Someone I Once Knew

"They go back and fix things before we've even broken them."

Writer: John Dorney

Format: Audio

Released: September 2018

Series: The Diary of River Song 4.04

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, River Song

Synopsis

River has tried in vain to keep the Discordia away from the Doctor. Now, as devils run riot through universal spacetime, her own past with her husband is being rewritten. There is one last hope for the universe. A love story – but one that must find an ending...

Verdict

Someone I Once Knew was a great conclusion to what has been a rather terrific fourth series of The Diary of River Song! It's quite fitting that the fourth series is where River meets the Doctor and I think it was the past Doctor meeting that worked best in terms of it not altering established events and memory. Time was literally rewritten so they never technically met which worked well and formed some excellent protection for events that wouldn't really begin until Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. River's reaction when she walked into the TARDIS and found the fourth incarnation of her husband was fantastic and I liked the shift in having this Doctor know all about her because of how time had been altered. She'd always been with him! The little history event check of all they'd gone through was wonderful and paid homage to some good episodes, with the most humorous mention coming when it was claimed that River made the Doctor dress up as Salamander in the events that would have been The Enemy of the World! That was magnificent and just something perfectly reminiscent of what the Fourth Doctor would say and be like. I really liked the chemistry between Tom Baker and Alex Kingston and I think with a few more adventures under their belt, there would be something special with a pairing like this. I think some wiggle room could definitely be made with some kind of delay before time was reset to allow that, but alas I doubt it will happen. The Doctor's thoughts on the Discordia were great and I also liked how River Song had to tread carefully when it came to discussing the Time War. Given the nature of time travel and the issues of personal timelines and chronology, I've always found it intriguing to tackle events being different for characters from different times. For River, the Time War was long in the past but for the Doctor it was five incarnations in the future but here they were together in the same time. It was complicated, as acknowledged. What I didn't expect was for River to be a love interest of the Discordia! That really did come out of nowhere and was very surprising, and I'm not sure I was the biggest fan of it, but I liked that it didn't even turn out to be the love story that saved the day. That was all in the hands of the Emperor and so River and the Doctor encouraged him to go back and stop the Discordia from developing time travel and allow his past love to be with him once again. Except, he went a lot further and destroyed the planet altogether before the Discordia could even be formed. It was quite extraordinary and something beyond drastic for the situation! Garen was a good little character and the quickness with which she dealt with Dante could have been fleshed out a little more, but it worked pretty well despite that. This was all about the Fourth Doctor and River Song though, and I loved them together. Hearing a Classic era Doctor genuinely in love was magnificent and I just can't help but want more of the pair together! The little moment at the end where they briefly meet once their memories are wiped is terrific. Overall, a great conclusion to the series!

Rating: 8/10