Summary
Russell T Davies explains how UNIT’s latest attempt at crafting their form of time travel via the Time Window fits into the organization’s long-runningDoctor Whohistory. Debuting during the Second Doctor’s (Patrick Troughton) era, UNIT has safeguarded the Earth from extraterrestrial threat since 1958 and is currently headed by Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) from their London skyscraper HQ. After a brief appearance in “73 Yards'” alternate timeline, the organization returned in “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” as Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday use the Time Window to glimpse at the night of Ruby’s abandonment.
Recently, Davies broke down UNIT’s latest scientific advancement toDoctor Who: Unleashed, shining a light on an unexplored area of the organization’s research. While UNIT has rarely engaged in mastering time travel, the showrunner revealed thatthe Doctor had forbade them from carrying out any experiments regarding scienceduring the organization’s early days in the show. Check out Davies' explanation below:
“The Time Window chamber is a great device that UNIT has had secretly hidden away. We’ve never seen UNIT traveling in time. It’s funny, they’ve never invested in it, and we realized through a bit of dialogue that the Doctor’s always forbidden them. It’s a means of looking into the past without traveling there by TARDIS. For the Doctor, it’s kind of crude.”
UNIT’s Brief History With Time Travel Explained
This Goes All The Way Back To The Third Doctor.
While the complicated time-traveling scheme of Susan Triad (Susan Twist) sees her technology incorporated into UNIT’s systems, it is unclear whether the Time Window is a UNIT project or part of Sutekh’s (Gabriel Woolf) greater plans.
With Davies having previously teased that the finalehad connections to Jon Pertwee’sDoctor Whoera, the Third Doctor is the incarnation that time travel experimentation became forbidden during his career as UNIT’s first scientific advisor to prevent any historical change. Furthermore, UNIT has had an active presence in ensuring that the technology isn’t crafted by the wrong hands, be it halting conspiracies involving dinosaurs in modern London or keeping the TARDIS safe when the Doctor isn’t present. Despite this,Doctor Who’s UNIT organizationhas had its hands on time travel technology outside the Doctor’s knowledge.
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The One Who Waits finally shows his face in Doctor Who season 14, episode 7, “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” and he has a history with the Doctor.
InDoctor Who’s 50th-anniversary special “The Day of the Doctor,” Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) joins Kate in visiting the newly relocated Black Archive in the Tower of London after the collection was moved from its previous facility after an alien incursion. A treasure trove of leftover alien technology the Doctor would not approve of UNIT owning, the area included items like Jack Harkness’s (John Barrowman) donated deactivated Vortex Manipulator. While Kate claimed it was to keep it safe, theorganization was clearly keen to keep its first scientific officer in the dark.
While alternate timelines have shown what UNIT could do if they attempted to harness the technology,Doctor Whoseason 14’s recent episodehas opened a glimpse at a previously unexplored chapter of the organization’s history. While the complicated time-traveling scheme of Susan Triad (Susan Twist) sees her technology incorporated into UNIT’s systems, it is unclear whether the Time Window is a UNIT project or part of Sutekh’s (Gabriel Woolf) greater plans. Nevertheless, with Davies keen on having UNIT be a continued presence in the series, more hidden projects could be the focus of future stories.
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Doctor Who
Cast
Doctor Who: Released on May 30, 2025, this series follows the Doctor and their companion as they journey across time and space, encountering a range of extraordinary friends and adversaries, expanding the universe of the long-running British science fiction series.
