K9 isn’t
the Doctor’s only inorganic companion (Kamelion, we hardly knew ye,) but he is
the best known and definitely the most fun.
He’s also, thanks to his post-Four-era connection to Sarah Jane, one of
the few classic Who companions to
carry over into the modern Whoniverse.
This is everyone’s favorite tin dog.
Despite
not being alive, K9 first encounters the Doctor like any other companion does,
meeting him in the middle of one of his adventures and then accompanying him on
the TARDIS afterwards, first with Leela and then with Romana and later
Adric. He spends the better part of four
seasons on the show, which might technically make him the longest-running
companing, although his actual presence in the series doesn’t make it feel that
way. For one, he’s always very much a
secondary companion – more like Mickey than Rory, despite his longevity on the
show – and for another, he’s absent for a handful of stories over the course of
his tenure. The in-story reasons are
usually some technical problem or another, circuits in need of rewiring and the
like, but I imagine that the real reason is often down to the difficulty of
maneuvering the electronic K9 prop over anything less than smooth terrain.
But of
course, not much point in talking about the times when he isn’t around. How ‘bout when he is? In some ways, K9 is just a movable talking
computer, or perhaps a suped-up sonic screwdriver, and his place on team TARDIS
is largely functional. His memory banks
store all kinds of pertinent facts he can spout on request, he can analyze everything
from data to biological matter, he’s capable of interphasing with most any
computer, and he’s equipped with a stun gun.
To a large extent, he’s a fancy gadget that the Doctor and his
companions can use to get the job done.
But
that’s not all there is to him. He’s
also a character in his own right, even if his personality is very programmed
and kind of pedantic. I like his
tendency to take things literally, defining things like “piece of cake” instead
of taking them as the idioms the Doctor intends. He’s also quick to correct anyone who
anthropomorphizes him too much, like when he’s asked, “How are you feeling?”
after a malfunction is repaired. He
gives occasional input on team TARDIS’s plans and pokes holes in the Doctor’s
sometimes-inventive logic.
Plus,
there’s just something fun about him being designed to look like a dog. I love the little details, like his tail
being an antenna and what looks like tiny satellite dishes for ears. The Doctor and co. treat him like both a dog
and a computer, and there’s something so endearing about watching the Doctor
lose at chess to K9, try to convince him he’s always wanted to be a bloodhound,
or call him “my best friend.” Aw.
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