Echoes of Grey
When Big Finish do their special offers over one weekend, I always find that I am saving for some other expensive item, have absolutely no money what-so-ever, or already own the CD’s on sale. However, when BF offered the Zoe Heriot Companion Chronicle Trilogy at rock-bottom prices, I had to get my own copy. Beginning with Echoes of Grey, these three two-part stories follow an older Zoe, many years after her travels with the Second Doctor were wiped from her memory by the Time Lords, as she is interrogated about her forgotten travels by the mysterious Company.
Echoes of Grey is a simple story, very typical of the 1960’s era of the show that it would have been made in on TV. The standard ‘base under siege’ idea is once again used, as it was so many times originally. The story is slightly longer than the average, at just under 80 minutes in total. This added length gives the story room to breathe. This gives it the time it needs to be crisp and tense without losing any of the detail that makes it brilliant.
Every Companion Chronicle (or CC as they are affectionately known to some) has one guest voice alongside the main star. In this case, it is Emily Pithon playing Ali, somebody who is a lot like Zoe in many respects, a young genius taken in by the Whitaker Institute to develop their latest saviour for humanity, the Achromatics. She is an interesting character, and a perfect foil to our main one. Pithon manages to leak an air of comfortable mistrust through all her time on tape. The listener always gets the feeling that something is not quite right, yet she manages to draw us in contently despite this. Thanks to John Dorney’s superb characterisation and Pithon’s performance, Ali seems to leap right out the speakers fantastically. It makes the ending that little bit more shocking to hear.
The same can be said for Wendy Padbury’s narration, her voice is so easy to listen to that the whole story flew by like a dream. Her impressions of Jamie and the Doctor may not be quite as refined as Frazer Hines’, but they are still pretty damned good. On a separate note, the sound design, including the voices of the cast, make recreate the era so vividly in my mind that I could clearly picture the cheap sets and even the slightly dodgy black and white picture quality. If anything, this is a true credit to all involved simply for that reason.
Echoes trots along at a fair pace, keeping the listeners interest clear and firm throughout. The ideas are sound and there is nothing that screams out as unrealistic or ridiculous. In all, it is a story that is well worth a listen, and the ending itself is something that will stick in my mind for a long time to come. Even if you buy it for the last scene, this is a remarkable use of the standard CC format.
Echoes of Grey is a simple story, very typical of the 1960’s era of the show that it would have been made in on TV. The standard ‘base under siege’ idea is once again used, as it was so many times originally. The story is slightly longer than the average, at just under 80 minutes in total. This added length gives the story room to breathe. This gives it the time it needs to be crisp and tense without losing any of the detail that makes it brilliant.
Every Companion Chronicle (or CC as they are affectionately known to some) has one guest voice alongside the main star. In this case, it is Emily Pithon playing Ali, somebody who is a lot like Zoe in many respects, a young genius taken in by the Whitaker Institute to develop their latest saviour for humanity, the Achromatics. She is an interesting character, and a perfect foil to our main one. Pithon manages to leak an air of comfortable mistrust through all her time on tape. The listener always gets the feeling that something is not quite right, yet she manages to draw us in contently despite this. Thanks to John Dorney’s superb characterisation and Pithon’s performance, Ali seems to leap right out the speakers fantastically. It makes the ending that little bit more shocking to hear.
The same can be said for Wendy Padbury’s narration, her voice is so easy to listen to that the whole story flew by like a dream. Her impressions of Jamie and the Doctor may not be quite as refined as Frazer Hines’, but they are still pretty damned good. On a separate note, the sound design, including the voices of the cast, make recreate the era so vividly in my mind that I could clearly picture the cheap sets and even the slightly dodgy black and white picture quality. If anything, this is a true credit to all involved simply for that reason.
Echoes trots along at a fair pace, keeping the listeners interest clear and firm throughout. The ideas are sound and there is nothing that screams out as unrealistic or ridiculous. In all, it is a story that is well worth a listen, and the ending itself is something that will stick in my mind for a long time to come. Even if you buy it for the last scene, this is a remarkable use of the standard CC format.