The Eye of the Storm

"If you both stay here, you're going to end the world."

Writer: Matt Fitton
Format: Audio
Released: December 2016
Series: The Diary of River Song Series 2.04

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, River

Synopsis 

The Great Storm of 1703 approaches. The fate of planet Earth hangs in the balance.

The only person who can save it is the Doctor. Or River Song. Or quite possibly another Doctor. Or maybe the whole situation is their fault in the first place.

Two Doctors. One River. An infinite number of ways to destroy the world. It's going to be a bumpy ride...

Verdict

The Eye of the Storm was a brilliant story and a terrific conclusion to the second series of The Diary of River Song! This has been quite the boxset with River not meeting one but two past incarnations of the Time Lord who would become her husband. Her meeting with the Seventh Doctor in The Unknown was excellent and she shared a very different but equally as good relationship with the Sixth Doctor in World Enough and Time. Now though, we had the treat of having all three together for the same story! A multi-Doctor adventure is something I always love and the moments the different incarnations meet is always something I adore. I just love how we all know they're the same person, even the Doctor knows that, but they still go on criticising their past or future self. That was the case here with the Sixth and Seventh Doctor meeting inside the TARDIS alongside River Song. That image really was magnificent and I liked the latter's comments about the personality of his earlier self. The way the Doctors look back or forward in often disdain for one another really is intriguing but it works so well and provides quite a bit of comedy. Through River into the mix and you have some tasty ingredients. There was quite a bit of innuendo from River once she knew she had two versions of her husband to play with and I think that's rather expected with her character's raunchy personality. It was almost like she was meeting both Doctors again for the first time, well as far as the Doctors were concerned she kind of was. The references to The War Games and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead were excellent and I found it quite funny how the Sixth Doctor thought River was a Time Lord working for the CIA. That of course was not the case. The story of Sarah and Isaac was quite an emotional one and their connection to the Speravores was intriguing. I must admit that I didn't expect the predominant setting of this audio adventure to be in the early eighteenth century but I really liked it. This was where time was splintering and going wrong and the TARDIS couldn't land any later in the planet's timeline. Was this finally where time gave up? Not if River and the Doctors had anything to do with it. I really loved how different River was to the Doctor and that is something you can definitely see in this story. The Sixth Doctor was the man to sacrifice himself whilst the Seventh Doctor planned on removing Sarah and Isaac from the timeline and history altogether. River though, she just went and asked the concerned couple. I loved how she told her life story to try and make them understand and she really was good at the convincing. The Speravores fed on alternative futures but when their intended host was gone and eradicated from history, they would go hungry for good. The fact that the Doctors were just the side salad whilst River was the one with all the potential was a nice twist and whilst the Doctor did feature, this boxset is still firmly about River Song. She's an incredible character and these four stories have proven that. I loved the mentions of the future incarnations of the Doctor and I also liked how the Seventh Doctor battled hard to retain his memory of this incredible woman. Overall, an excellent conclusion to the boxset and I do hope that in the third series, River gets to meet Doctors four and five.

Rating: 9/10