The Tertiary Console Room: Review - UNIT

"Myth is where we start looking for clues..."

Jonathan Clements has stealthily become one of Big Finish's most consistent and prolific scriptwriters, but as most of his oeuvre has been in the late 2000AD range his work doesn't tend to get the same recognition garnered by those that have worked almost exclusively in the field of Doctor Who. Saying that, his contribution to the Unbound series Sympathy For The Devil proved extremely popular, and aside from the anti-climactic ending it was certainly one of the most enjoyable of that range. His latest venture into the world of Doctor Who is with the next release in the burgeoning UNIT series - but Snake Head is very different to anything Clements has attempted before in the audio medium and also rallies against the self-important plots that dominated its series predecessors but therein lies its appeal.

The Coup and Time Heals were both fast-paced dramas based around races against time to achieve something or to stop an occurrence from happening, but Snake Head is far more low-key. It focuses upon Colonels Dalton and Chaudhry heading out to the southeast coast to investigate a death on a Southend beach. Aside from the niggling concern that the head of a semi-secretive military organisation and his chief political officer arguably wouldn't go on this type of routine mission (surely they'd send a subordinate, like Lieutenant Hoffman?) which may turn out to be nothing anyway, it allows Clements to really develop further the dynamic between the two leads, played by Nicholas Deal and Siri O'Neal.

Snake Head opens in particularly effective style, showing Clements' superb instinct when it comes to holding back on dialogue and letting the sound do its work to create a mood. The attack by something on an a man speaking in an as yet unidentified language is typical of the approach Clements takes in that he's consciously creating an engaging sense of mystery. Toby Longworth, the man of seemingly an endless number of voices, does superbly well in this prologue by conveying the creeping sense of fear as his very human reaction transcends the barriers of language and we know he's faced with something terrible and monstrous.

By having Dalton and Chaudhry investigate by themselves, Snake Head immediately has a very different tone and style to the stories that preceded it, showing that UNIT as a series might have potential dealing with stories of the unexplained affecting isolated areas rather than the more epic aspirations shown by the chaotic Time Heals. By shifting the focus to the main characters, Clements can build upon what's been established about them by highlighting their differing attitudes to this particular mission. While the scenario and the attitudes are more than a little reminiscent of the early X-Files in that one is a firm believer and the other is the sceptic, it's intriguing to hear their conflicting views as Chaudhry doggedly remains sure that the man washed up on the beach was a victim of something inhuman while Dalton tries to rationalise it as something less than supernatural.

Clements has already shown with Sympathy For The Devil a tendency to look for different sources of inspiration to many of his contemporary writers, and whereas that play used the culture of the Far East, here he looks to the myths and folklore of Eastern Europe with Snake Head. By using this angle, his take on the mythic creature the Vrkolak is quite different from what we've come to expect as it's deliberately old-fashioned but spiked with a different perception that lets it comes across very refreshingly. In an age when the emphasis has been on modern interpretation of the legendary, Clements realises how powerful the effect of using the beast sparingly and it makes for a particularly tense and suspenseful conclusion, when Dalton and a Vrkolak hunter conduct a night-time search for their prey.

Throwing characters together and seeing how they react is always a good method of giving them development, and Clements' focus on Dalton and Chaudhry really helps to extend our impression of them, beyond the confines of just members of a para-military organisation by contrasting the life and death situations with more mundane matters as they wander through an out of season resort and take a meal at a Chinese restaurant. While Emily savours the chance to do something beyond her work within public relations, Dalton resents being taken away from London where he feels he's more likely to be needed. But in the end their aims are the same and as Clements shows them doing the legwork to resolve the mystery of what happened, the insight into their mindset as they operate is far more fascinating as it feels more genuine.

Clements uses his characters to try and address the wider implications of the ongoing storyline throughout the UNIT series by highlighting how the revelation of alien life co-existing with humanity is perceived by some of the population. While it's not dismissed as glibly as in Time Heals, Clements shows through the character of Dr Hendrick how the cynical citizens might feel that it's all a charade to justify governmental policy decisions and then cleverly emphasises the conspiratorial nature by illustrating how myth and legend can be made to self-serve individuals.

As well as continued excellence from O'Neal and Deal in their leading roles, Clements affords his main supporting characters slightly more depth than is often the case which helps to emphasise that this is a play where the strange occurrences that UNIT investigates affect people personally. Ian Hayles successfully conveys the moral conflict between his character's dubious activities as a racketeer and his duty to try and stop the killing. As Hendrick, Ian Brooker delivers a subtle performance that makes his character seem quite lecherous as he interacts with Chaudhry, deliberately overlooking Dalton's presence, but there's an interesting subtext of Hendrick as a very lonely man who's latching onto the intrusive presence of UNIT as they draw others to him. Toby Longworth and Jane MacFarlane provide good value too in their more minor roles.

David Darlington's sound design lends the drama much of its atmosphere as he creates a suitably discreet environment for it to play out, with the desolate atmosphere of the beach proving particularly effective in the climax. But more importantly, he follows Clements' lead by utilising the creature as little as possible so when it looms out of nowhere the effect is very disturbing, particularly when combined with the effective voice work (Longworth again, by the sound of it) used for its realisation.

Snake Head has a very modest script but its understated form is what makes the drama so appealing. Clements offers a tightly focused, absorbing plot that develops the series leads well and brilliantly uses mythology in an unexpected manner. With excellent performances, this play eschews the flashier styling of previous UNIT stories to tell a straightforward mystery that is engaging, thrilling and entertaining in equal measure.

A quiet masterpiece.