Solving a mystery is hard. It’s even harder if you’re trying to do it on an Earth nearing an apocalypse. It’s particularly challenging if you’ve been dead for thousands of years. However, Professor River Song (Alex Kingston) has to do just that to return to her family and a happy electronic afterlife in the first box set, “Last Words”, for her new Doctor Who spin-off series from Big Finish Production, The Life and Death of River Song.
Background
For the uninitiated, or even those who only saw Doctor Who on television, some explanation is in order. River Song was introduced as a character in the fourth series of Doctor Who in 2008 in the two-part story, The Silence in the Library andForest of the Dead. She and the Doctor arrive at a mysteriously abandoned library planet. She knows who the Doctor (David Tennant) is but he doesn’t recognize her. The Doctor is a time traveler and she’d met him in his future and they’d had a life of adventures together and (it’ll eventually be revealed) she had married the Doctor. These adventures would play out onscreen during the tenure of Tennant’s successors, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi.
In her first adventure on-screen, she dies heroically saving the Doctor. However, in last dramatic scene, the Doctor is able to save her data pattern and mental essence onto the library’s massive cloud, along with all the friends she had with her when they came to the Library, giving her a happy digital afterlife.
Of course, her further on-screen adventures add depth to her backstory. They also establish that she operated as a private eye during the 1930s, using the name Melody Malone.
In addition to her on-screen work, Kingston appears in twelve series’ worth of box sets in her previous series, The Diaries of River Song, as well as making guest appearances in numerous Big Finish Doctor Who audio series. None of these extra adventures are necessary to understand this set story, which occurrs after her time being stored in the library.
The Set-Up
It’s the distant future and apocalyptic solar flares are threatening to devastate Earth and its terrestrial-bound inhabitants, who long ago abandoned space travel. A multi-billionaire mogul (Greg Wise) has a bunker and plans to remake the world in his own image once the dust settles. But there’s a fly in the ointment, and mysterious forces could undermine his plans. To get to the bottom of this, he needs help. He acquires the library where River’s essence is housed and extracts that essence into a cloned body – a decaying cloned body.
He tasks River with finding a missing scientist who is the key to the whole conspiracy. If she helps him, she’ll get placed back in the library. If she doesn’t, she’ll die and be forever separated from her family. River thus finds herself alone, in an apocalyptic world of failing technologies and a doomed humanity. Her life depends on her uncovering a dangerous secret that people will kill to keep her from discovering.
Review
This isn’t the first time River Song has played detective (see my review of Series 7 of The Diary of River Song) but this story is different in that the entire four-hour box set tells a single story, a single apocalyptic mystery adventure. While the chapters have different titles, this is mostly a continual stream of the same story. Only the second chapter, “Fate and Fatality”, could be said to be set apart, as some listeners might be confused by River Song apparently being in a regency historical. But really it’s all the same piece.
What we’re given is a complex and well-developed plot that blends the detective and mystery genres seamlessly into the apocalyptic setting. The result is a thoroughly engaging bit of techno-noir within the frame of the Doctor Who universe.
As usual, Big Finish provides a solid cast of regulars from the British acting community with solid performances all around. Greg Wise is appropriately sinister as the ruthless billionaire. Jamie Parker does a great job playing a complex character whose morality and motives remain a mystery until the final chapter.
It’s Kingston who puts in the best performance. Writer Rob Valentine had been under the impression that this would be the last River Song story and wrote it accordingly. In the midst of the mystery and high-speed chases, Valentine shows sensitivity in exploring River as a character with emotional beats as she deals with living in a world without her husband or her library family. However, Valentine avoids making this a navel-gazing production by letting River Song’s actions show who she is more than her words.
Overall Thoughts:
It’s tough to make a four-hour full-cast audio drama work. But Big Finish nailed it. Last Words offers an engaging mystery, sci-fi action, a few laughs, and some beautifully played emotional moments that make this one of the best Big Finish releases of the year, and one of Kingston’s strongest performances.
Danny investigates when a man is found dead in a movie theater seat.
Original Radio Broadcast Date: December 3, 1949
Originating in Hollywood
Starring: Larry Thor as Lieutenant Danny Clover; Charles Calvert as Gino Tartaglia; Junius Matthews; Mary Jane Croft; Paul Dubov; Herbert Rawlinson; Joyce McCluskey; Joe Forte
Captain Drummond tries to remember how he got into a dangerous situation with a life on the line. It all started with a mysterious woman showing up in his compartment on an east-bound train.
Original Radio Broadcast Date: June 9, 1948
Originating in New York
Starring: Ned Wever as Bulldog Drummond; Luis Van Rooten as Denny
Poirot is called upon by the insurance company to investigate the apparent natural death of a wealthy man, who had just passed a physical for a life insurance policy for his young wife.
Colonial Theatre released the third of its Perry Mason audio dramas, “The Case of the Lucky Legs.” As with the first two, this is an audio drama based on the original Perry Mason novels of the 1930s, but produced in the 21st Century.
Perry Mason is retained initially to take legal action against a beauty contest promoter who cheated small-town businessmen and a local young woman by promising her stardom as the winner of a Lucky Legs contest and then leaving her high and dry in Hollywood. When Perry goes to have a discussion with the con man, he finds the man murdered.
Perry finds himself dodging the police until he can find the truth, questioning the witnesses, all while not even sure who the client is, as the man who gave a retainer for $5,000 to file the lawsuit keeps changing who Perry is supposed to represent.
The recording is quite a bit shorter than the previous Perry Mason stories that Colonial Theater had done and the length works for this story. It really creates a very tight and well-paced mystery. The plot is full of twists and surprises. At one point, Perry even hires another detective agency to spy on Paul Drake’s operative, only it turns out they are working for the man who paid him.
If there is one criticism I have for the production, it is that role of the winner of the Lucky Legs contest had a voice that didn’t fit the part. She sounded more like 14 rather than 21. Still, that’s a minor flaw in a brilliant production.
Today’s Mystery: A perjurer whose testimony got a friend of the Norths’ convicted of murder is offering them a chance to buy a letter that clears their friend’s name.
Original Radio Broadcast Date: October 6, 1943
Originated from New York City
Starred: Joseph Curtain as Jerry North, Alice Frost as Pamela North
Today’s Mystery: At the request of the mother of a condemned man, Danny re-investigates the murder of a jeweler’s daughter.
Original Radio Broadcast Date: November 26, 1945
Originated in Hollywood
Stars: Larry Thor as Lieutenant Danny Cloverk, Charles Calvert as Sergeant Gino Tartaglia, Lillian Buyeff, Parley Baer, Tony Barrett, David Ellis, Vivian Baylor
Hugh Drummond is going to be married, but first he has to stop a newly-invented atomic from being used to launch a new war. Follow Captain Drummond and his team as they navigate through espionage, murder, and a race against time to prevent global catastrophe.
