Doctor Who’s beloved robot dog is getting his own children’s show

A familiar face from Doctor Who is getting his own spin-off: Everyone’s favorite robot doggo, K9!

Doctor Who robot dog and time traveling Good Boy K9 may not have made an appearance in the TARDIS in several years (read: decades), but we’ll get to see him again soon all the same.

According to British newspaper the Mirror, K9 will be the “standalone hero” in a new spin-off project aimed at children.

(I mean, let’s not be ageist, BBC. I’d watch a K9 show!)

The popular little tin dog made his first appearance back in 1977 alongside Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor. K9 later appeared during David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor era, as well as on several subsequent specials and spin-offs, most notably The Sarah Jane Adventures opposite the late, great Elisabeth Sladen.

This time around, we’ll apparently see a version of K-9 that’s a little bit more battered and bruised from the hard life of a space dog. His new beat-up look will apparently be the result of a…space war? Which, IMO, is not exactly the kind of child friendly content that I’d go with, but I guess that’s why I don’t work in television production.

“He’s going to look more industrial and be covered in rivets,” a source told the Mirror.  

Again, a look that’s just made for children’s merchandising….

At any rather, us hardcore Whovians will doubtless take what we can get, and happyily tune-in to watch the adventures of our favorite metal mutt.

There’s just one slight, very minor problem.

So far, this proposed series doesn’t have a distributor, even though it’s reportedly being produced in the U.K. That means that if some network that isn’t the BBC picks it up – say, a Netflix or an Amazon Prime – then the show won’t be allowed to use Doctor Who references at all, which would definitely make explaining small things such as K9’s existence a bit problematic.

(Not for nothing, the idea of a show about a robot space dog battling aliens is pretty great, just from a conceptual standpoint. But it just wouldn’t be K9 without the Doctor.)

Then again, I can’t imagine why a network other than the BBC would want this show, given that it’s basically impossible to market or talk about it without the Doctor Who connection. But, stranger things have happened, I suppose.

Doctor Who itself won’t return to our screens until early 2020.