Songs of Love

Doom Coalition #4.2

Released: 7 March 2017

Listened: 12/15/21

Now that we’ve seen what happened with our three main characters after the box-three cliffhanger, what about everybody else? River’s alone on Gallifrey, surrounded by enemies. Can she talk her way out of this? Have you met River? She not only convinces the bad guys she’s on their side, she gets them to give her a job. We’ve only recently found out that Padrac is the big bad behind it all, so now we get a real idea of his plans. He’s manipulated Caleera from the beginning, creating a “psychic resonator,” which will destroy everything except Gallifrey, if used at just the right time (which is what the doomsday clock is for). And he’s manipulating the High Council to do what he wants, while the unnamed President (presumably Romana) is off-planet. There’s a definite tone of the Gallifrey series here, even though none of those characters appear. And River’s bits feel like a River story, with lots of running around, scheming, and threatening people with guns. By the end of the story, the band is back together, the Eleven is starting to doubt his allies, and we’re off on another chase. It makes sense that we know what’s going on with the “other side,” and having the Doctor (and to a lesser extent, Liv and Helen) be missing from the episode gives the other characters a chance to shine, but it only really works within a boxed set, where it can safely run parallel to the previous story, without annoying the listeners. Plus we need to get River off-stage, which this story does.