Mind Snap ( TV story ) Mind Snap was the twenty - second episode of series 1 of " K9 " . It was a , the first of its kind in the " Doctor Who " franchise . Synopsis . K9 is using the space - time manipulator to try to recall events before his arrival and regeneration . Gryffen and Starkey discover him linked to the machine . This creates a feed - back and K9 loses all control of his memory and programming . He becomes a danger to everyone and starts his self destruct programme . Plot . The STM is activated as K9 watches . Gryffen and Starkey walk in . Starkey says the STM is doing something to K9 again . K9 has been recalling scrambled information since this morning and collapses . Later , Gryffen is working on K9 . He says siphoning temporal power from the STM is very dangerous . K9 says it ' s a calculated risk and there is an even bigger connection between him and the STM than they thought . Starkey says there has to be some other way of finding the connection . After Gryffen activates the STM to full power , K9 warns he is entering attack mode . As Gryffen and Starkey duck , K9 fires , causing an explosion . Starkey and Gryffen are unharmed , but K9 is gone . He returns and warns them to stay back . He detects an alien and fires at Gryffen , who evades the shot . Starkey tells him it ' s Gryffen . K9 says he does not compute and warns him to retreat or he will fire again . K9 remembers when Gryffen worked on K9 , imprinted the sound of a ball in his memory and played fetch . K9 identifies him as human and stands down . Starkey and Gryffen are relieved until he refers to himself as a dog rather than a unit . K9 says his archives are scrambled . Gryffen has Starkey get his VR goggles as this is more serious than he thought . Gryffen gets ready to find out what the connection between K9 and the STM is . They start at the beginning , when he first came through the STM , fighting the Jixen warriors and looking " a bit different " and " really like a dog " . They see his battle with the Jixen and his self - destruction . Starkey tells K9 he self - destructed and saved him . Gryffen notes he sustained no damage when he came through the portal , then changed . They see Jorjie and Starkey and how he protected them and then regenerated . K9 tries to remember Starkey . He recalls when Starkey spoke his first words to him to convince him he wasn ' t a Jixen . K9 recognises Starkey as " young master " and asks for walkies . Gryffen tells Starkey it ' s best to play along until his memory returns . Starkey confirms he is his master but they aren ' t going for walkies now . They ask K9 who else he remembers . K9 remembers Jorjie and Darius finding him incapacitated by the phosphane gas and Darius seeing the Korven leech Gryffen . He tried to focus but shut down . Darius got angry and took action . The Korven started to drain Darius . Starkey told K9 to fire his photon beam and K9 killed the Korven . K9 starts acting strange . He is remembering when he encountered a hallucination of a Jixen . K9 warns Gryffen to keep back or he will incapacitate him . He is experiencing something like a dream . He remembers the time he fought the Bodach . He tried to destroy the Obelisk but June was too close while putting the second eye in . K9 tried to ram into the Obelisk but it was protected by a shield and he bounced off . Jorjie put on the helmet and went into the Dreamworld to wake June . K9 was then able to destroy the Obelisk . K9 says he is dangerous . He remembers the time the team hid from Ahab in Darius ' hideout in the sewers . As Starkey , Darius and Jorjie ate , K9 was " defragging " . Jorjie wondered if K9 had assassinated Zanthus Pia . All but Starkey had gone to sleep . Starkey petted K9 . He accessed the remains of his memory and encounter with Zanthus Pia . The clip showed K9 ' s HUD stating Zanthus must be destroyed , then glitched and cut to Zanthus ' remains . K9 decided he he was a murderer . When K9 remembers this , he arms his cannon . He shoots , turning the STM off . Gryffen tells K9 he almost hit the STM . K9 could have destroyed their only chance of figuring out his connection to it and getting him back to his own time . K9 says doesn ' t remember his own time as he is only a dog . Starkey says he ' s K9 and he has to help them help him . K9 remembers his purpose : to protect humans . He recalls when they met with Thorne so he could give them the base of the Ukkan library card . They doubled - crossed Thorne , sucking him into the card . He asks who the " tall human " who he feels like biting is . Starkey tells him that Thorne is a Department Inspector . K9 doesn ' t remember the Department . He remembers when Jorjie stayed over as a storm raged . When her mother called , Drake asked who she was talking to and she hung up . He remembers June saying K9 is under the control of the Department , her section and not security . She gave Gryffen responsibility for K9 and made K9 and the team the official " K9 Unit " . Gryffen tells K9 about June and says that he has great respect for her . K9 says his short - term memory is incomplete . He turns off the STM . The directives from the STM are in conflict with his programming . Starkey asks what that means . K9 says it means his existence is an error and the logical solution is to self - destruct . He starts his one - minute count down , warning Starkey and Gryffen to get out of the room . Gryffen tells K9 to stop and that he , not the STM , controls his own directives , and that he ' s being illogical . K9 says that to say he is illogical is illogical . Gryffen asks if he remembers the Anubian s who made him think he was a god . K9 remembers when Gryffen , Starkey and Jorjie were controlled by the Anubians and Darius arrived and woke him . K9 turned his attention to Darius and explained running memory scans meant he couldn ' t concentrate on anything else . K9 went back to his memory search as the Anubians grabbed Darius . Geb told Darius his audience with K9 was at an end . When Darius left , Nehetka suggested an attitude adjustment and he ' d make a fine court jester . K9 says there is a programme conflict between him and the STM . The logical procedure is to erase memory and reboot , but Starkey refuses to let him . Gryffen gets an idea and asks if he remembers the ball . As he drops it , K9 tries to remember . He recalls when he was disabled in a dustbin and Gryffen tried to wake him up . Gryffen watched a recording of his family and told K9 that if he survived and Starkey and Darius didn ' t , he would never forgive himself . When K9 didn ' t respond Gryffen made a sound that K9 was familiar with , dropping a ball over and over . K9 reactivated . His living metal frame required down time to repair and his combat shielding had now done its job . K9 made his way to Dauntless prison . Gryffen tells him he is a machine and not a dog . He throws the ball and K9 goes to fetch it . K9 is surprised they are friends with a machine . Starkey points out that K9 is friends with machines , too . Starkey asks K9 if he can remember Chuckles and Boris . K9 recalls when he was undercover in Crashclub . His crate was opened by two robot clown s , Chuckles and Boris . Chuckles told him refuelling was almost over . K9 said he was supposed to be delivered to the gladiator pens . Chuckles told him that they were in the pens and they were the gladiators . Chuckles said he and Boris used to be clowns but Freddie owned them , so like it or not they were gladiators , as was K9 . Gryffen says K9 became Chuckles ' friend , just as he became his and Starkey ' s friend . They ' re all in this together . Gryffen says K9 has to override the directive from the STM and hooks him back up to it . Starkey fears there ' s a " but " . Gryffen says the but is that he risks losing all his memory and forgetting his friends . He says he has made his choice . K9 must override the directives . The STM is not K9 ' s master . Gryffen puts the STM on full power . Starkey tells K9 to come to him , calling him " good dog " . He comes up and says he is a cybernetic construction containing quantum consciousness capable of logical deduction and he is not a dog . Gryffen is relieved to see he ' s back to normal and tells K9 they may never know how the STM did this to him and it ' s too dangerous to find out . K9 explains he does not have to risk remembering his past . He may not be a dog , but remembers he is a faithful friend . Starkey and Gryffen agree and smile at him . References . " to be added " Story notes . Ratings . " to be added " Myths . " to be added " Filming locations . " to be added " Production errors . " to be added " Home video releases . This episode is featured in the following DVD sets :