There’s life after death for Alex Kingston’s River Song as her irrepressible adventures continue.
Since her 2015 audio debut, Big Finish have published twelve box sets of adventures with Professor River Song, as well as having her pop up in various other places.
The Diary of River Song concluded in 2023 with The Orphan Quartet and now we’re invited to rejoin her. This new box set takes place after the on-screen story that both introduced River and depicted her death on-screen.
With the range rebranded as The Death and Life of River Song, she exists as a digital entity. Saved within the Library mainframe, it’s the River from ‘The Name of the Doctor,’ and the audio tale ‘Firewall’.
Now, rudely extracted from that digital afterlife, River finds herself back in the real world and tasked with a mission. In the 60th Century, the Earth faces a cataclysm – are these truly her Last Words?
Last Words
Ten centuries on from her death, River’s consciousness has been downloaded by an arrogant, bunker dwelling billionaire named Garrison Clay.
Returned to physicality in a freshly cloned body, albeit with a built-in genetic timer, she finds humanity in a protectionist phase. Generational Arks have departed ahead of the impending disaster, but her new apocalypse obsessed benefactor believes that those who remain shall inherit the Earth.
Launching out into the world, we get a taste of this ultimate fin de siècle society. Hiding from their inevitable destruction, swathes of the population have taken refuge in immersive role-playing digital “Lotophage” simulations.
It’s into one of those virtual worlds that River heads in search of a missing scientist, one Dr Balthazar. Her mission leads to some Jane Austen themed period fun where the simulated life is more inviting than the real thing.
She enjoys AI interactions on the outside as well, with a running character of a sentient Cab which comes to her aid. Not all those around her are so friendly though, with investigations dogged by a couple of shadowy figures, each with their own agenda.
The first two episodes lead us into an epic two-part finale, with heavy links to a Doctor Who classic. This review will preserve that secret, although pre-publicity for the story did not. However, suffice to say that the tense story that plays out is terrific, with all the feel of a big screen disaster movie.
In Summary
Writer Rob Valentine deftly weaves his noir thriller into established continuity, but the links are not overbearing. There’s a reference to the nation arks of ‘The Beast Below’ and we loved the medical aliment name drop.
Alex Kingston is on top form as River in Melody Malone-ish mode as she investigates, while also chafing at her predicament. As her dubious puppet master Garrison Clay, Greg Wise thoroughly entertains too.
In the wider cast, Christine Kavanagh and Robert Whitelock are pitch perfect as earlier incarnations of on-screen characters, while Jamie Parker breaks your heart as Samael Avner.
Last Words is another long-form success for River Song, after the superlative ‘A Friend of the Family’. The two stories couldn’t be more different, but placing her at the heat of an expansive four-parter clearly suits River perfectly.
However, as the conclusion of Last Words deliberately echoes that of the library two-parter, it begs the question – where on earth is River headed next? Second and third box sets in this range are on the way in 2025.
The Death and Life of River Song: Last Words is out now. It’s available either as a collector’s edition four-CD box set, or on digital download, from Big Finish.