With Torchwood not returning anytime soon and with The Sarah Jane Adventures finished due to the unfortunate death of Elisabeth Sladen, Doctor Who is in need of a new spin-off show.

I think a U.N.I.T spin-off similar to Children of Earth (one story told over 5 nights) could work.

Would anyone watch this or would you prefer for Torchwood to return?

The problem with UNIT is that they are essentially a faceless army unit. Torchwood, being a looser collection of individuals, allows greater flexibility in characterisation and story. The stakes aren't as high when you have a huge governmental agency backing you up. Agents of SHIELD appears to be much the same thing, although I haven't watched it yet.

UNIT is basically either a useful tool or an irritant, depending on what they need to do in the story. Not sure what they'd do on their own.

But now they have a scientific lead and appear less militaristic. I'd certainly prefer to see a UNIT spinoff than other ideas suggested, based on the premise of the Big Finnish audio's about UNIT.

I always saw Torchwood as a modern equivalent to UNIT where it's more about investigation and intelligence to defeat threats to humanity and not firepower. My memories of UNIT seems to be about soldiers ineffectively firing at bullet proof aliens and providing the 'extras' who are going to get killed.

Potentially. Moffat already has the potential for a great team with Kate, Osgood and McGillop but a few more appearances on the main show might help first.

How to the audio stories handle UNIT? Is it a small team, and are they somehow isolated from backup? What sort of incidents do they deal with?

It might be interesting to have something Children of Earth-like in that they have to worry about handling diplomatic incidents and coverups - but that would be more of a sci-fi thriller than an adventure.

I was about to post my reasons why a UNIT spin-off couldn't work but thinking about it. it has all the right ingredients...

Contemporary British Sci-Fi - Primeval, Torchwood, Misfits
Characters previously featured in Doctor Who - Torchwood, SJA
Military Unit (pardon the pun) dealing with an alien threat - Stargate SG-1 etc
Sciencey-Wiencey approach to dealing with threats - Warehouse 13, Eureka, Primeval
Archive of alien artefacts - Warehouse 13, Torchwood
Focus on one small team - Torchwood, Stargate SG-1, Agents Of SHIELD

...what it would need is the right "family" of characters

Like all series, if it has a good initial premise then it's success will then come down to well written story lines and a decent production budget.

Absolutely - but I would prefer a more adult take than is apparent in Doctor Who and the Sarah Jane Adventures.

Something along the lines of Stargate shows how it could be done.

Could it be the new Quatermass?

That's what I was thinking

Now that's a cracking idea!

I think it could work, and although they've got tonnes of foot soldiers that make them seem to strong, but the direction of 'science leads' could do something for the show. I'm thinking primeval like take on it, small field team of scientists, creature experts and weapons specialists lead by Kate Stewart with the backup of troops to give the all needed re-enforcement.
Also take from the mistakes of marvel's Agents of SHIELD, it just shows a big budget show isn't always the best, and the show fails because of the bland personalities of the soldier characters who just seem to have a kill everything approach to everything, as marvel wanted a men in black sorta thing, but even in the film men in black the agents aren't deadly serious in every episode. The other thing that makes it an unsuccessful spinoff is the fact that no-one from the movies appear in the show at all, where as doctor who doesn't have A-list celebrities as the lead roles meaning it can cross over every now and again.
Finally try to make it different from Torchwood, distance the two to create two separate families of characters to distinguish the show.

So basically primeval with aliens, job done.

Children on earth was brilliant!

I liked Torchwood although wasn't overly keen on the last series.

I think it could work, agree with Shawn_Lunn to get the characters in Doctor Who for a bit first though - like they did with Jack Harkness

I think there's a really obvious way to do this...


A new UNIT base of operations is set up that requires the presence of both the Scientific AND Military aspects of the organisation...

So your main cast would consist of...

Kate Stewart
Osgood
McGillop
some new elderly male scientist character
Scientific Division's own internal security staff (maybe Atkins still thinks its his first day?)

...and then a presence of more traditional military UNIT types, with their orders coming from some dodgy officer who doesn't see the point of their scientific endeavours and would rather just order multiple round of rapid fire...

...then you've got the whole internal conspiracy tension thing going on as well as your monster of the week business, plus there's a good range of character types you can throw in the mix.


Job done .... I'd watch it

Personally I wouldn't be interested in a UNIT spin-off. They're far too similar to Torchwood, and it would feel like a way to build upon that idea without infringing on characters that were written into a corner.

I quite like UNIT cropping up now and again in Doctor Who...as the good guys or the bad guys depending on what the story requires. To give them a leading role would undermine that faceless entity I see in them. That said, I think Kate Stewart is a great character who I'd love to see recurring for many years yet.

Set it on the UNIT Moonbase.


Kate and Osgood go up there to do an inspection but while they are there the Moon gets blasted out of Earths Orbit and goes bouncing round the Universe (via Wormholes) arriving at a new planet each week.

Or maybe not

"SPACE 2014-ish"

I would kick start a UNIT spinoff on the eve of the SDSR, with military funding cuts to include the disbanding of UNIT, particularly in light of the bad press in the wake of the Saxon incident. An insistent Kate Stewart makes an empassioned case to her father' old friend, Lord Ian Gilmore that his influence in the House of Lords could win UNIT a reprieve. At the last minute, limited funding for UNIT is secured. Meanwhile, ICIS agents gain control of artifacts seized from Canary Wharf, on a mission to exploit the alien tech for their own sinister purposes....

Hang on... nobody wants Sergeant Benton to be in it?

Could be interesting

While we're at it, what about Brigadier Bambera?

Yeah, they could have her travel to a parallel universe and meet a male version of herself played by Craig Charles

I've always thought there should be one

I would like to see the doctor who world expanded more. With Sarah Jane adventures over and Torchwood in purgatory, there is room for more to be expanded.

Limbo, surely?

I think it would. It would be a UK version of Agents of Shield. Unit battling strange different things each week.

But I would have preferred it to have been made with Brig, Benton, Yates etc...!