Zoe Herriot returns to the Companion Chronicle series after her appearance in Legend of the Cybermen. Wendy Padbury appeared in the second ever Companion Chronicle back in 2007 in which was a weak offering. Now on the 34th release, its time for another Zoe story. This one starts off with a woman call Ali walking up to Zoe. Apparently it’s an older Zoe from the one Ali knew. She tries to get Zoe to remember an adventure that they had together. Ali produces a box that pulls the bits of memory that the Timelords have hidden from her. This story is written by John Dorney who wrote Solitaire which I thought was one of the top 3 Companion Chronicles of 2010.
This main part of the story is set at the Whitaker Institute in Central Australia. The Doctor, Jamie & Zoe discover that the scientists have created a creature called the Achromatics which basically suck all the disease and old age out of people. However it goes wrong and it starts to take more than the unwanted stuff and the people are dead. The story does have an isolated base kind of feel to the story as it seems that the Institute is in the middle of nowhere and there are just a handful of characters. Except this time there is no alien invasion but just some sinister creations.
The main problem with this story is that takes too long for the payoff to come. The first episode is unbearably slow. I was listening to this episode and I was wondering what exactly was going on. Then it picked up in the second half. All of it got explained. The Achromatics were explained and the terrible secret of the Institute was revealed. To be honest despite the fact that it was portrayed as a terrible thing I just ended up thinking to myself ‘Why don’t I care about them killing humans?’ To me the Achromatics aren’t the menace that they should be. The cliffhanger wasn’t scary enough, there was no threat from them. We got to hear someone be consumed by them but it didn’t work for me. The thing I was more interested in why Ali was going through all the trouble of getting Zoe to remember. Then the revelation that she worked for the institute and she was trying to get the story out of Zoe was clever.
Echoes of Grey isn’t quite the story it should be. Wendy Padbury is good as Zoe and its always interesting to hear her play the role and Emily Pithon was also good as Ali. She played the mysterious side to the story well and the both of them should be pleased with what they did. However it doesn’t change the fact that it takes way too long to get the story going and by that point I had all but lost interest in what was going on. My advice for people who are going to listen to this is to skip to the second part.
This main part of the story is set at the Whitaker Institute in Central Australia. The Doctor, Jamie & Zoe discover that the scientists have created a creature called the Achromatics which basically suck all the disease and old age out of people. However it goes wrong and it starts to take more than the unwanted stuff and the people are dead. The story does have an isolated base kind of feel to the story as it seems that the Institute is in the middle of nowhere and there are just a handful of characters. Except this time there is no alien invasion but just some sinister creations.
The main problem with this story is that takes too long for the payoff to come. The first episode is unbearably slow. I was listening to this episode and I was wondering what exactly was going on. Then it picked up in the second half. All of it got explained. The Achromatics were explained and the terrible secret of the Institute was revealed. To be honest despite the fact that it was portrayed as a terrible thing I just ended up thinking to myself ‘Why don’t I care about them killing humans?’ To me the Achromatics aren’t the menace that they should be. The cliffhanger wasn’t scary enough, there was no threat from them. We got to hear someone be consumed by them but it didn’t work for me. The thing I was more interested in why Ali was going through all the trouble of getting Zoe to remember. Then the revelation that she worked for the institute and she was trying to get the story out of Zoe was clever.
Echoes of Grey isn’t quite the story it should be. Wendy Padbury is good as Zoe and its always interesting to hear her play the role and Emily Pithon was also good as Ali. She played the mysterious side to the story well and the both of them should be pleased with what they did. However it doesn’t change the fact that it takes way too long to get the story going and by that point I had all but lost interest in what was going on. My advice for people who are going to listen to this is to skip to the second part.
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