As I explained previously with UNIT: The Coup, I am treating UNIT as a single tightly linked serial, and therefore am overriding the Randomoid Selectortron to select the episode following my previous UNIT listen:
UNIT: Time Heals
Starring: Nicholas Courtney as Lethbridge-Stewart, Siri O'Neal as Emily Chaudhry, Nicholas Deal as Robert Dalton, Michael Hobbs as Francis Currie
Format: One full-cast CD (or download) with no episode breaks
Silly? No.
Standalone? No. There are no strong connections to the previous episode, but major plot threads are begun in this episode and left unresolved.
Recommended? Yes.
My reaction to this story contains spoilers for it and for the first UNIT audio season in general.
Before listening
I've heard all of this UNIT series before, but I don't remember what specifically happened in this episode. I remember that Snake Head was the lone non-arc episode that hinted at what the series would be like if it were longer and more episodic, and so I infer Time Heals must be an arc episode, presumably introducing elements of the UNIT/ICIS conflict. Also, based on the trailer at the end of The Coup and the summary of this episode on Big Finish's website, the Brigadier comes out of retirement in some more ongoing capacity than his one-time stunt in The Coup.I am certainly looking forward to more UNIT.
After listening
There isn't quite a distinct opening or closing theme, and the end of the episode flows directly into the trailer for the next episode without a break. The CD is broken into oddly short tracks, 42 of them in all.This episode introduces Dalton, transferred to the UK's UNIT branch to be its acting CO after the abduction of the previous CO. Dalton is the "Scully" of this series, with no prior experience in dealing with the kinds of thing UNIT deals with and an excessive level of skepticism.
Lethbridge-Stewart, now holding the rank of general and formally retired, shows up in this episode to do some independent research and send the results to Chaudhry, but doesn't yet interact with the rest of the cast beyond a phone call and e-mail.
Francis Currie is barely in this episode, and is positioned as an antagonist. He speculates on-air about what UNIT refuses to tell him, invoking the possibility of Islamic terrorists among other hypotheses.
Two scientist characters are oddly uncredited in the Big Finish web page for Time Heals despite being essential to the main plot thread of the episode.
The main thread is UNIT's attempts to discover and stop a secret teleportation experiment which is going terribly wrong, teleporting a train into another trains, a plane into a collision course to Windsor Castle, et cetera. The kidnapping of UNIT's CO (voiced in later episodes by David Tennant but not heard here) occurs early in the story, has little connection to the teleportation experiment, and is left unresolved, leaving Dalton in charge as acting CO as the episode ends. Another plot thread involves a nuclear submarine's reactor going critical at a suspiciously inconvenient time for UNIT; that immediate crisis is resolved, but the question of why it happened at all is left open.
UNIT's public relations is a major element of the story. Chaudhry, the highest-ranking officer left in UK's UNIT branch after the CO's abduction, is in charge of UNIT's public relations. Despite the events of The Coup making UNIT's general remit public knowledge, Chaudhry's default public relations strategy is still to cover everything up.
This was a good listen. The submarine plot thread seems strangely tacked-on, but that disconnect might actually be for reasons that are justified in-story, and the thread taken on its own is pretty good (if a bit over-reliant on not letting the audience hear something a character knows). Performances are good, pacing is good, and background music is effective without being overwhelming. I certainly recommend this for anyone with an interest in the relevant corner of Doctor Who continuity.
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