Professor River Song will open her diary for a twelfth and final volume of adventures: The Orphan Quartet. 

Ever since her last onscreen appearance as the time-travelling archaeologist, Alex Kingston has been reprising the character for her own audio spin-off.

Across eight glorious years of audio adventures, Professor Song has met multiple Doctors, Masters and all manner of alien foe. She’s also dealt with family issues and, most recently, become intertwined the fate of one family across the generations. It’s been quite a ride!

However, all good things must come to an end. Big Finish have announced that the twelfth and final boxset in the series is out in August 2023. For that final outing, they’ve saved an encounter with another Doctor Who icon – the indomitable Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler.

Here are the details for The Diary of River Song: The Orphan Quartet

An old enemy hides beyond the universe, a desolate Cornish inn confronts the truth, a grieving mother holds onto a deadly memento of war, and has the Earth failed to notice it’s been invaded? Professor River Song must solve all this while dealing with a loss of her own.

The final four stories in the series are:

‘The Excise Men’ by Lou Morgan, ‘Harvest of the Krotons’ by James Goss, ‘Dead Man Talking’ by Tim Foley and ‘The Wife of River Song’ by Lizzie Hopley.

Producer James Goss said:

“It’s an absolute privilege to unite Three Great Queens of Doctor Who – River Song, Jackie Tyler and The Krotons. The Krotons are back and they’re running a health farm! Who better to investigate than River and Jackie?”

“If you were wondering about Jackie’s unlikely friendship with Mrs Song at Number 23 (in The Lives of Captain Jack volume 3) then here’s the answer. It was the kind of day in studio you can only dream of as one of Doctor Who’s most beloved monsters met the Krotons – will Jackie Tyler become a High Brain?”

Other appearances 

Of course, we don’t expect for one moment that this will be the last we’ll hear of River Song on audio. She’s appeared in a UNIT boxset, met Captain Jack, adventured with the Tenth Doctor and joined his Dalek Universe series. She also met fellow archaeologist Bernice Summerfield in the celebratory multi-Doctor adventure The Legacy of Time too.

Also, we’d be surprised if the current 60th anniversary series Once and Future passed without a visit too.

The Worlds of Doctor Who – The Diary of River Song: The Orphan Quartet is up for pre-order now. It’s available as a collector’s edition CD box set + download, or on download only, from Big Finish.

Check out the CultBox reviews of all the previous volumes in the series here.