wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (07/18/84)
I would say I liked K-9; however, he seems to be treated much too inconsistently by the multiple writers. Either he is a dog or he isn't. Either he is a reliable super-machine or he isn't. Not sometimes yes and sometimes no. At times he has to ask/order people to get brought down from a table, rescued from a boat, or otherwise saved from his seeming incapability to handle movement on other than flat surfaces. Other times, he appears as a "deus ex machina" without regard to stairways, rugged terrain, or other obstacles which would actually prevent his getting there if his movements were really so restricted. This sort of thing is annoying. His powers seem to last as long as the writer-of-the-episode-in-question seems to wish them too; then, when it is convenient to add difficulties to the plot, suddenly he needs to recharge. (And he just recharges with an arbitrarily-variable amount of time; he doesn't need to plug-in onboard the Tardis or locate sunlight, heat, or any other energy source.) This is just sloppy writing. I like K-9 because I like dogs. Even mechanical ones. Even ones with insides made of a few surplus printed circuit cards glued together randomly (ever notice the silly internal construction shown when his side panels are off?). But Dr. Who cries out for a consistent overall control of the "Dr. Who Universe" in some form of writers' guide, like was prepared for Star Trek. (It didn't solve all the problems created by multiple writers there, either, but it helped a lot!) Such control could make the use of K-9, the Tardis, assistants, guests, stowaways and assorted hangers-on, etc. much more acceptable. Somebody zip back in time to when this was being planned at the BBC and sit in on a few conferences and nudge them into planning a bit better, please... Will