Calufrax

Story: If Found, Please Return
Author: Llywela
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 31,474
Author's Summary: Crossover between Classic Who and The Professionals. UNIT and CI5 would have been around at about the same time in the late 1970s. CI5 weren't keen on other agencies treading over their perceived jurisdiction and UNIT were learning to cope without the Doctor after his departure from Earth. So what happened when they found their investigations overlapping?
Characters/Pairings: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Harry Sullivan, Sergeant Benton, UNIT, plus crossover characters
Warnings: Some violence

Recced because: I don't know about you, but I love a really well-done crossover.

For the uninitiated, The Professionals was a British crime/action series that first aired on the ITV network between 1977 and 1983. Martin Shaw played Doyle, a "sensitive" (by the admittedly low standards of the average late 70s British male) former cop with an astonishing perm; Lewis Collins was Bodie, an ex-military hardman with a murky past and huge shirt collars. Together, they worked as agents for "CI5", a fictional crime-fighting department headed by the tough, no-nonsense George Cowley (Gordon Jackson out of Upstairs, Downstairs and The Great Escape). They regularly cut pesky legal corners and "fought fire with fire" in order to settle the hash of various gangsters, terrorists and anybody else foolish enough to tangle with them. They always drove cars with reckless abandon and frequently got into fisticuffs and shootouts with that week's villains before invariably "getting" the girl. They were even more reprehensibly macho (and unintentionally slashy in their relationship) than you might imagine, but the involvement of Brian Clemens, of The Avengers fame, meant that the self-consciously gritty proceedings were often lent a certain wry humour and sense of quirkiness.

In other words, crossing The Professionals over with Doctor Who, and even better teaming Bodie and Doyle up with the post-Terror of the Zygons UNIT lineup of the Brigadier, "Mr" Benton and Harry Sullivan, is as far as I'm concerned a stroke of fanfictional genius. Not only is it fun to see how the latter-day UNIT go about trying to deal with an alien threat without the Doctor's assistance, and to see how the agents whose day job involves dealing with human crimes react to one of their investigations suddenly colliding with otherworldly happenings, but all of the characters are portrayed deftly and true to themselves. You don't need to be familiar with the crossover to appreciate how well Bodie and Doyle are delineated from each other very economically via dialogue and the ways they respond to events, while at the same time the Brigadier and Cowley, on the face of it quite similar authority figures, are revealed to be very different in outlook and approach. One of the real strengths of this story, though, is that as well as everything else it is an excellent portrayal of a post-Doctor Harry Sullivan, who gets plenty of opportunities to do stuff and to shine while he's doing it, as well as the author taking time to think about some of the obvious and not so obvious ways that his time aboard the TARDIS may have left its mark upon him.

On top of the characterisations, there is also a genuinely complex and well thought out plot to be going on with, beginning with a pair of linked mysteries and gradually coming together to resolve itself neatly in the end. There are very well-written action sequences and some neat detective work by our teamed-up heroes, and the author-created aliens around which the plot revolves manage to be menacing and sympathetic at the same time. Throughout, the author demonstrates a keen eye and ear for the various tropes and distinguishing characteristics of British TV shows of the era in which the fic is set, and not just the obvious, endlessly-parodied ones either. I will say only this; there is one moment involving a car seat which had me shaking my head in admiration at the vivid period feel of this piece.

So, as you can see, I liked this one very much and I hope you will too. Take some time to read and absorb this fic, and then (I hope) tell the author what a fine piece of work it is.


( A Taste )

Story: United Resistance
Author: mercury64
Rating: All Ages on Teaspoon; I would probably say "Teen" if it were my own fic
Word Count: 4,973
Author's Summary: What is the strange object that has crash landed in the north of Scotland? What connects it to a similar incident in the Russian Ural Mountains? What really happened at Tunguska in 1908? Will Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and U.N.I.T. find out the truth?
Characters/Pairings: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, John Benton, Mike Yates, Other Character(s), UNIT
Warnings: Some combat-related violence and descriptions of same, in one instance self-administered

Recced because: As sincere as my admiration is for what I have seen of the Twelfth Doctor up to now, there is one issue where I cannot in all conscience agree with his position. I think somebody once said something about hating the game rather than the player, and while I certainly agree with the Doctor that war and war-related activities are to be avoided if at all possible, and are definitely not to be encouraged, I can't really get alongside the blanket condemnation of soldiers. What, after all, was the Brigadier if not the most soldierly soldier ever to wear the uniform? And while they may not always have agreed on methods and approaches, the Brig and the Doctor were, I think it is fair to say, pretty fast friends after a certain point, and forever after.

You see, I've always had a certain sympathy for the Brig and the UNIT boys. As much as I love the characters and admire the stories in which they appear during the Two, Three and Four eras, they seem to spend a lot of time as stooges and fall-guys, making the Doctor look clever and capable at their expense. And when it actually comes to action against alien threats, they tend not to fare too well. Admittedly, they are fighting well out of their weight class most of the time, but I think I prefer it when they show at least a modicum of professionalism and competence.

And that, to come finally to the point, is the reason I really like this fic. It gives us a glimpse at classic UNIT in action without the Doctor to call upon (he's off on another jaunt, possibly to Peladon or somewhere), and they actually manage to survive and do a reasonably credible job. They don't exactly come to grips fully with the particular extraterrestrial menace they're facing, and they end up resorting to methods that would probably earn a scornful rebuke from the Doctor if he were on the scene, but in the Brig's own words from Battlefield, they do the best they can. The author also clearly has a bit of knowledge of matters military and brings it to bear providing the kind of small details that make the UNIT operation portrayed here seem very believable. The fic is also very nicely written with lots of great little character touches (of course Mike Yates would blithely get his African countries completely mixed up, and of course Sgt Benton seems to be two steps behind everybody else, while the Brig portrayed here is definitely the harder-edged less cuddly Brig of Season 7), some fun OCs (I chuckled a bit at the names used for the various lower-ranking UNIT soldiers) and a pleasing cameo from another Who supporting character who wasn't part of the UNIT years but has been linked with them in the spinoff media.

All this, and references to "real"-life "world of the unexplained" type goings-on too. Take a look, and if you like it (if you're a UNIT well-wisher, I'm sure you will), leave some words of appreciation for the author.


( A Preview )