K9 was one of the Time Lord’s longest-serving and most faithful of companions. Let’s take a look at some of his greatest adventures…
The Invisible Enemy
Curiously, K9 was never intended to be a long-term companion. He was created by the writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin for a single story in Doctor Who‘s fifteenth season. He was the brainchild of Professor Marius, who created K9 to replace the real dog he left behind on Earth.
When the producer Graham Williams saw what the team had produced, he realised that the character had great potential. One of the edicts he had been given by his BBC bosses was to lighten the tone of the programme, introduce more humour and make Doctor Who less scary. K9 certainly had the potential to tick all of these boxes, as well as being a smash hit with the kids.
The other factor, of course, was that K9 had cost a considerable amount of money to make, and Williams was keen to squeeze as much value from the new companion as possible.
But what of the story itself? ‘The Invisible Enemy’ is an innovative one, and sees clone versions of the Doctor and Leela shrink themselves down to microscopic proportions in order to venture inside the Doctor’s body and fight off a deadly virus. Naturally, this is achieved on a modest budget, so one must suspend a certain amount of disbelief and look past the glaring CSO, and never, ever think of lasagne…
The Creature From the Pit
One of K9’s drawbacks was that he was prone to the odd ‘technical malfunction.’ And by ‘odd’ we mean ‘regular.’ And by ‘regular’ we mean ‘daily.’ K9 wasn’t just expensive to produce, but costly to maintain, and would devour precious studio time with his incessant breakdowns. (They do say that you should never work with animals or children…)
Ultimately, K9’s unreliability would cost him his job, but in the meantime the production team had to find novel ways to work around his limitations. Often, the hapless dog would simply be written out of the story (he never even appears in ‘City of Death,’ for example.) But at other times, the writers would find ways to take advantage of K9’s powers without relying too heavily on his internal workings.
The bizarre but memorable ‘Creature From the Pit’ is a good example of this. One of K9’s notable features was his laser gun – perfecting for zapping pesky enemies and cutting through obstacles – and here he plays the role of Romana’s handgun. He spends much of the story being carried under her arm, blasting every baddie that crosses her path.
The advantage of this approach was that it kept K9 in the story even if his radio-controlled motor had a complete meltdown; it simply wasn’t needed. It also ensured that K9 got a lion’s share of the action, without wasting time and money as his carers scrambled to fix him.
That is not to say that ‘The Creature From the Pit’ is one of the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time, but does have many memorable and humorous moments, and is a good showcase for K9’s talents. Well, one talent, anyway…
Nightmare of Eden
‘Nightmare of Eden’ proved to be one of the most cursed and stress-inducing Doctor Who productions of all time, and indeed it is believed to be the reason that the producer Graham Williams decided to leave the series.
According to the cast and crew, the problem centred around a fractious relationship between Tom Baker and the director Alan Bromly, who quit the production halfway through. It didn’t help that this adventure was also a tough one to realise on a technical level, focussing as it did on the collision of two dematerialising spaceships and an interactive cinematograph.
Production niggles aside, ‘Nightmare of Eden’ is well written, and it’s interesting to note that this was penned by K9’s creator Bob Baker, this time writing without his partner Dave Martin. As such, he makes full use of the tin dog’s character and capabilities and makes him an integral part of the story. K9 is not just a glorified pea-shooter in this outing, but actively assists the Doctor and Romana in their battle against a drug smuggler and a rather curious alien race.
Naturally, it helped that the majority of this adventure was set on a single spaceship, with smooth studio floors and the bare minimum of obstacles for K9 to crash into…
School Reunion
K9 officially left the series in 1981, and it would be some 25 years before he returned to Doctor Who under the guidance of Russell T Davies. The showrunner was a fan of this particular era of the show and was keen to introduce the tin dog to a new generation of fans.
In this adventure, K9 is being looked after by Sarah Jane Smith. This is a direct reference to a one-off special – K9 and Company – which aired in 1981 and saw the Doctor’s former companion being sent a version of K9 as a Christmas present by the Doctor. In ‘School Reunion,’ K9 is still under Sarah Jane’s care, but in true tin dog style, he has broken down.
However, it’s not long before he is back and up and running and assisting the Tenth Doctor and his friends in their fight against the shape-shifting Krillitanes. They plan to use school children to crack the legendary Skasis Paradigm, which is said to contain the key to the “building blocks of the universe.”
This is a poignant adventure, as Sarah Jane and K9 must come to terms with the fact that they have been replaced with ‘new models’ in the form of Rose and Mickey. It ends happily, of course, despite K9 sacrificing himself to thwart the Krillitanes’ plot.
As hoped, ‘School Reunion’ did see a resurgence of love for the Time Lord’s faithful companion, and K9 would return to Doctor Who a couple of years later, whilst also getting his own spin-off series overseen by his creator. There is even a K9-led feature film in the works, which would see him lock horns with another of Dave Martin’s creations…
What do you love most about K9? And which is your favourite story? Let us know in the comments below.
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