The Dalek Transaction

UNIT #5.1

Released: 29 November 2017

Listened: 4/12/23

Big Finish originally planned for just four UNIT boxed sets, because that’s the number they arbitrarily chose for most of their series at the beginning of the boxed set era. However, the popularity of the series was such that they kept right on going, at the rate of two boxes a year. However, they did decide to change things up a little bit with #5, entitled “Encounters.” The original idea was that they’d do four stand-alone stories, and they mostly still are, but as the set developed, the thread of “the Auctioneers” wove itself into the background of each story. For this one, the big deal is that there’s a Dalek (it’s right there in the title). It crashed somewhere in the South Atlantic, and some generic Central American revolutionaries have salvaged it, removed its eye, arm, and gunstick, and are selling off the rest. UNIT isn’t sure what the alien is, so they go undercover as shady alien-buyers to find out. Colonel Shindi is back for this one, although he’s not great at playing a mercenary. Kate, Osgood, and Josh are the rest of the squad, because of course they are. Everybody involved knows what a Dalek is, Shindi from personal experience, the others by reputation. But they all know enough to be properly terrified, as they should be, with the Daleks having gotten their new-series upgrade. And this Dalek is proper scary, even without its casing. It’s a trained scout, and it knows what it’s doing. Matt Fitton has done a great job of making this truly frightening. My only complaint is the body count. Yes, a Dalek can kill a lot of people; but having it kill everybody except the people with their names on the cover is a bit much. Still, UNIT had to face a Dalek eventually, and this is a good example of how to do it right.