UNIT: Silenced Review
Gustaff Behr gives his verdict on Kate & Osgood’s third audio adventure.
Back in Volume 01, UNIT took pride in their retconning capabilities. Dousing the public water supply, wiping memories and disposing of any incriminating evidence. It was all fun and games because they were the ones on the giving end. Fast-forward to Volume 03 and the memory manipulators are finally getting their just desserts… courtesy of the true monstrous masters of memory manipulations.
UNIT: Silenced continues the impressive streak set by its predecessors by showcasing an extremely well-written story and a competent UNIT team, led by Kate Stewart in their struggles to fend off the Silents, a race of aliens who survived the Eleventh Doctor’s onslaught in the Series 6 opener.
I must say that the playing field is extremely well-balanced here. John Dorney and Matt Fitton (the Big Finish equivalent to Steven Moffat on a good day) have come up with a modern-day outing for the Silents, a worthy 4-hour sequel to Day of the Moon and have made terrific use of all the characters at their disposal.
Special shout out to Ramon Tiukaram’s Coronel Vikram Shindi who makes a long overdue return and is given a nice little arc to go through. Then there is everyone’s favourite globetrotting adventurer Sam Bishop (Warren Brown). In the past I have voiced how the lack of “screen time” has done little to make me warm up to the character. This, as with most of Big Finish’s setbacks (which are very few in itself) is rectified in this volume and like Shindi, it’s the efforts of Sam which provides a lot of the breakthroughs in the box set.
Josh Carter (James Joyce) continues to be the breakout star in the UNIT series and I enjoyed his arc in UNIT: Silenced just as much. Adding to the top-form cast is Ingrid Oliver’s Osgood. Remember the days when I called her a ‘cardboard cut-out fangirl audience wish fulfilment avatar’ for the Doctor Who audience? Those days are well and truly past and I proudly wear my initial criticism of her like a badge.
UNIT: Silenced also sees the return of Jackie McGhee who gets treated a little better than her previous outing, but I guess the urge to make her the butt monkey of the series is just too strong a temptation for Big Finish to resist. However, her journey and hardships dealing with Kate and the media come full circle in the last story In Memory Alone and provides a great payoff to a character that can easily be interpreted as a “noisy busibody”.
One of the biggest risks in these 4-hour story arcs is always padding. That is evident in so many Doctor Who stories from the classic era and even some in the new series. Make it too short and it comes across as rushed, too long and it grows tiresome. I applaud Matt Fitton and John Dorney for the pacing of this series. I’m not sure if doing three seasons of it helps, but this volume doesn’t feel padded at all. In fact, it’s so good it actually feels like a Netflix series: You want to have more, regardless of filler.
You also can’t review this story without mentioning continuity. There are so many call-backs to Series 6, including the moon landing and the Silents’ unorthodox powers (along with some very creative uses and counter-strategies for them). If the plot is the cake, then the call-backs featured are the icing. Not only that, but the narrative manages to make these call-backs feel less like fanservice to the fans and more like vital parts to solving the plot. Moreover, not only is this a fantastic outing for the Silents, as well as great sequel to their first appearance, but you don’t have to have any knowledge about The Impossible Astronaut or Day of the Moon to follow what is happening.
It’s also worth mentioning that Square One has perhaps a funnier “Meet the Silents” scene than Amy and the American woman in the bathroom. Utter bliss.
It’s been 18 months and three seasons now and to be honest, I’ve been expecting a slip-up. I’m not being cynical or negative. It’s inevitable. The War Doctor Volume 01, Doom Coalition Volume 02. You can even add Dark Eyes Volume 02 when compared to the rest of that series. It’s unrealistic to expect these 4-hour long box sets to continuously maintain consistent quality. Even a ‘good’ amongst numerous ‘greats’, while a positive, is still a drop.
But out of all the box sets Big Finish has produced, if you told me 20 months ago that UNIT: The New Series would be the one with three straight phenomenal outings I would have laughed at you…and maybe ridiculed you and your gene pool.
UNIT: Silenced not only maintains the excellent standard of its predecessors, it rises above them. It still dumbfounds me to think that this is the same UNIT team who hired the two worst soldiers in history (blind, deaf, stupid and with the reaction time equivalent to that of a slowpoke) to guard the most dangerous alien on the planet, who fell for that ridiculous Zygon trap in the church, or who needed Clara Oswald to hold their hands at every step in The Magician’s Apprentice.
The evolution and competency of these characters is staggering. Listening to UNIT on audio, it feels like a completely different team than the television series. A stronger, more entertaining team and one I hope I will be able to listen to for many more years to come.
I would easily recommend UNIT: Silenced before the previous two instalments. It’s that good!
