Expiry Dating

The Tenth Doctor and River Song #1

Released: 25 November 2020

Listened: 11/23/22

This particular boxed set was a 2020 release, which means it was a pandemic recording. In fact, it was kind of thrown together in a hurry when it became clear that David Tennant was willing and capable of recording from his home during lockdown. And he did a lot of it, but this was where it started. It’s also interesting in storytelling terms, because this era is the one spot where River can interact with the Tenth Doctor, after the Library, but before his regeneration. Thing is, he knows very little about River at this point, and he knows a lot more by “The Time of Angels,” so what happened in the interim? Well, this did. And it could just come off as blatant fanservice, unless the writers were very careful and the actors were very good…which they all happen to be. This story, by James Goss, is at the beginning, so it’s kind of tentative, so Goss rather cleverly set it up as a series of letters between the Doctor and River. River’s doing her enigmatic thing, where she has to get the Doctor to do something, but can’t tell him exactly what or why, so she has to manipulate him into it, and of course he pushes against that, which is exactly what River knows he’ll do, etc., etc. It ends up as a proper Moffat-y puzzle box, so you may want to listen multiple times if you want to really get your head around it, or you can just go with the flow. There are also some lovely cameos from other Doctors, who seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. But for the most part, it’s a two-hander between David Tennant and Alex Kingston, and it comes off brilliantly.