Agents of the Vulpreen
UNIT Nemesis #2
Released: 3 March 2022
Listened: 4/25/23 - 4/27/23
The Man from Gallifrey
The last story left us with the cliffhanger of Jacqui McGee being lost through the arch. This box is called “Agents of the Vulpreen,” because that’s who lives on that other world. It starts off with a nice cold open that explains just about everything we wanted to know in the last box: What’s the arch, where did it come from, and what was the Eleven doing on the other side? Turns out it was another Time Lord who put him there, a CIA agent named Hasper, and he’s popped up on Earth now to find out who the heck is poking at the arch that was never supposed to be found. Hasper's got piles of the typical Time Lord condescension, but he’s really mostly helpful to the UNIT squad…mostly. The other big development in this story is the introduction of Jimmy Tan, played by Chris Lew Kum Hoi. I guess Warren Brown and Ramon Tikaram are unavailable now, because we haven’t seen Sam or Shindi in quite some time. Jimmy’s the skeptic who’s nevertheless hyper-competent, and Kate pretty much recruits him on the spot, which seems like a bit of a stretch, but maybe she’s aware that she’s short on main characters. Not a ton really happens here, except introducing new characters. In fact, the net result is to reverse the end of the previous story, which is sort of a step backwards.
Power of the Dominators
Just like the second story of the last box, this one is a distraction from the story of Eleven and the arch. Unlike last time, though, this is a straight comedy. Because apparently you can’t bring back the Dominators and the Quarks and be serious. The Dominators are pretending to be developers building an enclosed planned community, except that nobody’s been able to see the inside of it, and of course there are disappearances. The comedy comes from the fact that the Dominators are absolutely terrible at pretending not to be aliens, with the same stilted speech and apparently the same absurd outfits. They’re also still terribly concerned about conserving energy in their bizarre late-60s way. And of course Osgood thinks the Quarks are adorable…because they are. Beth Chalmers provides the Quark voices, but I never would’ve guessed that. Naomi and Harry feature in this one, because they recognize the Dominators, having faced them in a not-yet-unreleased Fourth Doctor adventure. Which means we get Harry’s charming 70s-ness on top of the Dominators’ silly 60s-ness. And basically, it’s all a laugh. In the background, Josh is training Jimmy, so he can be an officer next story, and Jacqui has discharged herself from the hospital. Osgood thinks that’s unwise, and she’s right, because Jacqui’s a Vulpreen sleeper agent. This one is funny enough to be the standout from this box.
The War Factory
We’re back to the main plot again, this time with a Lizzy Hopley story, and I’m sorry to say that I found it tough to follow. There’s an awful lot of timey-wimey going on here, and I’m probably hampered by the fact that I’m unfamiliar with the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, which has a central role in the story. For whatever reason, Eleven is messing around with the arch in such a way that time fissures are opening all over the place, and since he’s doing it at the Arsenal, that means soldiers from various eras are shooting kinda randomly at things they see through the gaps, which is bad news, especially as the site was home to Britain’s post-WWII nuclear weapons program. The rifts allow Osgood and Jacqui to accidentally bounce into the future, where there’s a Vulpreen war going on, and Jacqui reveals her brainwashing by helping the Vulpreen out. But more important, Kate and Josh get bounced to the late 90s, where Brigadier Bambera is in charge. (Sir Alistair is still active, but not present. One wonders if he’s getting tired of receiving reports about incursions from Future UNIT and specifically his daughter.) Bambera and Kate get along like a house on fire, which is nice, because the building soon is. Angela Bruce, as always, plays Bambera as larger-than-life. This time, she’s acting protective toward a young private who’s facing trouble with the military’s glass ceiling. We also get one passionate “Oh, shame,” which is something I missed in the “Brave New World” sets. But really, it’s more runaround, and I wonder if anything was actually accomplished.
Ten Minutes in Hell
A rather ominously titled story by John Dorney finishes off this box. We’ve really spent quite a while back-and-forth-ing with the gate, and as of this point we’ve ended up with the Eleven free on Earth, and Kate a prisoner of the Vulpreen on their prison world. With the time differential, Kate could be on this world for hours while minutes pass on Earth, and there’s another gate that makes the situation even worse. This is an acting spotlight for Jemma Redgrave, as she gets to resist torture and then try to start an uprising among the prisoners. Josh and Osgood mount a rescue, which seems a bit absurd for just the two of them in unfamiliar territory, but hey, they’re really capable, so it’ll be all right. Osgood is a bit more flippant in the face of danger than previously, but by this point, she’d have to be. There’s no sign of flirting between them; that seems to have stopped after the parallel Earth incident a few boxes back. While it’s a pretty gripping episode, and Kate gets to do a lot of emoting, not that much really happens. This whole box, while mostly fine, has the feel of a middle episode. We can’t eliminate the threat altogether, but we have to have some kind of a win, so it ends up as a net zero.