Year: 2010

A violent storm strikes London, and Starkey and Jorjie are marooned at Professor Gryffen’s house. When the power goes out, Darius, Jorjie and Starkey spot two children in the house – Darius recognizes them as Gryffen’s children, who disappeared with their mother during one of Gryffen’s space-time experiments. Gryffen’s wife appears as well, though she seems to be focused on forcing Gryffen to forget his friends. K-9 is unable to repel the advance of Gryffen’s family, but they’re more than capable of putting him out of commission. Have they really returned, or have bloodthirsty aliens taken their place… and either way, can Gryffen bring himself to stop them?

written by Shayne Armstrong & S.P. Krause
directed by Daneil Nettheim
music by Christopher Elves

Guest Cast: Robyn Moore (Inspector June Turner), Connor Van Vuuren (Drake), Sarah McIntosh (Eleanor Gryffen), Rachael Everett (Mina Gryffen), Joshua McIvor (Jacob Gryffen)

Notes: Starkey reads from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”, while the episode plays off of the title of Poe’s “Fall Of The House Of Usher”. When K-9, Starkey and Jorjie first see the children, the scene is very reminiscent of the appearance of the twins in the classic horror movie The Shining. Scheduled by the producers to be shown seventh in the season, The Fall Of The House Of Gryffen was the third episode shot – and, to date, hasn’t aired in the UK at all. (The airdate for this episode guide entry reflects the Australian premiere date.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Jorjie uses VR glasses to access a virtual encyclopedia during a storm – at exactly the same time that Professor Gryffen is attempting another time-space experiment. Jorjie finds herself in the same place – the site of Gryffen’s lab used to be a London police station – but in a different time, namely 1963. At the height of cold war tensions, Jorjie finds herself in the company of Bill Pike – a dead ringer for his great-grandson, Darius – who is being accused of spying for the Russians. But history doesn’t record his arrest or imprisonment until now, at the same moment that Bill Pike’s future changes, Darius begins to vanish. Now it’s up to K-9 and Starkey to take a very risky trip into the past to free Jorjie and restore the history of Darius’ family.

written by Jason Bourque
directed by Mark DeFriest
music by Christopher Elves

Guest Cast: Robyn Moore (Inspector June Turner), Jared Robinson (Agent Barker), Daniel Murphy (Burley Constable), Corey Robinson (Myles)

Notes: In a sly nod to the origins of the series that spawned K-9, William Pike is shown in a photo to have been booked by police on November 23rd, 1963 – the date of the premiere of Doctor Who. Considering that a Dalek incursion was taking place in and around Shoreditch at the same time, the clumsiness of the MI6 detail assigned to finding and interrogating Bill Pike is understandable; this activity may also explain the lack of immediate official concern about the disappearance of schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. Coincidentally, 1963’s Agent Barker bears a striking resemblance to new Department boss Inspector Thorne (both are played by Jared Robinsen).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Over K-9’s objections (and under his watchful eye), Starkey and Darius attend an open house at the London headquarters of the Department. The boys aren’t there for the official tour, however – they’re at Department HQ to gather intelligence. The absence of ever-present CCPC patrols seems almost too good to be true, but there are other dangers inside: Starkey looks at an unusual framed picture and is sucked into the frame. Darius steals the frame and escapes from the Department as quickly as possible. At Gryffen’s lab, K-9 identifies it as a holographic “library card” from the planet Ukko, a world whose librarians can compress a snapshot of an entire planet into such a card. But it will take a librarian from Ukko to free Starkey before he starves on the isolated planet preserved in the picture…

written by Deborah Parsons
directed by Mark DeFriest
music by Christopher Elves

Guest Cast: Robyn Moore (Inspector June Turner), Jared Robinsen (Inspector Thorne), Cathey Robinsen (Librarian)

Notes: Inspector Thorne mentions that the Department is a presence in the UK, the Americas and “the Pacific Union”.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Starkey stokes the fires of a protest gathering against the Department, but the CCPCs present are simply too slow-witted to find him. But Starkey, K-9 and Jorjie are surprised when they find a CCPC who’s even dimmer than his fellow cyborgs: he’s too busy birdwatching to apprehend potential agitators. When this particular CCPC helps the kids hide from the other CCPC patrols, Jorjie is certain that this particular cyborg is somehow evolving into something more than the average robotic thug deployed by the Department. What they don’t know is that this CCPC – nicknamed “Birdie” by Jorjie – is the result of an experiment to see if the CCPCs can be made more ruthless with the addition of human emotions and instincts. All Birdie knows is that he doesn’t want to go back to being like the rest of the Department’s henchmen, and K-9 and his friends risk everything to help him escape.

written by John O’Brien
directed by James Bogle
music by Christopher Elves

Guest Cast: Robyn Moore (Inspector June Turner), Jared Robinsen (Inspector Thorne), Thomas Calder (Marcus), Josh Norbido (Birdie), Peter Kent (voice of Birdie)

Notes: Starkey says that he “used to be known as” Stark Reality, his nickname from the pilot episode, a further indication that the series writers are attempting to distance themselves from the darker premise of the early episodes. Peter Kent, who provides Birdie’s voice, is also the drama and dialogue coach for the series’ young cast.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Across Britain, millions of kids fall victim to a popular massively-multiplayer virtual reality game, whose headsets first render their victim “players” comatose and then begins to mutate them with alien DNA. Never one to fall for trends, Starkey remains unaffected, and he and K-9, along with Inspector Turner, pay a visit to the game’s makers. There, they find a powerful telepathic being is behind the addictive game – and that the creature has seized control with the full knowledge of some of Turner’s cohorts at the Department in a bid for total mind control of the population. But even the Department can’t control this intruder.

written by Shayne Armstrong & S.P. Krause
directed by James Bogle
music by Christopher Elves

Guest Cast: Robyn Moore (Inspector June Turner), Jared Robinsen (Thorne), Dash Kruck (John: The Custodian), Josh Norbido (CCPC), Jason McNamara (CCPC), Dane Paltman (CCPC), Tarek Beheiry (Etydien)

LogBook entry by Earl Green