The Battle of the Tower

"I don't like clever. I prefer my aliens stupid."

Writer: Andrew Smith
Format: Audio
Released: 30th June 2016
Series: UNIT: Shutdown 03

Featuring: Kate, Osgood, Josh

Synopsis

The threat is now clear, and Kate Stewart retreats to UNIT HQ with her most trusted colleagues. She has no choice but to place the Black Archive into lockdown, and the Tower of London is where UNIT will make its stand.

While the capital sleeps, an alien horde is gathering, ready to rise from the shadows to attack Earth's greatest defence force inside its own stronghold.

The Tower is infiltrated, and UNIT must hold the line. At any cost. Lock and load...

Verdict

The Battle of the Tower was a decent story that continued Shutdown, the second series of the new UNIT audio adventures, and whilst it was good I have to say I was hoping for a little better. It started right where Death in Geneva concluded and there was an action-packed opening before the titles but it didn't really take off from there which was a shame. We continued to learn more about the Tengobushi which was good and I liked how there seems to be a clear hierarchy amongst the Kamishi and their masters. We got to hear a glimpse of them at the end which was intriguing and the finale is set up rather nicely now. That in itself is a little weird as this episode really did have the feel of the finale with the looming battle but things didn't quite materialise as I hoped. Kate was terrific once again and I liked how when she wanted a meeting with Felicity Lyme she just had Josh kidnap her. That was pretty great. Josh had another solid showing and he really is proving himself to be a brilliant part of the UNIT team. Osgood continues to shine and I like how she deduced that Kamishi science was far in advance of human ability. There was a mesh of nervous system and circuitry in the power cell that Dokan so craved. Osgood had actually activated it too which brought some intriguing consequences but I always had the feeling of wanting something more from the story. What we got was good and some of the information was both interesting and exciting but there wasn't quite enough oomph. The Tengobushi infiltrating the Tower of London was good but the nature of their attack only being a diversion meant it couldn't quite be as much of a spectacle as one might hope. Josh and Kate working out that their attack was static was good but then Kate ended up just giving Dokan the energy supply. The Kamishi didn't want any chance of that technology being replicated so all who had been exposed to its truth were still to die but Dokan's masters had detected usage in the South Pole. How that will connect with the rest of the boxset is yet to be seen but I look forward to finding out. The mentions of Andromeda and Kate's father were good and I did like the connection made with Kate's comment of remembering UNIT training but I just felt that this episode was missing something to take it into a higher rating. It was still very decent though and I do hope that it has set up the finale. Because as a whole this series has still been excellent and I look forward to its conclusion. Overall though, a decent story!

Rating: 7/10