Doctor Who review – Swipe right on The Tenth Doctor and River Song
Expiry Dating shows us the Doctor’s and River’s relationship at a distance.
Photo Credit: Big Finish Productions
Can a collaboration wholly contrived, recorded, and produced in lockdown live up to the legacy of these two Doctor Who headliners? Let’s find out, as we review Big Finish’s latest exciting box set, The Tenth Doctor and River Song!
Twelve years after Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead was televised, wibbly-wobbly timestreams have finally wrapped themselves back around to this highly anticipated reunion of the Tenth Doctor and River Song.
The Big Finish Tenth Doctor Adventures’ range latest boxset delivers a series of energetic and compelling stories worthy of these two fan-favorite characters. David Tennant and Alex Kingston reprise their roles as the Tenth Doctor and River Song, respectively, for the first meeting of their characters in over a decade; and manage to breathe the same chemistry and passion they held on-screen into these full-cast original audio dramas.
There are three standalone stories comprised in the box set (also available for individual purchase), and though each is different, each also brings to life a different aspect of the relationship between our tempestuous Time Lord and his time-traveling temptress.
Expiry Dating
When we first join the Tenth Doctor in James Goss’s Expiry Dating, he is traveling alone after the loss of longtime companion Donna Noble. Styled as an epistolary tale, the short missives being exchanged between the Doctor and River Song are in a manner not dissimilar to the normal musings and hurried writings of any modern long-distance relationship (if those could happen over psychic paper, space-time telegraph, and any other manner of chronologically confused correspondence).
In order to fully enjoy the topsy-turvy chase within a chase within a chase that is Expiry Dating, the listener should fully surrender themselves to the whims of writer James Goss. Frankly, quite literally like the Doctor should have done for River Song all along. Of course, that won’t actually happen, and you’ll have to cringe at every twist and turn until everything is made right again. But at least you’ll have some very pithy repartee to enjoy along the way.
The chemistry between River and the Tenth Doctor is as explosive as ever. They try to outdo the other in what could as easily be described as a strange mating ritual of time traveler foreplay, as a cataclysmal mission to steal the end of time from the clutches of a fixed point.
By the end, you have a full appreciation for the “lifetime work” that River takes on with the Doctor, or as Goss writes it, as River finds her way to him while he finds his way to her.
Other Doctors
Most importantly, justice is doled out, worlds are saved, and in very important ways so is the Doctor. The Fifth and Sixth Doctors (Peter Davison and Colin Baker) join in the fun as special guest stars.
Expiry Dating highlights must include River pitting regenerations of the Doctor against themselves, the Tenth Doctor’s ferocious jealousy at her interactions with his past selves (including a delectably sweet Fifth Doctor whom I hope River eventually does rendezvous with for a sunset at the Eye of Orion, though I suspect absolute tranquility wouldn’t be in her game plan).
Although River finally piques the Doctor’s interest enough to do her bidding, it’s only to find he’s been expertly handled the entire way along, and he’ll never ever be able to get the last word on River Song.
Ghosts is an extremely atmospheric and clever horror for the Tenth Doctor and River.
Photo Credit: Big Finish Productions
Ghosts
Ghosts by Jonathan Morris has all of the definitive elements of a great horror story. It sets the stage by sowing uncertainty, building suspense, and provoking a slowly creeping dread, in a manner not dissimilar to the elusive Mist attempting to overtake River and the Doctor on the ‘most haunted planet in the galaxy’.
Of course, it isn’t just a creepy sentient Mist that casts a pall over their date, but holograms, disappearing friends, and ominous doppelgängers.
As River and the Doctor scrutinize the mystery, what is known and what is unknown become ever more blurred. However, through it all their loyalty to each other remains unwavering, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
The success of Ghosts is ultimately in its exploration of the success of the Doctor and River’s working relationship, which depends fundamentally on their mutual trust, understanding, and confidence in one another’s abilities.
Precious Annihilation
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If Expiry Dating and Ghosts can each be thought of as unique tributes to the era of Steven Moffat, then Precious Annihilation by Lizzie Hopley can be thought of as a tribute to the Classic era.
Hopley’s Tenth Doctor and River Song adventure is a multi-layered treasure hunt across time: occurring on the open sea, under the sea, on the streets of London, and on an alien spacecraft. It finds balance in the Doctor’s and River’s common drive for good, and certainly plays on the strengths and vulnerabilities of each character as they race to defuse the danger.
All the while Hopley perfectly captures the volatility and swagger of the Tenth Doctor. And while there doesn’t seem to be time for many tender moments, there certainly are quite a few harried ones (including psychic fields where more is betrayed than perhaps strictly ought to be).
Together, Expiry Dating, Precious Annihilation, and Ghosts mark a successful outing of the Tenth Doctor and River Song. This boxset is an asset to the Tenth Doctor Adventures’ range, and hopefully just the beginning of the work we see from David Tennant and Alex Kingston.
Next. Doctor Who history: The Master – How the show’s greatest villain was created. dark
Did you enjoy the Tenth Doctor and River’s boxset? What other Whovian lockdown audios have you enjoyed? Comment below!