K9

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1 x 3 - The Korven:
This episode introduced the alien race of the title and they look rather nasty looking.
When K9 began repeating the same information was the first indication that something was wrong with him as a result of the alien gas featured here which ultimately makes it K9’s Kryptonite.
We don’t get any new information about the Professor’s lost family here but we do get a poignant glimpse of them with a very emotional music.
The baked beans scene early on in the episode could easily been inconsequential to the episode’s plot but it ultimately became a foreshadowing of how K9 destroys the Korven.
Starkey being a dissident could easily been a recurring thing throughout the series but three episodes in, it gets resolved by the Professor and it is something that I welcome.

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1 x 4 - The Bounty Hunter:
The bounty hunter of the title comes to capture K9 for the murder of a President in the far future.
It is extremely unfathomable that K9 would be capable of killing anyone let alone a President.
Whilst making it appear that a regular character based on very hard evidence is indeed guilty of murder is something that has been done elsewhere, it was still very noble of K9 in wanting to turn himself in when he thought that he actually assassinated the aforementioned President.
Quite a good climax when as expected K9 is revealed not to have committed the murder and quite a gruesome fate that befalls the bounty hunter.
An interesting development of K9 coming under the charge of June Turner’s section in the Department. That way he is no longer hunted by the Department.
In its own way the ferris wheel subplot at the beginning was enjoyable and noticed in the news headlines running across the TV screens when this incident was reported included that a Mr “Smith” had won the lottery. Most likely that this Mr “Smith” is meant to be the Doctor since he has on occasions used the John Smith name. The fact that this Mr “Smith” had won the lottery is probably meant to be an allusion to K9’s return appearance in Doctor Who, School Reunion in which the Doctor became a teacher at a school a job which he got after placing a winning lottery ticket in the mailbox of his predecessor.

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1 x 5 - Sirens of Ceres:
After Jorjie attacks a security robot, June sends her (although with some prompting from Drake) to a private school in order to discipline her.
Sirens of Ceres is rather similar to K9’s return appearance to Doctor Who, School Reunion as they both feature schools in which the students have been mesmerised by an alien influence. Whereas School Reunion had the Krillitanes controlling the students, Sirens of Ceres has students under the control of the human Drake via an alien substance attached to bracelets the girl students wear.
The storyline for Sirens of Ceres leading to the revelation about Kalena is very enjoyable.
Very fun when June and Jorjie turn the light on and off with the snap of their fingers in quick succession.
Despite being the star of the show K9 is reduced to the sidelines here with his main role in this episode is to give out the background information about Ceres. Essentially not that different to his role in Doctor Who.

While the Sirens of the title may be an allusion to the siren stories of Greek legend one could still be tempted to think that writer Deborah Parsons had the movie Sirens in mind when she wrote the K9 episode. After all Sirens, like K9 is an Australian production. While Sirens of Ceres lacks the beautiful Elle Macpherson, Kate Fischer, Portia De Rossi, Pamela Rabe and Tara Fitzgerald it still enjoyable in its own way.

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1 x 6 – Fear Itself:
The Professor makes reference to the Great Fire of London. While this was a real historical event it may also been intended to be an allusion to the Doctor Who story The Visitation.
Quite interesting that K9 who has based his reasoning on logic, trying to understand feelings and he is not exactly wrong when he says that feelings are a systems error.
I thought this episode was pretty slow at the beginning but definitely got a huge pickup the moment K9 was in the Wardrobe.
Got a shock through my system when the monster in the Wardrobe (ultimately revealed to be a Jixen warrior) appeared on-screen.
The design for the Alienbuster was not very awe-inspiring.
A very nice group hug at the end.

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1.7 The Fall of the House of Gryffen:
Written by series developers Shayne Armstrong and SP Kruse.
During the night of a very severe thunderstorm the space/time manipulator brings into the house the Professor’s long lost wife and children but they are not what they appear to be.
When promoting the sneak peek of the series in the UK on Halloween last year it was the clip of Darius, Starkey and Jorjie meeting Gryffen’s kids ‘Jacob’ and ‘Mina’ that was used in the trailer. Spooky in the trailer as it is here in the episode itself. A bit amusing when K9 thought that he was immune to ‘Jacob’ and ‘Mina’s’ powers before proven otherwise.
Very good the way to resolve the situation here in convincing the Professor’s family are fakes is for the Professor to be told that in the absence of family, friends can be like a family.
The Professor’s surname is spelt ‘Gryffen’ but K9’s view screen spelt the name as ‘Griffin’.
A very good romp of a spooky story from the series’ developers.

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1.8 The Jaws of Orthus:
K9 gets into trouble when it appeared that he had attacked Drake in public. The plotline of framing K9 for something he didn’t do would have been more effective if it weren’t for the fact that it was done before earlier in the series’ run in The Bounty Hunter.
The Orthus of the title refers to an operation of that name to get K9.
June said someone described Drake having odd behaviour and when Drake asked who said that, it was funny that she responded by saying that information is classified.
A bit funny when the Professor stopped the CCPCs going after K9.
Also fun seeing the two K9s fighting each other.
A bit puzzled no one thought that the K9 who attacked Drake was a copy of our K9. I mean with a technological advance society surely it is not deemed impossible to make a copy of what looks like K9.

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1.9 Dream-Eaters:
This is basically Nightmare on Elm Street for kids and a very good one at that.
Jorjie’s alarm clock looks like a sonic screwdriver (noticeably Starkey can be seen wearing one around his neck). Well a sonic screwdriver has been seen to have many uses why not an alarm clock as well.
When K9 saw a sheep in the dreamworld his viewscreen registered the word ‘Electric’. Obviously a reference to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Quite shocking that June turned out to be the avatar for the Bodach.
Amusing how Jorjie got June to wake up.
Fitting at the end when K9 was asked what he thought of dreams, he said that he was going to sleep on it.

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1.10 Curse of Anubis:
Unsurprisingly from the title, Curse of Anubis’ plot is based on Egyptology. Doctor Who had dealt with the subject in Pyramids of Mars, now it’s K9’s turn.
Curse of Anubis feels akin to a Stargate SG-1 episode with the pyramid spaceship, the jackal like aliens in Egyptian attire and the energy surge coming out of their hands.
The jackal like aliens the Anubians came to Earth where they find K9 who they say freed their ancestors from slavery when K9 was Mark I but K9 does not remember them.
From the outset the Anubians looked devious as they mesmerised everyone except Darius with their headbands.
However it was not that the Anubians had lied, they were telling the truth that K9 freed them from slavery. They merely omitted to mention the fact that they became slave masters themselves.
Noticed in the Anubians’ history picture book that the slaves included a Sea Devil and Alpha Centauri or a member of her race and quite thrilling the music that was played during this scene.
Quite funny June was in no hurry to take the headband off Drake.

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1.11 Oroborus:
It’s Groundhog Day as time repeats itself for everyone except for Starkey. Starkey is immune from the repeat of time due to a vaccine given to him when he was a young child by his parents who he does not remember. Incidentally K9 Mark II experienced a time loop in Meglos.
The repeat of time was caused by a cosmic serpent, the Oroborus. Before watching this episode I knew what an oroborus was from watching the TV series Millennium.
The oroborus looked very terrifying and is well executed on-screen. I applaud Starkey’s bravery in facing the oroborus.
An emotional moment for Starkey as he looked at the picture of his parents.

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1.12 Alien Avatar:
The aliens here are the Medes who initially appeared very ghostly.
When Drake was asked permission to torture the Mede, he did not exactly gave it the go-ahead only for him to be surprised. Definitely a case of plausible deniability on Drake's part.
A bit amusing of Darius trying to break Jorgie's rope with his teeth.
The music here is very good but the episode is very minimal in excitement.

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1.13 Aeolian:
The Aeolian of the title causes disruptions with the weather as she calls out for someone to listen to her.
An interesting idea about the rhythm of music being reflected by the state of the weather.
Very tense situation when a big part of the ceiling falls on Jorjie.
Whilst Jorjie was still stuck, she and Darius have a very tender moment. Too bad this moment ended with disappointment for one of them.
Very apt when the Aeolian said via translation from K9, “Thank you for the music.”

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In the Sydney Sunday Telegraph on June 27 2010 in the Funday section on the Famous Faces column there is a profile and interview with Daniel Webber (Darius).
Daniel says that K9 is his first big break in acting.
On the question of what is the best thing about working and starring in K9 he says that the stories are great to work on with a fun cast and the opportunities that is gotten with leading the series as an actor. He says that it is great the exposure that comes from that.
On describing Darius, he says that Darius spends a lot of time trying to find himself as a young man. Darius has a lot of responsibilities and struggling to open himself up to others as a result of his father leaving when he was younger. Darius, he says, works situations to his advantage, almost always.
On what is like to work with a robot dog (K9) – Since K9 is a mechanised puppet he has to choreograph how to work around the rig on the set. He described figuring the emotional relationship between Darius and K9 is great as it is different from the norm.

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1.14 The Last Oak Tree:
I knew before seeing this episode that it would feature Robin Hood (played by Remi Broadway) but was surprised that he only appeared briefly and as a hologram. In fact Robin Hood’s involvement in the episode’s plot is virtually non-existent as his presence was to illustrate the history of the titular oak tree with him. After knowing all this time that Robin Hood was going to be here not quite sure whether to be disappointed by his brief appearance.
However it was still enjoyable.
The title of the episode was originally The Last Oak Tree in England but the last two words was eventually dropped. The full title however can still be seen in the episode as the name of the oak tree’s display.
The way the alien bounds its prisoner is akin to the ones in Alien film series.
Taken aback upon seeing the alien as that of a giant slug-like being.
Not bad the explanation why the slug alien needed the oak tree.
Funny the postman’s name is Pat as in Postman Pat.
Postman Pat mistakenly thought the slug came from Mars. Since this takes place in the future one would have thought that it would have been common knowledge among humans that Mars is inhabited by Ice Warriors and the aliens from Ambassadors of Death.
Very heartwarming when Starkey saved the slug eggs.
It is somehow fitting that the hatching of the slug eggs would reveal the infants to be butterfly-like creatures.

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1.15 Black Hunger:
A machine that is sort of like a vacuum cleaner uses black microbes that not only eats up rubbish but also pests as well. This sounds like a perfect cleaning machine if it weren’t for the fact that the microbes are very dangerous with the potential to wipe out the world.
The dangers of the microbes was helped by Darius stealing the machine from a couple of sanitation workers after witnessing how the machine works. He used it to clean out the Gryffen house as well as thinking of an opportunity to make money out of it but before knowing the lethalness of the microbes. This goes to show there is a price for everything.
We find out from the Professor that the microbes came from Pluto and K9 had been in Pluto in The Sun Makers.
When Jorjie and Starkey pretended to be dogs to a CCPC, it was amusing when the CCPC suggested that Jorjie be muzzled.
Amazing that the machine was stopped from being imploded by Jorjie repeatedly banging on it.
The microbes are dealt with when K9 swallows them and a moment for the fans later on when K9 explained that he reversed the polarity when he did that. A further moment for the fans when K9 said that he will disposed of the microbes in Atrios which K9 Mark II had been to in The Armageddon Factor.
June succeeds in getting Drake transferred somewhere else but does not seem pleased on seeing his replacement Inspector Thorne.

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1.16 The Cambridge Spy:
Notwithstanding the constant presence of the space/time manipulator, this is the first bona fide time travel episode for K9. Time travel is common storytelling device used in science fiction in general. For parent Doctor Who, it is a regular occurrence and even relatives Torchwood & The Sarah Jane Adventures have dabbled in time travel plotlines. So it is only right for K9 to have its own time travel story.
Jorjie has accidentally travelled back in time to 1963, which just so happens to be the birth year of Doctor Who.
It was in 1963 that she meets William Pike, Darius great grandfather and he is mistakenly accused of being a Soviet spy. William being accused of a Soviet spy threatens the future existence of Darius (who plot conveniently stay behind in the future).
The presence of a police constable and a police station in the 1960s in this episode certainly brings into mind The Feast of Steven. With The Feast of Steven among the 108 missing Doctor Who episodes, The Cambridge Spy sort of fill the void in visual terms of The Feast of Steven’s absence.
In its own way The Cambridge Spy has been a fun time travel story.
The last scene with Agent Parker and Myles was very unexpected.