Wendy Padbury returns to the Companion Chronicles range for the first time in over three years, reprising her role as Zoe Heriot in Echoes of Grey. The story, written by John Dorney, sees the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie landing in the Whitaker Institute, where people come for treatment... but don't seem to leave, of course. Soon, they come into conflict with the mysterious Achromatics.

The story is, unfortunately for the short running time of your typical Companion Chronicle, slow to start. The TARDIS crew meanderingly investigates the Institute at the beginning of the story, wandering around without learning much; then they trip and intruder alarm and have to flee up and down corridors. Finally, they end up captured but prove themselves trustworthy (of course) and begin investigating the problem. I found myself wishing that there'd been some psychic paper to speed the whole process up: this kind of pacing may have worked for six-parters in the actual Patrick Troughton era, but it's a bit painful here.

Echoes of Grey is pleasant enough, but like several other Companion Chronicles, a little too lightweight for its own good. With quicker storytelling and a twistier plot, this could have been much more successful.

You can read a longer version of this review at Unreality SF.

Bringing back Wendy Padbury as Zoë, in a tale of investigation of curious biological experimentation with the significantly named Achromatics at the Whitaker Institute, close to Zoë's own time and space. I found myself wondering where this was going in the first half, but it picked up after the interval, basically as a narrative of Zoë remembering a past adventure out loud to a very interested listener (Ali, played by Emily Pithon). There is one really good idea here, which is the literary play on words linking the monsters and the title of the play; also Zoë's loss of memory, induced by the Time Lords after The War Games, is worked into the plot in a slightly new way. Padbury's impression of Troughton isn't perfect but is distinctive. Decent stuff. ( )

4,0 ( )