Once again
its a bit hard to discuss this one without talking about the
conclusion so this is a SPOILER one.
UNIT: The New
Series: Assembled #4
United
written by
Matt Fitton
One useful
consequence of the last episode (and a short bit of dialogue
explaining that Colonel Shindi is in Geneva, oh nostalgia) is that
all the modern cast are trapped outside the UK due to dinosaur siege.
This means that we start out with the retirees in the Tower Of London
and Kate and company trying to find a way back to them. It is rather
sweet that Mike, Benton and Jo get to take command for a little bit
even if it is the most fanservice-y plot element of the series.
You know, I
go into every one of these Earth Reptile stories hoping for a
peaceful conclusion and, I guess, this one sort of counts. Its not
perfect, the resolution is mainly bloodless but the Earth Reptiles
don't agree to anything, they're essentially tricked into
surrendering and returning to their hibernation chambers. Just once
I'd like for the character who charges off to make peace even though
everyone thinks its hopeless (its Jo again, by the way) to some real,
material success instead of being shuffled off to the hostage room.
There's even a second such scene with Mike and Josh meeting Jastrok
under truce which ends abruptly when Mike gets one piece of
information that will make attacking the Silurians easier. Okay,
Jastrok isn't exactly entering into the spirit of the truce but they
could have at least tried.
On the plus
side, Jo and Osgood continue their epic team-up of women uplifting
other women (there is nothing better) with Jo encouraging Osgood to
just bloody ask one of the hunky men she works with out. I mean, I'd
rather she take Kate up on one of those social events that aren't
dates, honest guv, but alone time with Naked Caveman Sam would be
just as good. Talking of Sam, towards the end Katy Manning plays the
hell out of some “naughty granny flirting” when Sam is assigned
to escort her to South America in search of new homes for
plesiosaurs.
So, yeah,
there's a lot of good character stuff and some nice comparisons
between the UNIT family and the modern incarnation but I still find
myself a little sad that once again Malcolm Hulke's startling
innovation of an “alien” race with individual personalities and a
sympathetic moral position were just treated as another menace to be
disposed of. Disposed of in a more humane way than usual, its true
though just sending them back to sleep seems a bit too... I don't
want to say “concentration camp” because that's in awful taste
and not accurate in the details but there is a certain element of
rounding them up and locking them away that I'm not quite comfortable
with.
No comments:
Post a Comment