K-9 (DOCTOR WHO)

'K-9', or 'K9', is the name of several fictional robotic dogs in the long-running British science fiction television series, ''Doctor Who'', and its spin-off series, ''The Sarah Jane Adventures''. There have been at least four separate K-9 units in the series, with the first two being companions of the Fourth Doctor. Voice actor John Leeson has provided the character's voice in most of its appearances, except during Season 17, when David Brierley temporarily provided the voice.
A new television series starring K-9, ''K-9'', is currently in development and is planned to air in 2008.

Contents

Fictional character biography

Models

Conceptual history

Other appearances

Popular culture

Audio plays

Novels and short stories

K-9 (TV show)

List of appearances

Television

Audio dramas

Books

Short stories

Comics

References

External links

Fictional character biography

Debuting in the 1977 serial ''The Invisible Enemy'', the first K-9 was the creation of Professor Marius, a scientist working for the Bi-Al Foundation which was built on an asteroid near Titan in the year 5000. A mobile computer, K-9 was constructed in the shape of a dog as a substitute for the one Marius had left back on Earth. Highly intelligent, with an extensive database and equipped with sophisticated sensors as well as a laser weapon built into its nose, K-9 was instrumental in helping the Fourth Doctor and Leela defeat a sentient virus. At the end of the story, Marius suggested that K-9 join the Doctor on his travels.
All the K-9s referred to whoever owned them as "Master" or "Mistress" depending on their gender. The units were programmed to be both loyal and logical, with a penchant for taking orders literally, almost to a fault. The Fourth Doctor would often use a glib remark to disarm those who were surprised by K-9's appearance; in ''The Stones of Blood'' he said, "They're all the rage in Trenton, New Jersey." The Tenth Doctor defended its less-than-streamlined design ("...so disco!") to Rose Tyler, remarking that it was cutting edge in the year 5000.

Models

To date, four different versions of K-9 have appeared in the series:
'K-9 Mark I' continued to travel with and aid the Doctor and Leela until ''The Invasion of Time'', when the Doctor left it on the planet Gallifrey to accompany Leela, who elected to remain behind on the Time Lord homeworld. However, once inside the TARDIS, the Doctor produced a box labelled "K-9 Mark II".
'K-9 Mark II' was more mobile than its predecessor, and exhibited the ability to sense and warn others of danger. It was with the Doctor and Romana when they were shunted into the parallel universe of E-Space, and was severely damaged by time winds during the events of ''Warriors' Gate''. The damage was such that K-9 could only function in E-Space, and when Romana decided to stay and forge her own path, the Doctor gave K-9 to her. Due to a bout of laryngitis — which the Fourth Doctor was baffled as to how the robotic dog could have contracted — the voice of K-9 Mark II changes around the time of Romana's regeneration, only to revert some time later (in reality, this was due to voice actor Leeson temporarily leaving the series at the start of the 1979–80 season and being replaced by Brierley; Leeson returned for the 1980–81 season).
'K-9 Mark III' was a gift from the Doctor to Sarah Jane Smith, and appeared with her in the pilot episode of the aborted spin-off series ''K-9 and Company'' as well as briefly in the 20th anniversary television movie ''The Five Doctors''. In the original outline to ''K-9 and Company'', it would have been eventually revealed that K-9 Mark III was actually sent by and under the control of the Master, but this element never made it to the screen. K-9 Mark III's final appearance was in the second series of the new ''Doctor Who'' with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, alongside Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith in the episode "School Reunion". In the episode K-9 appears more run-down and worn, echoing Sarah's inability to repair it in the spin-off stories (see below). It died heroically, sacrificing itself by using the last of its energy reserves to set off an explosion.
'K-9 Mark IV' was a parting gift to Sarah Jane from the Doctor, appearing at the end of "School Reunion". It stated that the Doctor "rebuilt" it after the Mark III's sacrifice, implying that it had the same mind as the Mark III, but also confirmed it was a "brand new model". Its systems were improved over those of its predecessor, including "omniflexible hyperlink facilities". This model of K-9 also appeared briefly in "Invasion of the Bane", the pilot episode of ''The Sarah Jane Adventures'', where it was shown sealing off an artificially created black hole. The real-world purpose of this is to remove K-9 from subsequent episodes of ''The Sarah Jane Adventures'', in which he will not appear because of the concurrent development of ''K-9''. According to the official website for ''The Sarah Jane Adventures'', the Doctor stored several presents for Sarah inside K-9, including a "sonic lipstick" and a watch to scan for alien life.

Conceptual history

K-9 was the brainchild of writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin. Its purpose was to have a character that could narrate while the miniaturised clones of the Doctor and Leela were inside the Doctor's body during the events of ''The Invisible Enemy''. Martin's own dog had also been recently run over by a car, and K-9 was a car-proof tribute to it.
K-9 was not originally intended to be a companion, but producer Graham Williams liked the concept so much that the decision was made to retain it as a regular character. The original name for the character was "FIDO" — apparently from "Phenomenal Indication Data Observation" unit — but it was eventually named K-9 (a play on "canine").
The initial idea for realising K-9 was to use a small actor inside a robotic Dobermann costume, but that was rejected in favour of a radio-controlled prop, designed by Tony Harding and made by the BBC Visual Effects Department. The robot suffered from numerous technical problems during its time in the series, often malfunctioning because the radio controls interfered with the cameras and vice versa. On location, K-9 also proved unable to traverse uneven terrain, and shots had to be conceived with this in mind. Workarounds included using a concealed piece of twine to pull the character along, or laying wooden planks on which it could roll.

K-9's innards were redesigned twice more over the course of the series, firstly in collaboration with a company called Slough Radio Control. It allowed one of its employees, Nigel Brackley, to be seconded to the series semi-permanently to supervise the prop. Brackley, who has since gone on to a career in the movie industry, controlled K-9 for many of its studio appearances. Eventually, there came a point where the dog's inherent liabilities were outweighing its assets, and the internal mechanisms were completely rebuilt by designer Charlie Lumm. The wheels were enlarged and given independent drives for power and better manoeuvrability, and the radio controls were switched from the AM to the FM band to resist interference. However, by the time the improved model made its debut in ''State of Decay'', the first story recorded for Season 18, the decision had already been made to write the character out of the series in the adventure ''Warriors' Gate''.
K-9 was a popular enough character to warrant an attempt to spin it off into its own series, as mentioned above. In addition to K-9 dolls, there were also talking K-9 toys produced by Palitoy, the speech provided by a miniature record inside the body of the toy. John Leeson provided the voice for K-9 in all its appearances, except for Season 17 (which included the unfinished ''Shada'') when it was voiced by David Brierley. When ''Shada'' was remade by Big Finish Productions, Leeson provided its voice.
The practical challenges of working with the K-9 prop have accompanied the robotic pooch in his return to ''Doctor Who''. Producer Russell T. Davies told ''SFX'' magazine, "Yes, just as we expected, multiple takes when he bumped into a door or veered off to the left. Lis Sladen did warn us, and she was right!"^[1]

Other appearances

Popular culture

In 1990, an unspecified K-9 unit appeared with Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace in an episode of the children's education programme ''Search Out Science'' entitled ''Search Out Space'', which was included as an extra on the release of the Doctor Who story ''Survival'' by the BBC. Another unspecified K-9 unit also appeared in the 1993 charity special ''Dimensions in Time''.

In the 1998 computer game ''Fallout 2'', the Navarro base has a damaged robot dog known as K-9, which uses similar speech mannerisms to the Doctor Who character. If repaired, the cyberdog is willing to join the character's party as a companion.
In the 1999 television series ''Queer as Folk'' (written by current ''Doctor Who'' executive producer Russell T. Davies), a K-9 model is given to the character Vince as a birthday present. The prop used was an original, operated — as occasionally in ''Doctor Who'' — by visual effects assistant Mat Irvine.
In the ''South Park'' episode "Go God Go XII", Eric Cartman, being trapped in the year 2546, has acquired a robot dog called "K-10", a parody of K-9. Due to timeline alterations, he is replaced by "Kit-9" and later "Cocka-3".
Engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center have dubbed two intelligent mobile robots designed to explore the surface of Mars "K-9" and "Gromit".^[2] NASA's K-9 is named after both ''Doctor Who's K-9 and Marvin the Martian's pet dog.^[3]
In the second series of ''I'm Alan Partridge'', the character of Alan Partridge recalls how his purchase of the rights to K-9 assisted in him mentally breaking down and driving to Dundee in his bare feet while gorging on Toblerone.
K-9 appeared on a 2007 Doctor Who special edition of ''The Weakest Link'', receiving a unanimous decision to vote the robot off at the end of the first round.

Audio plays

In the spin-off media, K-9 Mark II remained Romana's faithful companion for many years. In the early 2000s, John Leeson and Lalla Ward featured in a series of audio plays produced by BBV as K-9 and "The Mistress", detailing these characters' adventures in a parallel universe. As neither Romana nor E-Space could be licensed, the aliases of the Mistress and the "pocket universe" were used instead.
When Romana eventually returned to her own universe, she brought K-9 Mark II with her (presumably having repaired it) and eventually became Lady President of Gallifrey. K-9 Mark II is first seen on Gallifrey in the Virgin New Adventures novel ''Lungbarrow'' by Marc Platt, alongside K-9 Mark I, which had remained with Leela. Both K-9 Mark I and Mark II appear, voiced by Leeson, in the Big Finish Productions audio adventure ''Zagreus'' and the ''Gallifrey'' audio series. Leela's K-9 (Mark I) was destroyed at the conclusion of the second ''Gallifrey'' series and only Mark II appears in the third series.

Novels and short stories

K-9's co-creator Dave Martin wrote a series of four children's books entitled ''The Adventures of K9'', published by Sparrow Books in 1980. K-9 is travelling on his own in these stories for reasons not explained.
In 1985, a series of gamebooks featuring the Sixth Doctor were published by Severn House under the title ''Make your own adventure with Doctor Who'' in Britain and ''Find Your Fate — Doctor Who'' in the United States. These books were actually written by scriptwriters for the television series. Martin wrote ''Search for the Doctor'' which takes place in the mid-21st century and features K-9 being reunited with the Doctor long after Sarah's death.
A short story, ''Moving On'', in Virgin Publishing's '' anthology and the Big Finish Productions-produced ''Sarah Jane Smith'' audio play ''Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre'' (both written by Peter Anghelides) indicate that K-9 Mark III broke down and Sarah was unable to repair it as the replacement circuits would not be invented for several centuries.
Another short story, ''Tautology'', by Glenn Langford (''Doctor Who Magazine'' #194), suggests that K-9 Mark III's motherboard will be passed down through Sarah's descendants and eventually end up in the hands of Professor Marius, who will use it to build the first K-9, creating an ontological paradox.
''Jealous, Posessive'' by Paul Magrs, the "Scorpio" story in Big Finish's anthology '' features K-9 Mark I and Mark II relaying their exploits to each other, and their veiled put-downs to each other reveal that each considers the other to be the "inferior" version. This attitude is also occasionally hinted at in the way the two units refer to each other in the ''Gallifrey'' audio series.
The Eighth Doctor Adventures novel '' by Lawrence Miles indicates that the Doctor built a Mark IV model sometime prior to the events of that book, but what happened to this unit is not stated. In the novel ''The Gallifrey Chronicles'' by Lance Parkin, K-9 Mark II makes another appearance, having been trapped within the TARDIS since the events of ''The Ancestor Cell''. At the end of ''The Gallifrey Chronicles'' the Doctor sends K-9 on a secret mission to Espero, presumably to seek out his former companion, the living TARDIS known as Compassion.
The canonicity of the spin-off stories is unclear, especially in light of K-9 and Sarah's return.

K-9 (TV show)

Main articles: K-9 (TV show)

A proposed K-9 television series or special had been rumoured since the late 1990s, and images of a redesigned K9 were leaked. However, nothing became of this effort until 2006.
On April 24 2006 ''The Independent'', the ''Daily Star'' and ''The Times'' confirmed, following previous rumours, that K-9 would be featured in a 26-part children's series, ''K-9'', to be written by Bob Baker.^[4] The article in ''The Times'' also featured a picture of the redesigned K-9 for the animated series.^[5] The series will be a blend of live-action and a CGI K-9.
Each episode will be 30 minutes long, made by Jetix Europe and London-based distribution outfit Park Entertainment. According to a report in ''Broadcast'' magazine, the BBC opted out of involvement in order to focus on their own ''Doctor Who'' spin-off, ''Torchwood'', meaning that BBC-owned characters are unlikely to appear in the series. A broadcast date for the series has not been officially announced, but a 2008 debut is planned.^[6][7]

List of appearances

Television

;Season 15

★ ''The Invisible Enemy''

★ ''Image of the Fendahl''

★ ''The Sun Makers''

★ ''Underworld

★ ''The Invasion of Time''
;Season 16

★ ''The Ribos Operation''

★ ''The Pirate Planet''

★ ''The Stones of Blood''

★ ''The Androids of Tara''

★ ''The Armageddon Factor''
;Season 17

★ ''Destiny of the Daleks''

★ ''The Creature from the Pit

★ ''Nightmare of Eden''

★ ''The Horns of Nimon''

★ ''Shada'' (not completed or transmitted)
;Season 18

★ ''The Leisure Hive''

★ ''Meglos''

★ ''Full Circle''

★ ''State of Decay''

★ ''Warriors' Gate
;Spin-off pilot

★ ''K-9 and Company''
;20th anniversary special

★ ''The Five Doctors'' (cameo)
;30th anniversary special

★ ''Dimensions in Time''
;2006 series

★ "School Reunion"
;''The Sarah Jane Adventures''

★ "Invasion of the Bane"

Audio dramas

;BBV

★ ''K-9: The Choice''

★ ''K-9: The Search''
;Big Finish Productions

★ ''Shada'' (webcast on BBCi, later released on CD)

★ ''Zagreus''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''

★ ''The Beautiful People'' (adventure related by the character Romana)

Books

;Sparrow Books

★ ''K9 and the Time Trap'' by David Martin

★ ''K9 and the Beasts of Vega'' by David Martin

★ ''K9 and the Zeta Rescue'' by David Martin

★ ''K9 and the Missing Planet'' by David Martin
;Severn House

★ ''Search for the Doctor'' by David Martin
;Virgin Missing Adventures

★ ''The Romance of Crime'' by Gareth Roberts

★ ''The English Way of Death'' by Gareth Roberts

★ ''The Shadow of Weng-Chiang'' by David A. McIntee

★ ''The Well-Mannered War'' by Gareth Roberts
;Virgin New Adventures

★ ''Lungbarrow'' by Marc Platt
;Past Doctor Adventures

★ ''Tomb of Valdemar'' by Simon Messingham

★ ''Heart of TARDIS'' by Dave Stone (cameo appearance)
;Eighth Doctor Adventures

★ '' by Lawrence Miles

★ '' by Lawrence Miles

★ ''The Gallifrey Chronicles'' by Lance Parkin (cameo appearance)

Short stories

★ "Tautology" by Glenn Langford (''Doctor Who Magazine'' 194)

★ "Crimson Dawn" by Tim Robins ('')

★ "Housewarming" by David A. McIntee (''Decalog 2: Lost Property'')

★ "Moving On" by Peter Anghelides ('')

★ "Timevault" by Ben Jeapes (''Decalog 3: Consequences'')

★ "The Sow in Rut" by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry (''More Short Trips'')

★ "Return of the Spiders" by Gareth Roberts (''More Short Trips'')

★ "Special Occasions 1: The Not So Sinister Sponge" by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman (''Short Trips and Sidesteps'')

★ "Storm in a Tikka" by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry (''Short Trips and Sidesteps'')

★ "Jealous, Possessive" by Paul Magrs ('')

★ "Kept Safe and Sound" by Paul Magrs ('')

★ "Balloon Debate" by Simon A. Forward (''Short Trips: Companions'')

★ "The Fear" by Alex Leithes ('')

★ "The Time Lord's Story" by Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett ('')

★ "The Little Things" by Paul Beardsley ('')

★ "The Clanging Chimes of Doom" by Jonathan Morris (''Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury'')

★ "Present Tense" by Ian Potter (''Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury'')

★ "Suitors, Inc." by Paul Magrs ('')

Comics

★ "Terror on Xaboi" by Paul Crompton (''Doctor Who Annual 1980'')

★ "The Weapon" by Paul Crompton (''Doctor Who Annual 1980'')

★ "Every Dog Has His Day" by Mel Powell (''Doctor Who Annual 1981'')

★ "Plague World" by Mel Powell (''Doctor Who Annual 1982'')

★ "K9's Finest Hour" by Steve Moore and Paul Neary (''Doctor Who Weekly'' 12)

★ "Timeslip" by Dez Skinn and Paul Neary (''Doctor Who Weekly'' 17–18)

★ "The Star Beast" by Pat Mills, John Wagner and Dave Gibbons (''Doctor Who Weekly'' 19–26)

★ "The Dogs of Doom" by John Wagner, Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons (''Doctor Who Weekly'' 27–34)

★ "The Time Witch" by Steve Moore and Dave Gibbons (''Doctor Who Weekly'' 35–38)

★ "Dragon's Claw" by Steve Moore and Dave Gibbons (''Doctor Who Weekly'' 39–43, ''Doctor Who Monthly'' 44–45)

★ "The Collector" by Steve Moore and Dave Gibbons (''Doctor Who Monthly'' 46)

★ "Dreamers of Death" by Steve Moore and Dave Gibbons (''Doctor Who Monthly'' 47–48)

★ "The Touchdown on Deneb 7" by David Lloyd and Paul Neary (''Doctor Who Monthly'' 48)

★ "The Life Bringer" by Steve Moore and Dave Gibbons (''Doctor Who Monthly'' 49–50)

★ "War of the Words" by Steve Moore and Dave Gibbons (''Doctor Who Monthly'' 51)

★ "City of Devils" by Vincent Danks and Gary Russell (''1992 Sarah-Jane Holiday Special'')

★ "The Seventh Segment" by Gareth Roberts and Paul Peart (''Doctor Who Magazine'' Summer Special 1995)

References

1. Russell T Davies on Who season two
2. NASA's new robots show their stuff David Perlman
3. Introduction, Advanced Technology Field Testing NASA Ames Research Center
4. Doctor Who's K-9 sidekick is dragged into 21st century in computer-designed cartoon Cahal Milmo
5. K9 is back and ready to fight in shining armour Adam Sherwin
6. More on K9 Series Lyon, Shaun
7. Master of the universe Richard Johnson

External links

★ K-9 being introduced on ''Blue Peter'' in 1977

★ "Affirmative, Master: All You Ever Wanted To Know About K-9", by Jon Preddle ("Time Space Visualiser" issue 41, Oct 1994)

★ A K-9 game, on the BBC's official ''Doctor Who'' website