Posted in: BBC, Disney+, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, disney, doctor who, gemma redgrave, Millie Gibson, Ncuti Gatwa, paul cornell, russell t davies, steven moffat, UNIT

Doctor Who: UNIT Is The Show's Version of Star Trek's "Redshirts"

Doctor Who fans are STILL craving a UNIT spinoff series - but has UNIT ever REALLY saved the day or are they always the show's "redshirts"?

Doctor Who is back, and with it comes furious fan speculation and desire for a UNIT spinoff. Their appearance in the new season, starting with the 60th Anniversary Specials and the finale, feels like a backdoor pilot for a spinoff. This always felt a bit odd as UNIT (Unified Intelligence Task Force after the United Nations complained the series' original uses of "United Nations" was unauthorised) has always offered the series an endless supply of "redshirts," like in the "Star Trek" universe.

UNIT was introduced in the 1968 Doctor Who story "The Invasion" where the Cybermen invade then-contemporary London. UNIT was ostensibly there to fight and shoot uselessly at the Cybermen because perhaps it might have been bad optics to portray the British Army as being ineffective against an invading alien cyborg army. Then UNIT became a major part of Doctor Who starting from the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) era in 1970 with "Spearhead from Space." Since the Doctor was exiled to Earth without access to the TARDIS to run around in Space and Time, UNIT became their home on Earth. That was the "James Bond-spy-action movie" phase of the series with lots of guns and shooting and the Doctor doing martial arts. That was when UNIT captured the fans' imagination. It gave boys the fantasy of having soldiers running around with guns playing soldiers. Except UNIT soldiers were there to be "redshirts" and be killed after their bullets never worked, and the Menace of the Week easily kills them just to show how deadly they are. Basic Genre Storytelling 101.

Can you imagine a pitch for a UNIT spinoff series? "A top-secret organisation with a mission to protect the world from alien and supernatural threats but are completely useless when the shit hits the fan." This has happened every single time on Doctor Who for about 50 years! Granted, Russell T. Davies brought them back in the new series, and writer Paul Cornell made them honourable and kind of cool, but they were still soldier extras with guns.

Granted, UNIT members have always had fan favourites, starting with their first commander, Brigadier Alastair Lethbridget-Stewart (played by Nicholas Courtney with unflappable dry humour), Sergeant John Benton, Captain Mike Yates, Dr. Harry Sullivan (who became a companion), and so on. Hell, any member of UNIT who had a name and didn't die immediately would end up as a fan favourite. That's fandom for you. Steven Moffat brought in new characters like Kate Stewart (Gemma Redgrave), the Brigadier's daughter, to lead a kinder, gentler, slightly less trigger-happy leader of UNIT with scientific advisor Petronella Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) with Davies then introducing scientific advisors Shirley Anne Bingham (Ruth Madeley) and Morris Gibbons (Lennie Rush), and alien robot Vrinx (voiced by regular Dalek actor Nicholas Briggs) – all modern faces of UNIT designed to have fan followings. And UNIT now hires former Doctor companions. It's the series' own fanfiction toy box for endless continuity-based stories. The UNIT members introduced in "The Giggle" and "The Legend of Ruby Sunday" are likable with fun banter and would be a good cast to base a spinoff series around, but there's still one issue.

UNIT Has Never Saved the Day on "Doctor Who"!!

The problem with UNIT on Doctor Who is that they have never, ever saved the day. The new version looks much cooler and more scientific and rational… until they just panic, and everyone goes trigger-happy again. They're just there to deliver exposition and explanations with tech jargon when the Doctor doesn't need to anymore. And every time UNIT decides on an operation with utmost confidence that they're prepared, it goes horribly wrong. You know it's going to go horribly wrong the moment Kate Stewart or any leader of UNIT talks confidently about how prepared they are. Who wants to watch a series about a band of scientists and soldiers with all the money, tech, and guns anyone could possibly possess who fail to save the day and have to wait for the Doctor to show up? They had an audio drama spinoff series because they were written to save the day, but that's a niche that hardcore fans have latched onto.

A UNIT spinoff series could work as Doctor Who's version of Star Trek: Lower Decks. They're the grunts of the Doctor Who universe. They just need to not keep firing guns and getting killed.

Doctor Who is now streaming globally on Disney+.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!