The Dalek Transaction by Matt Fitton
When a rogue guerrilla faction offer an alien artefact for auction, Kate Stewart and her team go undercover to the jungles of Central America. But they find that the prize on offer is far deadlier than its owners realise. Captive, desperate and alone. That’s when a Dalek is at its most dangerous.
Invocation by Roy Gill
It’s Hallowe’en, and Josh finds himself at a party where phantoms are becoming all too real. Osgood is working late and hears a voice from the skies making strange incantations. The next day, Kate has gone missing in the Scottish Borders, and the team head north to investigate. Ghosts from the past are haunting UNIT, and now they threaten the whole world…
The Sontaran Project by Andrew Smith
On a routine reconnaissance mission, Colonel Shindi finds more than he bargains for in the Forest of Ardennes. Back in England, an old colleague makes Osgood an offer she cannot refuse. The chance to take part in an exciting new scientific advance. Before long, UNIT is on collision course with a force of alien clones, and Kate must forge an unlikely alliance.
False Negative by John Dorney
When a strange travel capsule is activated in UNIT’s laboratory, Osgood and Josh find themselves in a whole new world of trouble. Soon, nobody at UNIT HQ is quite who they seem, and the team discovers that the greatest danger they could ever face comes from within…
UNIT: ENCOUNTERS
Since this current range of UNIT stories began, it has been marked by a lack of ambition. Generic action movie plots coupled with a regular cast of characters seemingly allergic to anything resembling development have caused the range to remain entertaining yet largely uninteresting, the third box set excepted. But at least the scope has been wide: each set has told a single story, spread out over multiple episodes. The most recent set, “Encounters,” throws that format out in favor of four individual hour-long stories, and the change does nothing to improve the quality of the stories.
There is a brief common thread running through the stories, that of a secret group called the Auctioneers dealing in black market exchanges of alien specimens and technology. But that’s just a backdrop – we learn that they exist and we learn what they do, but if they’re ever dealt with it’ll be in a future set. Instead, we start with “The Dalek Transaction” by Matt Fitton, in which a Central American guerrilla group captures a severely weakened Dalek and attempts to sell it to these Auctioneers to fund their rebellions. The UNIT crew goes undercover as rival buyers in an attempt to secure the Dalek, but naturally things go wrong, the Dalek escapes, and a desperate struggle begins to recapture or kill it before it kills everyone. There’s really nothing new on display here – Nicholas Briggs gives a particularly strong performance as the Dalek, and it’s interesting to see how dangerous a Dalek can be even when separated from its shell, but for the most part this is a runaround in a slightly different setting. Fortunately, they found someone of Hispanic descent in Karina Fernandez to play guerrilla leader Captain Gonsalves; unfortunately, her accent is, shall we say, distracting.
The second story, “Invocation” by Roy Gill, is the best of the four. It’s a haunted house story that actually fleshes out Kate’s character and manages to be convincingly spooky in the process. Of course, there’s a rational explanation for the supernatural events, but it’s nice to see this range depart from the military framework and tell a new kind of story. Jemma Redgrave gets to act, too – both here and the final story demonstrate that her flat performance is a deliberate choice, here because her fearful acting is both convincing and a surprising departure from how we know Kate. I would love an entire set full of stories like this instead of the return of Axos or whatever.
I enjoyed “The Sontaran Project” from Andrew Smith, largely because the Sontarans consistently remain interesting. While the Ice Warriors are largely honor-bound sci-fi clichés, the Sontarans’ single-minded, absolute focus on war can make them fascinating characters. In this story, after a lone Sontaran scout is captured by the Auctioneers, his battle group comes looking for him. But rather than deciding to destroy the Earth or kill all humans, Marshal Skar (Dan Starkey) just wants to discover what happened to his missing soldier. It takes a bit of argument, but Shindi quickly talks the Sontarans down, and they work together to discover the missing Commander Merx (Starkey). It’s a well-executed war story that uses the Sontarans well – I just wish there was more meat to it, as “find the Sontaran” describes basically the entirety of the story. We get a bit of insight into the Auctioneers, as well as exposure to their Overseer (Matthew Cottle), at least. Still, this is very entertaining, and a good showcase for Ramon Tikaram.
The final story, “False Negative” by John Dorney, starts off in shocking fashion: Josh and Osgood are sleeping together and they have Sam Bishop tied up in a closet! So of course, we find out we’re in a parallel universe, because the status quo can never, ever change. Dorney presents a farcical runaround: Josh and Osgood have accidentally traveled into a parallel universe, possibly but not necessarily the one from “Inferno,” and they must avoid running into themselves as they try to find a way home. Everyone is different in this universe: Kate is incompetent, Shindi is belligerent and sadistic, Josh is awkward and indecisive, and Osgood is cold and cruel. Oh, and Sam is dead. See, they couldn’t get Warren Brown in for this set, so Sam Bishop is off on assignment or something. It’s probably telling that at no point over any of the four episodes did I find myself missing his character or indeed even noticing that he wasn’t around. Anyway, the best parallel universe stories are used to teach us about our own world and to learn more about the characters we know through their funhouse mirror reflections. But “False Negative” doesn’t do that; it’s more lighthearted and silly than anything else. It’s entertaining for what it is, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
That’s how I feel about UNIT: Encounters as a whole: it’s another missed opportunity. Every story starts and ends with the status quo, just like every story in the range before this. The lone significant character change in the entire UNIT range – Josh’s plastic skeleton – is mentioned I think once in the first story and never again. Modern drama doesn’t work this way anymore, but the only Doctor Who-related place Big Finish is even trying to do anything different is in the Torchwood range. The next set is supposed to feature Cybermen and the War Master – well that’s cool, but is anything interesting going to happen along the way? As of right now, my guess is “no.”
6/10