Could've been a series if the Beeb had stuck with it

The first Doctor Who spinoff debuted inbetween the departure of Tom Baker and the debut of Peter Davison as the Doctor.

The story: Sarah Jane Smith, former companion of the Fourth Doctor, has arrived in the village of Moreton Harwood to pay a Christmas visit to her aunt, Lavinia Smith, who is on a lecture tour in the US, but leaves suddenly without a word. She arrives at her aunt's house, where she discovers a packing crate, and inside, a gift from the Doctor, K-9 Mark III, a duplicate of the robot dog whose fellow counterparts accompanied the Doctor. Sarah also looks after Brendan Richards, Lavinia's teenaged ward, who's on break from school.

Sarah discovers through the various villagers that there are some people who still believe in the black arts to make their crops grow, and that her aunt, a rational scientist, upset many of them by publishing an article on witchcraft. So her plans to write a book are interrupted when two of the locals attack Brendan, who is later kidnapped. Only her robot dog can save the day.

The quick cuts of Elizabeth Sladen, be it profile or in different outfits, and the music, is styled after American TV programmes like Magnum PI. And she comes off well reprising her 1974-76 role as Sarah Jane, a role she would repeat in The Five Doctors (1983) and Downtime (1995).

The programme also pushes knowledge of computer architecture, as the knowledgeable Brendan refers to K-9's logic gates, integrated memory, buses, and heuristic interfaces. I should know, I had to learn that stuff back at NMSU and thank goodness I'm out of it. Still, it's nice to see it referred from an ex-CS major's point of view.

Bill Fraser plays Commander Pollock, Lavinia's neighbour and partner in her market garden business, and he does so with a gruff but sensible old gentlemanly charm. Ian Sears does reasonably well as Brendan. And yes, John Leeson does the voice of K-9 like he did in the Doctor Who series.

Originally intended as a pilot to a Doctor Who spinoff series starring Elizabeth Sladen and K-9, it aired on 28 December 1981, netting 8.4 million viewers, and would've garnered more had a transmitter in the North West region not suffered a power blackout. The reason why a full series wasn't pursued was changes in BBC management. Also, it's dwelling on the occult was a debit, as there was a censorship group in England that was quite sensitive about that.

Standing on its own, nothing on par with the Doctor Who stories, but it's good to see Elizabeth Sladen and K9 interract without the Doctor in the story.

Must see for fans.

Although I was happy to finally see this, I also sold my copy back as quickly as possible. It's classic Doctor Who, minus the Doctor.

Thank goodness it wasn't a series

The only good thing I have to say about this video is that as the only Dr. Who spin-off, it does have some nostalga value. Other than that I found it trite and not very well executed. K-9 is supposed to the the star (at least that's what the title leads us too belive) and apart from his usual vulcan-esquse logical statements all he does is blast a few people. I love Dr. Who and I like K-9, but that's all there is to like about this video.