2.1 Power Cell by Matt Fitton
Osgood and Captain Josh Carter are sent to investigate the disappearance of a UNIT scientist. Meanwhile, alien technology has fallen into the hands of Lyme Industries, and Kate Stewart can’t persuade the company’s CEO, Felicity Lyme, to give it back. But UNIT find themselves fighting a third battle when innocent people start to die. Who are the mysterious assassins? And what does Felicity Lyme want with top secret alien technology?
2.2 Death in Geneva by Andrew Smith
With few people left to trust, and with assassins on their tail, Kate and Osgood race to UNIT Command in Geneva. Will General Avary be able to help them? But when death follows UNIT all the way from the English countryside to the snowy slopes of the Alps, Captain Carter finds himself in a race against time. As the body count rises, Kate struggles to separate friend from foe, danger circles Osgood ever closer, and, high in the mountains, Josh comes face to face with the enemy…
2.3 The Battle of the Tower by Andrew Smith
The threat is now clear, and Kate Stewart retreats to UNIT HQ with her most trusted colleagues. She has no choice but to place the Black Archive into lockdown, and the Tower of London is where UNIT will make its stand. While the capital sleeps, an alien horde is gathering, ready to rise from the shadows to attack Earth’s greatest defence force inside its own stronghold. The Tower is infiltrated, and UNIT must hold the line. At any cost. Lock and load…
2.4 Ice Station Alpha by Matt Fitton
Caught between human greed and an unstoppable alien power, Kate Stewart leads her closest allies on one final, desperate mission. This could be the very last chance for the human race. But the UNIT team has been declared rogue, and ruthless military forces are in pursuit as they race across the globe. Kate calls Lieutenant Sam Bishop to their aid, while Josh and Osgood head out across the frozen Antarctic plains to try and prevent a disaster no-one else knows is coming.
UNIT: SHUTDOWN
I think Big Finish needs to get away from these UNIT box sets. The first UNIT series, released individually, was quite good; unfortunately, it was followed by “UNIT: Dominion,” “UNIT: Extinction,” and now Matt Fitton and Andrew Smith’s “UNIT: Shutdown,” all box sets and all bad. “Shutdown” has all the same flaws as its predecessor: it’s too long, it’s boring, it’s clichéd, and the characters are uninteresting. Oh, and this one throws in a pinch of racism for good measure. Hooray.
Here’s the plot: an evil corporation steals alien technology from UNIT, and the aliens that created the technology invade Earth in an attempt to take it back. That’s a synopsis that sounds similar to a bunch of Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters, some of which were successful and some of which were not, but almost all of them were 2-2.5 hours long. “UNIT: Shutdown” is four hours long. There is simply not enough story here to sustain a four-episode box set. The authors try to pad out the running time with globetrotting shenanigans, traveling from London to Geneva to Antarctica, but as these episodes drag on the lack of story becomes more and more apparent. There’s some attempt at political commentary – Lyme Industries retains the services of Cerberus, a Blackwater-like mercenary force – but for the most part it’s lost underneath the obvious plotting and stereotypical villainy.
I’ve often said that a lack of plot isn’t necessarily a problem. Indeed, I’ve given high scores to many stories that weren’t plot-driven. But in those situations, the stories feature fantastic character development, or memorable atmosphere, or thematic richness – “UNIT: Shutdown” features none of those things. Kate is all business, all the time, and Jemma Redgrave’s one-note performance, which works in small doses on television as a counterpoint to the Doctor’s mania, doesn’t work at all in a lead role. About the only hints of characterization she gets indicate that she likes a drink. Okay, so do I, but I’m not the leader of a paramilitary alien investigation force. Then there’s Osgood, who’s really smart but also socially awkward… and that’s it. The story briefly flirts with doing something interesting with her, showing her at a trivia night with college friends and developing a hint of a romance – but then all of that is wiped completely off the map in lieu of more generic action sequences. Josh still has his plastic skeleton (and ludicrous super strength) from “Extinction,” but he’s also still lacking in characterization. And as for Sam Bishop, well, he’s in it for about 20 minutes and he’s just as memorable (read: not at all) as he was in the last one. It’s amusing how the story builds him up as some sort of brilliant super-spy that’s going to change the entire dynamic, and then he shows up and he’s just another competent UNIT operative.
And then we have the Tengobushi, the warrior caste of the alien Kamishi. We’ve seen the Kamishi before, in “The Diary of River Song,” but here they could be any other random alien menace. Their leader, Dokan (Dan Li), is from a higher caste, and it is he that has the standard realization that humanity shouldn’t be wiped from existence for no reason. They have some interesting abilities – manipulating matter, extracting information directly from a brain – but these aren’t used to any sort of similarly interesting purpose. Still, they’re fine as generic sci-fi action villains, except for one problem. They’re based on Asian cultures, and they’re dangerous, so the story represents this by giving them outrageously broad Asian accents. I’ve seen Dan Li in other things, and he sounds absolutely nothing like this, so why on earth was this decision made? It’s a “yellow peril” device – we know they’re bad because they’re Asian – and while I have no reason to think that the production team was trying to be offensive, that sort of device is inherently racist and shouldn’t be present in modern drama. I mentioned Hollywood blockbusters earlier – well, this is the kind of stereotype that Michael Bay deals in.
The production is fine. Howard Carter handles the sound design while Ken Bentley directs, and the story generally sounds excellent, with convincing effects and a real attempt to keep things fast-paced despite the excessive running time. Overall, though, “UNIT: Shutdown” is not good. It’s far too long and virtually nothing interesting happens over the entire running time. It deals in the worst sorts of clichés and doesn’t seem to understand why this isn’t appealing. It seems we have a new contender for Big Finish’s worst range.
Bad.
3/10