After an unfortunate (but necessary to… well, earn money and live) work-related delay I thought I’d better finish off my review of the “Star-Crossed” boxset before getting back on some sort of track. I ended the previous review mentioning how this was the proper highlight of the box and a true standout story so I guess it’s finally time to tell you why!
“Archipelago” is very nearly just a two-hander between The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and River Song (Alex Kingston) as the latter promises she’ll leave this Doctor alone if he does her one last favour: rescue someone trapped on the planet Fortuna that thanks to some time experiments is now full of dangerous time-based phenomena. The Doctor meets the man’s husband, Captain Thaddeus Grey (Trevor Cooper) who is willing to take the dangerous voyage to save the one he loves but our protagonist deems it too dangerous and leaves… until he then comes back with some equipment from the TARDIS that will help strengthen the vessel as it braves the deadly “weather” created by the experiments gone awry. So they then soon depart, though River and The Doctor still don’t talk to each other much to begin with, they do both support Captain Grey when he needs a helping hand.
A simple but effective cover… am I the only who struggles to remember how to spell “Archipelago”? No idea why, it’s written pretty much how it’s spelt… Um, anyway…
Eventually the Captain begins to show signs of a mysterious infection of time-thingies that look like barnacles and soon collapses on the deck of the boat during a particularly rough patch of “time seas”, I guess. It becomes too late to save him as River collapses and wakes below deck, being told by The Doctor that the topside of the boat is now a no-go area and that she’d been unconscious for a number of weeks. When quizzed what he’d been doing that whole time The Doctor admits to reading River’s diary at least twice. River obviously freaks out due to the whole spoilers thing, but it soon becomes clear that it’s irrelevant as they’re both showing signs of the infection, and they won’t be able to leave the inside of the boat for many years to come…
A good chunk of the story is then just The Doctor and River growing old with each other, getting know each other, laughing over reading the diary, and yes, falling in love. It’s so well done, a real great performance from both Eccleston and Kingston.
The Continuity:
Oh yeah, this is the cover with Christopher Eccleston doing the weird pose! Hooray!
Beyond connecting to the other stories of the set, there isn’t much. There’s a reference to a bag belonging to John and Gillian from the very-old First Doctor comics, which have questionable canonicity after Eighth Doctor comic “NAME” established that as a dream, but hey ho. Nice little reference anyway!
Overall Thoughts:
“Archipelago” starts off as a fun adventure though some high-concept sci-fi locations but soon turns into a deeply moving look at both the Ninth Doctor after his defensive walls finally break down and generally how The Doctor and River love each other no matter which body the former appears in. Extremely well written and satisfying to listen to, the first big audio hit of the year.
Despite being old and barely able to move due to the infection the boat makes landfall and the duo head off to see if they can find the Captain’s husband and if The Doctor can shut down the experiment and make the planet safe again. The Doctor finds the husband dead and River freaks out, revealing that the man in question is the person who created the Vortex Manipulator that she’s used so frequently in her meetings with The Doctor and if he’s dead before he created it then all those adventures will disappear. Luckily The Doctor finds away to hit a big old reset button and stop his old self from heading to the planet where they first met and instead to head to Fortuna in time to halt the experiments before they do the damage. Of course, tragically, that will mean River and the Ninth Doctor will never have met and eventually fell in love. The literal reset button is pushed and the boxset technically never happened…
Hogan Reviews 