United Nations Intelligence Taskforce

The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (also known as UNIT) is a fictional military organization from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Operating under the auspices of the United Nations, its purpose is to investigate and combat paranormal and extraterrestrial threats to the Earth.

Other appearances

UNIT has also featured in many Doctor Who spin-offs. Both Virgin Publishing's Missing Adventures and BBC Books' Past Doctor Adventures have set stories in the UNIT era, with the French division of UNIT being NUIT (Nation Unies Intelligence Taskforce) and the Russian division named OGRON (Operativnaya Gruppa Rasvedkoy Obyedinyonnih Natsiy). The novel Just War by Lance Parkin mentions LONGBOW, a world security organisation set up by the League of Nations that encountered the occasional extraterrestrial incident but was disbanded after it and the League failed to prevent World War II.

Related Topics:
Doctor Who spin-offs - Virgin Publishing - BBC Books - French - Russia - OGRON - League of Nations - World War II

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The New Adventures and Eighth Doctor Adventures traced UNIT's history into the future, where it becomes, by the 30th Century, a secret society called the Unitatus, pledged to defend the Earth against alien threats. The novels also featured a futuristic, more ruthless version of UNIT called UNISYC (United Nations Intelligence Security Yard Corps), and a rival division within the Central Intelligence Agency headed by a man known only as Control.

Related Topics:
New Adventures - Secret society - Central Intelligence Agency

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The Doctor Who Magazine comic strip also frequently featured UNIT, and in the 1980s introduced a new UNIT officer, Muriel Frost. One story, Final Genesis, was set in a parallel universe in which humanity has made peace with the Silurians, and UNIT has become the United Races Intelligence Command.

Related Topics:
Doctor Who Magazine - Comic strip - Muriel Frost - Parallel universe - Silurians

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BBV have made a trilogy of UNIT videos featuring the Autons, although they feature none of the original members. An alternate version of UNIT and the Brigadier (played once again by Courtney) appeared in the Doctor Who Unbound audio play, Sympathy For The Devil, produced by Big Finish Productions.

Related Topics:
BBV - Alternate - Sympathy For The Devil - Big Finish Productions

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In December 2004 Big Finish released UNIT: Time Heals, the first of a new series of UNIT audio plays, featuring a retired General Sir Lethbridge-Stewart as an advisor to a new generation of officers. A preview episode, UNIT: The Coup, had Lethbridge-Stewart finally breaking decades of secrecy by informing a press conference of UNIT's true purpose as humanity's first line of defence against the unknown (although, as it turned out, the general public believed this to be a hoax). The series also introduced another rival division, this time within the British government, the Internal Counter-Intelligence Service, or ICIS.

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For the new television series, BBC created a faux website for UNIT at www.unit.org.uk, complete with "easter eggs" that can be accessed by the reader with the passwords "bison" and "buffalo" (the latter mentioned on screen in World War Three). "Bison" (now changed to "badwolf") uncovers a section which provides UNIT point-of-view reports about various events in the 2005 series, although its canonical status is debatable. Due to the objections by the United Nations as noted above, the letters "UN" are no longer expanded to "United Nations" on the website.

Related Topics:
Faux website - "easter eggs" - Canonical

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