4.1 Time in a Bottle by Emma Reeves and Matt Fitton
River is recruited by a rival to explore a star system where time no longer exists. Professor Jemima Still has picked up a signal from an impossible source and takes an expert team to investigate. But their mission is about to unleash hell upon the universe…
4.2 Kings of Infinite Space by Donald McLeary
With the Discordia on their tail, River and her friends run for their lives across time and space. But when your opponent can twist cause and effect to ensure victory at every turn, then escape may well be impossible.
4.3 Whodunnit? by Matt Fitton
Melody Malone finds herself in a castle, with an assortment of strange companions. But guests are being murdered, one by one. Time is running out for a mystery to be solved. And Franz Kafka is hiding something in the attic.
4.4 Someone I Once Knew by John Dorney
River has tried in vain to keep the Discordia away from the Doctor. Now, as devils run riot through universal spacetime, her own past with her husband is being rewritten. There is one last hope for the universe. A love story – but one that must find an ending…
THE DIARY OF RIVER SONG: TIME IN A BOTTLE
We’re into our fourth set of River Song stories, which have had their ups and downs – but this set stakes out something different, maintaining a very strong plot through all four episodes and actually does interesting things with the characters. The first story, “Time in a Bottle” by Emma Reeves and Matt Fitton, sets the pieces out on the board. The villains of the piece are the Discordia, described in the ad copy as “nihilistic time pirates” – they look like devils, and they build an empire by altering the past, changing history to remove any obstacles in their path. River joins a team led by former colleague Professor Jemima Still (Fenella Woolgar) to investigate a star system where time has stopped, and it is there that River encounters the Discordia and sets the box set in motion. The function of the story as introduction is obvious: it tends to drag under the weight of its own exposition. But that’s a relatively minor complaint: I like the structure of assembling a team and going on a quest, especially given how the rest of the stories undercut that format. The Discordia are an interesting villain – frighteningly difficult to defeat once they get their claws into you. Overall, this is a solid, promising start.
7/10
THE DIARY OF RIVER SONG: KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE
The second story in the set, “Kings of Infinite Space” by Donald McLeary, is a very strong entry that actually does the things I wish more Big Finish stories would do. It sets itself up as a romp, starting with a typically brash River Song escape from danger – ha ha, it’s an android replica, you fools never expected that! But that strategy proves to be River’s undoing – she made the duplicate too well, and now the Discordia can use it to track her movements, knowing where she’ll go before she does. What follows is a chase across time and space, but one that becomes increasingly hopeless: River starts the chase arrogant and overconfident, but slowly realizes she’s in over her head. The settings get increasingly bleak, and the “planet with a forest on it” recurring gag grows increasingly bitter in tone. There’s an odd comedic streak running through the story as well, one that I think jars with the plot, but Doctor Who and its spinoffs have always leavened tragedy with humor so I’m not bothered by it. In general, though, we need more stories like this! River is actually pushed to her limits, forced to make impossible choices, and made to endure emotional strain and loss. Obviously you don’t want that in every single story, but this is a notable departure from the usual Big Finish runarounds and it’s all the better for it. More like this, please.
8/10
THE DIARY OF RIVER SONG: WHODUNNIT?
“Whodunnit?” by Matt Fitton sees the range trying something different again: we’re thrown into a story starring Melody Malone trying to solve a murder in an isolated country house, but the house and the guests are not as they seem. How this relates to the Discordia plot becomes clear by the end, but most of the story is wrapped in the murder mystery. Unfortunately, Fitton fails in his effort to tie all the disparate elements together. The plot doesn’t make a great deal of sense – Melody can’t seem to figure out specifics, as things are constantly changing – but that’s explained by the revelation that we’re in a world created by the mind of Franz Kafka. Yet this doesn’t really work: Fitton is clearly trying to show us what a murder mystery written by Kafka would look like, but this just ends up demonstrating why Kafka didn’t write murder mysteries. The two structures don’t work together – and perhaps that’s the point, and perhaps we’re supposed to just follow Melody’s frustration, but deliberately frustrating your audience without a planned payoff doesn’t work. Kafka wrote the way he did for a reason; this story is just haphazardly grafting two styles together with no greater purpose. Furthermore, you could excise this story from the set and not lose much of anything. Fortunately, this is the only disappointing entry in an otherwise strong box set.
4/10
THE DIARY OF RIVER SONG: SOMEONE I ONCE KNEW
There’s always a danger in River Song stories of making the character too dependent on the Doctor. Many stories in this range have involved River trying to save the Doctor, or find the Doctor, or do a million other things with the Doctor, and lose River’s identity in the process. “Someone I Once Knew” by John Dorney avoids these pitfalls: it’s the best portrayal by far of their relationship on audio.
Another problem with these sets is their desire to satisfy continuity: since the Doctor doesn’t meet River until his tenth incarnation, the stories must concoct reasons for the past Doctors to lose their memories after meeting her. (Except possibly McCoy, which was interesting and quite fitting.) Here, Dorney just blows past that: we know right off the bat that history has been altered by the Discordia and that enables Dorney to write a fourth Doctor who has known River his entire life and is very much in love with her. This works wonderfully: it’s completely against type, both for Tom Baker and the character, and yet it fits together so well. It would be easy for Baker to ruin this by going completely over the top, but he gives a shockingly heartfelt performance instead, one of the best he’s ever done on audio. Because of his eccentric persona and heavy identification with the fourth Doctor, it’s easy to forget that Tom Baker has always been a talented actor, and this is a perfect reminder of his skills. I also love the altered memories of classic Doctor Who stories, with River involved throughout.
The only problem here is we don’t see enough of that relationship! The Doctor and River are separated for most of the story, in which one of the Discordia tries to prove his love to River in a bizarre parody of “nice guys” unable to understand why their affections are not reciprocated. That part drags, but it is redeemed by the ending, which shows the Discordia emperor, old and weary, deciding to use his powers to undo his peoples’ existence. It’s easy to dismiss this as an anticlimactic cop-out but it really works and it’s a neat way to resolve the problem. Normally I dislike alternate universe stories because of the lack of long-term consequences; here, River is clearly deeply affected by her experiences even if they didn’t “happen.” Overall, “Someone I Once Knew” is an excellent story and a great way to wrap up an above average box set.
9/10