Doctor Who Unbound: Exile

Doctor Who Unbound

by Nicholas Briggs, David Tennant (Narrator), Arabella Weir (Narrator)

What if...
the Doctor had escaped the justice of the Time Lords?

"They want to punish me for being me!"

All the Doctor has to do to avoid being caught by the Time Lords is work in a supermarket and go to the pub. It's a cunning plan - certainly far less dangerous than fighting the dreaded Quarks and all those other alien fiends.

But just when everything seemed mundane and safe, alien transmissions, exploding poison gas, Princess Anne and wobbly trolleys burst onto the scene to ruin everything. It's a crisis! A fiendish alien plot! And the Doctor must use all the resources at her disposal to defeat it. She'll probably need to have a large vodka first, though.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Audiobook, Comedy

Audio CD

First published October 25, 2003

About the author

Nicholas Briggs is a British actor and writer, predominantly associated with the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs. Some of Briggs' earliest Doctor Who-related work was as host of The Myth Makers, a series of made-for-video documentaries produced in the 1980s and 1990s by Reeltime Pictures in which Briggs interviews many of the actors and writers involved in the series. When Reeltime expanded into producing original dramas, Briggs wrote some stories and acted in others, beginning with War Time, the first unofficial Doctor Who spin-off, and Myth Runner, a parody of Blade Runner showcasing bloopers from the Myth Makers series built around a loose storyline featuring Briggs as a down on his luck private detective in the near future.

He wrote and appeared in several made-for-video dramas by BBV, including the third of the Stranger stories, In Memory Alone opposite former Doctor Who stars Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant. He also wrote and appeared in a non-Stranger BBV production called The Airzone Solution (1993) and directed a documentary film, Stranger than Fiction (1994).

Briggs has directed many of the Big Finish Productions audio plays, and has provided Dalek, Cybermen, and other alien voices in several of those as well. He has also written and directed the Dalek Empire and Cyberman audio plays for Big Finish. In 2006, Briggs took over from Gary Russell as executive producer of the Big Finish Doctor Who audio range.

Briggs co-wrote a Doctor Who book called The Dalek Survival Guide.

Since Doctor Who returned to television in 2005, Briggs has provided the voices for several monsters, most notably the Daleks and the Cybermen. Briggs also voiced the Nestene Consciousness in the 2005 episode "Rose", and recorded a voice for the Jagrafess in the 2005 episode "The Long Game"; however, this was not used in the final episode because it was too similar to the voice of the Nestene Consciousness. He also provided the voices for the Judoon in both the 2007 and 2008 series. On 9 July 2009, Briggs made his first appearance in the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood in the serial Children of Earth, playing Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Rick Yates.

Reviews

[Licca · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Doctor commits suicide to escape from the justice of the Time Lords, he regenerates into a female for the first time (apparently, committing suicide causes Time Lords to change sex on their next regeneration), but she doesn't have the time to adjust to her new incarnation because she's on the run now, she's a fugitive from her own people and they're after her... I'm sure there are good stories you could tell with a premise like that.

This is not one of them.

A female Doctor is an idea that has been floating around for a while, and it's quite sad to see it used so poorly in this story, especially since Doctor Who Unbound was the perfect way to explore it in any possible direction (and without it having to be tied to the canon. The people who don't like the idea could not complain about that!).

Like all Doctor Who Unbound stories, it was developed around a "What if" premise. This story's premise is supposedly "What if the Doctor had escaped the justice of the Time Lords after War Games". This story though doesn't really take advantage of its premise. Except for a brief parody of the trial at the start and a few jokes at the end, it has nothing to do with War Games, its consequences or any element from the Third Doctor era. No UNIT, no Brigadier. The "previous Doctor" (which appears in visions throughout the story) doesn't act like the Second Doctor at all.

The reason for all this is simple: The premise is not taken seriously at all. This is just one big joke, and the punchline is "The Doctor regenerates into a woman".

It was a big disappointment after listening to other entries of the Doctor Who Unbound series like Auld Mortality, Sympathy for the Devil, Full Fathom Five or Storm of Angels that actually took their premises seriously. Perhaps it was trying to be more like Deadline, which is not a Doctor Who adventure per se, but a tongue-in-cheek comedy. The problem is that while Deadline knows what it tries to be, and the result is legitimately meta, dark and funny, Exile is just... bland.

The Doctor regenerated into a woman and is hiding on Earth. She calls herself Susan Foreman... The reference feels pointless and random. She needed a female name, why not go with her usual John Smith and turn it into Jean Smith or Joanne Smith, something casual that doesn't get in the way of the story? Why give her a name that connects to a important person in the Doctor's history if you're not going to even have a passing comment about it? It doesn't help people keep calling her Doctor and she keeps correcting them "I'm Susan!". To pass undercover she got a job at a Sansburys store and tries to act like a young human female which means getting pissed drunk all the time, the problem is that when she drinks too much she starts getting paranoid and starts seeing aliens invasions where there are none. Her drunkenness is demonstrated by the Doctor burping and vomiting on the mic ALL. THE. TIME (there have to be other ways to convey that a character is drunk on audio...).

The Doctor's companions for the story are Cheese and Cherry. Cheese is nicknamed like that because when he gets too drunk he says his beer tastes like cheese (yeah...). They're the Doctor's friends/drinking buddies, they don't really get involved in the "adventure", they're just kind of there to give the Doctor someone to interact. They're drunk most of the time, just like the Doctor. They sort of have a moment at the end with her when they say good bye, but we don't really care enough for them at this point for it to be heart warming or anything. Though, maybe I'm biased, since I don't find drunk people funny.

There were the two Time Lords that were after the Doctor, two ineffectual villains that wander around wearing weird clothes and discussing with each other, they tried to lure the Doctor by faking an alien invasion but it didn't work, the Doctor was too drunk, she ended up imagining her own alien invasion, something to do with Princess Anne and the toilet gases released in the car park of Sansburys. In the end, the Doctor got fired, decided to get sober and got caught by the Time Lords anyway. Apparently, having a sex change regeneration is a terrible crime for the Time Lords. They all still had time to get drunk again before the disappointing downer ending.

At one point of the story, when the Doctor gets confronted with why she keeps drinking, she answers "It's what young women do on this planet"...am I missing some sort of topical joke there? I really have no idea what to make of that line. And that's the thing with the story, I feel like I should feel offended, but I'm not even sure because I don't get what the story is trying to do.

Did Nicholas Briggs seriously think people didn't want to see a female Doctor? Was the idea so absurd to him he couldn't take it seriously? I try to understand what he was trying to do with this story. Was he trying to be cynical? Was he trying to be acid? Light hearted? Just cracky? Or was he actually trying to make the story bad on purpose? Was that the joke? I don't really get it.

Even the music is strange, too serious for the scenes. I feel the comedy would have perhaps worked a little better with a more light hearted and fun score (I'm thinking of a score as fun as the one from Peri and the Piscon Paradox)

Is there anything to enjoy? David Tennant as an ineffectual villain, he legitimately made me chuckle a few times (But if you're curious about this story because you want to listen to David Tennant as a villain, get Sympathy for the Devil instead). Also, there were a few times I almost, ALMOST, could listen the Doctor in Arabella Weir's performance, when she was not burping or slurring her lines that is (which was rarely). It's sad because she obviously was trying, but there was little she could do with a script like this.

Ever since this audio came out, other Doctor Who stories have featured certain elements that can be found in this story, and they did so much more with them: We have low class characters that are treated with more respect with Rose, Mickey and even Jackie; hilarious stories about the Doctor being forced to live mundane situations in The Lodger and Closing Time, the last one which also features the Doctor getting a job in a store. The Doctor having to hide as a human in Human Nature/Family of Blood (and the novel they were based on)... They all serve as painful contrast of how little they did with this story.

Exile is mediocre, embarrassing, unimaginative, almost offensive at times, cringe-worthy most of the time.

My biggest fear is that some people are going to listen to this and take it as "proof" that "a female Doctor will never work".

Such a great opportunity wasted on a terrible joke.

[Harri · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sentenced to death for a sex change... yeah, this one was a disappointment.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, some mixed feelings about this. I definitely found bits of this pretty fun. The Doctor drunkenly trying to stop imagined alien invasions was great. Arabella Weir did a good job as the Doctor, and it was amusing hearing David Tennant as a somewhat silly Time Lord. But. I really wish they'd done something more with the idea of a female Doctor. Between this and The Curse of Fatal Death it seems like a female Doctor is only used as a comedic tool. Which is a shame. I'd really like to see someone actually take a serious look at what a female Doctor would/could be like even if it isn't cannon (as neither this nor the special I mentioned are). And also there has to be a better way of conveying drunkenness than burping every two seconds and having bad puking sound effects.

[Scriptscribbles · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fundamentally unpleasant. For those who want a female Doctor, look somewhere else. Anywhere else. The central thematic point is that this female Doctor is antithetical to who the Doctor is. At every possible interlude, Briggs doesn't hesitate to remind the listener of how "disgusting" the sex change is. I have quite a bit of respect for Briggs as a writer, but this is miles away from classics like "Dark Eyes" or "Creatures of Beauty".

Watch "The Curse of Fatal Death". Read fanfic. Just don't listen to this.

[Seb Hasi · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is clearly some point that Nick Briggs thought he was making here, but from the puerile humour, overt sexism and pretend moral lessons, he really shows his true colours. What grinds my gears is he is really trying to shift perception to a narrative of ‘the fans think a female doctor would be shit not me’ but you’d have to be as stupid as him to not realise he is speaking his mind through the script.

There is some minor comedic relief afforded by David Tennant and Toby Longworth but even the humour there starts to wain after a while. Arabella Weir actually is able to do a little with the near nothing she’s been given and proves that had they just gone with her as a female Doctor who is just the Doctor instead of Nick Briggs just taking the piss out of a female Doctor (in the writing and literally as acting as a previous incarnation of her in the story), then maybe this story could’ve been a mixture of humour and some meaning.

Even poorer quality stories I usually end up relistening to one day, either when I forget them almost entirely or as part of a some such marathon or other, but safe to say if I binge Unbound again one day ‘Exile’ will not be included.

[Danny Welch · Rating 1 out of 5]

What if The Doctor escaped The Timelords in The War Games?

Well, unfortunately what we get is a terrible comedy with some good jokes but mainly terrible ones with good performances. It's a shame listening to this one because this could have easily worked but with The Doctor being drunk and puking and belching a lot it becomes quite vile to be honest and don't get me started on the more controversial elements of this story. I also found the sound design at times quite poor with finding it hard to listen to the story, specifically the start. But other than that nice performances over all, I just wish they gave Arabella Weir something better to work with. I love Nicholas Briggs' work but I'm afraid this is a no from me. 3/10

[Magdalena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uhh...
+1 star for that moment of pure joy when a nice female voice spoke "I'm the Doctor". I'm so ready for Thirteen!
But I'm a bit embarrassed by the mere fact this story exists. Everything is wrong and it's one huge missed opportunity to tell a decent story. I don't get what message it was supposed to deliver, I don't understand in which dark nook some of these ideas were found, and how it happened that it was written, performed, recorded and issued and no one opposed because someone definitely should have. Sigh.

[Sammy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yipes.

Look, I think a lot of my issues with this are just those of generational context and humour. That and my lack of enjoyment of viscerally real vomit sound effects direct to my earlobes.

Ultimately I feel like this exemplifies the kind of insular bubble stories that fortysomething fans would have continued writing for the amusement of other fortysomething fans had the program not been revived only a couple of years later and forced Big Finish to shift away from parody and homage, instead moving into storytelling.

Thanks heavens.

[Rick · Rating 1 out of 5]

An alternate reality? A variant history? An incarnation of the Doctor and/or a timeline that was erased by effects of the Time War? Um ... probably the less said about this one, the better off we’ll all be. The whole thing is played off as a laugh, and unfortunately most of it is at the expense of a female Doctor and the pompous Time Lords ... oh and being so blind drunk you hurl chunks. Repeatedly. Very disappointing.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much of the comedy did not work in this. Except maybe the mention of being between blokes as a veiled explanation for having regenerated. This story has aged poorly. I'm just glad Jodie Whittaker's incarnation was done better than this. Also, kinda weird hearing David Tennant as this other Time Lord speaking to The Doctor.

[Gregory Rothbard · Rating 3 out of 5]

least favorite in series

[Joseph S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of vomit sounds.

[Piper Huxley · Rating 2 out of 5]

sentenced to death for sex change.

no, thank you.

2/5

[David Layton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Unbound series was an attempt to do with Doctor Who what some fans would have liked, but cannot get with the regular series for a variety of reasons. One of these ideas is the Doctor as a woman. That is fine, and in itself could have been quite good. However, Nicolas Briggs, usually a more reliable writer, has chosen to take the chance of having a female Doctor and play it as farce. So, we get our female Doctor as a self-pitying drunk. I doubt I am alone in not finding this portrayal particularly interesting or funny. I just don't understand why one would write it in this way. I know that cross-dressing and gender-bending are standard fare for farces, but given the opportunity to have a female Doctor, why head for farce at all?

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing alternate-world story of a Doctor who after multiple battles with the Chumblies was captured by the Time Lords, but then escaped and deliberately regenerated into a member of the opposite sex, and then stays hidden by working at Sainsbury's instead of doing her usual thing. Arabella Weir was very good both as the tipsy Doctor in hiding, and as the proper Doctor she decides to be in the end. David Tennant as one of the Time Lords pursuing her had me laughing right from the beginning, and writer Nicholas Briggs, casting himself as the previous Doctor (because why wouldn't you if you had the chance?) is very good too.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heard one negative review about this years ago and I just had to see for myself. I can happily say I enjoyed this one! Having this version of the Fifth Doctor being a woman was great fun. On the run, getting a job and getting drunk. The Doctor really tries to blend in with the humans. Cherrie and Cheese being silly friends/companions was a hoot.
In my opinion, this is a great story in the Unbound Universe!

[A Vertx · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely disgusting. Do not listen to it, unless you're fine with wasting 1 hour and 7 minutes of your life listening to near constant puking/gagging sound effects, rampant misogyny, sexism, transphobia, and more, all rolled into the most unpleasant and infuriating audio ever to exist-- even more so for the single scene that Arabella Weir has where she gets to show her true potential as a true Doctor incarnation, to really highlight just how digusting and horrible the rest of the audio is.

[Zach · Rating 2 out of 5]

If the poorly aged parts of the story were cutting (comments on changing your gender and the constant alcohol drinking noises) the idea of 2 escaping the trial after The War Games and trying to hide and not adventure is a neat idea.

[Tabitha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent premise, but a drunken doctor just wasn't my thing. Not to mention that having Tennant was completely wasted with this script.

[Shteblanc · Rating 2 out of 5]

It would be actually quite fine and funny if it wasn’t accidentally misogynistic and transphobic

[Nicholas Whyte]

I understand fan reaction to "Exile" was pretty negative, but I really enjoyed it as well; after three depressing stories (the two Doctor-as-villain ones, and "Deadline" which is discussed below), I was really relieved to hear one which was a bit more light-hearted. Apparently Time Lords change sex if they commit suicide (this may not be canonical), and so Arabella Weir's Doctor is hiding from them on Earth, staking shelves in Sainsbury's and getting smashed down the pub, having fled Gallifreyan justice. There is much chasing around the countryside by a comedy duo of Time Lord agents. Fun, though with a darker edge.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

タイムロードから身を隠すため、性別を変えて再生を果たしたドクター。ロンドンで販売員として生活するが、タイムロードもドクターを追ってロンドンに地球人として潜伏しながた捜査。ついにドクターを発見する。

ドクターが二日酔いモードなせいでやたらめったらえづいたりゲップを連発するので、ちょっと聞き返す度胸がない。

追記:(2022年3月6日）
久しぶりに聴いてみた。
ガリフレイからの追手をかわすためリジェネで女性となったドクター。ところがそのために自殺に近いことをやったらしく前身の自分から責め立てられる。駐車場整備を仕事とし、夜は同僚とバーで飲み明かす。そんな日常にそろそろうんざりしていたドクター。そこにガリフレイの追手がドクターを探しにやってくる。

なんというか女性になった途端につまらない人生になるという描き方をされていたのだということに今回初めて気がついた。目立たないよう潜伏してるせいかと思ってた。

その点でやもやるものの後はそれなりに面白い。テナントさん演じるタイムロードの審問官と相方のタイムロードとの掛け合いがずっと面白かったし、二人の地上での珍道中も楽しく聞けたのだけれども。

[Debra Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an incredibly funny alternative Doctor story. The doctor is put on trial but instead he escapes to Earth in the regeneration of a woman. Hiding from the Time Lords she gets a job in a store and gets drunk all the time. The Time Lords follow her but bungle trying to find her. Need to listen to find out what happens next.