The Tertiary Console Room: Review - UNIT

"You might find that you have to accept a lot of things you wouldn't normally believe..."

Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett's Time Heals continues the good work of the preceding prologue The Coup in bringing the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce into the modern age with its climate of paranoia and fear perfect as the background for this series. UNIT also seems written with an eye towards its science fiction origins on shaping the tone and style of its content with the role of the organisation defined as dealing with the unexplained, which leads them here into investigating an unusually high number of atrocious disasters on British soil. While purists may be disappointed that this series looks set to shun the Pertwee-esque military-versus-the-aliens conflict of the week that was UNIT's fundamental work in the Seventies, there's plenty of intrigue with experiments prompting strange time distortions going on here...

Time Heals is the first full release of the UNIT series but it has the unusual position of following the free story The Coup from the Doctor Who Magazine, which set many of the ideas and some of the characters that are the basis of this series into operation. This causes some conflict for the writers as much of this story feels like an introduction in that they present the new characters of UNIT well whilst building upon the characterisation of the now familiar Colonel Emily Chaudhry, but still feel it's necessary to demonstrate a link to the past by involving Lethbridge-Stewart again. In other areas, it's what they don't do that makes Time Heals feel like a small part of an object in motion as there's no real attempt to explain the Internal Counter Intelligence Service (which might bewilder listeners' who haven't heard The Coup) and the nature of their relationship with UNIT. McLaughlin and Bartlett's focus on introducing and fleshing out the two lead characters is successful, but it leaves the plot feeling less rewarding.

At the centre of Time Heals is the experiment conducted by scientists Meade and Kelly who've got their hands upon the "cargo" lost at the beginning of the play and it's the unforeseen consequences of their work that are causing the horrible disasters plaguing the country and attracting attention from UNIT. These "accidents" are demonstrative of the UNIT series' far bleaker tone than almost every other Big Finish spin off series (only Dalek Empire is really comparable) as the emphasis is less on preventative measures but rather how UNIT as an organisation reacts to the disasters by working out why they occurred. The biggest flaw with this approach though is that it makes the plot seem very fragmented, like a sequence of small events that are all marginally connected. Without a strong structure to base these incidents around the storyline lacks cohesion and feels rather contrived.

Nowhere is this truer than the conclusion. This hinges upon a piece of vital information being delivered at the critical moment by the retired Lethbridge-Stewart (calling him "the General" doesn't seem quite right somehow - something that Big Finish evidently agree with given that he's credited all over the packaging by his old rank), who has been suffering from strange time jumps caused by the experiment too. This entire subplot feels very detached from the rest of the narrative as Nicholas Courtney barely interacts with the other cast members at all - meaning he's effectively talking to himself throughout - but the script's biggest failure is to provide any kind of justification as to why Lethbridge-Stewart is affected so personally. There's no suggestion anyone else is suffering in the same way and without reasoning as to why it seems nothing more than a contrivance so he can point the new UNIT hierarchy in the right direction to set up the finale. It's not unprecedented in Big Finish stories to use the character only to save the day at the end (the otherwise enjoyable The Spectre Of Lanyon Moor, for example) but it's stories like Minuet In Hell and Sympathy For The Devil which used the character in a more substantial way that have been the most triumphant in revitalising his appeal. Here Lethbridge-Stewart's inclusion is for nostalgia purposes yet as The Coup already bridged the past and the future far more successfully, so it seems needless to drag the poor fellow away from his well-earned retirement yet again. It would have been far more satisfying to see UNIT's new leaders realising the solution to the problem in question themselves rather than having it dished up so readily to them in such a convenient manner that just reeks of poor plotting.

The traditional idea of UNIT featured a solid three-man command structure with the Brigadier at the top. Interestingly enough just about the first thing Time Heals does is to create a vacuum in this prime position with UNIT's current CO disappearing in mysterious circumstances, to facilitate the drafting in of Colonel Robert Dalton as the kidnapped Brimmicombe-Wood's temporary replacement. It's his induction into UNIT's murky world which provides this play with its most memorable moments as a tense and uneasy relationship between Dalton and Chaudhry is quickly cultivated which the writers spend much time exploring. Dalton appears very much a typical officer who knows little of UNIT's true role but is intrigued by its uniqueness within the British army. His scepticism and unfamiliarity with the nature of UNIT makes Dalton seem an odd choice to take control and this is keenly shown through Chaudhry' s annoyance at his unbending attitude towards the rules when UNIT is an organisation that has to break them from time to time to get the job done. While McLaughlin and Bartlett's plot puts Dalton in a position to show his heroism far too easily, there is still enough mistrust and suspicion lingering between him and Chaudhry by the end to put their complicated working relationship into a very interesting dramatic place for future instalments of the series.

The leading cast members are impressive with Siri O'Neal reaffirming the good impression she made in The Coup as the good material in the script allows her to flesh out Emily a little more, providing teasing hints about her background. The contrast between the more accessible Chaudhry and the aloofness of Dalton is instant and intriguing because it is unexpected and it shows the difference between the modern thinking of UNIT and the efficient old school thought of the regular Army. The feisty repartee between O'Neal and Nicholas Deal is engaging and makes these scenes together the play's highlight. Robert Curbishley's Lieutenant Hoffman provides a Benton-like link to the ordinary soldiers of UNIT and his easy-going friendship with Chaudhry demonstrates that these people have lives away from their work, which wasn't always evident previously.

Time Heals moves at a great pace and provides plenty of frenetic excitement. It also shows that there is plenty of potential in the premise of UNIT thanks to its well-drawn leading characters of Chaudhry and Dalton, which O'Neal and Deal realise brilliantly. McLaughlin and Bartlett are less successful in their plotting, which lacks the cohesion to make the play truly satisfying. Coupled with an unnecessary and distracting sub-plot that exists only to provide nostalgia and a convenient way to bring about the resolution, Time Heals promises much but doesn't quite achieve what it needs to do. This is an entertaining play but ultimately an insubstantial one.