for the shiny K-9 who exited the main show a couple of stories back. But this is K-9 mk III, not the one who stayed with Romana.

Despite nowadays being consigned to obscurity, remembered only by fandom, this story is actually more entertaining than you’d expect. The whole production is perhaps overshadowed by the ridiculous opening title sequence and theme tune which looks desperate (I can only imagine Elizabeth Sladen’s embarrassment). I wonder, is the theme tune Ian Levine’s first contribution towards Doctor Who?

Once you get into the story, it’s very reminiscent of early 1970s Doctor Who. The set ups of cults and folklore is spooky and intriguing, building an interesting village setting where mysterious goings on can occur. It reminds me a little of Children of the Stones or some of the cults you come across in Survivors. Unfortunately the way it wraps up is pedestrian and relies solely on the cliches and genre tropes it’s tapping into rather than it’s own unique story ideas. There is literally a Scooby Doo unmasking of the central villains at the end of the 50 minutes. K-9 also isn’t used quite right. He is best as a peice of light relief and worst when he becomes a moving ray gun.

All in all I’m delighted that this story exists and a little disappointed that it never got picked up for another episode. In some ways it makes sense, the balance of all the right ingredients for a spin off isn’t *quite* there. It will be quite some time before we deviate from the main show again. Bring on the 5th Doctor!