April 25: "The Fall of the House of Gryffen" / "Jaws of Orthrus" / "Dream-Eaters" (K-9)

Three episodes of K-9 today, as I'm trying to maintain both series order and broadcast order.  For whatever reason "The Fall of the House of Gryffen" didn't air until 12 June 2009 (the same day as "The Lodger"), so I'm squeezing it in before the two episodes that did air the weekend of 17 April.

These three episodes continue the trend of being middling, mildly entertaining kid's fare.  "The Fall of the House of Gryffen" does a nice job of building up an effective, creepy atmosphere, as Gryffen's house is visited by the ghosts of his wife and children.  Only they're not ghosts, they're actually some sort of non-corporeal beings trying to take on physical form by leeching off of Jorjie and Darius, and who've taken on the form of Gryffen's family.  There's some surprisingly nifty work in this story -- the way the children fade out of existence, leaving an outline behind that also fades, is really nice, and the makeup on the "ghostly" family is genuinely impressive.  Countering that, however, is a plot which does spend a bit too much time having Jorjie and Darius being "helplessly" sucked into the portal created by the space-time manipulator while Gryffen comes to terms with the fact that this isn't actually his family, and that our three heroes in fact are his family now.  But this is a minor quibble, and despite the "laughing" end, this is a decent episode.

The Department deals with opposition to their plan to put
microchips in everyone. ("Jaws of Orthrus") ©Screen Australia,
Pacific Film and Television Commission Pty Limited, Park
Entertainment Limited, Cutting Edge Post Pty Limited, and Metal
Mutt Productions Pty Limited

The second episode of the day, "Jaws of Orthrus", is more interesting because it focuses more on K-9 and how Drake is a slimeball.  For some reason the Department seems surprised at the opposition to their plan to put chips in everyone (well, June seems surprised), although it's somewhat surprising that we don't see the CCPCs trying to shut the protest down.  Some of the signs are hilarious though -- my favorite is "We are human not humachine!"

But the actual focus of the episode is on K-9, who's seen trying to assassinate Drake.  They actually do a nice job with the question of whether K-9 did in fact go on the attack, and while there's not really any doubt in the audience's mind, they do keep the door open on the possibility, which is a nice touch.  The only issue is that the target of the attack was Drake, and while we probably all want to see him go, it's a pretty big hint that shenanigans are afoot.

Of course, the title is the clue: Drake's made a K-9 clone (under the codename "Operation Orthrus" -- Orthrus being the brother of Cerberus, hence the clue) so that he can get a warrant for the real K-9 and take him apart.  It's actually a clever idea, and leads to the hilarious moment of the fake K-9 shooting up Darius's beloved car Mariah and writing K9 WOZ 'ERE on the windscreen.  Sadly, we don't get the full K-9 vs K-9 shootout we should've, but there's a brief clash and I suppose that'll have to do.  So overall it's a reasonably entertaining episode, complete with Drake trying to sweet-talk Darius over to his side, and while it won't win any awards or anything, it's fun while it lasts.  Even Connor Van Vuuren's reined in his performance -- things must really be looking up.

Darius, Starkey, and Gryffen, wearing tinfoil hats to shield
themselves from psychic energy. ("Dream-Eaters") ©Screen
Australia, Pacific Film and Television Commission Pty Limited,
Park Entertainment Limited, Cutting Edge Post Pty Limited,
and Metal Mutt Productions Pty Limited

It's the last episode of the day, "Dream-Eaters", that might be the best, however.  This is almost like an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, concerned as it is not with Drake's latest villainous scheme but instead with an alien artifact that's putting all of London (and possibly the world) to sleep.  Other than the really obvious studio backlot (with a shot of the London skyline stuck in the background), this looks pretty impressive as well, with the Bodach being a nice design.  Oh, and that's another parallel with The Sarah Jane Adventures/Doctor Who: the main villain, the Bodach, appears to be an old legend, the Celtic equivalent of the Bogeyman (and is sort of the male equivalent of the Cailleach -- see The Stones of Blood).  But in fine Who tradition, the Bodach is an alien entity that feeds off of people's dreams -- but it needs a focal point, and when the Department recently unearthed a structure with two special red gems, this was enough to awaken the Bodach.  So we get scenes with people sleepwalking, under the Bodach's control, while the Prof tries to enter the dreamworld to confront the Bodach.  It's great fun, and it's a nice move to make June the physical host for the Bodach -- it keeps the Bodach suitably mysterious, and it isn't Drake under the mask (like I half-suspected), which is welcome.

The introduction of ancient legends and mysticism into this show is a smart move.  It's sort of hard to see them going down this road again, just because of the nature of what we've seen thus far on K-9, but if they did it's clear, based on "Dream-Eaters", that they could get quite a bit of mileage out of this approach.  This is probably the best episode this show has yet produced.