Doctor Who review: UNIT: Silenced is a strong sequel to their original story
By James Aggas
UNIT: Silenced is not only a box set that brings back a rather overlooked Doctor Who monster. It also works extremely well as a sequel to their original appearance.
UNIT: Silenced – the third volume of the Doctor Who audio spin-off – is a rather different box set compared to other volumes of the series. This is partly due to the monster it features, the Silence. Not the order itself, but the monsters they used to control humanity, as originally seen in Matt Smith episodes The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon. The fact that you forget about them the moment you stop looking at them makes them an extremely dangerous enemy.
There are several UNIT box sets that feature four-part epics focused around one central enemy, including Extinction, Shutdown, and Assembled. What makes Silenced stand out is that due to the nature of the monster UNIT faces in this volume, they naturally keep forgetting about them. The second episode is even called Square One, which gives you an idea of how easily the story gets reset.
This allows for a little variation in terms of storytelling. Instead of feeling like a single four-part epic, Silenced feels like a closely linked group of three stories: two single episodes, with a two-parter right in the middle. The fact that the stories are spread over a significant period of time helps them to remain distinct. It’s an unusual use of the four-part box set, but it works very nicely.
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A natural sequel
One element that’s particularly enjoyable is how much Silenced comes across as a direct sequel to their original appearance. While they appeared elsewhere in Doctor Who – including Series 6’s finale The Wedding of River Song and Matt Smith’s final episode The Time of the Doctor – neither of them dealt directly with the consequences of their first appearance.
As such, a great deal of the plot from Silenced comes both from the fact that the Silence has been hunted down by humanity thanks to a widely seen subliminal message, and how they finally try to undo that message. Not only does this allow for some interesting storytelling, but it also wraps up one or two plotholes, like why Clara didn’t feel compelled to kill a Silent in The Time of the Doctor when she saw one.
The stories themselves all work very nicely on their own terms. House of Silents does a great job of reintroducing the monsters while reminding us of how dangerous they really are. Square One and Silent Majority form a strong two-parter that feels like a mix of conspiracy thriller and political commentary. In Memory Alone rounds off the box set with a worldwide threat.
The middle two episodes – both written by John Dorney – are the ones that particularly stand out, due to both the commentary and the grounded nature of the episodes. But Matt Fitton’s surrounding stories are also strong, and both open and close the box set’s overall story nicely.
Almost three years since it was originally released, UNIT: Silenced still stands out as a strong volume of the series. It uses a rather overlooked Doctor Who monster extremely well, featuring a fresh take on them while also giving us a differently structured UNIT adventure. An easy box set to recommend.
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Have you listened to UNIT: Silenced? Do you think it used the monsters well? Do you think Big Finish should explore the Silence even further in other series? Let us know in the comments below.