Exile (audio drama)

Exile is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Doctor Who Unbound dramas pose a series of "What if...?" questions.

Exile
Big Finish Productions audio drama
Series'Doctor Who Unbound'
Release no.6
FeaturingNicholas Briggs and Arabella Weir as the Doctor
Written byNicholas Briggs
Directed byNicholas Briggs
Produced byJason Haigh-Ellery
John Ainsworth
Executive producer(s)Jacqueline Rayner
Production codeDWUN6
Length1 hr 7 mins
Release dateNovember 2003

Plot

Premise: What if the Doctor had escaped the justice of the Time Lords at the end of The War Games?

The Doctor commits suicide and regenerates into a female form. She then departs for Earth and begins a mundane life of working all day in a supermarket and spending all night in the pub. Her previous form haunts her, trying to remind her who she is and not to give up. Meanwhile, two other Time Lords have been sent to find and arrest the Doctor.

Cast

Man in Pub, Royal Personage, Ethel, Scarecrow, Savoy Doorman and other parts played by members of the cast.

Reception

American alternative weekly Houston Press's Jef Rouner described Weir's portrayal as "one of the most melancholy of all the Doctors."[1]

Notes
  • David Tennant, who features in a supporting role as "Time Lord 2", was formerly Arabella Weir's lodger and is godfather to one of her children. He later went on to star as the Tenth Doctor in the television series. He is also erroneously listed in the Big Finish site for Exile as David Manning.
  • Toby Longworth who plays one of the Time Lords, stars in the Big Finish productions versions of Judge Dredd.
  • When the Previous Doctor lists various names for the Master to use as aliases, he says the names "Roger, Peter, Geoffrey, Tony, Eric, Robert and Sam in quick succession - a reference to the actors who had previously played the role, though the last of these had hitherto only appeared in an earlier title in the Unbound range, Sympathy for the Devil and the previous two referred to the same person.
  • The idea of putting on a costume mask and interrupting a TV broadcast is a reference to the infamous Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion, which occurred during an American airing of Horror of Fang Rock.
  • The pub featured at the end of the story where the proprietor has nothing in stock except for an obscure brew called "Speckled Goat" is an homage to the Cheese Shop sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
  • The robotic scarecrows used by the Time Lords to hunt down the Doctor are a reference to the 1969 TV Comic story The Night Walkers. In this comic, the Second Doctor also escapes at the end of The War Games and hides on Earth, only to be captured by the Time Lords' scarecrows and forced to regenerate.
  • Arabella Weir is the second woman to play an incarnation of the Doctor. The first was Joanna Lumley, in the 1999 Comic Relief spoof The Curse of Fatal Death. On 16 July 2017, Jodie Whittaker was revealed as the official Thirteenth Doctor, becoming the first woman to be cast in the role of the Doctor within the canon of the series.[2]
gollark: That is what I said in the article.
gollark: Just the recent ones then.
gollark: Oh yes, that's true.
gollark: I will read all wrong palaiologos messages over time.
gollark: Hello! I have been notified.

References
  1. Rouner, Jef (September 20, 2013). "Doctor Who: The 10 Best Alternative Universe Doctors". Houston Press. Voice Media Group. Retrieved April 13, 2017.
  2. "Doctor Who: Jodie Whittaker becomes 13th Time Lord, urging fans 'not to be scared by my gender'". The Daily Telegraph. 16 July 2017. Retrieved 27 November 2017.


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