K9

K-9 is, of course, a Doctor Who spin-off based on everyone's favourite robot dog, who fell through spacetime to end up in eccentric Professor Gryffen's laboratory/mansion in mid-21st-century London. Sacrificing himself to save the humans from something that followed him through the portal, K9 regenerates into an updated design... but with no memory of how he got to Gryffen's lab. He's quickly introduced to Gryffen, a physicist researching space-time manipulation (with an eye towards resurrecting his dead wife and children); Gryffen's petulant assistant, Darius; rebellious middle-class scion Jorjie (pronounced "Georgie"); and teen dissident Starkey, with whom K9 forms a bond.

The first series (of 26 episodes) first aired from 31 October 2009 to 20 November 2010. A second series was rumoured in 2013, and then again in 2018, but never materialized.

"Inspector Thorne: You're blackmailing me? John: That's a very non-wonderful word, Inspector. But yes, I am."
 * Aliens Speaking English: Every alien that appears speaks English with two exceptions, though K9 has a translator for those two.
 * The Medes in #12, "Alien Avatar"
 * The Aeolians in the next episode, "Aeolian".
 * Big Brother Is Watching: K9 is set in a dystopic future London where surveillance is ubiquitous and the populace is explicitly told to accept it "for your own good".
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Oroborus and the Centuripede.
 * Bigger Bad: Lomax to Thorne.
 * BFG: June uses one in the finale to take out a pair of CCP Cs.
 * Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word: In "The Custodians", a Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher is demanding ten million credits to shut down his mind-control once it proves to have horrific side-effects that even the Department don't like:

"Jorjie: "Does he remind you of someone?""
 * Bounty Hunter: In "The Bounty Hunter", logically enough.
 * British Coppers: Robotic British coppers.
 * Cannot Spit It Out: Darius likes Jorjie. Jorjie likes Starkey. Neither manages to tell the object of their affection, though
 * Clip Show: In #22, "Mind Snap", K9 manages to get his memory erased, so Starkey and Gryffen have to prompt him to remember their adventures. Oddly, he retrieves files of things that happened a) while he was somewhere else, b) while he was blown up, and c) in someone else's dreams!
 * Cyberspace: Exists, but we haven't seen it extensively used. It is used as punishment.
 * And it can be fairly mild, or almost impossible to endure. Thorne uses Darius's father to blackmail him, by promising an easier time in the VR prisons. Starkey, who was in and out of facilities growing up, says they 'mess with your head'.
 * Dawson Casting: Keegan Joyce was twenty one playing fourteen year old Starkey.
 * Dead Little Sister: Much of Professor Gryffen's motivation is to save his dead wife and children with the Space-Time Manipulator.
 * Divorced Installment: This is the one TV show in the Whoniverse that has absolutely no connection to the BBC. As such, it isn't allowed to mention anything from Doctor Who, Torchwood or The Sarah Jane Adventures, which have had storylines and characters run through one another.
 * Dream Within a Dream: In "Dream-Eaters".
 * Dystopia: Future London looks clean and safe, but not very comfortable.
 * Hikikomori: Prof. Gryffen, who hasn't been outside in ten years.
 * Hollywood Hacking: Starkey and Jorjie.
 * The Hustler: Darius is a mild example. So far we've seen him buy the wrong parts for Starkey and charge him anyway, find a way out of the city despite being under surveillence, stall two aliens bent on his destruction, and nick - pick - some food for Griffen.
 * Hybrid Monster: In the finale, Thorne presents Trojan, a supersoldier created from DNA of every species in the series. This becomes Trojan's downfall when K9 uses the Jixen battle shriek to cause Trojan's Jixen and Meron DNA to fight each other.
 * Ice Queen: June is initially presented as an antagonist--but she loves her daughter, Jorjie, and is trying to protect her. She can still be fairly cold, though.
 * Identical Grandson: In #16, Jorjie, Starkey and K9 meet Darius' great-grandfather, William Pike, who looks exactly like him. They also meet Agent Barker who is identical to Thorne, who does not appear in this episode, but Jorjie lampshades this to Starkey.


 * Laser-Guided Amnesia: After regenerating, K-9 doesn't remember the Doctor, nor the majority of the adventures he had with him.
 * Living a Double Life: June Turner, who's always told her daughter Jorjie that she has a boring IT job. She's really head of alien threats at the secretive Department.
 * Mooks: The CCP Cs.
 * Monster Clown: Darius's nightmare in "Dream-Eaters" is about these.
 * My Beloved Smother: June is always checking up on Jorjie, practically Once an Episode.
 * The Nth Doctor: Producer Bob Baker decided to take a leaf out of the parent show's book and had K9, just like his master, sacrifice himself then regenerate into a brand new model.
 * Although he's quick to point out that this is still K9 Mark One, just in a new body.
 * Not That Kind of Doctor: As Griffen points out twice in The Custodians, he's "not a doctor-doctor." Since the issue was a virtual reality helmet that was turning children into aliens, he was able to help anyway.
 * Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Filmed in Australia. Set in London. Mostly child actors. The results...vary. Darius tends not to bother, which is odd since we know his family's been in London for at least a hundred years.
 * Griffen's actor is Canadian.
 * Police Brutality
 * Reverse the Polarity: In "The Jaws of Orthrus" and "Black Hunger".
 * Secret Police: The Department.
 * Shout-Out: When Professor Gryffen tries to access K-9's memory, The first few notes of the Doctor Who theme plays after he tries to access K-9's memory banks. Neither Gryffen nor K-9 have a clue about the songs origins.
 * Sinister Surveillance: All of future London, but especially the Department.
 * Tempting Fate: Jorjie and Starkey are " " and Darius has " " Gryffen: 'It couldn't possibly get any worse!' Cue June arriving to check up on Jorjie...
 * The Unfavorite: Darius. In the seventh episode Starkey is told he's the the closest thing to a son Gryffen has. Darius, who's been looking after Gryffen for two years, is standing right there. Jorjie also prefers Starkey over Darius.
 * There's also the fact that as far as we've seen, Darius sleeps in his car. Granted, that might be because he's insanely protective of her, but it still seems unfair when Starkey gets a bedroom. And a bed.
 * The Unmasqued World: By this time in the Doctor Who universe, the existence of aliens is well-known and accepted. Jorjie's mum is head of the alien threats division of The Department.
 * Two-Teacher School: Apart from the Department Mooks, we only ever see June - head of the Alien Threat department - and Drake, later replaced by Thorne, ostensibly head of non-alien related security issues. Both Drake and Thorne frequently stepped outside their duties, usually in some kind of attempt to catch/destroy/enslave K9. They had an offscreen boss, Lomax, who was mostly used as a threat by June to get Drake or Thorne to back down.
 * What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In one episode, a CCPC that has been implanted with human genetics escapes from the Department labratories, who try to find him and have him destroyed. K-9 and the gang find him which, ensues a dilemma whether or not they take out his genetic implants and replace them with standard CCPC hardware.
 * Zombie Apocalypse: Well, in the ninth episode, an incorporeal alien race called the Bodach sends the whole of London (bar the team, although June is the Avatar and Darius falls eventually) asleep and into an army of sleep walkers.