Five Twenty-Nine

"Something is killing this planet... time zone by time zone."

Writer: John Dorney
Format: Audio
Released: December 2016
Series: The Diary of River Song Series 2.02

Featuring: River

Synopsis

River has made a terrible discovery.

Billions of lives hang in the balance. But if she can save just a few, then it might just help her solve the conundrum of Earth's destruction.

But how can she win when survival becomes a race against time itself? A race against Five Twenty-Nine?

Verdict

Five Twenty-Nine was a terrific audio adventure and a great continuation of the second series of The Diary of River Song. It jumped ahead, or behind rather, a little from the ending of The Unknown but following this story's conclusion, it is certain that things are from finished when it comes to Earth during this peculiar and mysterious time. It seemed that life was being wiped out from the planet and whilst the cause remains unknown, it is absolutely deadly and we witnessed that first hand in this adventure. The futuristic Earth setting was good and I like how different it is to how we know our own planet today. This time was full of synthetics, or androids as they're perhaps better known, and with that we had Rachel feature very prominently which was something I did not expect. River had found this android dead and buried after arriving on the planet following her meeting with the Seventh Doctor but now she had jumped back in time by 24 hours or so and met the real thing when she was alive. She knew something bad was about to happen but unlike her husband, River believed that the future was not set, even if she had seen it. She believed in countless alternatives from single moments and I liked that. This story was not about the Doctor and it was intriguing to see a familiar character attempt to save the world in her own way. She had taken tips from the Doctor but as was the case in the first three stories of the first series, she was acting on her own and that was refreshing to listen to. I really liked the theme of family in this story and River had found herself staying with a very caring and accommodating one. Emmett Burrows was a wonderful character and I really liked how he took River in without a qualm. Lisa was also very welcoming which was good but there was just something about her husband that made him the more likeable character in my opinion. The way that Rachel dealt with things in such logic made her distinctly different from the humans in this story and I liked how casually she just stated that her feelings were artificial. I found it interesting how aware Rachel was of just what she was and I think that is quite a contrast to a number of stories featuring androids or beings similar. Steven was another very good character and I liked how he was quite smitten with River Song. Unfortunately for him, she was married and that meant a nice little reference to the complications of The Wedding of River Song. I am very intrigued and eager to find out what it was that was ravaging Earth and apparently has wiped out every single human being left on the planet. I get the feeling things are going to build to an epic finale where we have two Doctors and River Song but before we get there, I'm excited by the set up. The idea of the attacker or entity that was destroying life doing it via different time zones was mighty interesting and I loved the originality of that concept. I've blogged over 1000 times and I can't recall something remotely similar. I wonder if it will have some bearing on the last two stories in the boxset as I really am eager to find out why it did that. Rachel's reaction to her parents accepting their fate was emotional and it really did drive home the theme of family in this story. I really did like it and it's something I feel strongly about. A lack of action meant the rating was never going to be higher, but it was still an excellent adventure.

Rating: 8/10