UNIT: Extinction

 

UNIT: Extinction

There’s a slight problem with UNIT Extinction - it's rather shit. Big Finish, out of nowhere, were given the new series license, and within moments, they were off and running to shove the New Series of Doctor Who into every Audio Drama they possibly could. Of course, the end result, is the majority of these early sets - Tenth Doctor Volume 1, Only The Monstrous, River Song 1, Churchill, etc, were rushed into production at great speed, and while some almost manage to recover (River and Ten make at least a good attempt thanks to James Goss on both counts), UNIT was the first. Shoved out onto the assembly line at great speed - we got Jemma Redgrave and Ingrid Oliver, quickly, make scripts while we still have them!  What does this mean? Well, UNIT was forged in this manner, and this was the mold the following Eight Boxsets would more or less follow. When it was the wrong choice from right off the bat. UNIT should have been a series that had a focus beyond nostalgia, a hyper-modern bold and clever series. You can have action, but with this "Science Leads" UNIT set up in the Moffat era, it doesn't make sense to make it a Third Doctor style, but somehow less good, overly long action fest. Which unfortunately is what it is - character was never a consideration to these writers. Josh, Shindi, and especially Sam Bishop feel entirely like extras in this set - which is not surprising, as both Shindi and Bishop initially were before they were promoted to series regular. I've complained about UNIT so much. I've been such a broken record on it, but this? This is the first set. This is where the trouble began. If they had a solid foundation in the first place - not necessarily something amazing, but a solid foundation - they could have had something to build upon. The fact that  Re:Visitations ended up half as good as it was later down the line is fucking astonishing. And UNIT: Extinction may be the starting off point - but it's the lowest starting off point. While the lack of character and mindless action set-piece are already there, the set makes a quite silly starting point by making the startling choice of choosing the Autons as the main villain. Well. That's okay, I mean, thematically, they started off both the UNIT era in the first place, as well as the New Series. That should be completely fine...what do you mean they're silent? Yes, yes, I know - you would think this is something the set could get around, I mean, the Weeping Angels showed up on audio and translated ...ridiculously well, actually, all of the Angel stories on audio so far are a treat. And yet the Autons are unbearably quiet. And that's a problem throughout. The other problem is it's four episodes long, and it has the material for two. The other problem is the episodes are indistinct at that- all four of the episodes are so meshed together like a blender, it's difficult to even tell them apart! I could not tell you more than 5 things that happened in either Earthfall or Bridgehead. The other problem is- do you see what I'm getting at? The thing's riddled with holes! Osgood and Kate try to carry this set, but they can't. Very few things can sustain four episodes of an hour each - damn it, Zagreus wasn't even four hours - it stopped at 3 hours and forty minutes! UNIT: Extinction is so royally batshit I could hardly attempt to review the episodes individually. Yet I am here trying. Well, I'll quickly go through the episodes now: I'll even try and be positive! But really, they're so consistently bland across the board if you say one thing about one of them, you've said it to all four. 

Vanguard by Matt Fitton

After a decent establishing scene of our new focal character Josh, being told that he is far too reckless to be proficient at UNIT, Osgood and Kate and Josh end up going to a weird Gala where Simon Devlin is setting up his 3D printer thing. Jacqui McGee is set up here- we love us some Jacqui McGee, even if she is begging to be given more focus than the lame-heads that are Bishop and Shindi - and we get some interesting more pilot stuff with her. This episode really tries to be the Everything Changes or Rose pilot, but it ends up incredibly messy on all counts, struggling to juggle it's plot and do the bare bones set up of character (hahaahhahahaahhahahahahahahahahahaha) and it tries to set things up, it really does. Vanguard at least has more ambition than a good section of the set, and it tries to set up a Josh arc-payoff, and I'd give it points for that if it wasn't for the fact that it never comes up again. Josh is told repeatedly in this episode he is too reckless to UNIT properly, and yet, his recklessness is constantly rewarded - even later in the set when he is kidnapped and mind-controlled, he isn't even told off really, and then breaks out of it, and now has super duper plastic powers or something - so while I can give it points for set-up, I can only give it points for set-up - it never goes anywhere. Vanguard is weak. Yet it is hardly the worst the set or series can get - just wait until Encounters, baby! 5/10

Earthfall by Andrew Smith

Earthfall is about the spooky Auton spheres landing in places or something and random new character Sam Bishop and Osgood trying to stop the spheres from sphere-ing. Sam Bishop is absolutely irrelevant. I say this in every review I've ever given UNIT but there are multiple boxsets where he doesn't show up, and well, I rarely notice. The attempt of a plot in Earthfall is especially thin - it's basically just "haha more Sphere stuff" when we kind of did cover that bit in episode one. It's not that Earthfall needed to be cut - it just needs more meat other than "oh boy let's fetch that sphere thing" and "oh no we didn't." I understand that sets need four episodes - I prefer four episode sets after all, but I really think that if you're going to do One Four Part Story That Is Entirely A Single Thing And Totally Builds On Eachother in Each Episode, It's Not Like Any Of Them Are Standalone Or Anything then one of your episodes should not be nearly irrelevant. 4/10

Bridgehead by Andrew Smith

Bridgehead is about Josh going undercover at Simon Devlin's place, and being kidnapped, and...all the skeleton stuff? What else? No, seriously, tell me, This is the most forgettable audio I have ever heard. I said earlier I couldn't list more than 5 things about Earthfall and Bridgehead, and while Earthfall is hazy, Bridgehead is completely absent. Absolutely gone. I remember thinking it was about the same quality as Earthfall, but...what? I vaguely recall some News Bits with Jacqui McGee, but those might actually be in the Next Episode. I swear I'm not going insane. I swear that I should be a proper reviewer and know the things I'm talking about - but oh my god is Bridgehead so fucking dull. I am really good at remembering audio-dramas - I visualize them in my head so well, I can often think back to moments more easily than I can even recall TV show episodes. But Bridgehead feels like that one episode of some Twenty Episode thing on Agents of SHIELD or something, and you remember the good bits before and after it, but you can't recall anything about the episode in of itself. Except that's like seventeen episodes in a Twenty Eight Episode Season and this is episode Three of Four. And that's also super mean to Agents of SHIELD and SHIELD doesn't deserve that, because if something leaves my head - I am the ultimate memorizer of random stupid geek shit - I'm not sure it didn't literally have thirty minutes of silence in it. 3/10 ? Who knows I can't remember it, I'm a horrible reviewer

Armageddon by Matt Fitton

Armageddon closes off the set, and we're at least mildly proficient again. It's not perfect, but it has some good level of bombast as Osgood and Jacqui actually have interactions that aren't shit (wow, I've missed interactions that aren't shit) and Kate faces down the Nestene alone. The 3D printers add tension to the climax with the remarkable idea of each one printing an auton to conquer the earth. But even this falls apart at the end when every 3D Printer in the World suddenly prints an Auton, and then this is wavehanded away by "Oh yeah UNIT will retcon everyone." HOW? I mean, honestly, this may sound like a nitpick, but it's royally stupid that the end of the thing is, "oh yeah, we memory-wipe every single person on the planet haha we can do that" when UNIT has been struggling up to this point. What's even gained by memory wiping the population? It's not like there haven't been other invasions, I struggle to see any advantage or why they would do this or how? I swear I'm not just hyperfixating on this one point for no reason but it does bug me. At least the set closes off with some excitement - even if it is just more gun noise (whoopee) and Auton's going ...oh wait, yeah, minus their guns they're still completely silent, that's gonna make for a shit audio action scene whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa -  

At the very least, Armageddon feels like it isn't rushed, (minus the retcon line) it has good pacing, and the solution is fine. It's just not smart. It doesn't have the one character thread the set came up with resolved, it kind of puts Jacqui on an awkward bus as they weren't sure if they were going to have her back, and it doesn't have any particularly brilliant ideas. But it's not dumb. It feels at the very least as satisfying and consistent an ending as the rest of the set, solidly setting the story all together and making it feel like a whole. A very low average whole. 6/10 

UNIT: Extinction is quite possibly the worst starting point the series could have, and it is remarkable that the series survived into the good sets - especially when I don't even like sets like Silenced that much, which as a set was really well received. It's an odd piece on the whole, and it isn't entirely good, (scratch that, more than half of it is incredibly disappointing in the worst way) and yet it comes out of it feeling still satisfying and complete as a story. My opinion on it on the whole is A Contradictory mess, which fits what it is rather well. (Do you get it? It's a contradictory mess)