UNIT: Silenced

UNIT: Silenced

Legally speaking, Silenced should be one of my favorite sets of UNIT considering it has one of my all-time favorite Who monsters utilized in an actually clever way with a fascinating political plot. In practice, it’s still better than a few other sets, but it fails to reach the highs that Re:visitations and in some ways, Cyber-Reality had, due entirely to the fact that much of the set is forced by necessity to repeat itself. As such, the longer UNIT: Silenced goes on, the more you see the same few plot threads repeating themselves  as the story must still repeat itself for four hours. It’s the Silence’s gimmick - telling a story involving them can be difficult when the audience knows so much more about them than the characters do, especially with the utter knock out that Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon is, ranking as one of my favorite modern two-parters. How can Silenced possibly compare? Well, it tries it’s darndest, that’s for sure...

House of Silents by Matt Fitton

With the set beginning with Matt Fitton, he chooses to utilize the Silents in an interesting and cool way. Just having them hang about in a Haunted House. Of course, this may be considered completely unoriginal - it’s just Day of the Moon’s orphanage scenes extended to an hour. And to that I say: yes, but I mean, why would you complain about Day of the Moon’s orphanage scenes being an hour long, they’re the best bit! The atmosphere that House of Silents evokes in just an hour is exquisite, and it sets up the mystery of the set quite well. Just a random house that people go into, no one comes out of, and the government keeps conveniently forgetting adds up to a really fun trip. Simplicity is something one can harp on, but this is early in UNIT’s run, and for once, it was actually almost doing something different, something it wouldn’t attempt again until This Sleep of Death. It’s fascinating and eerie, and that’s kind of what you want, right? Right? 8/10

Square One by John Dorney

Yeah, well, you can’t really follow up a story where UNIT completely forgets about the Silents with them knowing about the Silence, and well, much of Square One as a result is frustrating because it is at this point that UNIT should investigate, the plot should move forward, that would be the result of good storytelling - and yet it can’t! They don’t know crap, they’ve forgotten! And even though I was impressed with the usage of Jacqui McGee reminding UNIT about the events of House, soon after they forget about that too and she has to remind them again in the third and fourth stories. Silenced is painful because while the plot is intriguing, it’s doing a political thriller about aliens influencing the public’s consciousness (in a story that is definitely 100% not talking about a certain former US President who was running at the time) without any impetus to drive it forward and like all other UNIT stories, doesn’t have character to fill the Silence. The actual silence, not the aliens Silence, like I’m speaking metaphorically. Steven Moffat knew not to waste the audience’s time with the Companion’s investigations in Day of the Moon, and yet Square One and much of Silent Majority is all about the investigation...a frustrating move that even a great author like Dorney can’t really move 100% to his advantage. 7/10

Silent Majority by John Dorney

Deep into the structure of the set, Silent Majority is actually where the political thriller reaches it’s height and begins to really, truly, shine. While plagued with many issues such as the need for reiteration, that’s mostly gone at this point and we’re deep into UNIT trying to stop Kenneth LeBlanc from winning the election - except can they really interfere with the public’s opinion? The split here between UNIT, a government organization and a brainwashed public is fascinating, and while Silent Majority never delves really deep into those ideas - boy do those UNIT boys love the action stuff, it does just enough of those really cool concepts of a Silence influenced population and why the Silents would even attempt to get an official elected. The result is fairly stunning, even if it is also prone to the many issues of the set - at least instead of mindless investigation it has a solid plot to lay back on: 7/10

In Memory Alone by Matt Fitton

Well, this seems decidedly not thought through. While I don’t really care for 3-story sets as usual, I prefer 4 as you get more content, but really, In Memory Alone as a Fourth episode feels incredibly tacked on - and perhaps the set would be all the stronger without it. The Silents are defeated (apparently) and they’ve told all of UNIT that they have been defeated, so UNIT has forgotten the Silents again, and well, it’s back to Square One bullshit. Except it’s recycled in Space! And honestly the story has few ideas beyond that if I’m being honest. Osgood and Sam Bishop (still the most forgettable and shit regular this series could possibly have) are just on a space station and the Silents are there, and just, come on! For a set that was almost pushing the UNIT boundary this is more of the same and ends up being a damp squib to end the boxset on, a story that doesn’t say anything that wasn’t already said. Slightly rubbish: 6/10