The Uncertainty Principle

Still held by the Company, Zoe is still insistent that she does not remember any travels with the Doctor and Jamie in the TARDIS. Her interrogator, Jen, insists they keep pushing as they have managed to punch a hole through whatever is blocking Zoe's memories, and she prods Zoe for more. Zoe remembers a funeral for a scientist - a girl named Meg, someone they never met - but with the Doctor and Jamie she befriends Meg's friend Archie to find out what Meg was working on which caused her death. There's more to it than just an experiment gone wrong, and the Doctor wants to find out and stop it.

Big Finish's decision to give Zoe this kind of extended afterlife from her companion days is playing out brilliantly; third tale in a row now with her trying to live a normal life with the adventures in the TARDIS behind her and the memories out of her reach. Companion Chronicles, in my view, function best when they are told in hindsight once the party is over and they are left to deal with their new lives. Some have been simple flashbacks, but this sort of thing I feel is the best. This one feels like the last of them in this plot thread, so I can rate it as good, but the after-TARDIS adventures of Ian Chesterton feel a bit more compelling. But maybe just because there are more of them.

A new dimension here though is Zoe having a potential love interest in Archie. Jen chides her about not being loveable or loved as a means to get her to talk and almost mocks her interest in Archie as something she could never see through, but Zoe isn't used to thinking or feeling that way and it means little to her to be mocked for it. All through the TV series there was not any idea Zoe might be interested in any of the men she met, it was only when The Indestructible Man was written that it was ever really explored and even then Zoe just accepted it as a logical thing that she might end up coupled with someone, even if that time it was out of convenience. And it's not to say that Zoe is asexual, the idea of romantic interest and emotions just honestly never occurred to her. Interestingly the one person she does feel attraction to here, Archie, is not a confident sort - hardly the type one would think she would notice. And Archie is not without his own baggage - he was interested in Meg until she died. But he thinks he can still hear her talking to him down a mock up single string telephone line they built.

Ohyes in amongst all the Zoe material is the actual mystery around Meg's death and what she was up to that caused it. That scary monster on the cover should give a clue; there are aliens behind the scenes but their motivation is unclear as they are not always there. They only appear in relation to Meg's experiment, which arouses the Doctor's suspicions. There's a good dose of hard science in here right from the principles of what Meg was trying to achieve right through to Zoe's own rationale about science being about inconsistency and the never ending search for more answers.

As the story rolls on though Zoe's life is said to hang in the balance. If she gives the Company the memories they want, will she go free? Another Companion Chronicle will no doubt reveal that.

NEXT EPISODE: THE APOCALYPSE MIRROR