River Song meets two of her husband’s best friends, Ace and Tegan, in a time-twisting four-part adventure.
With her own capacity to time-travel, Professor River Song (Alex Kingston) encountered three Doctors on screen, and has met more on audio since.
However, her latest adventure brings her into contact with two of the Doctor’s former travelling companions: Dorothy ‘Ace’ McShane (Sophie Aldred) and Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding).
While Ace and Tegan didn’t meet onscreen in the 1980s, they came together for ‘The Power of the Doctor’, Jodie Whittaker’s swansong. Naturally, audio producers Big Finish saw potential in the pairing and wanted to dramatise their meeting.
Ace and Tegan also unites another pair with its writing team. James Moran wrote for both the Tenth Doctor and Torchwood on screen, while Roland Moore has an impressive television back catalogue, as well as credits across numerous Big Finish ranges including Survivors and Star Cops.
The Death and Life of River Song Series 02: Ace and Tegan
While the first volume of this rebranded River Song range took place during the character’s digital afterlife, we’re back to her regular time-hopping antics here.
Castaways
James Moran’s opener hits the ground running with River on top form. In the opening scene, she both helps herself to a space yacht and initiates regime change on a planet. Plus, there’s a terrific spoiler gag.
Then, it’s swiftly off to London, where workers report seeing dragon ghosts emerging from the as yet undug underground tunnel network.
Posing as Dame River she’s soon on the case and encountering a couple of familiar faces. ‘Professor’ McShane is purportedly writing a book on weird phenomena, while ‘Lady’ Jovanka is posing as an investor in the underground railway project. With chunks of their memories missing, and a worrying tendency to become insubstantial, this is a fun introduction to the set which concludes with killer cliffhanger.
Driftwood & Dead Rising
Roland Moore takes on the scripting duties for the middle two tales. ‘Driftwood’ sees Ace meet River for the first time. The encounter happens when Ace becomes separated from the Doctor on an imperilled colony ship (the TARDIS is expelled with the Doctor inside).
Ace has to step up and save the day, convincing the recently defrosted ship’s pilot Charlana (Zina Badran) and her android to trust her. In the mix are River and a malign alien entity, capable of travelling via wires and manipulating metal. Set against a ticking clock, this entertaining story deploys both Ace’s baseball bat and Nitro 9 on the way to its conclusion.
Four hundred years later, ‘Dead Rising’ picks up the story of the same colony mission, who’ve now made landfall. Accused of being responsible for a series of deaths, Tegan is under interrogation while the Doctor and Turlough remain ‘on ice’ in suspended animation.
However, matters take a darker turn when the dead colonists come back to life, and River arrives to help solve a subterranean mystery with a grim Season 21 feel.
Kerrie Taylor impresses as the pilot, in charge of Vrexel colony, while Alan Cox is on double-duty here, playing both a medic and providing a superbly menacing alien voice.
The End is the Beginning is the End
If the first story was period adventure, and the middle two are a homage to 80’s Doctor Who, the finale is full of timey wimey, new series River Song shenanigans. Our trio must grapple with the villainous Gregor Ganley (Jonny Weldon) who keeps outmanoeuvring them in the past.
One particular element we enjoyed was the introduction of the jolly polite bounty hunter Zonathan (Stuart McLoughlin), who’s a fine comic creation.
In Summary
Despite the most Ronseal title for a box set ever, Ace & Tegan provides a fun series of adventures, as well as setting up this former companion partnership. The pair work well together and come to trust River Song, as she inserts herself into their history to save their lives. They also challenge her moral compass; unlike the Doctor, River is prepared to kill to achieve her ends and that’s not something that either Ace or Tegan will tolerate.
It all gets a bit timey wimey at the end, with less emotional heft than some of the previous entries in River’s diaries, but as it provides an origin story Ace and Tegan as a team, let’s hope it is the start of something too.
The Death and Life of River Song Series 02: Ace and Tegan is out now. It’s available on Collector’s Edition CD (+ download), or download only, from Big Finish.