UNIT: Encounters

This is the fifth UNIT boxset. Do I care that this is my first actual UNIT review? No. 

UNIT is a series that is strange, as it hardly focuses on any character outside of Kate and Osgood, our new series mainstays, and introduces three voids as our new characters, Josh, Shindi, and Bishop.
They’re all very military, and the series focuses on, at least to my opinion, the wrong things.
The best episodes are when they do something imaginative with character. The series can be very bloated, as often they ignore imagination to do a stereotypical Earth invasion story over four hours, instead of the format they have in either this or the seventh and eighth sets, which serve the stories much better. Four hour length is something that hardly ever should be done. When there are five boxsets of four hour story length, it really is a problem, as it stops feeling fresh and action packed and large scale, and just...bloated. So I’m reviewing this one first.

The Dalek Transaction by Matt Fitton

This is your Dalek or Resolution type story, with one Dalek being a threat. This is good, except it’s too large a threat for the government to handle. UNIT doesn’t feel equipped enough at all in any of these boxsets to deal with a true Dalek. Especially not in a one hour story. There’s a reason all the Dalek invasions have been feature length. So, in order to facilitate any sense of logic, they injure the Dalek beyond recognition. Bad move. The Dalek’s body count is low, unconvincing of threat, and it doesn’t have a gun, plunger or eye. It’s hard to feel scared of the creature, even when it breaks free of the casing and preys on the soldiers in the jungle (by far the best scene) and this one is definitely full of embarrassing South American accents.
Nicholas Briggs definitely pulls his weight though, trying to make some sort of threat out of this script, as does the fantastic Jemma Redgrave as Kate. Osgood, if anything should be the most aware of the Daleks’ threat, but she’s nowhere near as overwhelmed as she should be.
Still, these are fine ideas, just bad execution, and the main actors are still respectable. 6/10

Invocation by Roy Gill

A series built on bombast, this series hardly works doing a creeping horror ghost story. Very cool though, is Kate, who gets a hell of an outing, as it’s entirely her story as opposed to an ensemble. There are better examples of this, but the use of one of UNIT’s many country estates is inspired, even if this story that’s built on horror isn’t really that frightening. The connection to Kate’s childhood and the Latin satellite though are phenomenal. 5/10 

The Sontaran Project by Andrew Smith

The Sontarans are very well adapted to UNIT appearances, being just enough of a threat while still being weak, and although the Sontaran project is decidedly middle of the road, in a set that so far has prided itself on being that. The best bits are that the Sontarans aren’t the villains, and that Osgood kills it throughout the story, this being one of the better Osgood episodes.
Regrettably, there’s still no characterization for our military folk, and Kate isn’t in this one much.
This series needs to step up its game. 6/10

False Negative by John Dorney

You can always count on John Dorney, and although this one isn’t one of his better audios, it’s not one of his worse. A farcical unit episode, which doesn’t happen often, and is exceedingly fun. Evil Osgood is so good they even aped her in Cyber-Reality, and Josh, our military character, is characterized in a very fun fashion. He’s never the problem, it’s usually Bishop who’s terrible in his blandness. Lazy Kate is hilarious. Respect John Dorney, he cant save the boxset, but heck if he won’t try. 8/10

Average: 6.25