UNIT turns 50, its audio spin-off returns for a seventh series. The four episodes of Revisitations put Kate Stewart and Osgood up against three different threats, each of which has a history with Doctor Who, UNIT, or both. Chris Chapman kicks things off with Hosts of the Wirrn, a two-parter featuring the insectoids from Robert Holmes’ 1975 serial The Ark in Space.
“The genius of the Wirrn is how nasty and disgusting they are,” says Chris. “But Robert Holmes was very good at making them creatures rather than monsters. They’re not evil – they just want to survive and expand, in the same way that the human race expands and can hurt people by doing so. I wanted to tap into how creepy they can be, but also treat them as having very understandable motivations for what they do.”
The story also introduces a new UNIT recruit, Shana Siddiqui. “Seven series in, it’s always good to give people a jumping-on point, so we thought it might be fun to bring in a new character,” says Chris. “It was also a chance to look at how crazy the UNIT recruitment process probably is, and see that through her eyes. Shana is an entomologist and is brought in to give some new perspective on the Wirrn. I wanted her to be a down-to-earth, normal person who gets involved in a very nasty chain of events as her first exposure to UNIT life.”