The Unknown

The Diary of River Song #2.1

Released: 25 December 2016

Listened: 2/13/21

The Doctor is alone for this story, so Ace and Benny must be elsewhere, because they’re not in the TARDIS (or else this story is placed incorrectly). Up to this point in River’s (production) history, Big Finish had only paired her with the Eighth Doctor, and even then she avoided meeting him directly. This story explodes that somewhat by having them unable to remember each other, and ends with the events of the story being erased, so from the Doctor’s perspective, nothing happened at all. River’s on a ship with temporal shielding, on its way to investigate a temporal anomaly, except it collides with the TARDIS, and the temporal shielding doesn’t really work. This results in Escher-like corridors, memory loss and trouble focusing for the characters, and of course, imminent catastrophe. River and the Seventh Doctor don’t get on too well in general, because she’s not fond of his tendency to be mysterious (because that’s her gig). With their memories erased, the Doctor starts to warm to her...until she’s willing to shoot and incinerate the people trying to kill them. Of course, this is River’s story, so she’s proven right, more or less. And also because this is River’s story, it continues past the point where the Doctor leaves, with River learning some disturbing things about the planet that leads into “5:29” and the rest of the boxed set. From River’s standpoint, the story is just getting started, but for this project, it’s just an interlude. It’s a pretty good River story, though, if you like temporal engineering.