Fractures: Kaiju

"These are remains of UNIT property from a parallel dimension."

Writer: Robert Valentine

Format: Audio

Released: June 2025

Series: UNIT: Brave New World 3.01

Featuring: Bambera, Rix, Savarin

Synopsis

Following an accident at High Skelton Research Centre, UNIT is called in.

The dimension-crossing experiments of Dr Hazel Wayward have created a catastrophic chain reaction within the lab, but even as Bambera, Savarin and Rix get the meltdown under control, the energy levels rise.

Something is coming through...

Verdict

Kaiju was an excellent start to the Fractures third series of UNIT's Brave New World spinoff! I am delighted to hear that this spinoff range has been given the green light for at least another two series and whilst I do understand the frustration in them only being available as downloads, much in the same way as The Voord in London first series of the Space Security Service new spinoff, I think it's better than nothing to continue this fascinating and great range. It's so good to visit UNIT in the year 2000 as essentially the team between the Classic and New Who eras of the show. There's a lot of potential there and that was played very well here. Our terrific trio of Bambera, Rix and Savarin worked brilliantly well together here and I wouldn't have expected that to come from a position of love. Rix's boyfriend Jamie McManus was now a Sergeant and that promotion was impacting on their relationship. This was some birthday for Rix! At least she got a cupcake before McManus snuck out for duty. I loved the link this episode had with Inferno in exploring parallel dimensions and the one that was on the precipice of touching and making contact having a Brigade Leader rather than Brigadier was a delightful throwback. The name of Project Looking Glass was glorious and I just think pretty much everything about this worked. It was a very exciting hour with a strong emotional attachment as well. Savarin playing the conscience role for Bambera was fun as whilst she was firmly invested in everyone at UNIT performing their duty, he could understand the love that came for Rix and McManus and wanted Winifred to go easy on them. He was really good in that role and the way he then challenged his senior in command about her own feelings of love for Ancelyn was a terrific throwback to Battlefield. Savarin was certainly testing the boundaries there and it was great to hear. The injection of comedy that came from him code naming the Kaiju creature as Winifred was outstanding as well. He'd done himself in a big way there! I thought Rix relying on Dr Wayward a lot was a little bit of a shame as she didn't seem all that confident in her answers to provide solutions, but I guess the dimensions were firmly Hazel's specialist area of expertise. I thought it was great that Wayward knew it was actually the other dimension version of her project that was causing the meltdown and when UNIT property was found coming through from another dimension, things got very serious. Rix finding her alternate self's laptop and seeing the video files of how dangerous the situation was worked very well and was just exciting. I wanted to hear more of what was happening. I'm a sucker for a parallel universe so this was right up my alley. The threat of the Winifred creature was on a scale that was perhaps only workable in audio given the description of its size and energy just making it bigger took a way a lot of the potential ways to put it down! The Ministry of Defence were certainly no help with their attack. I liked how it could burrow through dimensions as that was another wonderful image and I just like the concept. A creature that lives on the edges of dimensions between universes, now that's exciting! I hope we haven't finished exploring this element for the series as the fractures in the umbrella title could be a ramification of everything that's happened here and beyond. Rix getting sciencey with the solution to take out the Kaiju with different mathematics and settings was a bit of a techno babble, but I could take it. The emotion at the end with McManus nearly being killed in the fight against the creature in getting close was powerful stuff. I'm keen to explore this dynamic further as I love the tension between Bambera and Rix. Overall, an excellent start to the series! 

Rating: 9/10