K9 (TV series)


 * For the character of the same name, see K-9.

K-9 is a proposed spin-off television series featuring the robotic dog K-9, which will be produced in Australia by Jetix Europe and Stewart Wall Entertainment.

Talk of a spin-off featuring K-9 dates back to late 2006-early 2007 as the BBC Wales production team were gearing up to create two additional Doctor Who spin-offs, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. The character of K-9 had been revived for the 2006 Doctor Who episode School Reunion, which also featured the return of Sarah Jane Smith. Both Sarah Jane and K-9 had been featured in an earlier, unsuccessful attempt at a spin-off series entitled K-9 and Company in 1981.

School Reunion led to near-immediate plans to launch the Sarah Jane Adventures spin-off, however the rights to K-9 were obtained by other parties, for the purposes of creating a separate spinoff. According to news reports in mid-2007, the K-9 series will "feature a blend of live-action and CGI: K9 himself would be a CGI creation, but the show would otherwise be recorded in front of cameras."

The first season of the series is planned for 26 episodes of 30 minutes apiece, which would make it a more extensive season than any so-far produced for the revived Doctor Who, Torchwood, or The Sarah Jane Adventures.

In June 2008 it was announced that production would begin on the series in July 2008, with all or some of the episodes being written by the co-creator of K-9, Bob Baker. Other announced writers include Shane Krause and Shayne Armstrong. The series will be produced by Simon Barnes, Richard Stewart and Penny Wall. Due to licencing issues, the robot dog has been extensively redesigned. The series is not expected to have any obvious connection to the Doctor Who universe. It will be the first Doctor Who-related series to not be produced or co-produced by the BBC and not be produced in Great Britain (discounting the 1996 Doctor Who telefilm which was filmed in Canada).

These licensing issues also prevented K-9 from making more than cameo appearances in The Sarah Jane Adventures. To date, K-9 has only appeared, briefly, in Invasion of the Bane and The Lost Boy, both in 2007, and a crossover appearance on DW: Journey's End in 2008. It's not known if K-9 will appear again in any of the BBC Whoniverse series once the separate K-9 series begins in earnest.