Animal Instinct

"Everything runs when it's scared."

Writer: Roy Gill
Format: Audio
Released: January 2019
Series: The Diary of River Song 5.02

Featuring: River Song, Decaying Master

Synopsis

On a world where vicious beasts stalk ancient ruins, Professor Song teaches a student the finer points of archaeology.

But then she meets an incarnation of the Master who is desperate to survive.

And if they are going to escape this place alive, they all must work together.

Verdict

Animal Instinct was another great story to continue along the fifth series of The Diary of River Song very nicely! I will admit that I wasn't quite as excited for River to meet the decaying incarnation of the Master that we were first introduced to in The Deadly Assassin, but when the story took on a jungle-like theme then it was a perfect blend. I loved the idea of River taking Luke on his final field exam for an archaeology qualification and it is a nice change to go from the time where she was imprisoned in the Stormcage. Cheska Minor made for a very good setting and the concept of River waking up the Master after his self-imposed hibernation went wrong following a relocation of planets, his disappointment that it wasn't the Doctor who had arrived was terrific. The legends surrounding the Master as a Sun God were fantastic and I loved how it was supposed to be an equal and opposite, meaning the Doctor, who would come to wake him. Alas, it was his wife instead. The Master seeming somewhat jealous of both the Doctor and River for marrying each other was quite something and I just liked how he could see that his nemesis had good taste. It's quite hard to envisage this incarnation of the Master being a romantic, but the Master has history so I wasn't at all surprised by that line. The addition of Christos and Adella to the trio escaping the tomb and heading for the ziggurat was good, but they were merely there to die and provide safe passage from the mutated Therians. They were more interesting than being a good enemy and I wouldn't call them that at all. They were just obstacles and the Master had a ruthless way of getting past them and keeping them occupied. He had to provide these animals with food and that meant sacrificing Christos in horrific fashion. The calmness with which he did it was chilling, and perfect for the Master, but I was more surprised that River was quick to take advantage. I guess there was no room for sentiment at a time like that and there was no way of undoing it, but the conversion towards the conclusion about the Master using River's bio-tracker against her to enhance his mental capacities and attempt to control her was quite fascinating. She refused to admit that she was under his influence, but the ambiguity surrounding that was great. River was more than a match for the Master. I've enjoyed the theme of River working with the Master in this boxset so far, but I do hope we get a full on River vs Master with at least one of the remaining incarnations she will meet in this series. There were some elements here and I really liked that she left him to the mercy of the Therians at the end, but they were largely working together to achieve the same goal for this audio. And there's absolutely no problem with that! Geoffrey Beavers was superb and this was probably one of my favourite performances for his Master. Such simplistic callousness and chills. Luke being reverted from a Therian was good and it was clear that he'd passed his exam. It was also nice for River to admit that the Master would be far from dead despite his TARDIS troubles caused by River by throwing the Therians their means to become human again, but would they just be content with the darkness? I like the ambiguity there. Overall, a great story!

Rating: 8/10