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Reviews for Doctor Who Unbound: Exile

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A thing of parts

By:Siskoid, Moncton, NB
Date:Saturday 15 October 2005
Rating:   6

I may be generous with Exile, but I think it's really a thing of parts. Some parts excellent, some dreadful. It's easy to remember the dreadful parts, but I prefer to linger on the good.

So to get the bad out of the way: There are two kinds of comedy on show, and the one involving the female Doctor is unfortunately predicated on getting drunk. And if I go by Dalek Empire as well, Nick Briggs' idea of being drunk involves entirely too much belching and vomiting (fairly graphic too). Having the Doctor in a menial life with a couple of drunkard friends wears thin VERY quickly, and it's really too bad.

Why? Because Weir would be a passable Doctor if we go by the end of the play. I would have liked to see a little more of that and less of the bingeing. Especially frustrating since we have a woman in the role, and she is unfortunately made weak through most of the audio.

The Timelord double-act, on the other hand, draws from more Pythonesque humor and works much better. I wish Exile was like that all the way through! Certainly, it gives me confidence that Davis Tennant (one of the two Timelords) will make a witty Doctor worthy of Eccleston's first year.

Overall: Skip to the funny bits and the end when Weir really gets to be the Doctor.



Show-Stealing by Tennant

By:Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA
Date:Friday 30 March 2007
Rating:   7

Maybe I only feel this way due to having been familiar with David Tennant as the Doctor before listening to this audio, but after listening to this entire story, I'm left with the impression that Arabella Weir as The Doctor was badly upstaged by David Tennant as "Time Lord 2." As already noted by the other reviewer, Weir's Doctor isn't really given much of a chance to actually *be* the Doctor here, and as a result, the other two Time Lords, especially the one played by Tennant, end up with better roles than the Doctor.

Having said all of that, this is a very funny production. It's hard to rate this one. It's great fun as it jokes around about the trial scenes in The War Games (the Quarks are rubbish!), and the muffled music in the background in the squalid hotel room the two Time Lords are forced to stay in makes for some laugh-out-loud funny scenes there. The Doctor's drunken cohorts and Nick Briggs' "Previous Doctor" are all great elements, but having a drunk, belching, puking Doctor... that's just not right! It's laughably funny and cringingly disgusting at the same time.

If nothing else, it can certainly be said that Exile is unique...



Not bad...

By:Ian Cotterill, Chipping Norton, United Kingdom
Date:Thursday 27 February 2014
Rating:   5

For the finale to the main series of ‘Doctor Who Unbound’, Nicholas Briggs produces a more comical audio play, looking at what kind of measures the Doctor would take to hide from the Time Lords. Unfortunately, the sections of the story featuring the Doctor are not really that engaging or entertaining, as Arabella Weir’s Doctor spends most of the time getting drunk and arguing with her previous incarnation, who seems utterly paranoid about Quarks in a rather unconvincing way.

The story isn’t really that engaging and feels rather weak, with virtually nothing happening for the most part, and there are some sections that give the impression of trying to be funny, but just come across as being mildly amusing.

However, the play is redeemed by the rather good double act of Toby Longworth and David Tennant, who portray two long-suffering Time Lords hunting the Doctor. Their various antics are far more entertaining and almost make up for the play’s rather thin plot. The rest of the cast are also rather good, despite being saddled with a fairly uninteresting story.

In the end, ‘Exile’ isn’t too bad, but it is no masterpiece either. Whilst there are some sections that are rather fun to listen to, this is a story probably worth missing.



Unclear Why This Was Made

By:David Layton, Los Angeles, United States
Date:Tuesday 8 July 2014
Rating:   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?



Funny

By:Justin Barnes, st.louis , United States
Date:Tuesday 24 March 2020
Rating:   10

This Unbound is much different then any of the others. I won't spoil the story but it is a very big change from the rest and is a funny edition. I really enjoyed this especially after so many years!



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