7.1 and 7.2 Hosts of the Wirrn by Chris Chapman
After the world’s strangest interview, UNIT’s latest recruit, Shana Siddiqui, hits the ground running to help Osgood with her latest assignment. The Master left UNIT a parting gift – something alien and deadly. The Wirrn have come to Earth, and now they are free…
7.3 Breach of Trust by David K Barnes
An alien vessel arrives on Earth, its occupants seeking refuge, and Osgood takes them in. But there is reason to mistrust this cry for help. The files show that UNIT has faced the Kalvyri before. What else they reveal will set Kate at odds with her most trusted friends.
7.4 Open the Box by Roy Gill
In the years since the Stangmoor Prison incident, Captain Chin Lee found a new calling. She now heads up an international organisation, dedicated to meditation and ‘mental fortitude’ training. But there is a menace deep inside the Pandora Institute. And Kate, Osgood and Josh must face their darkest fears…
UNIT: REVISITATIONS
I’ve complained at length about the UNIT series and its almost laughable lack of ambition: the previous set brought together UNIT, the Cybermen, and the Master, and yet it was utterly unmemorable in every way. My expectations for “Revisitations” were therefore not high, and so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that some of the individual stories here are actually quite good! Unfortunately, taken as a whole, “Revisitations” has exactly the same problems as its predecessors, but at least the individual stories are entertaining.
We begin with a two-part story, “Hosts of the Wirrn” by Chris Chapman. Apparently, the Master left a Wirrn larva behind at the conclusion of the last story, and UNIT has taken it into custody for experimentation. Osgood is naturally at the forefront of this work, giving nicknames to the Wirrn and so forth, but her knowledge of insects is lacking, so UNIT strikes out to recruit an entomologist. At this point I normally complain that the new character is as paper-thin as the rest, but no: Chapman actually creates a unique, sympathetic character in Shana Siddiqui (Vineeta Rishi). She’s stuck in a boring job with a boring life, looking for a way out, and when a UNIT interview comes in the form of a talking raven, she realizes she has a unique opportunity – and her desperation to prove her worth has catastrophic consequences. Unfortunately, this shows up the other characters: it is perfectly fair to say that we already know more about Shana than we have ever known about Carter, Shindi, or Bishop. (Warren Brown, incidentally, is completely absent yet again. At least they found room for him in the Lady Christina set.) I also fully expected Shana to be killed off before the end, but no: she actually sticks around, halfway transformed into a Wirrn but using a holographic avatar to maintain her UNIT career.
But this is where one of the major problems with these sets raises its ugly head: there is no continuity between stories. A half-Wirrn entomologist communicating via hologram sounds like an interesting character to keep around, but Shana doesn’t appear at all in the subsequent two stories, and is never even mentioned by the other characters. The last story even features something using a holographic avatar to interact, and nobody remarks upon the similarity! The same holds true for the other elements of the story: perhaps most significantly, Kate actually makes a serious error of judgment that leads to unnecessary death and destruction, and Shindi is audibly disturbed by it. But in the next story – which deals specifically with the relationship between Kate and her subordinates, and their views of her judgment – this mistake isn’t referenced at all!
And that’s a damn shame, because the next story, “Breach of Trust” by David K. Barnes, is easily the best individual story this range has produced. Alien refugees, a mother and young daughter, arrive on Earth, terrified of their pursuers and facing execution if they are ever captured. UNIT takes them in, even though they lie to protect themselves. But when their pursuers arrive, and demand the return of the refugees, it becomes quite apparent that Earth cannot defend itself against a potential attack. Kate is thus faced with a seemingly impossible choice: send two innocent refugees to their deaths or start an interplanetary war that Earth cannot possibly win. Ultimately, Kate makes the only decision she can: return the refugees to their people and spare the people of Earth. But Osgood disagrees, working against Kate’s orders to find another way out of the situation. If there’s one thing I dislike about Doctor Who, it’s that the Doctor’s boundless genius for finding alternative solutions means that difficult choices are largely avoided. Here, Kate has no such escape route. This is how you write drama: make your characters make difficult decisions and then deal with the consequences. If I have one quibble, it’s that Kate reverses herself right at the moment of truth, and suddenly Osgood’s alternative becomes the only way to save Earth. While it’s a great character moment for Kate, it removes some of the potential conflict if Osgood can rightly say that she disobeyed orders to save the planet, rather than over a moral disagreement.
That potential conflict, however, never actually happens. This story should have absolutely massive fallout: Carter, who helps Osgood, is brought up on charges by Shindi, and Osgood should be disciplined if not outright dismissed from service. There should be rifts between the characters, as Kate made what Osgood likely viewed as an unforgivable choice. And the next story is all about the characters’ deepest fears, how Carter fears a lack of control and how Osgood fears losing the acceptance of her colleagues. But yet again, absolutely none of this is ever mentioned! As we get into “Open the Box” by Roy Gill, it seems as though everything is forgiven and forgotten: the team is collegial once again, and the fact that they get on so well is a plot point used to resist their fears. The final story, a sequel to “The Mind of Evil,” isn’t anything special, though at least it gives us a brief look at what goes on in Josh’s head and it’s cool to have Pik-Sen Lim back as Chin Lee. But I found it nearly impossible to enjoy, because I was constantly waiting for the obvious follow-up on the previous stories that never came.
I genuinely don’t understand why Big Finish continues to pursue this storytelling style. This is simply not how modern drama is written: a serial drama that refused to develop its characters in any way or refused to have any continuity between episodes would be laughed off the air in 2019. I can’t imagine that the Big Finish writers are uniformly incapable of handling such a task – especially since they pull it off brilliantly in the Torchwood range – so it must be an editorial edict. But why? Who is served by this? This set is otherwise very good, with a truly excellent third story – so why is the material being deliberately watered down? I wish I knew.
7/10