Peepshow

"I'm far too beautiful to be chewed."

Writer: Guy Adams

Format: Audio

Released: August 2019

Series: Diary of River Song 6.03

Featuring: River

Synopsis

Miniscope parts fetch quite a price on the open market – luckily, River knows where she can find one that's about to be decommissioned. Unfortunately, this particular miniscope is chock-full of aliens, as well as unsuspecting Earthlings.

River must face a carnival of monsters before she can claim her prize – across miniature habitats, Ogrons, Sontarans and Drashigs await!

Verdict

Peepshow was another very fun episode to continue the sixth series of The Diary of River Song! Fun is definitely the word to best describe this story and throwing River into the mix of the events of Carnival of Monsters and everything that entailed with the Miniscope was delightful. It was a fun clash of eras again and I enjoyed how this story took place concurrently with the Classic Third Doctor serial. It started intriguingly with River and Dibbsworth together already very much embroiled as part of the Miniscope atrocity, and the explanation that they were inside the recycle bin was a clever and sneaky way out of continuity. I thought it was fun to incorporate the conditioning that came with the hexagon on the floor as a way in, and hearing Dibbsworth suffer from memory loss was good stuff. I liked how River was once again after something valuable in the form of an everlasting battery that was utilised in miniscopes, but she would run into a lot of trouble to try and get it! The emergence of the Sontarans was delightful and this branch were of the Special Space Service which was terrific. The Sontarans knew they were trapped and Strumm tackle the dilemma of honour and morale against saving face when it came to the situation was marvellous. River tricking him into turning around and exposing the probic vent by suggesting a Sontaran looked fearful was great stuff too. As if Sontarans weren't enough, we also had Ogrons and the dumb fun that came with them interacting with the Sontarans was tremendous. I liked the suggestion that the power outage that occurred in the miniscope was down to River instead of the eradicator, and River's comments on the Third Doctor as all velvet and having a young girlfriend were very amusing. I enjoyed how River knew all about the events of Carnival of Monsters from the Doctor and was taking them to her advantage but she had quite a problem on her hands in trying to save all of the habitats and species within the miniscope. The threat of the Drashigs really complemented the assembly of monsters and River describing them as omnivores let out by a gorgeous idiot was a nice touch. The humour that came with Dibbsworth offering them a banana and prawn cocktail crisps from his packed lunch was delightful. The action provided from the Drashig chase was really exciting and the threat of the heat from the power outage was a nice addition. Dibbsworth using a teaspoon to attack the probic vent was hilarious and he was such a fun character. River knowing that the Doctor would fix things was good and I loved that we got a cameo from Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor! River stopping to say hello and show him the extra habitation units that needed getting home was lovely and even though it wasn't for long, I loved that we got a little bit of interaction between River and another new incarnation of the Doctor. Overall, another fun and strong episode! 

Rating: 8/10