K9: Fear Itself

There is a certain emerging sense in this series that the makers have just written down a shopping list of modern Who-isms and soullessly reproduced them here in the hope of becoming as popular.

This week, as well as the regular recycled ingredients, the story takes a back seat to the characters having to confront their worst fears. If that seemed contrived in Night Terrors, The God Complex, and The Nightmare Man, then the same laziness here is at least consistent. Hang on, weren't those three other stories made after this one? Well, score one for K9 then!

Once again though, despite some lacklustre editing and acting, K9's edge is the characters' level-headedness about the topic. While Darius has more to get his acting teeth into this week, Starkey's wisdom gives the impression of a much deeper character than he's previously demonstrated. The plot is so thin as to not even be worth mentioning - even the scriptwriters don't seem to have bothered much. All the same, K9's confrontation with his first emotions was handled quite well and evenly.

Overall, this is going well.

I keep saying that don't I?