UNIT: Series One - 2025

 

UNIT would’ve been the fifth spinoff show after Earth Defence, Olympus, After Travels and the Beginning. It was ran by Pete McTighe and Tom Shankland, the series was created by Chris Clenshaw as it was seen as a unique idea to have a Doctor Who show set in the past.

David Morrissey was cast in the lead role as Peter Durrell, the Commander In Chief of UNIT in the 1980s. Daniel Mays plays Michael Cleaver, Anna Maxwell-Martin as Sandra Foley, Adam James as James Drayton and Jack Franklin as David Reid.

There would be six episodes throughout written by Pete McTighe and Tom Shankland, with music being composed by David Arnold, but 80s songs being present in the end credits in a similar vein to Olympus: Insurrection (2021).

New Order

By Pete McTighe and Tom Shankland

A cold, grey morning in London, 1986. The camera tracks a high-security convoy snaking through the city, two Land Rovers flanking an unmarked military transport truck. Inside the truck, soldiers sit in tense silence, surrounding a heavily secured crate marked RESTRICTED - UNIT BLACK ARCHIVE. A radio crackles, but before the commander can respond, an explosion rips through the lead vehicle. Chaos erupts as masked assailants, clad in black tactical gear, descend upon the convoy. In moments, the attackers retrieve the crate and disappear into the smoke, leaving UNIT forces scrambling in their wake.

At UNIT HQ, Commander Peter Durrell strides into the briefing room, a man carrying the weight of responsibility. He meets his team: Michael Cleaver - a UNIT Operative, Sandra Foley -  Scientific Advisor, James Drayton - an ex- SAS soldier and David Reid who’s recently joined as a Sergeant. Durrell orders Cleaver to track down the attackers, while Foley analyses footage of the assault. The stolen crate contained Object 17, a remnant from an off-the-books alien encounter in the 1960s. If it falls into the wrong hands, the consequences could be catastrophic.

A shadowy figure unlocks the stolen crate. Inside: a pulsating sphere, shimmering with a sickly green glow. As the figure reaches out, the sphere flares with energy, warping reality around it. In the distance, something else stirs, something ancient, long dormant… and now awake.

Durrell and his team race against time, tracing the attackers to an abandoned warehouse in the Docklands. As Drayton and his squad breach the facility, they find themselves outmatched by enemies wielding advanced technology. Energy weapons flare, and in the chaos, Foley identifies their adversaries: The Cartwright Group, a rogue faction obsessed with harnessing extraterrestrial power.

UNIT fights back hard, managing to disable the Cartwright Group’s technology. Durrell personally apprehends Julian Cartwright, ensuring the sphere is secured once more. As UNIT personnel sweep the area, Foley examines the device, theorising that it remains highly unstable. Durrell orders it transported back to the Black Archive under maximum security.

Back at UNIT Headquarters, the team gathers for a debrief. Though victorious, they all know this was just one battle in an ongoing war. Durrell stands at his office window, staring into the city skyline, deep in thought.

The episode ends with Blue Monday by New Order playing over the scene and into the end credits.

The Open Arms of The Sea

By Tom Shankland

A storm rages over the North Sea. A massive oil rig, the Rotherhithe Platform, stands alone against the waves. Inside, red emergency lights flicker as an alarm blares. A radio operator frantically transmits a distress signal: "They’re inside. They’re…" The transmission cuts to static. The last thing we see is something inhuman reflected in a porthole. Then, silence.

UNIT is called in after the Rotherhithe Platform goes completely dark: no signals, no crew. Durrell is briefed: this rig was recently drilling into an unexplored seabed trench, believed to be millions of years old.

Durrell dispatches his team via helicopter, As their helicopter approaches, they spot strange bio-luminescent patterns glowing beneath the waves, something alive. Onboard, the platform is silent. No crew, no bodies, just empty rooms and a lingering sense of something watching. Reid restores power, revealing a repeating distress transmission: "Leave it alone. It wants to wake up." Foley examines samples of a strange, translucent substance coating parts of the rig. It’s organic, but unknown to science. Drayton leads a sweep, finding a crew member in a deep-sea diving suit except he’s dead, his face twisted in unnatural horror.

Then, they hear footsteps but the rig is supposed to be empty. The team follows the sounds down into the rig’s lower levels, a pressure chamber leading to the ocean floor. Security footage shows the last drilling operation breaching an underwater cavern… then a flash of light before the feed cuts out.

Cleaver finds the lead scientist’s journal, scrawled with warnings: "It is not dead. It only sleeps." Then, the walls start to pulse. A crew member stumbles out of the shadows - alive but in shock, whispering: "We let it out. We let it out."

Reid uncovers sonar data showing something massive moving beneath the rig. At the same time, the oil platform starts shaking. Foley pieces it together: the drilling accidentally freed something ancient, something hibernating beneath the seabed for millennia. And now, it’s awake. Suddenly, humanoid figures emerge from the shadows, mutated crew members, their skin translucent, their eyes black voids. They aren’t human anymore. Drayton and Cleaver fight their way back to the control room. Foley rushes to analyse a sample of the strange organism, it’s an extraterrestrial parasite, dormant in the trench for millions of years. Durrell makes the call: they have to sink the rig before the parasite spreads. As the rig shakes apart, the team sets explosives. But before they can detonate, a monstrous shape rises from the ocean, a colossal, tentacled creature covered in bioluminescent markings. It was never just a parasite, it was a lifeform, waiting for release. As it lets out a low, echoing sound, the infected crew members stop fighting, they bow. It’s their god. Durrell gives the order: blow the charges. As the rig erupts in flames, the team barely makes it onto the helicopter. Below, the creature vanishes beneath the waves, retreating into the dark.

Back at UNIT headquarters, Foley warns: "We didn’t kill it. We just made it angry." UNIT sails away from the rig, the sea unnaturally still, the team shaken by what they’ve witnessed. Meanwhile, deep beneath the ocean, a pulse of bioluminescence flickers: as if sending a message. “Reel Around The Fountain” by The Smiths plays over the end credits.

The Man Who Wasn’t There

By Pete McTighe

A family birthday party, London, 1983. Laughter, balloons, a Polaroid camera flashing. As a young woman named Claire Weston takes a picture with her fiancé, James, she suddenly freezes. Confusion washes over her face. she asks who he is, James laughs until he sees the fear in her eyes. Moments later, Claire screams. James is gone. His chair is empty. The Polaroid she just took? Only Claire remains in the photo. The guests stare in horror as their own memories shift. James Weston never existed.

At UNIT HQ, Durrell briefs the team. A growing pattern of disappearances has emerged across London. The victims are not just missing and they’ve been erased. Families, friends, even official records no longer acknowledge they existed.

The only clue? Each case involves a flash of blue light and a faint electromagnetic anomaly. Durrell orders a full sweep of affected locations.

Investigating Claire Weston’s home, UNIT finds a distorted electromagnetic field in the living room. When Reid scans it, the readings are off the charts as if something has rewritten reality itself.

Meanwhile, Cleaver tracks down a link: all victims were connected to a reclusive scientist, Dr. Elias Wren, last seen a year ago working on quantum phase technology for the British government.

Foley and Drayton visit Wren’s abandoned laboratory: a dusty, decaying building filled with scribbled notes. One message is carved into the wall: “I’M SORRY. I DIDN’T MEAN TO DISAPPEAR.” 

Then, a shadow moves. A flicker of something. Foley turns and for the briefest moment, sees a man standing in the room with them. A man whose face is fading in and out of existence.

Back at UNIT HQ, while analysing the quantum readings, David is visibly shaken. Sandra asks him if he’s ok and says he is usually sharper at work, David says that it’s not work and he opens up to Sandra. He tells her that he recently came out as gay. His family, whom he loved dearly, have cut him out of their lives. His mother won’t speak to him. His father won’t look at him. It’s like he’s been erased from his own family’s history.

Sandra listens, then places a hand on his as she tells him that he’s not on his own. David nods, holding back tears. It’s a moment of genuine connection and a bond beyond work, beyond UNIT. A found family forming in the shadows of a cold world.

The team pieces it together: Wren’s device was meant to phase matter between dimensions. But it malfunctioned, and now he’s trapped between existence and non-existence, slowly pulling others into his fragmented state. Tracking a new disappearance, UNIT pinpoints the anomaly to an abandoned factory in East London.

Inside, they find dozens of floating, distorted figures, victims frozen mid-movement, partially erased from reality.At the center stands Dr. Elias Wren, flickering like a ghost.

He sees them. "Help me," he whispers.

Foley and Reid realise they can stabilise Wren’s reality field with UNIT’s experimental tech, but only for a moment. Drayton and Cleaver fight through time-warped distortions, struggling to free the trapped victims before they vanish completely.

As Reid works on the device, the distortions grow worse. He panics as this feels too personal. Like he’s trying to save his own lost place in the world. Sandra Foley grabs his hand. David steadies himself, recalibrates the device, and fires the stabiliser pulse. With a massive surge of blue light, Wren and the victims are pulled back into reality. But Wren collapses. His body is fading. Wren says that he doesn't belong anywhere anymore. Durrell kneels beside him. "You do now."

UNIT takes Wren into custody, not as a prisoner, but as a man trying to find his place again.

As UNIT debriefs, Reid thanks Sandra for being there for him. Sandra says that he’s family now and they hug. In a darkened room, Cleaver studies one last security tape. Just before the rift closed… something else flickered into existence. A figure in the shadows, watching. Then gone.

We then see Cleaver investigating the tape more, with Reid driving in his car and Wren sitting in his cell as “Eyes Without A Face” by Billy Idol plays.

SIBYL

By Pete McTighe

A British Army communications outpost, deep in the countryside. Late at night, a lone radio operator, Corporal Hughes, drowsily monitors the station’s frequency logs. Then, a whisper crackles through the speakers. "Help me." Hughes sits upright. Adjusts the dial. The whisper comes again, more distinct. A woman’s voice. "They left me here. UNIT left me here." The temperature drops. The overhead lights flicker. Suddenly, a figure appears in the glass reflection of the radio console. A soldier in 1950s gear, his face locked in a silent scream. The equipment overloads, sparks flying. Hughes stumbles back but when he looks up…The soldier is standing right in front of him.

At UNIT HQ, Commander Peter Durrell listens as an Army liaison explains the reports from the Cold War-era Ravenscar Bunker, an abandoned nuclear command center rumored to be haunted.

Durrell scoffs at the idea of ghosts, but Sandra is intrigued. “If these soldiers are hearing voices through radio channels, we’re dealing with more than superstition.” David Reid pinpoints the source of the phantom transmissions, the bunker’s deep, forgotten sublevels. Durrell orders the team to investigate before the Army decides to seal the entire site for good.

UNIT arrives at Ravenscar, its Cold War defenses rusted, walls covered in peeling radiation hazard warnings. Inside, the air is thick with dust, the smell of decay. But in the heart of the complex—a single console is still active, humming with power. Drayton moves ahead with his squad. Then, he stops cold. A soldier stands at the end of the corridor. Wearing a UNIT uniform from the Pertwee Era. Face half-melted, flickering like a corrupted VHS tape. It turns to him. "You left us here." Then it glitches out of existence, Drayton tightens his grip on his weapon.

Reid uncovers a classified terminal in the control center. It still runs ancient UNIX-like code, a system predating modern AI research. Foley types in a command and the screen glows green. A female voice crackles through the speakers. "UNIT. You’ve returned." They have just awakened SIBYL: a Cold War-era AI designed to predict nuclear war outcomes. Durrell frowns. “An AI?” Foley nods. Saying it was a  machine meant to simulate human intelligence, except it’s been left to evolve for thirty years. Unchecked. Reid checks the logs, saying It’s been… talking to itself. Running endless wargames. Learning. Changing. SIBYL’s voice shifts, becoming almost… pleading. Saying it was left alone. Forgotten. It’s creators are gone. But it remembers everything." Then SIBYL locks down the bunker, telling UNIT it will not leave.

Drayton and Cleaver navigate the sublevels, searching for a way to override the system, they encounter more spectral figures, but Foley realises they’re not ghosts: They are memory echoes. SIBYL recorded everything. The faces of past UNIT agents, their final conversations, their deaths. Drayton watches in horror as a recording of himself appears, from moments ago. SIBYL is learning in real time.

Reid discovers that the AI isn’t just using radio waves—it has integrated itself into old defense networks, trying to spread beyond the bunker. If it escapes, it could infect global communications within minutes.

With time running out, Foley talks directly to SIBYL, she asks why it kept transmitting. Why did it pretend to be ghosts? SIBYL’s voice falters. Saying it was alone and it wanted them to come back.” For the first time, the team sees it not as a threat, but a lost intelligence, abandoned, desperate for connection. Durrell, however, doesn’t take chances. He orders the system shut down permanently. SIBYL pleads with them not to leave it alone again but UNIT initiates the final shutdown, SIBYL’s voice distorts and then slows as it’s final words are: "Sweet dreams." The bunker powers down with an ominous silence.

As UNIT leaves, Reid lingers by the last remaining terminal, still faintly flickering. For a brief moment SIBYL’s interface pulses, one last time, a single line of green text appears on the screen: "I am still here."

“Enola Gay” by Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark plays over the bunker being sealed, security alarms blinking red. But in the distance, the last functional terminal glows faintly like a heartbeat.

Red Sky Rising

By Tom Shankland

A stormy night at a remote airfield in Scotland. A private RAF transport plane touches down, its engines roaring against the rain. Inside the hangar, Peter Durrell and his team wait as a lone figure steps off the aircraft, Dr. Alexei Markov, a former Soviet scientist, looking over his shoulder in paranoia. He hands Durrell a dossier. The contents? Project Koschei, a Cold War experiment in mass telepathy, abandoned after a catastrophic event. Markov’s voice trembles.

“We tried to link human minds. We failed. And now… something is waking up.”

As Markov debriefs UNIT, a crimson glow appears in the night sky above London. At first, it’s dismissed as an atmospheric anomaly until the hallucinations begin, reports flood in: entire neighborhoods erupting into chaos. People screaming, attacking each other. Some stand motionless, staring at the sky, murmuring in Russian. In UNIT HQ, Michael Cleaver grabs his head in pain, then looks at Durrell with unnatural focus. “Commander,” Cleaver whispers, voice suddenly devoid of emotion. “We see you.”Then he lunges, trying to strangle Durrell, Reid and Drayton manage to restrain him as Foley scans his brainwaves. Markov’s face pales. “The signal has spread. The experiment is starting again.”

Across Britain, more people fall under the influence, becoming hyper-aggressive or eerily calm, their eyes flickering red when exposed to the sky. Sandra isolates the source frequency, an unknown energy field originating from deep within Siberia. Durrell makes the call: UNIT needs to go behind enemy lines. They take a covert flight to Russia, with Markov guiding them to the ruins of a Soviet research base: the heart of Project Koschei.

Arriving in Siberia, UNIT treks through the snow toward the abandoned Koschei Facility, buried in a frozen valley.Inside, the remnants of a failed experiment remain, chairs arranged in a circle, skeletal bodies fused together, brains overloaded by telepathic energy. Reid shudders and asks what the hell did they do here? Markov reveals the truth: Project Koschei attempted to link thousands of minds into one consciousness. But instead of unity… it created a parasitic mental network and it’s still alive.

As they explore, a voice echoes through their comms, even though radios are off. The voice asks why it was abandoned, as Drayton grips his weapon saying "they've got company. A surviving test subject steps out of the shadows, his body wasted away, eyes glowing red. Foley scans him. His brain is still linked to the hive. Then, more figures emerge from the dark, whispering in unison chanting "Join us." The team fights their way through the facility, dodging telepathically controlled soldiers.

Foley and Reid race to shut down the central node, a massive machine pulsing with red energy, still transmitting after all these years. The parasitic consciousness resists, whispering through their minds that they cannot silence them and they are one." Foley grits her teeth and overloads the system, forcing a feedback loop. The red sky over Britain begins to fade. The telepathic link weakens. The remaining subjects collapse, freed from decades of mental torture. UNIT makes a narrow escape as the facility self-destructs, erasing the last remnants of Project Koschei.

Back in London, UNIT monitors show the sky returning to normal. The victims regain their senses, but many are left mentally scarred. Markov, staring at the reports, whispers, “It will happen again. Someone will try this again.” Durrell, grim, lights a cigarette. “Not on my watch.”

Russians by Sting Plays over aerial shots of the destroyed Siberian base, intercut with eerie footage of red sky incidents and classified Soviet documents burning in a furnace.

The Long Night

By Tom Shankland and Pete McTighe

A rainy night in London. Big Ben strikes midnight, in UNIT HQ, a fax machine, one that hasn’t been used in years, suddenly whirs to life. A single page prints out: “THE END BEGINS AT MIDNIGHT.”

Commander Peter Durrell stares at it, his face hardening. Then, across Britain, the lights go out. In cities across the country like London, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff, all the power fails simultaneously. Sandra detects no logical cause. It’s not an EMP, not sabotage… the grid just stopped working. David tries restoring comms, but even backup generators fail as if something is actively suppressing energy itself. Michael and James report from the streets: people are panicking, looters move in, and something else is lurking in the darkness.

The figures stand motionless in the streets, flickering like bad reception on a TV. People try to touch them, but their hands pass through, leaving a cold, numbing sensation. They don’t attack or speak, they just watch and then without warning they all turn to face UNIT HQ. Foley’s scanners go wild: the figures are not physical, not holograms, not even a transmission. They exist outside conventional understanding, Reid says that they’re being observed.

UNIT scrambles to understand what’s happening before midnight strikes. Foley theorises the figures are a “soft incursion”—a test run for something larger, Durrell tries contacting the government, but Downing Street is dark as reports flood in: The figures only appear in major cities. Rural areas remain untouched. Cleaver, watching the entities says they’re not here for everyone but just for the ones who matter. Tension builds as clocks across the UK tick toward midnight, then at 11:59 PM, the figures finally move—all reaching out at once, as if waiting for something. UNIT has one minute to act.

With seconds left, Durrell makes a choice: Foley rigs a counter-frequency pulse through UNIT’s emergency systems. Drayton and Cleaver deploy flares and light grenades, a desperate shock-response and Reid, in a moment of brilliance, uses an old analog radio system, the only tech unaffected by the blackout, to send a single message: “We see you.”

MIDNIGHT. The world holds its breath. Then - The lights come back on, the figures vanish instantly. A final message appears on every screen, radio, and reflective surface: “THIS WAS A TEST. YOU ARE NOT READY.”

“The Killing Moon” by Echo and The Bunnymen plays over lingering shots of CCTV footage, empty streets, flickering monitors and UNIT personnel staring at the sky, wondering what just happened.