Diary of River Song 4


Time In A Bottle By Matt Fitton and Emma Reeves

Terrible. This story gives us good ideas, like a world without time, and then does nothing with them. No, this one’s real cardinal sin is being one of the most boring listens produced by Big Finish. It’s that bad.
Hello Sweetie: River at least doesn’t seem as bored with the script as I am. 
Overall: Despite introducing some okay side characters/companions for River, it introduces some crap villains called the Discordia which plague this box set. 4/10

Kings Of Infinite Space By Donald McLeary

A semi boring script with a fantastic ending, this is an attempt to recreate ‘The Chase’ on audio, not even one of the best Hartnell stories. Set Four is plagued by these characters, and is more arc based than any other set in the series, to it’s own downfall. We visit like six different alien world's, none of which feel alien or make an impression, and it’s kind of not that great. I also like the Hamlet reference of a title. Just thought I’d mention that. …god I’m a nerd. 
Hello Sweetie: Alex Kingston pulls double duty as a weird hologram thing and River, and it’s great. Thank you, next. As mentioned before, River’s manipulation of the Discordia into a semi-victory against an impossible enemy is the stories highlights. 
Overall: I’ll talk about the Discordia to wrap this up, because they’re kind of stupid. Devils that alter time to always win, except when they actually don’t. That’s what they are. They miss opportunities to win really easily constantly, and minus the last story of the set where Tom Baker realizes you need to beat them really quickly and efficiently, there isn’t a single situation where you don’t feel like “wait those guys could win all they have to do is <INSERT THING HERE>.” One of the better stories in this set, this one is mostly terrible, but that ending: 8/10, Five Points Of Which Are For The Ending, So Take A Guess 

Whodunnit by Matt Fitton

My personal pick for Worst Big Finish Story, there’s so much to unpack in Whodunnit, as it fails on every level you could possibly imagine, except maybe sound design, but even there the Discordia voices are terrible. Yep, halfway through the story, the Discordia are just shoehorned in, and that’s only one of the problems. Whodunnit is beyond abysmal in every single quality I can think of, and I could only listen in morbid fascination of what thing it would get wrong next: Whodunnit has a fantastic central concept, which is weighed down by every single dang thing it does with it:
An Agatha Christie Mystery, where every single suspect is a random stereotype of a famous fictional detective, from Poirot, to Scooby Doo. Then, it randomly decides to become a celebrity historical where Franz Kafka is in it, and the House than begins to sort of Chimes Of Midnight all over the place (you know without being good) and there’s something in the attic, but wait, we never see that substantially, and then the Discordia show up, and can you begin to see the problems with it? It tries so hard to be a Robert Shearman script with a weird atmosphere and characters in a surreal location, without having any of it work. It thinks it’s so much more clever than it actually is. And then it has the audacity to pull an “it was all a dream” ending. 
Do not, I repeat, do not listen to this one. The only thing it introduces is Dante, Who is a replacement for Melak. That’s all you need to know. Please. Just, Go Away. 
Go Away! -1/10 Yes it is that terrible shut up shut up

Someone I Once Knew By John Dorney 

Someone I Once Knew has the audacity to be a fantastic story in the worst box set Big Finish has ever produced, and is legitimately a 10/10 story, so I can’t even say River 4 is the worst box set because someone will say “Oh, what about Someone I Once Knew?” And then I have to sigh and concede to them, that yes, Someone I Once Knew is bloody amazing, and then I go back to cracking pieces out of my Whodunnit CD case. (No, I wouldn’t do that, that was a joke)
Hello Sweetie: Alex Kingston is phenomenal, and yes, this story is very good ok 
Alternate Timeline Tom Baker: Everything that alternate timeline Tom Baker does with his performance to make him recognizably four but so very different and affectionate and everything is beautiful okay don’t message me
Overall: Someone I Once Knew Is So Good that it sort of begins to make up for how bad the rest of River 4 is, I mean come on, how good do you have to be to do that 10/10

 UPDATE:
I did a massive set relisten. River 4 really needs to be revisited, but until then:


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