Review of The Exiles by hallieday
2 November 2024
This review contains spoilers
The First Doctor #4
'The Exiles' from Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors.
Really love the writing for The Doctor here; it totally nails William Hartnell's speech and even his line flubs. The sequence of them getting onto the TARDIS and aquainting themselves with it is lovely and feels very appropriate to what we see in An Unearthly Child, and the focus on Susan is great with her talking about wanting to dance. Cool to have another hint at The Doctor's previous career as an "ambassador", and even another small hint at Susan's clairvoyance with her seemingly knowing what the instruction manual of the TARDIS is going to look like, although whether this is because she may have seen it before in the past or not is unclear, but it certainly adds to the much more alien-like nature of her when compared to The Doctor. I can't say I'm that enthused by the man with fangs in the mirror portion of the story - it's chilling although it feels somewhat out of place tonally with the rest of the story - but I'm curious to see if this is something that will come back in some other form of media down the line. The Doctor's way of shrugging it off is still very in character however.