Two Rivers and a Firewall sees Alex Kingston’s impressible time-travelling adventuress Professor River Song notch up her tenth solo boxset.
Free of Doctorly encounters, she instead meets an impossible version of herself, wins an auction, accepts a shopping invitation and spends some time in her digital afterlife.
The Two Rivers
The set begins with River acting as the benefactor on someone else’s dig. Professor Dern (Caroline Harker) is fulfilling a lifelong dream to discover the tomb of River Song. However, when she does, they instead unearth an impossible future incarnation of River herself.
Unravelling that impossibility takes the two Rivers on a journey, both temporal and emotional. The other River is a tougher, less compassionate character who never had the influence of the Doctor.
With the focus on the interaction between Alex Kingston and Mimî M Khayisa (The Witcher), this is a typically thought-provoking tale from Tim Foley. He delights in putting our River on the receiving end of her usual antics and teases with the backstory of the other incarnation.
Beauty on the Inside
An auction and a mysterious portrait lead River into a bizarre adventure on a former Earth colony with an apparently ageless royal family.
Lizzle Hopley’s script is bristling with ideas, perhaps too many, as it didn’t all come together for us. In fact, we found it tough to follow. Coupling that with numerous over-the-top performances for the royals and we struggled to care about the characters. Ironically, we imagine this is a tale that might work better in vision.
Black Friday
Never one to resist an invitation, River arrives for a gala shopping event at the Omnia Forum, a planet-sized shopping centre – only to find it deserted.
With a slowly unravelling mystery, Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle’s script keeps its villains concealed. So much that it is really rather a shame that the cover and synopsis blow the reveal.
With a tight cast, there’s a charismatic performance from Paul Bazely as Mikhail, the store’s only inhabitant, plus creepy support from Eva Savage as Amica the AI. For us, ‘Black Friday’ was the surprise hit of the boxset and we hope to hear more from this writing duo.
Firewall
While this set is an anthology, ‘Firewall’ is dead easy to pinpoint in River’s twisted personal timeline. Dead being the operative word, as it occurs inside the data core of The Library, where the Doctor “saved” River after their fateful first/last encounter.
We’ve met this River before, in ‘The Name of the Doctor’, but this story takes place soon after her self-sacrifice. Living within the universe’s largest repository of knowledge, she’s wife to Proper Dave and mother to Charlotte. However, uploaded with a weak signal, she’s not the woman she was.
Playing with the elements of the original Library story, writer Barnaby Kay (who also acts and directs for Big Finish) creates an external threat in the shape of the vengeful Alan and his avatar Mal; Jason Forbes has great fun with all the aspects of the character. For his part, Harry Peacock entertains as Proper Dave, while Merryn Dowley recreates a believable Charlotte; the original actress would now be in her 20s!
While River’s other crewmembers don’t appear, there’s a passing reference to the Doctor Moon. Additionally, we meet an American woman at the park named Anita. One can only imagine that Miss Evangelista and other Dave are bobbing around in there somewhere… and perhaps Donna’s children too? With a pleasingly happy ending, it’s a wonderful (after)life.
In summary
Seven years and ten series in, Alex Kingston continues to sparkle as River Song with no signs of slowing down. While there’s no apparent theme to tie this boxset together, it is fun to hear some adventures without the added weight of heavy Doctorful connections — even if it does result in the slightly odd title.
As ever, production values on the set are exemplary and it was great to hear those classic Auton cues deployed. Additionally, it is worth highlighting just how good Howard Carter’s theme is – it always puts us in mind of a Bond movie!
The Diary of River Song Series 10 is available on CD and download from Big Finish.
Series 11
Pleasingly, the next set has already been announced: The Diary of River Song Series 11: Friend of the Family is due for release in January 2023.
Written by Tim Foley, it is a four-parter focussed on a house and its inhabitants across multiple generations with guest stars including Isla Blair, Wendy Craig and Jemima Rooper. It’s available to preorder.