Moderator's Note: This is Mike's original K9 summary:

I liked K-9, but I have to admit that his presence did weaken the suspense in a lot of the stories. You couldn't get to worked up about how the Doctor was going to escape when you knew that K-9 could fix it. Then we had to go through the period of the broken K-9, which was worse. The Doctor's inability to repair K-9 made him look inept, not eccentric.

I preferred John Leeson's voice; I don't know he did it, but somehow he brought some character to that monotone.



Which was the better K-9 - Mark I, II or III?

Even the most brilliant people have things they just can't work, whether it's a video, toaster oven or the hot tap in the shower.

I like the first K-9 best. But that's just my opinion.

Same here. The second K-9 had that ghastly chirpy voice for a while, whilst the third K-9 was in K-9 and Company (need I say more) so that only leaves Mark I. Of course, unlike his successors, he ABANDONED the Doctor, and he was Professor Marius's creation rather than being the Doctor's own baby - but I suppose nobody's perfect.

Wasn't K-9 Mark II voiced by both John Leeson and David Brierley, whereas Marks I and III were only voiced by Leeson?

Anyone notice you can now buy your own robotic dogs? Doctor Who yet again 20 years ahead of time.

When they can build a robot dog that can pinpoint coordinates to every planet in the universe, play chess, able to analyze chemical compounds, and blast hostile aliens with his nose laser, then I will be impressed by those folks in Japan.

Still, it walked around better than K-9.

Just wait for Marks II and III.

Check out this NASA News press release for a K-9 related device(http://ccf.arc.nasa.gov/dx/basket/pressrelease/00_39AR.html):

ROVER SIMULATES PLANETARY EXPLORATION IN FIELD TRIALS

NASA is deploying a prototype planetary rover named K9 in the Nevada desert this week as part of an ongoing field test program designed to simulate robotic exploration on other planets.

During the joint field operation between NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA, K9 will act as a "scout" for JPL’s rover, called FIDO. K9 will assist FIDO by searching ahead for the best candidate rocks for it to sample. Planning of the rover’s actions will be supported by a suite of software tools called Viz, which were developed at Ames by the Autonomy and Robotics group, a branch of Ames’ Computational Sciences Division. Viz uses images from stereo cameras on-board K9 to create a photo-realistic 3D model of the surrounding environment. This model is displayed as a virtual-reality environment within which scientists and rover operators travel, measuring distances and object sizes, to choose the best sampling sites and routes.


"We've developed a systems-oriented approach with the ability to quickly bring diverse robotics technologies, advanced instrument designs, and a close knit science and engineering operations team together in a realistic field test," said Dr. Nicola Muscettola, lead of Ames’ autonomy and robotics group. "The FIDO-K9 project is a terrific design tool for advancing NASA capabilities and dramatically reducing risk during future exploration missions."

"This type of trial has never been done before. We are learning many new things about robotic exploration," said Maria Bualat, project manager for K9. The main purpose of the test is to simulate using multiple cooperating robots in planetary exploration. The test also exposes the Athena science team, a group of researchers from several universities selected for the next Mars rover mission, to Ames’ science visualization technologies. "This will allow the team to evaluate these technologies, recommend changes and improvements, and have better capabilities when their missions occur," explained Bualat.

"This field test illustrates how two robots can work together to maximize the effectiveness and science return for a planetary exploration mission," said Dr. Carol Stoker, Ames chief scientist for the test."In this test, K9 is exploring for interesting things, while FIDO is performing detailed analysis," she said. During the tests, the FIDO science and engineering teams are kept sequestered in the mission control room at JPL's Planetary Robotics Laboratory while the two rovers explore the site, whose location is being kept secret."The teams only see the site through the eyes of the rovers just like it would be on a planet like Mars," said Stoker.

The science and engineering teams "see" the remote field site through the rover’s instruments by collecting black and white and color panoramic images, near infrared spectra and close-up measurements at the site, she said.

FIDO and K9 are each about the size of a St. Bernard. K9 weighs about 90 pounds and is 33 inches wide, 41 inches long, and 22 inches high. The rover moves at an average speed of 200 meters (less than one mile) per hour over smooth terrain. During the tests, K9 is powered both by solar panels and by rechargeable batteries. K9 is about twice the size of Mars Pathfinder's "sojourner" rover and is capable of performing tasks without much human help.

K9 was named for the robotic assistant in the British science fiction television series "Dr. Who." Its chassis was built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to be mechanically identical to FIDO. Its electronics, avionics, and instruments were built at NASA Ames. "Our engineering team designed K9’s electronics to consume very little power and to enable remote control of the robot’s power subsystems," said Bualat. "This allows our autonomy software to selectively manage resources and power systems on and off, depending on the type of operations we are performing."

K9 is controlled through the "Virtual Dashboard," a graphical user interface designed and built at Ames that lets the rover operator send single commands or build and up-link a sequence of commands. Command sequences are up-linked to the robot over a satellite and executed autonomously by K9's on-board executive software. The Dashboard automatically generates web pages, which let scientists view sequence logs and down-linked images in real time.

Wow!

Now what would make it really cool is if NASA has programmed this robot to respond to all commands with a chirpy "Affirmative, Master!"

In 'Interference' the Doctor says that we should see the Mk IV!

I wonder if that would be the proposed design for the new K-9 series mooted a few years ago?

Whatever happened to K9 Mark I, who stayed on Gallifry? Surely some book must have brought him back.

Yup, Lungbarrow is set on Gallifrey, with Leela and K9 I (not to mention Romana and K9 II). Can't remember either of the tin doggies doing anything particularly memorable, though. And I expect they're both scrap now, along with the rest of the planet.

As for K9 Marks 3 & 4 ...?

Mark III seems to be KIA, at least if you trust the Sarah Jane Smith BF audios. I'm not aware of a Mark IV, though.

WHAT!!!!!! The poor baby is DEAD????????????? How? Who would do such a thing???

The proposed animated K-9 spin off had the Mark 4 K-9 unit in it, but after the pilot was shown,to fans at a U.K convention & they laughed their heads off at it, it was dropped !
(I think I've done this reply before, in the K9 & Company thread...? Deja Vu or what ?)
As for the Mark 3 K-9, where did I put my Barrett Light 50 Rifle & Box of API ammo...?

I didn't know this project got as far as a pilot, I think there were plans for a live action series with Caroline Quintin as a new incarnation of Romana.

From what I've read about it, K-9 was badly/poorly CGI-animated, & basically, was not much more than a "show-reel" to "drum up" support for the proposed animated series.

How do K-9's recharging batteries work? Where does he get the power to recharge them? Solar power? (Not always available) Using osmosis/induction from any nearby radiation source?


Mike, what does KIA mean?

Killed In Action.

God knows what the metal mutt thinks its doing vis-a-vis those batteries. You'd think Mark II onwards, at least (being built by the Doctor and not Professor Marius) would have some sort of eternal power supply and not run down every five minutes.

Of course, the About Time books suggest that K9 was mass-produced and the Professor AND the Doctor just PURCHASED their boxes of self-assembly dawgs.

Re:Emily's last comment
Could you imagine the 4th Doctor with the assembly instructions, & trying to follow them, without trying to "improve" on them...?
Given the average assembly instructions bundled with DIY flatpack furniture, I imagine that afterwards, the Doctor would be left with a lot of left over parts...
Mind you, that could explain why K-9 Mk.2 is not waterproof (See The Leisure Hive for the results of this), or was it a "Optional Extra"...?

Bloody hell. I hope...

SPOILERS FOR THE NEW SERIES OF THE NEW SERIES!!! (I mean Season Two...no, 28...oh, whatever):

...Sarah has a VERY VERY good excuse for the fact my poor baby K9 is apparently shut up in a cupboard rusting to DEATH. God, I've never seen anything so pathetically battered-looking in my entire life, and given that K9 got beaten up in every single story in which he appeared, that's saying quite a lot.

An ANIMATED series??!!!!!!

I don't want the metal mutt to have an animated series! I want him to have a PROPER series!

School Reunion:

K9: The master rebuilt me.

SARAH: He replaced you with a brand-new model!

Er...WHICH? Cos there's no doubt this is K9 Mark IV, but does it have any of Mark III's memories/circuits/soul? COULD the Doctor have salvaged any of the faithful shooty dog thing's innards from the exploded school? Probably not, in which case why does Sarah's new friend seem to think he's just been rebuilt rather than replaced?

Re:Emily's last comment
The Doctor's probably "pulled off" the Mark 3's OS (Operating System) from the remains, & "Ported It" over to the Mark 4...
Basically, the Mk.4 is running a copy of the Mk.3's programming, but otherwise has completely new hardware....

So the K9 series is NOT gonna be animated - phew - but IS gonna have K9 just as CGI! SO not fair! If this is - as I can only assume - an exercise in nostalgia, surely Our Hero should be the same as ever, i.e. battered and pathetic-looking, trundling pitifully slowly and bumpily along on the end of a piece of string...?

Guess that's what the upgrade to Mark IV does to you--turns you into pixels.

Stick an H on his forhead and call him a hologram. ;-)

Re: Last Comment
But will he later be fitted with a "Hard Light" Drive...?

He should also have a Bronze Swimming Certificate despite not being able to swim.

I wonder how does the Mark V Thomas differ from the Mark I, Mark II, Mark III & Mark IV Thomas's?

Also what improvements can we expect in the Mark VI Thomas?

Re: Last Comment
Sorry, I'm currently working on the Mark XVIII Thomas at present.....
Hopefully, it will be less flippant, & have better sanitary habits....

Dave Martin, K-9's co-creator, has passed away, so I guess that makes him K-4-and-a-half now.

Oh. Not sure what to say here. Partly cos I'm an atheist so 'Rest in Peace' is rather pointless, and partly cos I hated seven out of his eight stories so much I'm tempted to say 'Good riddance'. Still, he bestowed darling K9 AND Hand of Fear on the Whoniverse, so I'll resist the temptation.

What effect'll this have on the proposed K9 series? Didn't seem to be going anywhere even when he was alive. Maybe Baker'll give up on it now and K9 can get his bum out of that black hole and trundle round with Sarah Jane as he bloody well should?

Re:last comment
Considering that Jetix is still interested in producing said series, I somehow doubt it....

Tom Baker on K9 (DWM interview): 'That's why I've got bad knees now, what with being a monk in my youth, praying to God, and then on my knees in front of bloody K9. Every two-shot, I was on my knees, or you couldn't do two-shots. My idea was that John [Leeson] should play him on his hind legs, in a dog suit. They didn't like that idea' - bless!

'Yappy the robot dog. Not as much fun as I remember.' - the Eleventh Doctor during his brief retail career. Well, I'm glad he remembers K9 as 'fun' rather than 'that bloody lump of metal that broke down every two minutes'. I don't suppose poor K9 was on TennantDoc OR MattDoc's Farewell Tours, given that he didn't bother going in to give Mark III (or IV or whatever it was) a pat when bidding Sarah farewell and presumably he blew the first two up along with Gallifrey. (Romana MUST have returned there sooner or later - not just because the books and audios say so but because otherwise the Doctor would have zoomed off to E-Space as fast as he did to House's bubble to find the last of his species.)

Invisible Enemy:

K9 claims to be an automaton without emotional circuits. Either he's lying through his non-existent teeth, or the Doctor has a DRASTIC influence on him. (If it was a New Who 'he makes people better' Doctor I'd say osmosis caused K9 to develop a range of emotions, but as it's not, I suspect Tom messing around with the broken-down mutt's circuits every two minutes caused the change.)

K9's photon beam has four levels of intensity? Since when?!

The (boring!) DVD extras talking about K9's design say 'You can't imagine K9 any other way.' Well, YOU may not be able to, but there are some SERIOUSLY sick-minded people in Australia...

Brierley was RELUCTANT to play K9, according to DWM. How DARE he?! (Of course, I simultaneously hold a 'How DARE he?!' attitude towards him playing K9 at all...)

The (boring!) DVD extras talking about K9's design say 'You can't imagine K9 any other way.' Well, YOU may not be able to, but there are some SERIOUSLY sick-minded people in Australia...

Really? Thank goodness they aren't working on the K9 series then. That design is awesome and so much better than the original....

I'm not talking about that design! I'm not THINKING about that design! Oh gods, soon it'll be a new month and a new episode of THAT THING to watch, with The Abomination With The Bone Tattoo floating farting through the air making 'Wheee!' noises...

Rodney, do you derive pleasure from poking Emily with a stick?

You're spot on! He TOTALLY does! He even pretends not to like cats to wind me up, can you BELIEVE it??

That ridiculous- there's no "pretends" when it comes to not liking cats.....

Ah, see how he shamelessly sticks to his ludicrous story! Even though WE ALL KNOW that one look at a fluffy diddums by the name of Tosh had him crooning 'Ickle Precious, come to mummy' faster than Tennant confronted with Thomas Kincaid Brannigan's offspring...

I won't deny a certain affection for a fluffy kitten named Tosh until the day she dumped a dead bird on our doorstep and used the couch as a scratching post (despite the fact that we fed her AND provided her with her own scratching post from her owners...)

This song is my final word on the matter...

Bob Baker in DWM: 'Dave had bought a very classy springer spaniel pup. That one got run over, and then another, and a third. I remember him on one very say day saying, "I wish I could have a mechanical dog that wouldn't get run over." That's where K9 came from' - ah, bless! Even I feel a tiny bit sad. Still, those dawgs didn't die in vain.

'The BBC owned half of [K9]. When it was being made, they asked us to pay for half of it because they were £2,000 short on the budget. It's true! Bloody cheek!' - hadn't the BBC learnt to write their contracts better since the Dalek fiasco? We might have had YEARS of K9-related happiness in the SJA, and NO Australian Abomination!

'Since School Reunion aired, over 180,000 remote-control K9 units have been sold in the UK' - DWM (2007) - you're KIDDING! 180,000 K9s and NONE of them are MINE!

'He is - bizarrely, for a robot dog from the year 5000 - a quintessentially British character. Like Jeeves, he's the deferential but supremely intelligent servant, who delivers dry asides while saving the day. A snob who adores his master, but is slightly impatient of those he believes mentally inferior to him' - Whithouse. Well, I dunno about adoring his master, he abandoned him quick enough in Invasion of Time...

'I feel extremely honoured to still be voicing K9' - John Leeson. As well you should, given that a few pages earlier you were explaining how you BETRAYED AND ABANDONED K9 cos you wanted your stupid FACE known to further your so-called career...

Stones of Blood:

'He's a terrible old gas-bag' - Doctor on K9. Is NOT!

'You've always wanted to be a bloodhound.' 'Negative.' 'Yes you have!' - he'd never bully his HUMAN Companions to QUITE this extent.

'Is he badly damaged?' - YES! SO badly that most of his innards have turned into paper!!!

'We're not all programmed for perfection' - Doctor to K9. Since when has the mutt been programmed for PERFECTION? His batteries are certainly...less than perfect.

Why doesn't K9 spot that the Doctor's wired his hyperspace-gadget wrong when examining it at the cottage?

'I never do say die' - you just have, you moron.

Didn't Tom Baker used to get so frustrated with the K9 prop that he used to boot it across the room when it would ruin a take?

'Because K9 wasn't human, he desperately wanted to be able to match up and impress' - John Leeson in DWM. I never thought of that. Very interesting. And I might even have taken Leeson's word for this (HE ought to know), if only he hadn't also helpfully said 'K9 was, after all, the Doctor's best friend' - which part of the Doctor constantly referring to him as his SECOND-best friend did the guy somehow not grasp...?

'In 1980, the Doctor Who Writers' Guidelines stated that K9 should be a tool of the Doctor's, not a protagonist. "Writers who use the metal mongrel as an autonymous [sic] character...are operating outside the format."' - DWM. JNT was SICK!

Jonathan Morris in DWM: 'What I like most is that [K9] thinks he's the hero...and the Doctor and Romana are his sidekicks.' - Since WHEN!

'It's like any dog - they always think they're the master of the house and the humans are just there to serve them' - wrong animal you moron. What's that old joke about 'A dog says, "You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, and you love me, you must be GOD!" A cat says, "You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, and you love me, I must be God!"'

Be afraid. Click on this link and you may never be the same.

http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/27/theres-a-doctor-who-movie-coming-and-it-will-focus-on-k-9-5464247/

Oh sorry. It's already being discussed.

No reason we shouldn't also discuss it in the K9 thread, especially the DISGUSTING MUTILATION of our metal hero's body.

I mean, it's not MUCH worse that the abomination I watched floating round London (well, London sewers anyway) for twenty-six episodes, but I must have got USED to that one.

John Leeson in DWM: 'What was so good was that the K9 character worked rather more like a cat, with total independence. You don't get this with dogs. Dogs are slavish, they'll cuddle up to you and want to be taken for walks and things like that, he had more of a cat mentality' - AT LAST! One of the great mysteries of my life - WHY do I love THAT DOG? - solved! And by K9 himself!

It's not a dog OR a cat. It's a robot.

Technically speaking, maybe, but he's not REALLY, I mean, we all KNOW what the Doctor does to Companions who are robots. HE KILLS THEM.

Running Through Corridors: 'And look at how much John Lesson's [sic] K-9 has changed too! Cool and brittle all through Season Fifteen, this Mark Two version has been rebuilt by the Doctor as an excitable little kid who wants to go on holiday' - is that TRUE? I have to admit that all of the K9s are much of a muchness as far as I was concerned (providing, of course, that I cover my ears during the ghastly Brierly interregnum and pretend that K9: The Australian Abomination never happened).

Emily's in parrot mode again, I see.

I'm not just regurgitating chunks of various reference books, I'm actually asking a question - DID the first two K9s have drastically different characters and if so, why have we never noticed?

JNT never understood why the kids loved K9

Graham Williams stated that he thought of asking Kenneth Williams to voice K9.

I was about to scream BLASPHEMY! when I remembered my brother endlessly listening to his tape of Kenneth Williams reading some Just Williams stories and...we never got tired of it. That's one great voice and, potentially, one great K9.

K9 being a machine, he can have his voice reprogrammed to sound any way they want, as long as there's one or two lines of dialogue justifying the change.

In theory, but you just have to watch Horns of Nimon to know that this is JUST NOT TRUE.

DWM: Ian Scoones: 'I had already designed a totally different K9 from Tony's, but Tony's was far better than mine. My design was more like a hound of the Baskervilles in heavy armour with fiery breath and dragon eyes' - ?!?!

Louise Jameson: 'It's no secret that there was friction between Tom and I back then (we get on like a house on fire now), so when the lovely John Leeson joined us in the rehearsal room, the atmosphere relaxed so much that they decided to keep him as a regular. And the rest, as they say, is history' - you're JOKING! We acquired our most iconic Companion not because he's an adorable little tin doggie but because of John Leeson, the man who promptly attempted to betray n'abandon us to David Brierley's shrill squeaky noises...?

Tony Harding: 'At the end of the first recording Tom got his long scarf, whipped it around K9's neck, and dragged it across the set as a sort of joke - but he broke the steering mechanism!...we had to spend the best part of a night repairing it' - look, if Tom wants to lasso K9 it should be your HONOUR to stay up all night mending the wretched creature. EVERY night if necessary.

Article on David Brierly’s voice as K9:
http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/chosen-one-of-the-day-those-episodes-of-classic-doctor-who-when-k9s-voice-got-all-weird

Pah. Can you PROVE our favourite mutt was 'a desperate scramble to find a way of Lucasing up their worlds'? Cos I'm pretty sure he WASN'T.

Richard Dawkins MARRIED this woman after she appeared on a programme about ASTROLOGY?

K9 was a reaction to George Lucas's Star Wars i always thought... or Twiki?

K9 preceded Twiki by two years. Therefore, Twiki couldn't have been an inspiration for the mutt's creation.

Oh, god. Someone *has* written TomDoc shagging K9 fic. Who fans know no boundaries...

I'm sorry to tell you--but you've just run into one of the quirks of fanfiction:you can have anybody do anything to anyone else.

I've recently been reading fics about the manga "Love Hina" and have seen the male lead shag just about every named female in the original story(no matter how inappropriate) plus a number of guests from other mangas.(I don't know about him and male characters-not my thing).

And that's not the worst, if you have a weak stomach avoid anything to do with cannibal chef Shinobu--it will gross you out.

Add to that that one of the first fanfics that I remember reading had suggested Ace doing Wesley Crusher in the holodeck, and you can get some into some scary territory.

I guess my point is--I pick your fanfics carefully, or you might regret it.

There's an image I didn't need in my head.

Which one???

Of course Matthew Waterhouse says Adric wanted to romance Nyssa.

Oh, SMEG!!! That's even worse than Wesley!!!!!!

(Has that girl go no standards at all??!!??!!)

She got engaged to Magnus Greel in the Butcher of Brisbane audio, so...no.

Adric was more Twiki.

A lumpen body with an immobile face. Acting made of metal. Comedy sidekick.

Although people tended to like Twiki.

Erin Gray v Lalla Ward and there's no contest. Erin by a mile.

Twiki? Erin?

These are two references to the show "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", a show that ran two seasons around 1980(this is from memory--I don't feel like looking it up).

Twiki was a small humanoid robot that was Bucks sidekick and guide to the time.

Erin Gray played Wilma Deering, Bucks commanding officer and contact with Earth's government (possible a love interest as well).

The first season used Buck(as a man without records(he was forgotten due to being frozen for several hundred years)) as a secret agent protecting Earth

The second sent then out into space on an exploration ship(I think it was called the Seeker) to find lost Human colonies.

And to be fair--Twiki had far more personality than Adric could dream of.

Although I do agree about Erin vs Lalla--Erin all the way.

We never had K9 up against the Daleks though. Probably just as well as either K9 would have been demolished or the Daleks discredited by losing to a robot dog!

FRANCOIS in Classic Who: Season Eighteen: Meglos: Shouldn't K9's programming be sophisticated enough to stop him from doing something he knows can cause him serious damage?

Who knows? We still can't be sure whether Mark II was bought in a K9 shop (as implied by the fact he's got a MANUAL) or built by the Doctor (as we just assumed and I think one of the novelisations claimed). Either way, it's possible that he was programmed by someone seriously paranoid about robots (though of course it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you and boy are they out to get the Doctor) and determined that the mutt would do what it's told by its master/mistress no matter what. (See: Invasion of Time's bizarre K9-threatening-Leela-with-his-nose-gun-after-she-told-him-to-tell-her-to-shut-up.)

Notice that, in Season Eighteen, it seemed that K9 was always getting disabled.

Someone had it out for him, either JNT or Bidmead.

JNT never understood that what made K9 so appealing to little children was that he was a personality not a tool. They could imagine him as their warm protector.

I think it was that appeal that made JNT decide to give K9 his own show.

I wonder, had K9 And Company gone to series, would they have done crossover with Who?

Yeah but in this world the analogue of The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith would feature *Davison*. Imagine that. On second thoughts, don't...

I find it very unlikely that they would have made the exact same stories.

Another bit of K9 bashing in Season 18 was Bill Fraser only appearing in Meglos if he could kick K9!

Hopefully it was the hollow prop he booted.

Yeah, I remember reading about that.

Tom got along with Leeson at the time. He has said he would have preferred Leeson played the actual dog not just done the voice.

Nightmare of Eden:

Ugg ugg, can't the DVDs overdub K9 with the mutt's REAL voice?

'He's not just a mobile blowtorch, you know. He's saved my life on lots of occasions. Beat me at chess, once' - ONCE? Did you tip the chessboard over on every other occasion, then? (And also, one can't help but wonder why s/he didn't get theirself a K9 Mark 4, 5, 6 and however-many-it-takes to ensure that s/he doesn't DIE HORRIBLY for lack of a metal mutt. It's even stupider than not replacing the sonic screwdriver for several incarnations, isn't it.)

STOTT: What is it?
DOCTOR: It's just a perfectly ordinary electric dog. - How DARE you! It's RACISM. S/he NEVER introduces her OTHER Strays as 'perfectly ordinary humans' or anything.

ROMANA: Thank you, K9. That was close.
K9: Two metres, to be precise, mistress. - Either this is an odd coincidence or K9 isn't actually being THAT precise.

They're putting jump-leads on K9 so he can supply them with energy after he's spent ages whizzing round repeatedly shooting Mandrels? In any other story his batteries would have gone flat episodes ago. (Also, Fisk would have given him a good kicking and the Mandrels would be using his decapitated head as a totem, probably.)

'I can only think of one animal who'd be comfortably at home in an electric zoo' - •••• YOU, Romana, he doesn't want to be in a sodding zoo, he wants to explore space and time whilst saving planets, the same as the rest of us!

can't the DVDs overdub K9 with the mutt's REAL voice?

You mean have John Leeson come in and redub the lines?

They probably can't due to rights issues.

You mean have John Leeson come in and redub the lines?

•••• right I do!

They probably can't due to rights issues.

How can there be rights issues when John Leeson IS K9! Even K9: The Australian Abomination realised THAT (if nothing else)!

I mean the rights regarding Nightmare On Eden, not K9.

K9 vs. the "gay" robots from "Star Wars"?

(C3PO: I'm not gay! I'm British! Very, very, British! Help me, Artoo!)

Well, of the other computers K9's fallen in love with, Pips from Purgatory 12 was female, Mentalis was god-knows-what and Mr Smith was male. (Yes I know K9 and Mr Smith had a massively antagonistic relationship AT FIRST but we could all see where it was heading even before Clyde was all 'Get a room, boys' by the end of Season Four.) So K9's definitely bi/omni not gay.

K9 fell in love!?!?

When? Where? HOW??

Fourth Doctor audio Purgatory 12, at least, spaceship computer Pips definitely fell in love with K9 and he cared about her enough to give her an entire back-up of all his files (ultra-conveniently since he got 'killed' a few minutes later and she restored him). Though they then parted with each other without so much as a tear so as love-affairs go it was about as convincing as Leela/Andred.

As for Mentalis - I think we can all read between the lines when K9 spins around on the spot and then chirps 'I have been communicating with the Zeon commandant. It was most interesting' in as cheery a display of post-coital bliss as Ian n'Babs ever managed in The Romans.

And Mr Smith: they did the classic romcom thing of pretending to hate each other for YEARS before they come to an 'equitable arrangement' in Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith and the subtext became text with the aforementioned 'Get a room, boys' line.

Full Circle:

'You can meet your twin, K9' - Yup, Romana will be condemned to a few millennia of stultifying boredom and frustration but as far as the Doctor's concerned, the IMPORTANT thing is that a couple of COMPUTERS get to wag their tails at each other. (Do you think he was LYING all those years he referred to K9 as his SECOND-best-friend?)

Never leave a dawg to drive a TARDIS. Cretinous mutt has just driven her straight into another universe.

'Slow movement is advised, master' - yeah, like you're remotely capable of FAST movement...

K9 looks ADORABLY long-suffering as he bobs along the rough terrain.

Notice that poor K9 kept getting disable all season. JNT and Bidmead were determined to make him suffer, before getting rid of him.

To be fair, the mutt kept breaking down in Seasons 15, 16 and 17 as well...

Dogs. They're just useless.

We still can't be sure whether Mark II was bought in a K9 shop (as implied by the fact he's got a MANUAL) or built by the Doctor (as we just assumed and I think one of the novelisations claimed).

For what it's worth, JODIE! is claiming s/he built the K9 Mark five in The Wonderful Doctor of Oz...

HOW does K9 update his memory-banks whilst on the yellow brick road in the middle of the Land of Fiction? Can't be from the TARDIS data-banks OR from the Land - THEY wouldn't have wiped the Oz knowledge.

'Finally they stood, all five back to back, with K9 in the centre' - as he's shooting at all the scarecrows it would make a lot more sense for him to NOT be behind a human barricade that he could accidentally shoot instead...

'The paths became wonderfully smooth and even. K9 made a metallic sound of relief and stopped to "recharge himself" after the difficult journey' - yeah, he seemed to do that in the middle of the Shada-cartoon-abomination-thing too, but...HOW, exactly?

Why, when inexplicably deciding to abandon the Doctor for Theodore/Dorothy (not that Herself, Graham, Yaz OR Ryan seem to CARE, but then the mutt WAS making stupid jokes about cats), does the dawg change its name to 2-2?

Emily - 'Finally they stood, all five back to back, with K9 in the centre' - as he's shooting at all the scarecrows it would make a lot more sense for him to NOT be behind a human barricade that he could accidentally shoot instead..

Maybe K-9 has the levitation ability that the Australian K-9 has and is technically in the center, but is floating high enough to be shooting over their heads?

Why, when inexplicably deciding to abandon the Doctor for Theodore/Dorothy does the dawg change its name to 2-2?

Not sure why K-9 felt the need to do it, but the writer was clearly going for a pun on Toto from the original Wizard of Oz.

Maybe K-9 has the levitation ability that the Australian K-9 has and is technically in the center, but is floating high enough to be shooting over their heads?

Ugg, certainly not! This PROPER K9 has NOTHING to do with the Australian Abomination!

Plus he had a lot of trouble trundling along all the non-yellow-brick-road terrain, with zero signs of solving the problem by levitating in a ridiculous manner...

Not sure why K-9 felt the need to do it, but the writer was clearly going for a pun on Toto from the original Wizard of Oz.

K9 had wiped the Oz books from his memory-banks so he wasn't trying to do a Toto. If he'd been K9 Mark Four then 2-2 might have almost made sense but for a Mark Five...

Time's Mosaic: 'Tom Baker's K9 was snippy because he wanted to trump the Doctor and demonstrate his own superiority. It was one-upmanship. K9 being childish is funny. Surrounded by actual children, though, this amnesiac K9 [of K9: The Australian Abomination] gets paternal and a bit patronising. The Sarah Jane Adventures made him slushy and cloying' - LIES ALL LIES! (Also, you should differentiate between Tom's two different K9s for completion's sake...)