Right, I was intending to save this one until the festive season, since for many people like myself, this story is the ultimate Doctor Who Christmas Special.
Which must sound strange, because it's not really a Doctor Who story at all.
Having failed to tempt Elizabeth Sladen to rejoin the cast of Proper Who for the Baker/Davison transition period of Seasons Eighteen and Nineteen, John Nathan-Turner hit upon the wheeze of a Doctor Who spin-off series. Certain tabloid newspapers therefore claimed victory in their "Save K-9" campaigns, and the JN-T media love-in continued apace.
This wasn't an original concept. Whilst a mooted series based on the adventures of Jago and Litefoot of "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" fame could have been a contender, William Hartnell's legendary "Son of Doctor Who" idea was merely a flight of fancy.
Anyway, as all modern Doctor Who is to my mind basically unwelcome spin-offs from the original series, I'm pretty much down with the concept, thank you.
So, what have we got here? Well, basically it's the pilot episode for an ultimately uncommissioned series called "K-9 and Company" and not a Christmas Special at all. Cunningly using the yuletide period in the narrative allowed John Nathan-Turner to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and the fact that it followed hot on the heels of the "Five Faces of Doctor Who" repeat season really made it feel like JN-T genuinely loved us all.
Bill Fraser there, who allegedly accepted the role of General Grugger in Season Eighteen's "Meglos" on the condition that he could kick K-9, must have been fucking delighted at being given a second chance in such a short space of time.
And it's always great to see the much-underused Colin Jeavons, fresh from his definitive Max Quordlepleen in the 1981 TV version of THHGTTG.
Unusually for Terence Dudley, "A Girl's Best Friend" has a cracking script. The BBC's "A Ghost Story For Christmas" strand and related dramas that aired annually throughout most of the 1970's was responsible for the popularity of gothic malarkey aired during the festive season, and the "K-9 and Company" pilot fits into that niche quite comfortably.
Strange goings-on in a rural village, shifty locals, covens of yokel devil-worshippers (a popular obsession of Sunday newspapers at the time), and the vaguely related outsider who's never in one place long enough to lick a stamp.
All tropes are present and correct, with the addition of a mechanical dog and (if you're not JN-T) an unlikely choice of virgin sacrifice.
And it all works. Whether it would have made for a good series or not is anybody's guess. And the really great thing is that boring idiots can't dismiss it as non-canon due to everything that has been done since, from "The Five Doctors" through "School Reunion" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures".
Or whatever they're fucking called.
Or whatever they're fucking called.
So why look at all this now, rather than at Christmas when it would have seemed so much more topical?
Well, today I appear to have acquired a dog.
Despite not being anything remotely like a "dog-person", ten hours in and things seem to be going reasonably well.
Mind you, it hasn't shat everywhere and chewed any of my books yet.
Anyway, in the words of Ian Levine, "Do-doo-doo-DOO-doo. Doo-doo-doo-de-DOO-de-doo. K-9!!"
See you all on December 28th for 35 Glorious Years...
