The tables are turned on River as she finds herself a house pet…

Alfie Shaw’s tale for River and K9 (well, lots of K9s) takes a weird idea as its starting point, and then proceeds to deal with it as only River can. She’s taken from the pound by her new owners – a mechanical dog and a robot cat FE- (pronounced feline) – and has to start to piece together why she’s there, who she can trust, and what she can do about it. The usual routines regarding pets are turned on their head – so it’s the K9 units who are taking their humans for a walk – and it takes quite a bit of time for River to get the chance to start to get information. In fact, the pacing on the whole story is slightly off; there’s a long piece of backstory explanation once the villain of the piece is revealed.

It’s always fun to hear John Leeson get something different to do other than the standard “Affirmative, Master” and Tracy Wiles’ FE- makes a good foil for him. However, this feels a little like a 45 minute episode has been extended to an hour duration.

Verdict: A neat conceit, but its pacing isn’t as sharp as you might expect. 6/10

Paul Simpson

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