From time to time, everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has things from their past they’d like to undo, but nobody gets a second chance. What’s done is done and we can’t change that.
Zoe’s mistakes have led her to imprisonment at the hands of the Company. But when news reports trigger memories of the Doctor, Jamie and an appalling threat, she begins to sense a way out. An opportunity for redemption opens up to anyone willing to take it.
Nobody can alter what’s been done. Nobody gets a second chance.
Or do they?
This is the final regular Companion Chronicle.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: SECOND CHANCES
The eightieth and final Companion Chronicle in the monthly range is John Dorney’s “Second Chances,” a story which finally concludes the arc about Zoe’s memory started back in series five’s “Echoes of Grey.” It provides satisfying closure to the arc, and is a good way for the Companion Chronicles to go out – it’s just not the most thematically rewarding story, which is disappointing.
This arc has followed a similar pattern throughout: Zoe is questioned about her past, which she cannot remember due to the Time Lord memory block. Machines are used to probe into her memories, and she remembers an adventure with the Doctor and Jamie – until the machines are shut off and her memory returns to its addled state. That’s basically what happens in the first episode of “Second Chances” – this time she’s interrogated by Kym (Emily Pithon), an even more skilled memory engineer. But Dorney has a spectacular twist coming: we realize that the tale Zoe is telling happens only a couple of days in the future from her current time, meaning that the framing device suddenly dovetails with the narrative and the second episode becomes a “real time” story. I don’t think we’ve seen this before in this range, and if not it’s wonderful that the final Companion Chronicle is still pushing the boat out.
The problem is that the story doesn’t really go anywhere. It follows the Moffat-era philosophy about time travel, so when Zoe interacts with her own past she realizes she was always there. We get the obligatory scene where a disguised older Zoe encounters her younger self, and a great scene where she obliquely pleads with the Doctor and Jamie not to forget her. The message here is “no second chances” – she can’t change her past, and she realizes too late that a shooting star she saw in her younger days was actually a burning shuttle with her as a passenger. Everything leads inexorably to her death, and when it finally happens it’s a bleak, emotional moment. But then she wakes up and reveals she didn’t die after all. I suppose it’s still not technically a second chance, but why spend an entire story building up to something and then decide at the last minute not to do it? It feels empty and unrewarding.
Wendy Padbury has been growing increasingly good at these stories, and this is her best turn yet as a narrator. You can really hear the differences in how she pitches her performance as the older and younger versions of her character, and her impressions of Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines are good enough to entertain. There are also some great lines in this, like a decision to skip over the capture-and-escape material in the interest of saving time. Lisa Bowerman, the range’s most reliable director, turns in one more fine effort, and the sound design from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason is some of their best work. Overall, there’s a lot to like about “Second Chances” and it is absolutely worth hearing. I just wish the ending had stuck the landing.
Over the eight series of Companion Chronicles, we’ve seen some of the best material in Big Finish’s long history. We’ve gotten inside the heads of characters that were often paper-thin on television, and seen traditional Doctor Who stories from innovative perspectives. We’ve seen brilliant framing devices and even more brilliant toying with the nature of first-person narrative itself. We’ve even seen a few “full-cast” Companion Chronicles despite only two actors. But the monthly release schedule was crippled by poor sales, and from here the range shifts into box sets. Which is a shame: among Big Finish’s Doctor Who ranges, this was the one you would turn to if you wanted ambitious, intelligent, character-driven storytelling. I’ve loved my journey through all eighty of these, and I’m looking forward to what the box sets have to offer.
“Second Chances” is highly recommended.
8/10