I've decided to take a small break from mainline Doctor Who. Doing it in timeline order is fun but it can feel repetitive. Therefore, I've decided to delve into the spinoffs, starting with The Diary of River Song.

Now this first story is nothing special, but I enjoyed it a fair bit and I'm certainly keen on seeing this series through now. You can tell Alex Kingston is still getting used to audio but for the most part her performance is just as electrifying as it was on TV. I do like the way this explores the archeological side of River which is something you'd be forgiven for forgetting about on TV aside from a few small jokes. I found the bits with River narrating what's presumably her diary to be really interesting, I hope that sticks around.

This story follows a fairly typical Doctor Who story format only with River in place of the Doctor (something I'm hoping will change considering I started this to get something a bit different to regular Who, though that's no fault of the story). The saltwater zombies are pretty standard as far as monsters go but they served the story well enough. I found Bertie quite interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing where this first arc goes. Overall, a pretty decent introduction to River on audio.

Next Story: I Went to a Marvellous Party

The Diary of River Song

#1.01. The Boundless Sea ~ 6/10

◆ An Introduction

I’ve been putting off this range for quite some time. BigFinish already have one archaeologist wandering through the fourth dimension, and I wanted to avoid making any comparisons between the two. That being said, only River can claim to have gotten hitched to the Doctor!

Time to see what her idea of downtime is, as she tries laying low in the 1920s… before uncovering a dessicated Surene Queen in Lower Mesopotamia! Is the concept of a quiet life totally alien to archaeologists in the Whoniverse?

◆ Publisher’s Summary

River Song has had more than enough excitement for a while. Deciding the universe – and her husband – can look after themselves, she has immersed herself in early 20th century academia, absorbed in writing archaeological theses.

But when a mysterious tomb is found in a dry, distant land, excitement comes looking for River.

Can Professor Song stop any more members of the expedition from dying? What deadly secrets lie buried within the crypt? And will British Consul Bertie Potts prove to be a help, or a hindrance?

◆ Prof. River Song

‘The Boundless Sea’ is nothing special, but Alex Kingston still delivered a decent performance.

She’s had her fill of travelling for the moment, wanting nothing more than peace and quiet to finish her studies. Assuming that the bumbling British Consul is trying to court her, River warns that she’s a married woman. She recommends staying out of Europe for the foreseeable future, knowing full well that the continent will soon plunge into all-out war! She never listens to anyone. River tells Prim that she has no tears left to give – she also mentions that she can’t sweat… which just reminds me of a certain infamous interview with a disgraced royal. Realising that Bertie knows a lot more about her than he’s letting on, she claims that trouble always finds her eventually. River has died for her husband many times. She has been trapped in a tomb all her life.

◆ Story Recap

Hiding out in the roaring 1920s, River has been doing some studies in peaceful solitude – something which doesn’t really exist in her life.

It’s not long before she is roped into helping an archaeological team excavating a tomb in the ancient city of Ur – situated somewhere in the south of present day Iraq. Accompanied by a bumbling idiot, River heads into the tomb to find vampiric drones with a taste for saltwater… and a dessicated corpse that’s still very much alive!

◆ Bare Bones

This is basically just a mummy story, isn’t it? The setting feels like something ripped wholesale from a piece of Indiana Jones fan-fiction, and the majority of the runtime can be summed up as “River and Bertie potter about in some dark corridors within a tomb from the 11th century BC”.

Going slightly off-topic for a bit, I’ve been suffering badly with my mental health of late – severe anxiety mixed with depression and OCD is not a fun mix – and I use BigFinish to relax. Unfortunately, stories like this do nothing to distract me because they’re so bare bones.

◆ Cpt. Trust Fund

Bertie is your typical middle-class gentleman from the turn of the 20th century, equipped with his very own trust fund, and a personality that will grate on you within minutes. Unfortunately, he’s a recurring character in Series One, so get used to the bumbling muppet now!

◆ Sound Design

I’ve been following Steve Foxon’s work since he emerged onto the scene with that fantastic score he composed for ‘Arrangements for War’. The 51-100 range is where I started with BigFinish back in 2016, so I’m very familiar with his work. That’s probably why hearing such a dull soundscape from him shocked me!

Wailing tribeswomen at the burial ceremony of their king; the Queen is among those crying out in horror, whilst tambourines are rattled and animal skin drums are played. A crackling fire and a pen scratching against paper. The ringing of a 1920s telephone. Hammers and archaeological instruments bash away at bits of the tomb as the excavation work continues. The saline drones buzz around Daphne as they take all the moisture out of her. Waves crashing against the steam ship. The people drained by the saline drones have this awful gurgling effect on their voices that makes them sound like Sil! The buzzing of River’s sonic trowel. The firing of an old-fashioned colt pistol. Flowing water behind the salt-water dam… which begins flowing a lot faster when the dam bursts open!

◆ Conclusion

“Let me feast on your tears…”

I previously mentioned that I didn’t want to compare River with her fellow archaeologist, but when you hold something boring like this script against Benny’s debut… it’s not much of a contest.

Jenny T. Colgan has written a perfectly serviceable episode, but one that leaves me with little motivation to keep listening to this range. Here’s hoping things will improve!

This was just alright. I got major Bernie Summerfield vibes from this story and it feels like it would have fit her a little better, perhaps reflecting these characters being a bit similar in ways I hadn't thought much of before.

I will say I'm glad this isn't the first Diary of River Song I've listened to, because I didn't enjoy Boundless Sea very much at all. The story is serviceable but silly, not much more substantial than the Brandan Fraser Mummy movies, though with significantly weaker character work all around. I didn't even hate all these characters but it feels like they just disappear from the story at certain points in a rather disappointing way. Even Alex Kingston's performance is pretty off, a thankfully rarity for her. Luckily the series seems a lot more reliable than this, even within this first set, and I look forward to checking out more of that.

That being said, every once in a while, this audio has little moments of fun to it. There are bits that felt delightfully spooky at times and I even like the ending of River getting a sort of message to send her off into the next adventure. That was fun. The twist where Bertie mentions River's vortex manipulator could have been executed so much better. It's really just unable to live up to either being a fun but silly mummy adventure, a character piece on River in her first solo adventure, or an intriguing historical piece, and kind of fails on all fronts because of it.