My Dinner with Andrew

"All must fall to the might of the Doctor."

Writer: John Dorney
Format: Audio
Released: January 2018
Series: The Diary of River Song 3.03

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, River Song

Synopsis

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.

Verdict

My Dinner with Andrew was a fantastic audio adventure and a brilliant continuation of The Diary of River Song's third series! It was the best of the set so far and was quite a wonderful little script. There wasn't too much actually going on but the threat of the Doctor dying was more than enough to keep me occupied and interested! I thought Alex Kingston was terrific once again as River Song and I really liked her reaction to discovering that Madame Kovarian was the person who had hired Brooke to kill the Doctor. Likewise, Kovarian's reaction to learning of River Song's presence on The Bumptious Gastropod was terrific too. I really liked that I didn't know that Kovarian was featuring in this story but given her presence on the boxset's artwork, my suspicions of her having something to do with Brooke were found correct. The setting of The Bumptious Gastropod was terrific and I really liked the idea of the restaurant existing outside of the normal laws of causality. The rumours that the Doctor died here were intriguing but given what we saw in The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon and The Wedding of River Song, River didn't really fear that he actually could due to the fixed point in time. But once she learned of the restaurant's unique temporality, things became very complicated. Maitre D' was a sublime character and I really loved his role throughout the story. It was so simple but so effective and River continuing to go back in time to an earlier point was met with some comical humour when he referred to meeting her again. The Doctor actually didn't do much in this story apart from become the subject of River's hallucinogenic lipstick which meant he forgot why he was on the Bumptious Gastropod. I suspect that will be how the Doctor fails to remember meeting her prior to Silence in the Library. I thought Andrew was a lovely character and his affection was quite cute. He just wanted a dinner with a beautiful woman but instead he got two - in the form of Brooke and Kovarian. Their failure to deduce that he wasn't actually the Doctor was quite humorous but I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. The revelation that when River and Andrew went back in time to the Bumptious Gastropod before it actually became that was terrific as Andrew actually turned out to buy the restaurant here and own it during the future events we had already listened to. The adventure was certainly a timey-wimey one and the ending was hugely shocking! The Doctor was killed by Brooke, as Kovarian desired, and the regeneration inhibitors meant that he was actually dead. And the setting and causality laws meant that there was nothing to say he wasn't actually dead. Kovarian then killing Brooke for her to only regenerate wasn't too much of a surprising revelation but unlike the siblings we saw in The Lady in the Lake, Brooke seems to be the finished article. River's determination to try and now save the Doctor was great and I look forward to this series finale! Overall, an excellent audio.

Rating: 9/10