Now the thing about is box set, isn’t not an origin story for Winifred in fact it’s quite the opposite. We start with Winifred towards the end of her career as a Brigadier, and offers a pace at UNIT (UNified Intelligence Taskforce) she been have been in the position of Brigadier for quite some considerable time after her adventure with 7th Doctor in Battlefield.
So we have well seasoned military officer who’s doesn’t have much time for the outlandish missions the are covered in Unit’s remit. Yet she has tried to keep updated to but at the cost of her personal life.
The Back of the CD/Website
The Cold War is over, the Millennium is fast approaching, and Brigadier Winifred Bambera is the new head of UNIT.
But in this shadowy, unpredictable world of deadly threats and hidden enemies, Bambera and her new team – Sergeant Jean-Paul Savarin and Dr Louise Rix – will need to prove their mettle. The stakes are higher than ever.
1.1 Rogue State by Robert Valentine
In the war-torn republic of Valge Maja, Brigadier Bambera is hot on the trail of arms-dealing terrorist, Roman Krojač, when she’s ordered back to Geneva. Her old sponsor, Dame Lydia Kingsley, offers her a job as the new head of UNIT. Reluctant to accept, she nevertheless teams up with sarcastic UNIT officer Sergeant Jean-Paul Savarin to prevent a monstrous Soviet-era weapon from falling into Krojač’s hands.
My Review – We are dropped right into the middle of a messy situation, which out lines the way heading. Bambera believes she’s made one mistake to many, and reluctantly agree to one last mission.
As a first episode it’s an excellent one, there is just enough world building, so the plot has room to breathe. There is wonderful pay off and if you listen very carefully it sounds like there is a reference, one of the members of the counter-measures team.
10/10
1.2 Time Flies by Alison Winter
Bambera and Savarin are summoned to a secretive genetic research facility by Dr Louise Rix, UNIT’s rebellious new scientific adviser. Two scientists have vanished in mysterious circumstances, and despite the assurances of the sinister Dr Grange, UNIT suspects there’s something very wrong with the centre’s caterpillar population. Can they survive the fruits of Dr Grange’s experiments? And will Savarin survive Bambera and Rix’s rocky new relationship?
My Review – This were things kind of fall out step for me. We have Louise Rix as the new scientific advisor which is all very well, we have one every time the Doctor isn’t around, the problem is that it’s the mid 1990’s so we fall into the trope of computer geek/scientific advisor being very weird and it’s all a foreign language to the people that don’t understand it.
I don’t really have problem with that trope most of the time but it’s layed on a bit to thick in some places, and the very end feel a little bit like a sitcom.
8/10
1.3 Dark Side of the Moon by Alfie Shaw
A new British space station, the Britannia, is due to be launched at the end of the week, but Bambera, Rix and Savarin fear that some kind of psychic entity is trying to sabotage it. Is it really the spirit of Helena McNamara, deceased astronaut and old friend of Rix? And does it speak the truth when it warns that something terrible is waiting for humanity on the dark side of the moon?
My Review – There is a lot more going, that just what the back of the box says here. It also feels more than just the third episode in, as Rix’s talks as if they have been on more than the adventures we have heard so far.
The aren’t as many in universe references to time and date (which established more 90s or towards the end of the 1990s) as before which give the story a lot of breathing room. We get to see Savarin play peace-maker between Rix and Bambera which a nice dynamic.
10/10
My Overall Review – The thing I notice the most, is how much work has gone it this box set making it feel like it really is a mid 1990’s show even going as far making the theme music sound as if something like the X files.
All in all the box set, It definitely feels like the missing piece of the jigsaw. Yes it written with 2020 hindsight and because it’s audio an unlimited budget. Yet it feels like the natural progression for the character of Brigadier Bamberra, and the bridge between the years after Doctor Who endeed and the new Unit we have seen on screen.
There are three more stories in the next box set and we shall see if we have a conclusion to the conspiracies theory that was set up in one of the stories.
Inside my head 