In the future, Zoe Heriot is a prisoner of the mysterious Company, which has evidence that she travelled through space and time with the Doctor. Zoe’s memories have been blocked by the Time Lords, but the Company is determined to break through this conditioning…
And so Zoe recalls a journey to Earth in the past, to the funeral of a young woman called Meg, who was involved in scientific experiments that are bringing forth sinister alien creatures. Only the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe can stop them…
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
I’ve always appreciated the ability of the Companion Chronicles to tell different types of stories, including long plots that extend over multiple releases over multiple years. “The Uncertainty Principle” from Simon Guerrier continues the arc surrounding Zoe’s memory previously seen in “Shades of Grey” and “The Memory Cheats.” And while it does a fair job of extending the plot arc, it falls down when it tries to tell an interesting story of its own.
The mysterious Company knows that Zoe was a time traveler, and knows that she has useful knowledge as a result of her time in the TARDIS. But they also know there’s something wrong with her memory, and so they’ve set Charlie Hayes’ Jen on the case. No difference here than the prior stories, except each time Jen is able to dig a little deeper and discover a little more. I like learning more about this time, because it’s interesting to play with: how does the Time Lords’ memory block work, and how does it affect someone with a photographic memory? The problem is that we’re not getting enough advancement in the story: they’re threatening to execute Zoe but it doesn’t feel like she’s making much of a breakthrough. The interaction between mother-daughter team Wendy Padbury and Charlie Hayes is always entertaining, of course, but I hope this goes somewhere productive before the range concludes.
The story that is drawn from Zoe’s memories in “The Uncertainty Principle” isn’t particularly gripping or even interesting. I do like how it opens, with the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe infiltrating a funeral to learn more about the deceased, but after that it devolves into a typical mystery plot. There are aliens made of electricity that hurt people, but it turns out they’re actually quite nice and don’t want to cause any harm. The dead woman from the funeral actually exists in a state of quantum uncertainty, and she’s returned to life from that. It all seems incredibly devoid of consequence: everyone is well meaning and everyone gets what they want. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this type of story, but it needs to do something more interesting at some point to hold the attention.
Oh, and speaking of quantum uncertainty, Guerrier goes off on a protracted lecture about the titular Uncertainty Principle and Schrödinger’s Cat. There’s a fine attempt in here to tie the story back to Zoe’s memories, to show that their unpredictability means that their truth is a relative state, but it’s far too didactic to be dramatic. This was done to much better effect in the Oliver Harper stories, where Steven gave a detailed description of the physics involved in piloting a spacecraft. That had immediacy; this does not.
This isn’t to say that “The Uncertainty Principle” is a bad story – it’s just not a very exciting one. It almost seems like it’s here to fill space, which is odd considering it’s intended to develop an ongoing plot. Still, a fine performance from the two actors as well as able direction from Lisa Bowerman means you can find many worse ways to spend an hour. I suppose I’ve just come to expect more.
Recommended.
6/10