A Girl's Best Friend (TV story): Difference between revisions

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=== [[:Category:The Doctor|The Doctor]] ===
=== [[:Category:The Doctor|The Doctor]] ===
* [[The Doctor]] sent [[K9]] to Sarah in [[1978]]. He had been in an unopened box in her [[Lavinia Smith|Aunt Lavinia]]'s homes in [[South Croydon]]and [[Moreton Harwood]] for three years.
* [[The Doctor]] sent [[K9]] to Sarah in [[1978]]. He had been in an unopened box in her [[Lavinia Smith|Aunt Lavinia]]'s homes in [[South Croydon]] and [[Moreton Harwood]] for three years.
* K9 plays on [[The "Doctor Who?" running joke|the running gag regarding the Doctor's name]] and the title of the parent series when Brendan asks, "Who is the Doctor?" and K9 replies, "Affirmative."
* K9 plays on [[The "Doctor Who?" running joke|the running gag regarding the Doctor's name]] and the title of the parent series when Brendan asks, "Who is the Doctor?" and K9 replies, "Affirmative."



Revision as of 18:34, 7 October 2012

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A Girl's Best Friend was a single-episode story produced in 1981 as a pilot for a potential Doctor Who spin-off called K9 and Company.

The BBC chose not to commission a new series, but did televise the episode as a holiday season special. It was only the second story of this kind in the Doctor Who franchise, preceded by more than a decade by "The Feast of Steven", a Christmas Day "break" from The Daleks' Master Plan.

This was the only attempt at a spin-off series during the original run of Doctor Who to reach production. It would be more than a quarter-century until this was attempted again. Furthermore, its studio filming was unusually completed at Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham — making it one of only two stories of the "classic" era to have the bulk of its studio recording completed outside greater London.

It is common for this episode to be referred to only by the series title, K9 and Company, including its initial release on home video and in the Target Books novelisation.

Synopsis

Sarah Jane Smith is looking forward to a quiet Christmas with her aunt Lavinia in the sleepy village of Moreton Harwood. When she arrives, she finds her aunt missing and a surprise gift from an old friend waiting to be opened.

Sarah, K9 and her aunt's ward, Brendan Richards are caught up in the affairs of a mysterious cult who practise the black arts and are preparing for a human sacrifice.

Plot

to be added

Cast

Crew

References

Individuals

  • Brendan Richards, Lavinia's ward, attends Wellington College but hopes to convince Lavinia to allow him to attend the local comprehensive school in Moreton Harwood as he did not like boarding. He has a close friend at Wellington named Travis, whose father is in the market gardening business. He is taking three extra O-Levels: Additional Maths, Physics and Biology.
  • Brendan has a keen interest in computer technology. Consequently, he is extremely impressed by K9 Mark III's computational abilities. Although the original K9 unit was built by Professor Marius in the year 5000, he is nevertheless familiar with many of the components used in his construction.

The Doctor

K9

  • K9 announces himself as "Mark III", referencing the previous two versions of K9 (last seen in The Invasion of Time and Warriors' Gate, respectively) and in particular differentiating himself from the version last seen with Romana.

Story notes

  • This was the first official Doctor Who spin-off; the second was Torchwood, and the third was The Sarah Jane Adventures. K9 is featured in all but Torchwood. In 2009 K9 a TV series was produced, unlike Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures this was not produced or licenced by the BBC.
  • The Sarah Jane Adventures debuted with its pilot episode, TV: Invasion of the Bane, only three days after the twenty-fifth anniversary of the original broadcast of this pilot.
  • The Winter Hill transmitter in the North West region suffered a power blackout at the time this story was screening (most likely resulting in ratings lower than expected).
  • The theme music was composed by Ian Levine. Supposedly, it was meant to be an orchestral score but was altered to be electronically performed with John Leeson "singing" in character as K9.
  • Running fifty minutes, this was the first time a Doctor Who-related episode had exceeded thirty minutes in length.
  • The original outline by John Nathan-Turner proposed that K9 Mark III was in fact sent by and under the control of the Master, but this element never made it to the screen.[1]
  • There is some significance in the names writer Terence Dudley gave his characters. One couple is named Baker, the name of Fourth Doctor actor Tom Baker.
  • Peter is seen polishing his crash helmet with Mr. Sheen, a proprietary brand of furniture polish often used by motorcyclists. This is an unusual example of a product's brand name being clearly visible in a BBC drama.
  • This story had the working titles of Sarah and K9 and One Girl and Her Dog.
  • Although Brendan's age is never stated in dialogue, he is said to be fourteen years old in the subsequent novelisation, PROSE: K9 and Company.

Ratings

  • 8.4 million viewers

Filming locations

  • Cirencester in the Gloucestershire countryside.
  • Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham
  • Sheepscombe, Gloucestershire
  • Wishanger Farm, Wischanger, Gloucestershire
  • Parish Church, North Woodchester, Gloucestershire
  • Barnsley House, Barnsley, Gloucestershire
  • Cheltenham Road, Bisley, Gloucestershire
  • Miserden Park Estate, Miserden, Gloucestershire
  • Miserden Nurseries, Gloucestershire
  • Miserden, Gloucestershire
  • Bear Inn, Bisley, Gloucestershire (Title sequence; Sarah typing on a typewriter)

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
  • When Sarah Jane and K9 go out to look for Brendan in Sarah's car, Sarah leaves her aunt's house when it is dark and arrives at the Church in the dark, but the intervening driving scene is in daylight.

Continuity

Home video releases

See also

Footnotes

External links