Free Speech

Short Trips #10.X

Released: 29 December 2020

Listened: 4/20/26

This story is one of Big Finish's Paul Spragg Memorial stories, meaning that Eugenie Pusenjak is a new writer, and she's starting with a pretty high concept: a planet where speaking literally costs money, enforced by chips embedded in people's tongues before they become adults. Writing apparently also costs, but that's just handwaved. Sign language isn't mentioned, which I think is a pretty serious oversight, but I'll let it go. The story is told in the form of the protagonist being interrogated by police, and of course, it costs to answer. Needless to say, the Tenth Doctor is antithetical to this society, and he's not having any of it. Jacob Dudman both narrates and plays the Doctor, and if anything, the Doctor doesn't have enoough lines. Other Doctors might have quietly encouraged rebellion, but I'm sure the Tenth would take a more direct approach. There's also a scene of a high-stakes poker game that takes up a lot of time, but doesn't seem necessary to the story. The whole speech thing is an indictment of the British class system and the idea of "knowing one's place." Maybe it's because I'm American, where not only is the class system weaker, but free speech is considered a core value, but this one just isn't working for me.