School Reunion led to near-immediate plans to launch the Sarah Jane Adventures spin-off. The rights to K9 were obtained by other parties for a separate spinoff. According to news reports in mid-2007, the K9 series did "feature a blend of live-action and CGI: K9 himself was a CGI creation, but the show was otherwise be recorded in front of cameras." In June 2008 it was announced production was began on the series in July 2008, with all or some of the episodes written by the co-creator of K9, Bob Baker. Other announced writers included Shane Krause and Shayne Armstrong. The series would be produced by Simon Barnes, Richard Stewart and Penny Wall. Due to licensing issues, the robot dog was extensively redesigned. At first, the series was not expected to have any obvious connection to the Doctor Who universe., but a 2009 update to the Park Entertainment website revealed that the series was explicitly star K9 Mark I and he was initially appeared the same design seen on Doctor Who. It was be the first Doctor Who-related series to not be produced or co-produced by the BBC. Aside from the 1996 telefilm, it was the first time a Doctor Who-related production was not based in Great Britain. These licensing issues also prevented K9 Mark IV from initially making more than cameo appearances in The Sarah Jane Adventures. K9 later became a regular for series 3 of SJA. The first season of the series consisted of twenty-six episodes of thirty minutes each, which gave it a similar run time to an average series of Doctor Who. It was the first time a Doctor Who-related season had so many episodes since the mid-1980s. The first episode of the series premiered in the UK on the cable network Disney XD as a special on 31 October 2009. The series began airing as a weekly offering on a Scandinavian network in January 2010. It commenced broadcast in the UK on 3rd April 2010, the same day it premiered on the Ten Network in Australia. This was also the same day that Series 5 of the parent program debuted in the UK. Nevertheless, the later December 2010 broadcast on Five was claimed to be the "premiere" UK broadcast. Currently, Disney XD has adopted a twice-weekly broadcast schedule for K9, airing episodes on Saturday and Sunday. The backstory does not appear to contradict the canon of the other Whoniverse TV series, but does contradict the Big Finish Productions' Gallifrey series, which showed K9 Mark I destroyed. Although Leela refused to rebuild K9 it is possible that the Time Lords rebuilt K9 without her knowledge, possibly to help fight in the Last Great Time War because K9's regeneration unit has writing on it very similar to Gallifreyan. Also, K9 Mark III didn't have a regeneration unit when he was destroyed, which implies that it was fitted in by the Time Lords as opposed to the Doctor.
Cast[]
Primary Cast[]
- K9 - John Leeson
- Starkey - Keegan Joyce
- Jorjie Turner - Philippa Coulthard
- Darius Pike - Daniel Webber
- Professor Alistair Gryffen - Robert Moloney
- Inspector June Turner - Robyn Moore
Secondary Cast[]
- Lomax - Peter Kent (Series 1)
- Inspector Drake - Connor Van Vuuren (Series 1)
- Inspector Thorne - Jared Robinsen (Series 1)
Television Stories[]
Series 1 - 2009-2010[]
see Main article