The Diary of River Song, Series 8

The Diary of River Song

by James Goss, Tracy Ann Baines, Alfie Shaw

It’s River and robots! Professor River Song is an expert in many things, but her tech skills are tested in these encounters with robotic friends and foes.

Over the course of four episodes River will battle Mechonoids on an ice world, meet K9 in a ‘forever home’, and help a treasured android friend discover her destiny in the stars...

8.1 Slight Glimpses of Tomorrow by James Goss

River feels responsible for synthetic person Rachel, left alone on a dying world. So she shows her the history of another, and teaches her the responsibilities of time travel.

But can an android understand what it takes for a civilisation to evolve?

8.2 A Brave New World by Tracy Ann Baines

Rachel has made a choice and joins a new society at the start of its journey. But she has not bargained for the worst instincts of humanity.

After leaving her ward behind, can River make it back in time to save her?

8.3 A Forever Home by Alfie Shaw

River finds herself caged and feeling under the weather. Luckily, her new owners are on hand to take care of her in her ‘forever home’.

But which of River’s keepers can she trust? Is robot cat FE- all she seems? And is K9 still a girl’s best friend?

8.4 Queen of the Mechonoids by Jonathan Morris

Space Security agents Anya Kingdom and Mark Seven answer a distress call – and find River Song, ruling a city of Mechonoids.

But another shock awaits beneath this planet’s icy surface. The Mechonoids have been upgraded and are about to be unleashed upon the galaxy!

Genres: Doctor Who, Audiobook, Time Travel

Audiobook

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

James Goss has written two Torchwood novels and a radio play, as well as a Being Human book. His Doctor Who audiobook Dead Air won Best Audiobook 2010. James also spent seven years working on the BBC's official Doctor Who website and co-wrote the website for Torchwood Series One. In 2007, he won the Best Adaptation category in the annual LA Weekly Theatre Awards for his version of Douglas Adams' novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Reviews

[Taksya · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.1 Slight Glimpses of Tomorrow by James Goss
Seguiamo lo sviluppo e la decadenza di un mondo misterioso, nel tentativo di spiegare a Rachel (persona sintetica già conosciuta in The Diary of River Song: Series 2 e della quale ricordo pochissimo) come funzioni l'evoluzione umana e, soprattutto, come gli umani e i rapporti tra loro possano influenzare l'evoluzione di una civiltà.

8.2 A Brave New World by Tracy Ann Baines
Seguito diretto della prima parte. Una situazione familiare, che ricorda molti episodi della serie tv (per un attimo ho pensato che ci saremmo trovati davanti ai Wirrn, come in The Ark in Space con il quarto Dottore), ma il tutto è ben gestito e resta solo un lieve senso di déjà-vu.

8.3 A Forever Home by Alfie Shaw
River sembra essere diventato l'animaletto di compagnia di K9 e della sua compagna robotica felina FE-LINE.
Ma chi sta mentendo e perché?
Una volta scoperte e neutralizzare le macchinazioni del cattivo di turno, l'episodio si ricollega a A Girl's Best Friend, episodio pilota di uno spin-off con K9 e Sarah Jane che non fu mai realizzato.

8.4 Queen of the Mechonoids by Jonathan Morris
River, in realtà impegnata in una missione di recupero, riesce a farsi soccorrere da due membri del Space Security Service (incontrato nel serial The Daleks' Master Plan).
Ma niente Dalek questa volta, solo Mechonoids, da poco rivisti nella web serie Daleks!, parte del progetto Time Lord Victorious .
I piani di River vengono, come sempre, scombinati e la fuga per la salvezza non sarà facile.
Il fatto che criminale di guerra che vorrebbe recuperare, per consegnarlo alla giustizia, sia stato curato e inserito nel corpo di un Mechonoids, diventando poi il creatore di un nuovo esercito di doni, ricorda troppo Davros e, nel complesso, non mi è proprio piaciuto.
Un po' come i cloni dei cibi nei discount... simili, ma non all'altezza.

Nel complesso il box set è sempre all'altezza delle altre produzioni e una guest star a sorpresa delizierà gli ascoltatori.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

And she’s back! River Song returns with four more thrilling adventures. Wonderful! Except ... well, just read on ...

(8.1) Slight Glimpses of Tomorrow - A sequel, or perhaps a follow up, to The Diary of River Song: Five Twenty-Nine (included in The Diary of River Song: Series 2). The original story was wonderful, this one doesn’t quite work so well. While it is nice to have some continuation, but the performances are not up to standards. Alex Kingston does her usual brilliant job, unfortunately some of the others are not quite as nuanced.

(8.2) A Brave New World - Continues directly from the events of the previous story and focuses on some of the aspects that didn’t really work for me from that story. Sigh. This one certainly had potential. Not really a bad story by any means, but it just didn’t get developed enough for me. And then there was the surprise cameo from David Tennant as the Doctor. That was unexpected and a pleasant surprise, but it wasn’t enough to save this from mediocrity.

(8.3) A Forever Home - This one has all the right ingredients. I suppose. But the problem, at least for me, is that I’m not really a fan of K-9. Gasp. I know. It’s sacrilege, isn’t it? No really, I’ve got nothing against K-9 personally. I just think the idea of the robot pet, is just too cute to bother with. Seriously. Can we just not bother with it? And this story is pretty much just River Song and K-9 and ... Fe- (pronounced: feline. Get it? Fe and the a dash, or actually a line. Aw. Isn’t that just too precious?). Seriously? Isn’t this just all so cute? Isn’t this all just so precious? 😩 😑 Please let me out of here .... I mean there’s nothing really wrong with the performances, it’s just that this story just wasn’t written for me. Not. At. All.

(8.4) Queen of the Mechonoids - This one is better, a bit more like the previous River Song series. It also ties into the Doctor Who: Dalek Universe 1 and that series, but as I haven’t listened to that as yet I’m not sure exactly how much this is going to be attached or connected to that larger series starring David Tennant. So we have River Song acting a bit out of character, but as the story progresses we find out that there’s more going on than we had been told. Good stuff, a much more regular River Song type of adventure and makes up, somewhat for the previous disappointing stories in this series.

In the end, I found this whole series a bit disappointing. Nothing really wrong, but not up to the previous sets in terms of quality and production values. I’m sure River Song will be back for a series 9, but as of the time I’ve listened to this one, it hasn’t yet been announced. But in any case I’m looking forward to the next River Song set.

[Abhijith R · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the more slower stories in DRS series altogether. But indeed the acting of Alex Kingston and the wonderful cast makes it feel like finely aged wine.

[Jamie Revell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A set of four hour-long River Song stories on the general theme of ‘robots’. The first two stories are linked, and I list them separately below largely because they have different authors and tones, but the other two are standalone. Taken together, it's not the strongest collection in this series, but it has enough good points to make it worthwhile.

Slight Glimpses of Tomorrow – The first story features Rachel, the ‘teenage’ android from volume two of this series (and played by Alex Kingston’s daughter, Salome Haertel). River takes her on a tour of an unnamed planet’s history, ostensibly to teach her about the nature of immortality, although it seems more to be a lesson on the limitations of time travel. The bulk of the story consists of jumping forward through different time periods from the Stone Age to the industrial era (although the development of technology here doesn’t directly mirror our own, so precise comparisons are tricky). Towards the end, there is some more direct action and agency for our leads, but up until then, it’s largely a passive history lesson, which drags in places. It’s also worth noting that River, for all that she has a major role in the resolution, otherwise isn’t in it very much, with the story being instead about Rachel (which I didn’t mind, but others might). I feel as if I should have liked this more than I did, given the unusual style and the pro-science message, but in the end, it’s just not as successful a story as it might have been. 3 stars.

A Brave New World – Following on directly from the previous story, and best listened together with it, this is a rather different beast. Rachel is now on a colony spaceship, trying to make a life for herself and finding things don’t work as she’d like. In the previous story, the fact that she’s an android is irrelevant and barely alluded to; here, it’s central to the plot. Once again, it’s her story, not River’s, but the latter has a larger part to play than before, taking more of the lead when the actions of the ship’s crew in the first half put it in danger in the second. From then it’s a base-under-siege with a menacing monster and plenty of peril – although the acting from some of the guest actors isn’t all it might be at times. But, for all that she’s put through the wringer, it’s a good send-off for Rachel and one that contrasts her artificial nature with her desire for a human life. 4 stars.

A Forever Home – In the first of two standalone stories in the collection, River is bought as a pet by K9 and taken to the suburban home he shares with his new girlfriend, only occasionally being allowed out on a leash for walkies. That makes it sound like a comedy, but it really isn’t with the role reversal being depicted more as an off-kilter imprisonment than played for laughs. ‘Sinister’ seems more to be what writer Alfie Shaw was going for with this one (although you never know) but the weirdness takes the edge off that, too. Once it’s explained what’s really going on, it’s nowhere we haven’t been before, with a large chunk of exposition told in flashback. As an idea, it has some merit, and perhaps is intended as a commentary on the domestication of dogs but the story built around it is bland with an uninteresting, overly egomaniacal villain that takes away any edge it might have. 3 stars.

Queen of the Mechonoids – A pair of Space Security Service agents answer a distress call from River and find themselves on a plant where the Mechanoids (to use the more common spelling) have been building a city. The strength here is that it doesn’t show River in a wholly positive light, but still manages to keep her consistent with the character we’ve seen more widely. It’s obvious right from the distress call in the pre-title teaser that all cannot be quite what it seems and the agents have good reason not to initially trust the person they’re rescuing. As a consequence, they have at least as much of a role to play as she does, and the story makes good use of the background details of both The Chase and The Dalek’s Master Plan. Indeed, both agents have appeared briefly in Big Finish audios before (and one is, in fact, a character who would have been one of the stars of Terry Nation’s ‘60s spin-off Dalek TV series had that ever been made) and are being set up to be recurring characters in later audios. But, even without that, it’s a fast-paced story with some dramatic action scenes and a look at a side of River we don’t often see in her own show. 4.5 stars.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

8.1 - "Slight Glimpses of Tomorrow" - A rather dull sequel to a rather dull episode from Series 2. River takes Robot Rachel on a trip through a world's entire history to see how things turn out in the end. Then they go back and fix it so history turns out better. The solution: "More women in STEM." I kid you not. Ugh."

8.2 - "A Brave New World" - Continuation of the previous episode. How many times have we seen this plot: colony ship, everyone in hibernation for the long space voyage, and Something Goes Wrong. In this case: eels. I think it's Salome Haertel's delivery, which I know is supposed to be flat and emotionless, since she's a robot. But it felt more like everyone else was acting, and she was just reading a script."

8.3 - "A Forever Home" - The first half of this episode is quite good, featuring K-9 (hooray!) and a robot cat called FE- (that's "FE-Line") adopting River as a pet and bringing her to her new home. But of course not everything is as it seems. And the second half fails to deliver on the promise of the first half. However, anything with K-9 is awesome, because K-9 is the real hero of Doctor Who.

8.4 - "Queen of the Mechanoids" - The best episode of this set, which also acts as a prequel to the upcoming "Dalek Universe" series with David Tennant. (Although I think there's another prequel of sorts with Tom Baker coming out as well.) This episode features the character of Anya Kingdom, who traveled with the Fourth Doctor in Series 8 -- the best season of 4DAs since Series 2 -- albeit in disguise as Ann Kelso. The baddie is revealed in a flurry of exposition explaining exactly why he's a baddie, and I'm afraid that was a bit too much "tell" rather than "show." So it felt like an episode was missed somewhere that would have given us background on the character. That's really the only flaw. That and the fact that it's largely an ACTION! episode, which sometimes fails to keep my attention.

A shame this set is only really half-good. The first two episodes are completely dull and not worth revisiting. I only bump it to three stars because of the closer.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was probably more of a 3.5, but I wanted to separate it from the 4-star ones. There's some stuff here that apparently ties into Dalek Universe, which kind of annoys me. It's kind of the same problem I had listening to The Third Doctor Adventures: The Annihilators, which included stuff that couldn't be fully explained until the upcoming Second Doctor Adventures stuff.

There's a bit of a montage of River having adventures with the War Doctor, the Ninth Doctor, and the Eleventh Doctor, and while one can say it's clever how they're "included" without their voices heard, it does leave a bit to be desired. I know John Hurt passed away, though we now have Jonathan Carley as a younger War Doctor. And Matt Smith has yet to do Big Finish. Christopher Eccleston I believe was in the midst of recording his first box set, and he has yet to branch beyond his own adventures. Thankfully, David Tennant does make a surprise cameo. Having listened to The Tenth Doctor and River Song a month ago, I had some of those events fresh in my mind.

The K9 story is definitely my favorite. I thought it was cute how they explain the manner in which he is sent to Sarah Jane Smith. It was a nice surprise having this story as a prequel to that K9 TV show pilot. Now I'll imagine Alex Kingston's involvement if I ever rewatch that.

Overall, though, this felt like an average collection. Some good stuff here and there, so worth at least one listen, I'd say.

[A room full of books~ :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this is a fantastic box set (with the writing fully restored to the high standards we'd been accustomed to from this series after whatever was going on with set #7, LOL).

The first two stories here form a loose two-parter featuring a returning character from the second season set. The first part is a heartbreakingly lovely tour through the history of a planet, pondering the question of whether its civilization can be saved from itself; and the second part takes a classic monster-in-a-ship premise and mixes in some really nice character work (and a very sweet little hint of romance as well 💜), putting a very nice cap on that returning character's tale.

The third story is a delicious unreliable narrator that plays with your expectations in clever ways while being an excellent story all on its own. Also, the end of this emphasizes one very important character point: That while River Song does do a lot of good, she is also most definitely *not* the Doctor, and her methods of dealing with baddies are far different than his. It was rather nice to see a reminder of that ruthless side of hers again here.

And the fourth story was a good closer, also neatly introducing a couple of elements and characters that will tie into the upcoming Dalek Empire series.

Recommended. 👍

[Ellen Schoener · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, this was not as good as the previous volumes.
Alex Kingston still does a wonderful performance, however, the whole topic of robots just was not my cup of tea.
It was also a quite odd collection of stories.
Yes, previous River stories also have been quite... unusual and surprising, but so far, there was always something interesting to discover and reward the listener for sticking with the confusing parts. I somehow did not feel that here.
Overall, this is not bad, and quite fun in parts, and it is River, just for me, not as good as some of the other volumes.

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would have been so much higher but I just couldn't get through a forever home. I gave it a good chance but there was something about it where my brain went absolutely not. I listened to it about half way before I moved on.

The other three stories were great though! I loved them!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed River shouting GERONIMO !

[Joseph S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved!

[Debra Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

River has 4 adventures with robots including k9.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first couple stories seemed to focus a bit too much on the android and not enough on River. But overall it was enjoyable.

[Morandia · Rating 5 out of 5]

for the story "Forever Home" alone, this gets 5 stars. That was my favorite. I love K9! The other three stories were delightful as well. This is my favorite of the Diaries series

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slight Glimpses of Tomorrow - 2.5 stars
A Brave New World - 3.5 stars
A Forever Home - 2.5 stars
Queen of the Mechonoids - 2.5 stars