I’m in the third boxset of the Diary of River Song and I have mixed feelings about the boxset.

I’ll go through this one by one.

The Lady in the Lake by Nev Fountain

On Terminus Prime, clients choose their own means of demise. Something exciting, meaningful, or heroic to end it all.
But when River discovers that there are repeat customers, she knows something more is going on.
She begins to uncover a cult with worrying abilities. Its members can apparently cheat death, and that’s not all they have in common with River..*

The hype about the third boxset for River Song is that it was one of the best and this story certainly deserves that praise. This was an amazing story. The emotional stakes kept getting higher and when we reach the climax of the story and see how it ties back to the start. It’s chef’s kiss

River discovers that Madam Kovarian cloned her and that her other clones, are for some reason visiting a death planet to die. It turns out her clones had no idea who they were. And about regenerations, somehow formed a death cult. River desperately tries to stop her clones from dying but fails until the last.

And I’m not going to say what happened to the last because wow, what an emotional gut punch.

A Requiem for the Doctor by Jac Rayner

River has joined the Doctor and his friend Brooke on their travels, and they stop off in 18th century Vienna.
Brooke thinks history is dull. Until people start dying.
Mozart’s legacy is not just his music. River has more than one mystery to solve before a killer is let loose on the people of Vienna – and on the Doctor.

This is where my issues with the boxset comes in. At the end of the first story, River mentioned that she just wanted to see the Doctor and didn’t care which Face she saw.

This turned out to be the Fifth Doctor.

Mostly, I liked the story. River joins the Doctor and his new companion, Brooke. We never heard of Brooke before, she sounds young and enthusiastic and seemed to have knocked about with the Doctor for a while, so River coming to mess with their dynamic is understandable.

The problem comes in, for me, is when River starts to drop anvils about her relationship with the Doctor and Five is only confused and befuddled with River.

I’ve said often enough, that I have an issue with River claiming to love all faces of the Doctor. Because while the core of the Doctor is still the same no matter the regeneration, Post-Time War Doctors are different from Pre-Time War Doctors.

Eight/River is the dividing line for me because Eight straddled the line of Pre and Post-Time War.

Also, no one person can love another person in all stages of their lives — I really believe in right time and right place. Hell, even River herself believed that in Forest of the Dead:

River: You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them. and it's like they're not quite finished. They're not done yet. Well, yes, the Doctor's here. He came when I called, just like he always does. But not my Doctor.

River in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead has affection for Ten, and is attracted to Ten but River wasn’t in love with Ten. Because he hasn’t become the man she falls in love with yet.

Ten has yet to go through the heartbreak of his decision to mindwipe Donna, nor has he gone through the crucible of his actions in The Waters of Mrs, or even confronting Rassilon and then the act of deciding to let Gallifrey fall again. Or even, his decision to give his life for Wilf.

Those decisions and actions matter it helped shaped the Doctor to who they will become in the future. And that man was the man River fell in love with.

In the end of this Brooke is revealed to be an assassin (and if anyone is familiar with the River naming system, already suspect who she might be) and attempts to kill the Fifth Doctor.

River stops Brooke in time and saves the Fifth Doctor with her love. And — sigh I think the writer was attempting to replicate the speech in Husbands of River Song but the problem is — the writer is several thousand leagues off. And River proclaiming the Doctor was the love of her life because he is the Bestest Kindest Man in the Universe doesn’t work. The declaration of love doesn’t have Moffat’s deft hand with language and it felt more like a sledgehammer.

My Dinner with Andrew by John Dorney

Welcome, Mesdames et Messieurs, to The Bumptious Gastropod.
The most exclusive, most discreet dining experience outside the universe. For the restaurant exists beyond spacetime itself, and the usual rules of causality do not apply. Anything could happen.
It is here that the Doctor has a date. With River Song. And with death.

This story was trying to emulate Moffat’s complicated and fun timey-wimey nature and sometimes it works. Madame Kovarian finally comes into the story, and Brooke, surprise, surprise is another of River’s clones.

There’s a real uncomfortable moment when River kisses Five, who is unused to these kind of advances. And doesn’t seem to be receptive, she kisses him to make him forget. In a world where there’s RetCon (and that’s also problematic too) I am not fond of the way River kept using her forgetting lipstick kisses.

Earlier in the time line, River meets Andrew. He looks exactly like the Fifth Doctor except he has (I think) a Northern accent. There are robots with holographic shells. And a restaurant that is outside of Time.

There’s a couple of fun moments running together but the most that I really love is River’s deep hatred for Kovarian. Brooke ends up killing the Doctor and ends up regenerating. Her next regeneration looks very much like Mels from Let’s Kill Hitler.

(Still with me?)

Kovarian and Brooke capture River and bring her back to base.

The Furies by Matt Fitton

Stories of the Furies abound across the cosmos: vengeful spirits hounding guilty souls to death. Madame Kovarian taught them to a child raised in fear, trained to kill, and placed inside a spacesuit.
Kovarian knows the universe’s greatest threat, the Doctor must be eliminated. An assassin was created for that purpose.
But if Melody Pond has failed, Kovarian will simply have to try again…

This story was — I wish it was better than it was. It could have been really ripe for a great story since it’s about River confronting Kovarian but they barely scratch the surface of their issues. Kovarian has created four-five more River clones, and they’re all aware of River.

They have an unspecified number of regenerations. And different personalities. After regenerating, Brooke has become a little unstable and out of a fit of anger kills one of her sister-clones and blames River for it.

The ghost of the Fifth Doctor is haunting Kovarian because she killed the Doctor too early in his timeline and the universe is falling apart.

It is interesting to me how much of the mythology of the Doctor to the clones is informed by Kovarian’s experience with the Eleventh Doctor in the Battle of Trenzalore. She is so sure the Doctor is a demon, and evil, and the source of all ills. She’s so blinded by her hatred and fear of the Doctor she passed it on to the clones.

The ghost drives Kovarian mad, the other clones realized the murderer was Brooke and River wins the other clones over — even Brooke. She goes back in time and grooms Andrew (the Fifth Doctor lookalike) to die in the Doctor’s place.

The story ends with the clones going out in the world and Brooke staying to become Kovarian’s jailer.

I was dissatisfied with this because in the first story River expressed the need for family. The story even mentioned Amy and Rory and it was interesting how River said that she thought Amy couldn’t get over losing them and it’s why she stayed away. This is a sad thing to think about and I don’t think that’s at all what Amy and Rory wanted.

River doesn’t introduce her young sister clones to her parents, which I think would have helped a lot. But she also leaves them behind even though she said that she was tired of being alone.

Honestly, I wish this story lived up to the first story. It could have been if there was another round of edits and tighten it up. Alex Kingston’s performance, is of course, always top notch.

Nina Toussaint-White (Brooke 2) was also really good but the story failed to really mine the story for what it could have been.

Overall this boxset is a mixed bag with interesting concepts I wish the writers would dive deeper more — like all the issues River has because of her upbringing. I think Big Finish is capable of it. River vs the Masters story, especially the last with the War Master where the War Master exploited River’s susceptibility to mind control. And in the Eight of March where it explored River’s insecurity and Leela had to bring her back down. If they could just laser focus on it — it would be amazing. Honestly, I keep hoping for the caliber of work in Doom Coalition here because River deserves a really great boxset.