The Tenth Doctor & River Song! No Silence in the (home) Studio!

Alex Kingston and David Tennant are reunited for the first time in 12 years when The Tenth Doctor and River Song is released in November.

This box set will feature three stories, written by James Goss, Lizzie Hopley and Jonathan Morris, that see the time-travelling archaeologist navigating the complicated timelines of the Doctor once again. But it’s not only the Tenth Doctor; Peter Davison and Colin Baker appear as the Fifth and Sixth Doctors respectively.

The Tenth Doctor and River Song is available to pre-order now from the Big Finish website. The complete series is available for £27.99 on CD or £19.99 on download. Each story will also be available individually.

Tennant and Kingston originally worked together back in 2008 on the Silence in the Library two-parter penned by Steven Moffat and introducing the character of River Song. Kingston would reprise the role on television numerous times alongside Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi’s Doctors before bursting onto audio with Big Finish Productions. Tennant left the series a year later but has been playing the Doctor on audio increasingly often since 2016.

All Fives and Sixes

This isn’t the first time Davison and Baker have worked with Kingston either. Both made separate appearances in The Diary of River Song only to have their memories of River erased by the end. How and if these encounters will tie into this release remains to be seen. But the fact that the Sixth Doctor doesn’t appear on the cover art and neither are credited on the cover suggests that there may be more to their involvement than a simple meet cute.

Lockdown Doctors

As the ongoing COVID-19 crisis makes studio recording trickier to manage, its been necessary for the cast to record their lines remotely. In between arguing with Michael Sheen over Zoom and podcasting with his celebrity mates, Tennant has been using his recording kit to play the Doctor at home. Though I refuse to believe that he doesn’t put on the costume while recording. Meanwhile Kingston has put together a makeshift home studio, as seen in this helpfully provided photos.

Standalone Song

Releasing this as a standalone release, rather than tying it into (say) volume eight of The Diary of River Song is an unusual move for Big Finish but not without recent precedent. While last month’s announcement teaming up Tennant with Tom Baker is kicking off a trilogy, the range itself also seems to be standalone rather than a regular series. The recent news that Big Finish were ending the monthly range of classic Doctor stories in favor of box-sets has hinted at the phasing out of numbered volumes and series. Instead, it sounds as though each major release will be treated as a potential entry point for new listeners without getting overburdened by audio continuity between releases. Given the wide audience for something like The Tenth Doctor and River Song, it would be trickier to sell to fans if they thought they had to first drop £100 on the first seven volumes. Presenting this as standalone makes it more accessible for new listeners.

Are you excited to hear the Tenth Doctor hook up with River Song again? What do you think the Fifth and Sixth Doctors involvement will be? Are you hoping this will tie into Out of Time somehow? Let me know in the comments…

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