Doctor Who: The Giggle Review - 8 Ups And 4 Downs
11. DOWN - UNIT’s Upgrade
What in the Avengers has happened to UNIT?!
Having made significant strides since being shut down during the Chibnall era, UNIT appears to have gotten a tremendous offscreen upgrade in the last few years, with their Disney-endorsed Stark Tower replica and fancy James Bond gadgets. They’ve redecorated… and we don’t like it.
We understand the desire to modernise UNIT a little bit, but they’ve lost a little of the old-school ‘Brigadier’ appeal they’ve always had, feeling a little more like Doctor Who’s off-brand version of Marvel’s SHIELD. They’re meant to be well-intentioned but mostly ineffectual – but with all this cash coming out the wazoo it’s hard to see them as plucky anymore. There wasn’t a single red beret in sight.
It was good to see Kate back along with Shirley, but they weren’t given a lot to do beyond Kate getting to showcase the virus, and the inclusion of the random unexplained robot left us with a pile of questions and absolutely no answers. We can’t help but feel they should've saved this for an episode where they had more spare runtime.