SJA #0 : A Girl's Best Friend

Brendan Richards: "Who is the Doctor?"
K-9: "Affirmative."

Episode 0:      A Girl's Best Friend.
Companions:  Sarah Jane Smith and K9.
Air Date:        28th December 1981.

Sarah Jane Smith is looking forward to a quiet Christmas with her aunt Lavinia in the sleepy village of Moreton Harwood. When she arrives, she finds her aunt missing and a surprise gift from an old friend waiting to be opened. Sarah, K9 and her aunt's ward, Brendan Richards, are caught up in the affairs of a mysterious cult who practise the black arts and are preparing for a human sacrifice.

A Girl's Best Friend was the pilot episode for a planned spin off series featuring Sarah Jane Smith and the new K9 mark III. It was never picked up and so remains just a single episode. It is a weak adventure and you can easily see why it was never picked up. Unlike the future Sarah Jane Adventures it doesn't feature aliens, monsters and the usual trappings of the Whoniverse. It deals purely with an investigation into a pagan cult who seek the aid of the goddess Hecate in growing their crops. It tries to pull off elements of The Daemons but purely human centric and with a lot less respect for those beliefs. Saying that though, unlike Torchwood, the show does not do anything to make it feel outside of the Whoniverse that we have come to know.

It is good to see Sarah Jane back again and she is once again the tough strong female reporter that we first encountered in The Time Warrior. Very different from the more typical female companion that she was when we last saw her.

K9 is referred to as "Mark III" in this story because he is actually the third robot dog of the same configuration owned by the Fourth Doctor. The first K9 chose to stay with Leela on Gallifrey in The Invasion of Time, whereas K9 Mark II was forced to stay with Romana in E-Space due to being damaged by time winds in Warriors' Gate.

Sadly it is a rather forgettable episode but at least we can maybe give it some credit for bringing the Sarah Jane Adventures to us many years later.