Classic Who spin-off: K-9 and Company pilot, 'A Girl's Best Friend'

I had low expectations of this, assuming that because the pilot hadn't turned into a proper series, it must have been a bit rubbish. I saw the opening titles once, and they didn't help with that impression - Sarah Jane mainly looks like a zombie in them, and the tune is very silly (though in quite a cool way).

Actually, though, it's really great - a good mystery, a witty, pacey script, lots of Gothic staples, bonus Colin Jeavons and Elisabeth Sladen doing kung-fu! We finally get to meet her Aunt Lavinia, who reminds me enormously of the wonderful Professor Amelia Rumford from The Stones of Blood, and the overall set up of Sarah Jane finding herself in the middle of a community where everyone is clearly collaborating to conceal dark secrets from her rather reminded me of The Wicker Man, too.

Above all, though, it is very much a proto-Sarah Jane Adventures - so much so, that I found the SJA theme-tune going round my head as I watched. The biggest similarity is in Sarah Jane's side-kick, Brendan. He's not actually made by aliens, but he is incredibly geeky, taking extra O-levels, reading avidly and enthusiastically discussing the finer points of computer engineering with K-9. Even his speech patterns were rather like Luke's, and he proves himself to be of true Classic companion calibre by getting captured and almost sacrificed by a Satanic circle.

I've expressed my views on K-9 before, so I think we can take the fact that he is awesome as scientifically established. ;-) But he does enhance his own excellence here by engaging in shooty laser action to comic effect, attempting to sing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' and being blessedly free of battery issues throughout the story. It's a pity the message he brought from the Doctor showing that he has remembered Sarah and still cares about her had been forgotten all about by the time School Reunion was written, but I notice that Sarah's practice of driving around in the car with him propped on the back seat and looking between the two front seats is common to both, which is sweet.

All in all, excellent stuff, and quite surprisingly in keeping with K-9's original era for something in which JNT and Eric Saward were so closely involved. Who knows how it would have panned out if more had been made, but then again it hardly matters now, since we have The Sarah Jane Adventures anyway. It's just a pity K-9 has got lost along the way. :-(

Click here to view this entry with minimal formatting.

1. Jane Austen (1811), Sense and Sensibility

I did enjoy this, but by the time I got to about chapter 9, I began to feel that it didn't quite have the same depth and complexity as the other Austen novels I've read to date: Pride and Prejudice and Emma. I wondered whether this might be because it was an earlier effort that the other two, and when I checked, this turned out to be true - although she actually also wrote Pride and Prejudice between her original draft of S&S and the final, and significantly revised, published version, so things are a bit more complicated than their publication dates alone would suggest.

Compared to Austen's other novels, even the main characters here feel rather like stereotypes, and although Marianne in particular does develop over the course of the novel, it is not a particularly surprising or challenging course of development. The three men who become involved in the sisters' lives also seem rather deficient from a 21st-century point of view. Willoughby is a slimy, lying bastard, Edward Ferrars is as dull as ditchwater, and Colonel Brandon is self-centred and manipulative. I'm particularly curious as to whether Austen meant Willoughby's 'explanation' of his behaviour towards Marianne to sound convincing or reasonable. Since the sister who represents 'Sense' is swayed by it, I can only assume so, but to me it read like the worst kind of back-pedalling worming - the sort of stuff which the Sex and the City girls would see straight through. Then again, the entire plot revolves around social norms which Carrie and her friends would laugh at, so it's hardly fair to hold it up to the same standards.

The social satire and humour I associate with Austen is definitely here, though. I especially enjoyed Mr. Palmer and his wife as comic characters, although that view may be partly influenced by Hugh Laurie's brilliant performance as Mr. Palmer in the film. I also found myself wondering, in the light of Clueless, how this novel would play as a high school drama - and I think the answer is extremely well. Compared to most adult women today, the concerns and priorities of Austen's characters do appear rather green and teenaged, and if marriage to a man of fortune is only replaced by an invite to the prom date from a member of the high-school band, football team or whatever, the rest of the plot continues to work pretty well.

Finally, I owe an apology to the author of An American Boy. I complained when I read that about what seemed to me the over-done mannerism of writing all street-names in the format 'Wellington-terrace' instead of 'Wellington Terrace', feeling that it was a case of trying too hard to evoke a period feel. But it really is exactly what Jane Austen does with total consistency throughout this book - along with other idiosyncratic spellings like 'chuse', 'shew' and most interestingly 'our's' and 'her's'. I like that last one particularly, because it is one in the eye for the people who seem to believe that there was once a Golden Age of spelling in which everyone knew exactly how to use an apostrophe. I fear there never was - but I also believe that is no reason not to try to create one in the present.

Click here to view this entry with minimal formatting.