The Sonomancer

Doom Coalition #2.4

Released: 3 March 2016

Listened: 12/10/21

By 2016, when this was released, Big Finish had been granted permission to use characters and concepts from the new series, up to the 50th anniversary. They started fairly cautiously, but soon there were new-series things happening all over, and the foremost was River Song, since she can pop up anywhere, in any story. However, this early in River’s tenure, the writers were careful to try to keep her out of sight of any Doctor before the Tenth. Which means that River mostly interacts with Helen in this story, gives Liv a false name, and avoids the Doctor entirely. Caleera – now calling herself “The Sonomancer,” because the good names were all taken, I guess – is looking for someplace to test the destructive capabilities of her vibrational powers. Having failed in San Francisco, she’s trying the planet Syra, which is already tectonically unstable…and inhabited, unfortunately. As a Matt Fitton climax, there’s a lot of running and explosions here. And much more physical fighting than usual, as Liv combats the Eleven while they’re both wearing mining exo-suits, and then she and River pummel him into unconsciousness (with some rather extreme sounding punching SFX). But as tends to happen in stories where River shows up, the focus is on her being fabulous, so the Doctor needs to take a back seat. Helen cooperating with River gives her a chance to excel as well, and the stronger side of her personality comes out here.