< ott  |  DRAMA  |  COMEDY  |  FACTUAL  |  CHILDREN'S  |  LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT  |  FEATURES  |  INTERVIEWS  |  REVIEWS  |  BLOG  |  search >

CHRISTMAS SPECIALS
K9 and Company: "A Girl's Best Friend"
Monday 28/12/81, BBC1
by David McNay
December 2000
 

Email the author

More by this author

As the only legitimate Doctor Who spin-off (as opposed to numerous video spin offs mostly made by semi-professionals) K9 and Company holds an unique place in the television annals. It also makes it rather a difficult piece of TV to review. How exactly do you approach it? Do you regard it as just another Doctor Who story, and compare to the rest of the show's run, is it a traditional piece of Christmas fluff, or simply just another TV programme?

"A Girl's Best Friend" was originally intended as a pilot for what would have been a series of adventures. To this end, I have decided to look at it from that viewpoint. If I happened to be chief of commissioning, would this make it to a series? Of course, we all know now that it didn't, but was that failure to make it down to any flaws in the pilot itself, or was it just bad luck?

Well, to me this pilot bears serious flaws right from the beginning. To my mind, coming in at just under 50 minutes, it is far too short for any serious development of characters. You are introduced to Sarah Jane Smith, Brendan and various others, and are immediately expected to empathise with them. Some might say that, given that Sarah Jane had appeared in Doctor Who, it would be easy to identify with her. Perhaps, but over five years had passed since her last appearance; surely any vestigial affection for her would have dulled by now? With the "casual viewer" at least. So with the characters but a sketch, the plot takes precedence.

Unfortunately this is a very badly written story. It centres around a black magic cult in the village of Moreton Harwood. This cult has, until recently, been harmless, but poor harvests means that they believe that only a human sacrifice can help the next crop. Enter Brendan Richards, ward to Sarah Jane's aunt. One young boy, ripe for sacrifice. However, help is at hand from a well-known robot dog that the Doctor has left to Sarah Jane as a present (for no obvious reason).

This whole sacrifice plot is rather quickly dealt with, and if you don't concentrate you might just miss it. The "poor harvest" rationale is briefly mentioned by K9 seconds before Sarah Jane asks him something else, and if you didn't hear it that time you may think they're killing Brendan due to his annoying laugh and posture. In fact it's all rather Scooby Doo. All it's missing is a "nice Lily Gregson from the post office! It was you all along!" and the allusion to the American cartoon would be complete. Again, the rather short running time means the plot is rushed and over far too quickly.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect is the star of the show, K9. This is perhaps the wrong setting for him - K9 is a science fiction character, and placing him in middle England is putting him quite out of place. It doesn't help that he is underused and what little he does do is rather basic: He's placed in someone's house to listen in ona conversation (how exactly do you "hide" something that big?) and then uses his stun gun to break up the coven at the end. This could all have been done with a tape recorder and a couple of policeman. K9 is wasted almost entirely here, and it is hoped that, had a series gone ahead, the writers would have found more for him to do.

So far it's not looking good, but it would be wrong to single out just the bad points. So here's the good point: Elisabeth Sladen is very good as Sarah Jane Smith, and the minority of viewers who would remember her from Doctor Who would instantly recognise the character. She fits into this easily, and manages to carry the whole thing almost entirely by herself. However, not even she can save the excruciatingly bad title sequence. In what must have seemed like a good idea at the time, the producers have tried to recreate a Hart to Hart style montage of Sarah Jane and K9 up to various activities. K9 is limited to trundling along a road, and Sarah Jane just sits outside a pub typing and sipping wine (as all good reporters do) before heading off for a jog. It looks terrible, and should remind everyone that this type of thing is best left to either the Americans or someone with much more money. It is certainly not best utilised by a parochial Dennis Wheatley-esque production featuring a robot dog.

So, the final decision. Would I, as chief commissioner, give this a series? Well, no. But I would send them away to try again. There is something promising here, but it would require a better script and possibly a change of setting. But here's the quandary: although I don't believe K9 works in a countryside setting, to ditch it would remove all that I thought was positive about the programme. Maybe K9 and Company would be better sans the dog, leaving us with just Sarah Jane, using her intuitive reporting skills to fight crime, corny as that may seem. As it stands, it's hardly set to stun.