1.1 The Boundless Sea by Jenny T Colgan
River Song has had more than enough excitement for a while. Deciding the universe – and her husband – can look after themselves, she has immersed herself in early 20th century academia, absorbed in writing archaeological theses.
But when a mysterious tomb is found in a dry, distant land, excitement comes looking for River.
Can Professor Song stop any more members of the expedition from dying? What deadly secrets lie buried within the crypt? And will British Consul Bertie Potts prove to be a help, or a hindrance?
1.2 I Went to a Marvellous Party by Justin Richards
River Song always enjoys a good party, even when she’s not entirely sure where or when the party is taking place. But the party she ends up at is one where not everything – or indeed everyone – is what it seems…
Being River, it doesn’t take her too long to go exploring, and it doesn’t take her too long to get into trouble. The sort of trouble that involves manipulating other civilisations, exploitation, and of course murder.
River is confident she can find the killer. But can she identify them before anyone else – or quite possibly everyone else – gets killed?
1.3 Signs by James Goss
River Song is on the trail of the mysterious, planet-killing SporeShips.
Nobody knows where they come from. Nobody knows why they are here. All they do know is that wherever the SporeShips appear, whole civilisations are reduced to mulch.
But River has help. Her companion is a handsome time-travelling stranger, someone with specialist knowledge of the oddities and dangers the universe has to offer. For Mr Song has a connection to River’s future, and he would never want his wife to face those perils alone…
1.4 The Rulers of the Universe by Matt Fitton
As shocking secrets are exposed, and a grand plan for the universe is revealed, River decides it’s time she took control of events once and for all.
Out in deep space, a clandestine society faces off with an ancient and powerful alien force – but, for River, there’s an added complication.
The Eighth Doctor has been caught in the middle, and she must make sure her future husband can arrive at his own destiny with all his memories – not to mention his lives – intact…
THE DIARY OF RIVER SONG
THE BOUNDLESS SEA
Big Finish, never known for half measures, is jumping into the New Series pool with both feet. We’ve had UNIT, the War Doctor, Torchwood – and now “The Diary of River Song,” a four story set featuring the time-traveling archaeologist and spouse to everyone’s favorite Time Lord. The first story in the set, “The Boundless Sea” from Jenny T. Colgan, is an odd decision: it’s about the safest, most generic story imaginable and it almost completely fails to inspire.
River is weary of… something and so she decides to take some time off by working as a university archaeologist in early 20th century England. I like that the story doesn’t shy away from the institutional sexism that she would have confronted in this job in the real world, but it’s so caricatured that it’s sometimes difficult to take seriously. I’m also unsure about the idea to have her so reluctant to get involved, as it doesn’t make the character sympathetic and requires a great deal of trust from the listener. Additionally, the story takes forever and a day to get going: the opening scenes in the university followed by the travel to the dig site are interminable, with very little of interest happening at any point.
And once she does arrive, she spends the majority of the remainder of the play locked in a room with two other characters. As the pilot episode for a series about a time-traveling adventuress with the universe at her fingertips, the scope is shockingly limited, presenting itself as little more than an utterly clichéd cursed-tomb story. There are some interesting character beats – the villain is a woman who was defined entirely by her marriage, and River can sympathize with that for obvious reasons. But the resolution is far too Doctor Who, in that River solves the problem exactly as you’d expect the Doctor to solve it – and in a story that makes the point that River is sometimes defined too much by her relationship with the Doctor, it’s an uneasy resolution.
While the script might be uneven, it’s at least thoughtful. The production, on the other hand, is uncharacteristically weak. Alex Kingston is largely excellent, but the other performances are overly mannered and affected for a story that otherwise isn’t attempting a pastiche. The conclusion is far too action-oriented for audio and features an unfortunate amount of characters yelling descriptive passages at each other. Ken Bentley-directed stories are usually much stronger than this. And while the sound design from Steve Foxon is quite solid, the theme music is not – it’s too long, it’s way over the top, and it doesn’t even sound convincingly orchestral. Overall, “The Boundless Sea” is a bizarrely weak way to launch a box set, with questionable decisions showing throughout the production. I said this about UNIT and I said it about the War Doctor and now I’ll say it again: if I had never heard of Doctor Who or River Song, I wouldn’t bother moving on to the second episode.
3/10
I WENT TO A MARVELLOUS PARTY
I know it’s a Noël Coward song, but there’s a party supply store where I live called “I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party” and so that’s all I think about when I see the title of Justin Richards’ “I Went to a Marvellous Party,” the second story in the Diary of River Song box set. This has absolutely nothing to do with the story, but as an anecdote it’s about as interesting – which is to say that there’s very little that stands out in yet another space murder mystery.
Look, I know what you get with Justin Richards scripts. They’re usually entertaining, with solid characterization and enough conceptual sci-fi to keep you reading or listening. He’s not one to push boundaries – and despite his extensive experience writing new series spinoffs, this is the second story in this set to feel more than a little like a classic Doctor Who story. It’s “The Robots of Death” or “Terror of the Vervoids,” basically, and though there’s a good twist in the murder plot, there’s very little here to surprise or capture your interest.
What I do like is River’s role in the resolution, specifically how she manipulates the various players, switching sides until she can engineer an ideal outcome. The character on television is devious as well as charming, always hiding a secondary motive underneath a disguised exterior, and that element of her character is on full display in this story. It’s just a shame that the plot to which she turns this devious nature is so simplistic – it doesn’t feel like a challenge, nor does it bear any significant weight. As I mentioned before, this is a great example of what Doctor Who would be like with a female Doctor – but this isn’t Doctor Who, this is River Song, and it should be more lively than this. I’m struggling to find more to say about this story; it’s thoroughly competent but utterly uninspired. Still, there’s improvement here from the first story in the set.
5/10
SIGNS
Now this is more like it. “Signs,” from James Goss, is the third story of the Diary of River Song set, and it finally tries to depart from the Doctor Who norm and tell a more unique story. It’s still flawed, but there’s actual interesting material here, leading to a much more successful outing.
So at the end of the previous story, someone (Samuel West) claiming to be the Doctor turns up, and he convinces River that he’s an incarnation she hasn’t yet encountered. Of course, the audience knows this isn’t true, because Big Finish isn’t going to start creating new Doctors, but River doesn’t, and the story is therefore about observing her reactions and how she figures out who he really is. Goss elects to do this in two-handed fashion: the story features only Alex Kingston and Samuel West and a lot of dialogue between the two. West’s “Doctor” is very convincing, and as such his interactions with River are largely delightful, as we see the deep affection she has for him. The two actors have great chemistry together as well.
The problem is that the story isn’t particularly gripping. There are great images, like the “Doctor” traveling in a large, empty spaceship, and the idea of the Spore Ships in general. But the “Doctor’s” scheme is vaguely presented, and the true villainy of his behavior – repeatedly cloning and killing River until he learns what he needs – is saved for a climactic plot twist instead of being worked into the story. I appreciated the twist, and I didn’t see it coming, but I wish we could have spent more time knowing so we could learn more about River through her reactions. I did like the death bed scenes, which let us see just how desperately River wants to survive. I also appreciated River’s actions at the very end – finally, something different from what the Doctor would do – but it felt like there could have been more to it than an action movie line.
I also wasn’t a fan of the two-hand structure. For the most part it works, but there are moments where Goss has River and her “husband” pleading with planetary governments – without hearing anything on the other side, it comes across as the sort of “Listen, all of you!” crowd scene that Big Finish has always been terrible at. On balance, though, I enjoyed “Signs” – it’s a flawed story but it has a great deal of ambition and makes me feel better about the set as a whole.
6/10
THE RULERS OF THE UNIVERSE
They definitely saved the best for last. “The Rulers of the Universe,” from Matt Fitton, closes the Diary of River Song set, and it’s easily the strongest story of the four – though I suspect that’s only because the Doctor is in it.
So you’ve got an entire box set of stories about River Song, and the two best stories by far involve first a fake Doctor and then an appearance by the real thing. As an attempt to feature a supporting character and define her as a person in her own right that doesn’t rely on the Doctor, this doesn’t really work. Suddenly much of the drama is about River trying to figure out a way to help the Doctor while he saves the day without revealing her identity – and yeah, Fitton writes it well, but we’re back to defining River in terms of the Doctor.
This does mean, though, that the Doctor (Paul McGann, in this case) gets some excellent material. The story is set in the early days of the Time War, presumably near the end of the eighth Doctor’s life, and the Doctor is dancing around the edges of the war and cleaning up collateral damage while refusing to get directly involved. The brief mentions here are much more effective than anything in the first War Doctor set – Fitton actually communicates the idea of a war with its tendrils in unexpected places and causing a number of unexpected consequences. And McGann plays the Doctor with more of an edge than usual – this is a man clearly losing patience with the war and his role in it.
To dodge any possible continuity problems, the Doctor and River only interact via communicator – but since this is an audio story, it’s basically like hearing them meet. Kingston and McGann have fun with the interaction, showing the Doctor’s puzzlement running headlong into River’s desire to look after him. It’s a shame they couldn’t do more with this, though I understand the difficulties in staying consistent with the TV series. I’m also pleased that Fitton doesn’t reduce River purely to a support role: before taking over communication with the Doctor, she puts an elaborate, time-travel-driven revenge scheme into action, thoroughly defeating the titular Rulers of the Universe. This was the first and only time in the entire set that I felt I was seeing the same River I’ve seen on television: intelligent, resourceful, and completely audacious. But even so, this is a relatively brief moment that feels as though it’s clearing the decks so the Doctor can solve the problem of the Spore Ships.
The whole set should have employed some of that bravado. River Song was a bomb dropped into the middle of Doctor Who; she shook up the status quo more than any one character in the series since its revival. But here we have, for the most part, straightforward science fiction tales. River doesn’t feel like the influential, magnetic character that changed Doctor Who. Instead, she feels like another random guest star – an interesting one played by a talented actor, of course, but little more than that. There has been a serious lack of ambition from Big Finish in all of their new series releases thus far; I’m starting to wonder if we’re ever going to see any.
Still, this was quite good.
8/10
Box set average: 5.5/10