“This is The Chesterton Exhibition. A series of breathtakingly faithful tableaux, painstakingly detailed to the nth degree. Dedicated to the life of that most extraordinary time traveller, Ian Chesterton!”
Ian finds himself in a shrine to his own past, and on the run with a man named Pendolin.
From Coal Hill School to Jobis Station, from Totter’s Yard to the Crusades, Ian’s history is unfolding.
And a confrontation with a deadly enemy with a voracious appetite awaits…
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE TIME MUSEUM
The seventh series of Companion Chronicles kicks off with “The Time Museum” from James Goss, his first script for the range. It’s an interesting examination of memory and character, and thankfully evolves beyond a nigh-incomprehensible first episode to deliver a brilliant ending.
“The Time Museum” is a tale of two halves. An elderly Ian Chesterton wakes up in a museum of time travellers within an exhibit dedicated to his life and travels in the TARDIS. As he struggles to piece together his memories with the help of “curator” Pendolin (Philip Pope), he discovers that mysterious creatures roaming the museum are taking his memories and leaving him confused. The first episode is dedicated to discovering just what is happening, and it features Ian and Pendolin running through exhibit after exhibit of Ian’s time in the TARDIS, from the Dalek city on Skaro to the battlefields of the Crusades. But Ian’s memories are confused, and so he describes things like the “Cave of Five Hundred Skulls,” conflating “An Unearthly Child” and “Marco Polo.” This is conceptually interesting, but its execution is wanting: there’s little more to the first episode than Ian rambling incorrectly about his travels with the Doctor. It’s like listening to an ill-informed fan trying to sound like an expert. William Russell’s performance is nonetheless great, as he really sells the anguish and confusion of an older man struggling to retain his memories, but nonetheless the episode is confusingly presented.
Fortunately, the second episode is much, much better. Ian deduces that the “curator” is actually the creature stealing his memories, and much of the episode is spent listening to each man trying to verbally outwit the other. Ian masterfully manipulates Pendolin into engineering his own destruction, meditating all the while on his lost memories and his absent home. And the end, when Ian returns home via stolen time technology, a likely homage to his initial return home in “The Chase,” is hopeful and triumphant, a true monument to a beloved character. There’s also an eerie post-credits scene that makes you wonder if the entire thing might start over again with a different star.
There is no narrative in this story; it’s a full-cast two-hander. There are moments when Ian starts into narration of past adventures, but they are quickly interrupted, emblematic of his damaged memory. William Russell is absolutely brilliant: he’s always been in the first rank of companion actors, but this is one of his best-ever performances in his greatest role. Pope is an able supporting actor, adding a fine combination of officiousness and threat. And the sound design, from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason, plus the direction, from Lisa Bowerman, help create the sense of confusion that drives the story. Overall, “The Time Museum” is quite good, in spite of its first episode, and it’s great to hear the experimental tradition of the Companion Chronicles extending into their seventh series.
Recommended.
7/10