Zoe Heriot has a photographic memory. Totall recall. But when it comes to the years she spent travelling in time and space, all she can remember is that she has forgotten.
Zoe Heriot has a photographic memory. Totall recall. But when it comes to the years she spent travelling in time and space, all she can remember is that she has forgotten.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: ECHOES OF GREY
John Dorney’s “Echoes of Grey,” the second story in the fifth series of Companion Chronicles, is the first Chronicle to feature Wendy Padbury since all the way back in the dreadful “Fear of the Daleks,” and is thankfully an improvement over that story in every respect. It’s far too obvious and straightforward to be a masterpiece, but it’s nonetheless nice to hear a Zoe story that isn’t terrible.
While I appreciated Dorney’s “Solitaire” quite a bit, one of my biggest complaints about that story was its lack of nuance, and that trend is even more obvious in “Echoes of Grey.” The title implies that there will be some sort of moral quandary on display, and sure enough, we learn that nobody involved is truly good or truly evil. Calling your monsters “Achromatics” doesn’t help the subtlety issue, either, and even the otherwise nice reference to “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is made blatantly obvious by the Doctor quizzing Zoe about it.
The framing device is somewhat interesting, but ultimately it doesn’t go far enough. I like how Dorney approaches Zoe’s memory loss, how he writes her narration in present tense to demonstrate her memory coming back as she talks, and how this is counterpointed against Ali’s more traditional past tense narrative. But the final twist is painfully obvious, even more so than the cabinet in “Solitaire” – I was wondering if the dramatic revelation would be that Ali was telling the truth! This is a script crying out for the use of unreliable narrative. Yes, it’s true that nobody in Zoe’s parts of the story ever interacts with Ali, but that’s just writing to your twist: it’s The Sixth Sense, in other words. Zoe’s narrative needed to interact more with Ali’s; the two needed to throw doubt upon each other. By the time Ali is spelling out her involvement with the company at the conclusion, I was rolling my eyes. The final line shouldn’t be so triumphant; in a story called “Echoes of Grey,” the story itself should contain some ambiguities.
All the above becomes even more apparent when the plot is subjected to scrutiny. This is a straightforward 1960s story from start to finish, complete with endless exploration and corridor chasing for the majority of the first half. “We were trying to help but our creation grew out of our control” is one of science fiction’s oldest plots and this story doesn’t do anything to make it interesting. I’ve never been a fan of season 6, despite my love for its TARDIS crew, so when I say this fits in perfectly I’m not being complimentary. Of course, none of this is to say that “Echoes of Grey” is a bad story; it’s just underwhelming, especially in light of its potential. The performances are good: Wendy Padbury’s narration is improved greatly over her first Companion Chronicle, even if her attempt at Frazer Hines’ accent is more comedy Scot than it is accurate. Lisa Bowerman’s direction is largely successful, while the sound design from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason is convincing if unmemorable. Overall, “Echoes of Grey” is something of a disappointment: there’s a great story in here, waiting to be told, but instead we got something underwhelming.
Not bad, but it could have been so much more.
6/10