Bridgehead

"The plan is entering a critical phase..."

Writer: Andrew Smith

Format: Audio

Released: November 2015

Series: UNIT: Extinction 03

Featuring: Kate, Osgood 

Synopsis 

With Nestene energy units falling from the skies around the globe, UNIT's resources are stretched to breaking point as they try to respond.

Josh Carter has gone undercover inside Devlin FutureTech. His safety is jeopardised, however, by the activities of investigative journalist Jacqui McGee.

As the Nestenes progress their plans, Kate becomes a target.

Verdict 

Bridgehead was an excellent audio adventure and was the best yet of the UNIT spinoff series. Extinction continued along very nicely and my hopes from the first two stories were realised with a whole lot more action occurring. There was a decent pace and a whole lot of excitement which was fantastic. This was definitely the best of the boxset so far and you'd be able to see that simply by comparing the ratings of the stories. The story has set things up very nicely for the finale of the audio collection and I look very forward to listening to that tomorrow. But let's talk about what I got through today and I thought it was good to focus on a newly introduced character in the form of Josh. He takes the centre stage on the front of the CD cover and rightfully so as he is at the forefront for most of the story. His infiltration of the Devlin FutureTech headquarters of sorts was great and I liked how he was willing to do whatever it took to get the information that Kate and UNIT required. Kate didn't want him getting captured but he wanted to get the job done. I really liked the Autons in this story and their attack at the start of the adventure was excellent. They were utterly ruthless and the fact they were being created by the 3D printers around the world was fantastic. I'm loving the concept of the boxset and it's certainly a unique form of an invasion on the part of the Nestene Consciousness! Hearing the controller of the Autons is intriguing and I have liked the job that Nicholas Briggs has done in voicing that monster. I must admit, I'm surprised by the lack of times the Doctor has been mentioned and although it's good that the spinoff is standing alone, a mention of the heroic Time Lord wouldn't go down a miss. Osgood was as good as ever and I just love how intelligent she is. She even managed to confuse Kate during this story which is rather impressive. Kate was her usual composed self and I like how despite her calm nature, she doesn't lack in being stern when she needs to be. Her holographic communication to Josh in the toilets was quite humorous. I think Devlin is a superb villain and his pact with the Nestene Consciousness is surely bound to backfire in the next and final story. It's worked pretty well up to this point with only one major casualty but it doesn't seem to be much of a setback. Devlin FutureTech has become a global sensation but the printers are now hitting the news for the wrong reasons. But it may be too late to stop them now. Unplugging the printers won't stop them producing Autons and the mannequins were utterly ruthless in their slaughter if they were attacked. This audio was back up to a 50 minute running time after a pretty short story in Earthfall. It allowed for greater detail and obviously for just more to happen. I thought the lead in for the final story was pretty good and the three audios so far have set up the boxset finale very nicely. I just hope there's a whole lot of action, excitement and a good story to match! I'm sure it will be. This one was great and overall, another fantastic audio!

Rating: 9/10