Exile is not an action story. It is something of a fractured narrative, even, with a lot of information to get across, some of which will come into play in future stories.

I had decided some time ago, that I needed to move the continuous narrative on a few years. Exile on Beta Delta IV presented a way to pass several years in the same place. Julia’s birthdays would be a way of marking the passage of time. This story, therefore, takes place on her fourteenth birthday. Her birthday treat allowed a way for Chrístõ to find out that something was wrong at home, through the band manager.

Incidentally, that band, Ice Garden, started off as Fire Garden, but apparently there IS a 21^st century band called that.

Exactly what is happening on Gallifrey, beyond what Chrístõ’s father has been able to tell him, will become clear in later stories. For now, it is enough that he is cut off from his home and family and unable to use his TARDIS.

In effect, he is in the same position that the Third Doctor was in, exiled among Humans and reliant on them for his well being. Chrístõ has a home, at least, with Julia and her family. But it occurred to me that he actually needed to do the paperwork for once. The Doctor has travelled all over the universe and never once presented a passport at customs. Chrístõ applying for refugee status and being refused is a reminder that he, and his later incarnations, live in a real universe where such problems do occur.

Of course, he has absolute right of abode on any Earth colony. His mother is from Earth. And he has the paperwork to prove it.