Objective: Earth
UNIT Nemesis #3
Released: 15 November 2022
Listened: 4/28/23 - 5/1/23
The Vulpreen Encounter
We’re on another new boxed set, this one called “Objective: Earth,” basically indicating that the Vulpreen are ready to show up in force, instead of being all mysterious with gates. Which doesn’t mean we’re done screwing around with the gates, not by a long shot. This one is a pair of two-handers: Osgood and Jimmy in space, and Kate and Jacqui at a UNIT safe-house. Osgood and Jimmy are investigating a big asteroid spotted near Jupiter, and yeah, of course it’s Vulpreen. Unfortunately, a whole pile of UNIT troops get slaughtered in the process; we’d had a pretty good streak of low fatalities for a while there. They’re mostly running around gathering intel and trying to figure out how to get home. Jacqui has been in self-imposed isolation at a safe-house in Norway, trying to recover from her Vulpreen brainwashing. Kate goes to visit because there’s been no word from her in a while. Jacqui is being even more spikey than usual, and doesn’t seem terribly recovered. In fact, it’s a pretty clear setup to make you think that she’s still working for the Vulpreen…or is she? The acting between Tracy Wiles and Jemma Redgrave is pretty top-notch, but not a lot is going on from a plot perspective.
By Jacqui McGee
As the title indicates, this is a Jacqui spotlight episode. Jacqui is captured by the Vulpreen early on, and while we learned last time that she’s not working for them, sometimes she doesn’t have a choice in the matter. However, while imprisoned, she’s able to file verbal reports to the UNIT cloud, always giving herself a byline. The Vulpreen have taken to lobbing rocks at the Earth, which are dismissed as meteorites, but each contains an arch. Specifically, one of the first arches ends up in Beijing, where we meet Yang Li, tour guide at the Forbidden City, who’s apparently far too curious for her own good, and ends up prisoner as well. We also get Naomi in this story, orchestrating an aerial rescue. Unfortunately, dramatic chase scenes are a little difficult to do on audio, because people have to describe the action, which keeps slowing things down. In fact, writer Lisa McMullin includes a lot more “describing what’s in front of them” lines than I normally expect from Big Finish, enough to draw me out of the story, so that’s rather disappointing. Big Finish has done a spotty job of making UNIT seem like a large organization, rather than just the people in the credits. They’d been improving over time, but the stories in this box really narrow the scope again, which is unfortunate, as there’s a big invasion going on.
Axos Unleashed
In the previous two boxes, episode 2 was a distraction with a classic monster (Ice Warriors and Dominators). This time, it’s episode 3, but it’s still a distraction. It turns out that the invasion force that comes out of the arches isn’t Vulpreen, but Axos. It’s not clear how Axos escaped its time loop, because it deliberately avoids explaining. It’s also not at all clear why the Vulpreen would team up with Axos, but the intent seems to be to further obscure the Vulpreen’s motives. We’re 75% of the way through the story, and it’s still not completely clear what they want. It seems like they want to take over, but maybe not? Just about everyone in UNIT knows what Axos is and what happened last time, but that doesn’t give a ton of solutions. Naomi figures they need a Time Lord to pop Axos back in its time loop, and then only one available is the Eleven, so she fetches him, but surprise, he’s not particularly helpful. At least, not voluntarily. Li is still hanging around from last story, despite everybody saying she should go home and they can’t endanger a civilian. She turns out to be a mini-companion for Osgood, saying just the right thing at the right time to give her an idea to solve the problem. Although Katharine Armitage said she did a lot of science research for this story, I have to say I find the science a bit dodgy. It also feels more like a distraction than the Ice Warriors or Dominators did. The story should be picking up pace at this point, but it isn’t.
Time of the Vulpreen
Now that we’re done with Axos, we let the Vulpreen back in the room. And really, they’re pretty much just invading. Or dropping arches all over the world, anyway. Including one on the Isle of Wight, of all places; big strategic advantage there. But that’s the one where Varliss happens to turn up in order to taunt Kate, because he’s really annoyed by her at this point. Osgood press-gangs the Eleven into helping do a sciency thing to disable the arches, which gives Ingrid Oliver the chance to be snarky, and it goes quite well. She’s grown some since she started at UNIT, and it shows. There’s a noble sacrifice with a fake-out, and although writer Roland Moore says he really likes those, I found this one transparent enough to be annoying. Admittedly, Jacqui’s death a couple of stories ago gives it a tiny bit of weight, but not really. So we end with UNIT on the back foot, which they had to be, because it’s box three of four. There’s a good cliffhanger, although it’s overplayed just a little. Ultimately, this whole box feels like it has middle-episode syndrome, which is unfortunate.