Review by Jacob Licklider

If there has been a Doctor Who spin-off range from Big Finish Productions that consistently managed good stories while still being very reliant on past pieces of Doctor Who lore, it is The Diary of River Song. Ten series have gone by and only now we have an announcement of a box set with absolutely no returning elements coming out in January 2023. Now luckily the previous nine box sets have had some through line, a story arc or just a simple theme linking all of the stories together, but Two Rivers and a Firewall, the tenth series has a problem, and it’s a big one.

There is no through-line for this set. If this review feels a bit disjointed it’s because all four of the episodes go to such different places that there really isn’t a way for me to spin this as a complete product, something that’s kind of necessary for writing reviews in this style. Not having a through-line also made it a little difficult, through no fault of any of the stories included, to power through listening since there wasn’t that idea pushing it through. Instead of marathoning like I usually do to ensure reviews can come in a timely manner, this one was essentially a story a day with some time in between due to personal commitments. This only amplified how the lack of a theme, which is right there in the title of the set of Two Rivers and a Firewall, it describes the first and last stories (The Two Rivers and Firewall), with the two middle stories (Beauty on the Inside and Black Friday) aren’t even referenced, though the later has its influence on Rafe Wallbank’s wonderful cover.

In an attempt to give some structure, let’s begin with the story that has perhaps the most connection to Doctor Who with Barnaby Kay’s Firewall, the first story set explicitly with River post-Forest of the Dead taking place as her consciousness is being uploaded to the Library Mainframe along with Proper Dave, played by Harry Peacock (or as I have been informed to make a reference, in ignorance, to Ray Bloody Purchase). This story has this dreamlike quality with River and Dave essentially playing house with Charlotte Lux, here played by Merryn Dowley who does a great job filling in a characters whose original actress has aged out of the role. There’s also much less of a threatening angle to the character as this is past the point of the corruption in the Mainframe outside of the story using a firewall to stop a virus, a virus connected to someone convinced that the Doctor was responsible for his death and now wants to kill the consciousness of River. The story opens with River and Dave as a happily married couple with Charlotte as the daughter, which Kay plays around with the idea that River might be describing the Doctor early on in a humorous twist it is Dave. Peacock is also wonderfully affable as the character, never really the butt of the joke, but definitely the straight man in the comedy. Much of the story also takes on an almost dark comedy bent, with the virus himself being kind of pathetic and the computer malfunctioning making him act out. It’s also quite interesting that memory plays an important role here, especially as River and Dave both adjust to the fact that their bodies are dead, Dave being the one who adjusts poorly as River being a time traveler effectively has already faced her certain death. It’s also the highlight of the set in all honestly. 10/10.

Black Friday from Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle is the next that has a close connection with Doctor Who, as it features the Autons in a galactic shopping mall with some added romantic comedy because Pringle in particular remembered that in The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang River mentioned dating an Auton. This one is a chase away from danger as the Autons are invading this dead planet sized mall that delegates are set to arrive at. There is a fairly obvious twist with Paul Bazely’s character, and as the Autons and Nestene Consciousness are effectively silent, it means that much of the story is a two hander. There is a computer role played by Eva Savage and she’s great, but really this is a two hander between Bazely and Kingston and honestly their charisma is what makes it work as a story. The story does absolutely nothing new, but the script is still charming and oozing with character while Ken Bentley is in the director’s chair making sure everything works out to perfection. It’s almost the perfect example of turning off your brain for a fun piece of science fiction throwing some interesting ideas into a pot of characters and letting them interact. 7/10.

An archetype Doctor Who story is perhaps what connects The Two Rivers to the show proper as well as doing an idea. It’s a multi-River story, something that has technically been done before in Series Three of The Diary of River Song, but Tim Foley instead of doing another incarnation does a version of River Song who has bled through from a parallel universe. Is this intentionally playing on the current uptick in multiverse stories like Firewall feels like tied to release right around The Sandman adaptation? Probably not, but it’s still interesting that this one comes so close to the point where the multiverse is all the rage. The first third is Foley having so much fun writing an archeological/tomb raiding/Indiana Jones style dig for River into the mysterious Tomb of River Song. Kingston is having a blast here and when River turns out to wake up a la Sleeping Beauty or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs we switch immediately to a story about inter-dimensional creatures played by Tom Alexander, bursting and taking over someone’s form and chasing them through time and space. Foley is delightful at writing stakes and fear throughout, but the real meat of the story comes with the interesting contrast with how Kingston plays off Mimi M Khayisa as the other River Song. Khayisa plays the role totally differently, reflecting the divergence in the timelines and the universes, but Foley’s script doesn’t play this genuinely darker version of the character (she killed the Doctor during A Good Man Goes to War) as evil and both versions of the character have something to learn from one another. This is a story that in my own personal circles didn’t click as well but I completely refute that simply due to the character work from Foley and all the actors involved. My slight complaint is some of the time travel just goes a bit too big, but that isn’t the worst problem. 8/10.

The final story we are discussing is Beauty on the Inside, the second story of the set, written by Lizzie Hopley. It’s the one that is perhaps the most original and I’ve been saving it for last since it really doesn’t connect with the others that have something connecting them to the very, barely existing theme of homaging Doctor Who ideas. It’s also the one with the most original ideas, playing around with River investigating a mysterious painting of a royal family and eventually meeting that family. River’s motivations here are fascinating, she is doing this because a friend died trying to smuggle it out of a vault. River as a character is less well known for altruism so it gives Kingston a chance to explore a different side to the character, which is interesting. Hopley is also just wonderful at creating a villain that makes your skin crawl, maybe because we are also dealing with a royal family and there is almost this undercurrent of anger in the script from Hopley. The royal family here are a completely insane cast of characters and the eventual reveal of what has been affecting them has very much the current of doing a story about how power corrupts, the corruption being given a form and voice in this story. It is a very interesting idea, though not necessarily explored to its fullest extent due to the one hour runtime. 8/10.

The Diary of River Song: Two Rivers and a Firewall as a product is an odd beast since the stories aren’t really connected by a marketable theme, but it is some small ideas that vaguely traps things. While thematically it isn’t smooth, the set is another great installment with each creative team bringing something different to the table and some of the best performances for the range, especially when taking the character of River Song into a different direction. 8/10.

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Review: The Diary of River Song  – New Recruit

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