K9: Aeolian

Starkey: "What's happening?!?"

K9: "Powerful winds of extreme force, otherwise known as a hurricane!"

Starkey: "In London?????"

Yes, Starkey, in London. It's probably Wimbledon fortnight.

London is getting battered by hurricanes. I love that the Australian writers think that this is all so out of the ordinary.

The characters are quoting My Fair Lady, either being deadpan with each other, or just by coincidence. I love that the writers' research stretches to a song from 1956 but not the news.

As usual, the banter between the characters is one of K9's strengths. In fact this episode has quite a few of them. Not least the soundtrack which keeps up the storm's intensive battering throughout.

However in the midst of what becomes a planet-wide disaster, as soon as Jorjie is pinioned down by a piece of falling masonry, we know that the word 'deadweight' isn't going to apply to her predicament in just the one way.

Another of K9's strengths is its disregard for dwelling upon the characters feelings, but in this one they suicidally have a go at it. If Jorjie's motionless groaning isn't reason enough to fast forward, they actually send Darius to join her to talk about their feelings for each other. Oh, just bring back the CGI, please.

Notable connections, or disconnections, from the rest of the Doctor Who canon include:

1. The line about nobody controlling Earth's weather. The series must therefore take place before the establishment of the Gravitron in The Moonbase.

2. That the weather is affected by music, which is nicely consistent with the later broadcast A Christmas Carol.

3. Gryffen gets yet another line about the history of Centauri. Either quite a lot has gone down there, or more likely this is one particular area of space upon which he has intel.

The alien responsible for all this chaos doesn't appear for quite a while, giving the impression that it must be quite large and ethereal. In the end though, it's just someone with a bowl on their head.


Here things get a bit confused. Quite how Starkey's tune manages to attract the alien's mate, came across to me as just a huge coincidence. June's line about birds having set mating calls is another example of the writing's lack of global perspective. (birds' calls vary around the world)

At one point a reply message comes in from the Orpheus constellation 10,000 light years away. Well, if it's a sound wave impossibly travelling through the vacuum of space, then even if it somehow travels at light speed, it must have been sent 10,000 years ago. Professor Gryffen has the answer. "It's very faint." Groan.

Darius: "Can you dumb this down a bit?"

Basically the chaos of the weather gives way to the chaos of wrapping the story up, but I am pleased that the show is continuing to make some effort over itself.

Unlike in the final scene, when K9 asks everyone to define love.

Sheesh, does he not even have a dictionary file in there?

Overall though, this entry continues the trend set last week, with the series making another big effort over itself. It ought to - there are an insane number of production companies collaborating on this, so many that the closing music just can't run for long enough to credit them all at the end, and has to repeat sections.

What a shame that the BBC isn't one of them.