Following yesterday’s release of Two Rivers and a Firewall, Big Finish has announced the eleventh installment of their The Diary of River Song series. The Diary of River Song: Friend of the Family will be released by Big Finish in January 2023 and will be the first River Song boxset written entirely by one author- Tim Foley.
What to Expect from Friend of the Family
This set of River Song stories will be similar to some of the earlier releases in the Diary series in that all four of the episodes will follow the same story. Though while other series are more loosely connected stories that form a whole (such as series 1’s “Rulers of the Universe” plot or series 4’s Discordia), this box set will be one, four-hour-long story.
The story will follow River as she finds herself trapped on the grounds of a family home- unable to leave and with limited time travel until she solves a riddle. A riddle found on discarded pages of her own diary.
Big Finish provided this summary of The Diary of River Song: Friend of the Family:
“River Song decides to investigate a temporal anomaly after a Luna University expedition makes some odd discoveries in an old Earth house – pages of her own diary with an inscrutable riddle written across them.
However, her investigation goes badly wrong when she is transported back into the past of the house and gets trapped within its grounds.
The house is the home of the Mortimers and with a limited ability to travel back and forth in time across eighty years and multiple generations she finds herself witnessing key moments in their family history.
If she wants to escape, the words in her diary are not the only riddle she has to solve. But not everyone in the house will survive what’s coming. And not everyone is on her side.”
Alex Kingston will be joined in the boxset by Isla Blair (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), Wendy Craig (Emmerdale Farm), Mark Elstob (Big Finish’s The Prisoner), Jack Holden (Ten Percent), Phylidda Nash, Ronak Patani (Brexit: The Uncivil War), and Jemima Rooper (Lost in Austen).
What to Look Forward to in Friend of the Family
The concept sounds intriguing- and just the sort of thing that River would get herself into! Producer David Richardson had this to say about the upcoming release:
“This is unlike any River Song box set we’ve done before. It’s one four-hour story by a single writer, giving listeners the chance to fully immerse themselves. Tim Foley has written some of Big Finish’s finest hours and Friend of the Family follows that trend — placing River within a complex family drama that weaves between the generations. It’s emotionally intelligent — a story through history that’s also a story for our times. By turns, it will warm and break your heart.”
Big Finish is certainly well known for breaking listener’s hearts with their stories. River has had some incredibly emotional moments thanks to her expanded audio adventures. Script Editor John Dorney had this to add:
“It’s always a delight to work with Tim Foley and with this script he’s truly excelled himself. It really is one of his best ever. It’s a vast, sweeping family history, and an elegant tapestry that has everything including, I think, a kitchen sink. It’ll make you laugh and cry. It’s absolutely astonishing.”
Fans of Big Finish should be familiar with Friend of the Family’s author. Tim Foley has written for a plethora of Doctors and companions. He has also penned many Torchwood audio adventures, including Martha Jones’ Big Finish debut in Torchwood: Dissected. The one that caught my eye when I was looking at his past Big Finish credits, though, was Gallifrey: Time War 1’s “Soldier Obscura”. It’s one of my personal favorites of the Gallifrey series that explores Ace and Irving Braxietel’s efforts in the Time War alongside and older Time Lord who’s looking after a mind-shattering space-time anomaly… but it has caught the eye of the Daleks.
Friend of the Family sounds like it is going to be another amazing entry in the Diary series. My favorite entries in the series are always the ones that have a strong connection between the stories, so one that will be one long story is sure to be among those favorites soon! It’s a unique situation to put River in- stuck in one place with only a few decades to move around in time. I can’t wait to hear it in January 2023!
The Diary of River Song: Friend of the Family is available to pre-order from Big Finish’s website. Fans can either pre-order the collector’s edition CD box set that includes the digital download for £24.99 or the digital download alone for £19.99. In addition, Big Finish currently has a sale on previous Diary releases, ending on August 9th, 2023.
