World Enough and Time

The Diary of River Song #2.3

Released: 25 December 2016

Listened: 7/29/20

Not the Twelfth Doctor story (which is great), but a story from River Song’s second box set. (It’s a wonder nobody had used the title before, really.) This story is from one of the early River boxed sets, so Big Finish was going through the exercise of having her meet up with all the classic Doctors they had available, while still hiding her identity. This time, she’s trying to investigate an apocalypse that happened in one of her earlier stories, and it leads her to the Golden Futures company, whose managing director, much to River’s surprise, is the Sixth Doctor. Unfortunately, because it’s River’s story, the Sixth Doctor doesn’t come off too well. Golden Futures is distracting him by saddling him with pointless administrative tasks, and he falls for it. It makes me wonder if these stories really should take place here, because the Doctor at this point is more likely to bluster his way into doing what he wants, rather than follow someone else’s agenda. He’s also got a sonic screwdriver, which seems odd. He gets tricked out of a sacrifice play, and then even fumbles the big sciency climax. The plus side is his obvious affection for River (even though he’s never met her, as far as he knows), which River returns, also somewhat unexpectedly. She’s annoyed with him being a bit slow to solve the mystery (as she should be), but she seems to appreciate his kindness. She even says she likes his coat. I kept expecting there to be something deeper to the plot, but if there is, it’s not revealed in this story, which is fine, because it’s still the middle of the set.