The Plague Herds of Excelis

Bernice Summerfield Special

Released: 1 July 2002

Listened: 9/5/21

This story is a coda to the Excelis Trilogy that I’ve covered elsewhere in this project, but this part carries the Bernice Summerfield branding from the early 2002s, and the Doctor doesn’t appear. For Benny, this story takes place while she’s working for Braxiatel, not long after the birth of her son Peter. She’s traveling alone, looking for an escape, preferably by getting drunk, and ends up on Ataris by accident. She promptly bumps into Iris Wildthyme, who hasn’t been seen in this story since “Excelis Dawns.” However, Iris seems considerably more together and competent this time around. For Excelis, this is quite a while after the nuclear war of “Excelis Decays.” The war didn’t kill everybody; there’s a population of survivors still living in Excelis city, and bands of barbarians roaming the countryside. One of those bands has laid siege to Excelis and is bombarding it with plague-ridden animals (the Plague Herds of the title, which aren’t really too important to the plot). The city is ruled by an empress, but her reign is threatened by a prophet, Snyper, played by Trevor Littledale, one of my favorite Big Finish actors, and an excellent choice for a prophet. In a way, this story is more important than the three with the Doctor, as we finally discover what the Relic is, why it’s important, what the fate of Excelis has been this whole time, and exactly what Iris had to do with all of it...which is quite a bit, actually. In light of all this, the Doctor’s interventions seem rather unimportant and incidental. The people of Excelis don’t come out of it very well, although it’s still better than “everyone dies in nuclear fire” from the last story. I still don’t have any great affection for Iris or Benny as characters, but this is a better ending for the saga as a whole.