Doctor Who The Companion Chronicles – The Memory Cheats

The Memory Cheats

By Simon Guerrier (directed by Lisa Bowerman)
Story 6.02
Released 30 September, 2011

Having left Victoria in the 20th Century, the Doctor and Jamie met a brainy girl with a cute shape and a daring nerve named Zoe. An outcast in her own time, she agreed to travel with in the TARDIS to experience all that time and space could offer. During her time with the Doctor, Zoe fought the Cybermen, battled against a world of imagination and fantasy, defeated the Krotons, dueled with the Quarks and traversed several periods of Earth’s history of warfare in a single setting. Through it all, she showed that she was not only a smart lass but a resourceful one with far more potential besides.

But unfortunately all of those memories were taken from her when the Doctor had to call upon his people for help. Back where she ‘belongs,’ Zoe is suspect as a subversive element. With near impassive resolve, she perseveres through a grueling interrogation process to unravel the truth behind who she is and the life she has led. Zoe has a remarkable memory that proves to be her greatest strength and (without giving too much away) tragically her downfall as well.

Back in her own time aboard the Wheel, Zoe’s memory has been erased by the Time Lords. She remembers her first adventure with the stranger called the Doctor, but nothing more. However, Zoe Harriott is a special type of girl with a genius-level intellect and total recall. As such, she is something of a curiosity to her people. Suspected of subversive behavior, Zoe is interrogated by a specialist trained in getting answers from suspects. Using evidence of her presence in Uzbekistan in the early 20th Century, Zoe is prosecuted as a time traveler… but she never traveled in time.

The Memory Cheats is a marvelous adventure that operates on several levels. Written by the brilliant Simon Guerrier (the same man behind numerous stories such as The Perpetual Bond and the absolutely stunning Anarchronauts), the script for The Memory Cheats is sharper than a knife and twice as clever. As Zoe is interrogated, she insists that she cannot have traveled in time as it is completely impossible. Despite this claim, there is photographic and other evidence that she did indeed appear in Uzbekistan around 1919 alongside two bizarre characters during an inexplicable event involving missing children.

With the ability to travel through time her only defense, Zoe crafts a tale of the Doctor and Jamie arriving in Uzbekistan, a war-ridden place full of fear and plagued by a boogeyman who steals children in the middle of the night. Her interrogator fills in the gaps with eye witness reports and documentation, goading Zoe to elaborate her tale further… and while she puts up a fight, the details keep coming.

What transpires is a missing adventure of the Second Doctor set in Earth’s past that fits perfectly with the mood and style of the program. Guerrier has (once again) caught the feel of the 1960’s and delivered a moody piece with plenty of drama and spooky moments that leave the listener worried about what comes next. And of course that’s exactly what Zoe wants, someone to listen while she tells her tale.

Zoe, the Doctor and Jamie

It has been pointed out numerous times that the scripts and production value of Big Finish are second to none but I simply must echo that here. The bleak landscape and distant sound of children playing football with Jamie are so evocative that the listener is drawn into the experience. As the drama deepens and the nature of the threat becomes more apparent, the noose closes in and the real monsters are revealed.

Deep in the hills lies a craft that has become embedded in the landscape. Beneath a sleek metal exterior, an organic interior contains a series of pods containing the missing children. But that’s not the real horror of this story at all, it’s the details that Zoe has hidden along her narrative to her interrogator that reveal a far greater secret that is much scarier than a monster from the stars. It involves genetic and behavioral manipulation to produce the peak potential of the human mind. A secret that has alluded everyone until now.

Perhaps it’s the mystery of the Second Doctor’s era that attracts me so, but I am such a fan of this period. I was therefore nervous to listen to this story with fears that it would unravel the love nest that I had built for the period of the program that is mostly lost.

There’s a danger to transform Doctor Who into an edgy modern drama that appeals to younger listeners rather than pay homage to the past. There’s understandably an equally dangerous possibility of sticking too close to the program’s past and simply retelling stories that have already been told. Of course I was pleasantly surprised by both a loving representation of the past along with a modern twist from Mr. Guerrier.

I don’t care how old she is, Wendy Padbury is still cute as a button and her acting skills have only sharpened since her time on Doctor Who long ago. Acting opposite Wendy is her daughter Charlie Hayes in their first collaboration. In the after notes, both ladies sound uneasy about working together (Wendy did live in her daughter’s flat for the duration of the recording which was a bit awkward… which I can understand), but they blend wonderfully together. At times I mixed up their voices, but that’s understandable.

Zoe’s impersonation of Frazier Hines as Jamie is touching but a bit on the silly side. Her version of the Doctor, however, is spot on. It seems that everyone who worked with Patrick Troughton was infected by his persona and can replicate it not just for accuracy but as an act of adoration as well. You can feel the emotional intent in Padbury’s Doctor and it’s lovely.

It’s a joy to be taken back in time to another era of Doctor Who, especially when it is a time that is sadly still missing to modern viewers. It is also a gift that Big Finish has filled that gap with such a scintillating and refined story as The Memory Cheats, an adventure that is much more than it appears to be and leaves the listener wanting more.

Doctor Who – The Memory Cheats can be ordered directly from Big Finish and from local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.

Also recommended:

Doctor Who: The Mind Robber

Doctor Who: The Invasion

Doctor Who: The Dominators

Doctor Who: The War Games

Doctor Who The Companion Chronicles- The Forbidden Time

The Forbidden Time

By David Lock, Directed by Lisa Bowerman
Story 5.09
Release Date: 31 March, 2011
“You know how time is like a road? Going forwards and backwards in a straight line? Well… it isn’t.”

In a crowded auditorium, Polly addressed an assembly of people who had received a psychic warning that their period of time was quarantined, cut off from the rest of reality. Her goal is to calm and reassure people that the world as they know it has not come to an end, but in order to do so, she has a tale to tell of her travels with the strange alien traveler known as the Doctor.

The Forbidden Time is set in that strange period of Doctor Who lore between The Highlanders and the Faceless Ones, when the Doctor had renewed himself into a younger man and traveled with three youngsters. Ben was a puckish sailor who protected the pretty and frail Polly from danger. Jamie McCrimmon, a Scotsman taken out of the past into a realm of time and space adventure, was a sort of younger brother to the pair of companions. The Doctor himself was far less crotchety and more open to the perceptions of his companions, something the elder Doctor would often discount. The younger Doctor was also more playful and devious to a fault, playing the clown while in reality he was a far more knowledgeable individual.

Much of the material of this era is lost, with only a few short episodes and audio recordings to work from. It is also a magical and brilliant era of invention, when science and fantasy worked together in a wondrous fashion, creating a unique world of possibility that could be understood and explained if the audience was willing to expand their minds.

In retelling her story, Polly recounts how the TARDIS hit a ‘wall’ in the vortex where nothing should be. The Doctor backed the craft up about 35 years to get a better view of the obstruction and found that they had landed in a shadow world, an insubstantial impression of reality cast on some surreal canvas. The air was thick with dust and the buildings dull and half-made in appearance, crumbling when touched. What was truly terrifying were the Vist, bizarrely tall critters the size of a greyhound dog with long spindly legs like a giraffe. They skittered about the barren landscape, ogling the strangers with their simian faces.

Attacked by the Vist, the Doctor and Polly are helpless until Ben intercedes. However, he is assaulted by one of the creatures with a weird device that crumbles him to dust. Separated from Jamie who has fled for cover, the Doctor and Polly are brought before the Vist’s leader who dwells in a vast structure set into the shadow world. En route they can see flickering images of possible futures showing Ben and Jamie captured by the Vist, then they see themselves similarly retained. The Doctor realizes that they are in a sideways world where time moves differently.

Michael Craze (Ben) and Anneke Wills (Polly)

The Vist are able to roam freely forward and backwards in time, but they are greedy for control. They have constructed a wall to set aside their territorial portion of time, demanding life essence from all sentient beings as a kind of toll. The Doctor simply cannot allow this, but how can he battle a threat that is insubstantial yet powerful enough to impede progress through the vortex?

I have still only listened to a handful of these Companion Chronicles, but The Forbidden Time is so masterfully written and performed that I cannot help but dote on it. Enlisting Frazier Hines to voice Jamie’s parts through a handheld recording device is very clever and adds a level of nostalgia to the piece. Aneke Wills is pure magic, voicing not only Polly as a youngster but also Ben Chapman, the Doctor and of course the Vist themselves (with the aid of a vocal distorter).

It is an enormous joy to hear Anneke Wills return to the part of Polly, a companion in the legacy of Doctor Who who is often overlooked by modern fans due to her lack of surviving material. With only The War Machines, bits of War Machines and a few random parts here and there, not a lot is left to judge her contribution to the program. After investigating the audio recordings and novelizations, I have gained a deep appreciation of her characterization of Polly, the ‘Duchess’ from swinging London. For any fans not willing to sit and listen ti scratchy recordings of old TV programs, this is a great opportunity to witness her greatness. Wills herself had a terribly interesting private life, raising children in the era of free love, married to Michael Gough (familiar to readers as Alfred in the 1990’s Batman films and the Celestial Toymaker in Doctor Who). Her autobiography details the story for any interested. 

A wondrous and inventive adventure hearkening back to a time when Doctor Who really was a science fiction fantasy unlike anything that had preceded it, The Forbidden Time is highly recommended. I strongly hope that Anneke will return again to grace listeners with more of Polly’s unseen lost adventures.

Doctor Who and The Forbidden Time can be ordered directly from Big Finish and from local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.

For anyone interested in Anneke Wills and her time on the program, this is a fascinating interview (and the only time I have heard Bill Hartnell described as a pig). There are also lovely tales of playing tricks on Pat Troughton (wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan ‘Come back Billy Hartnell, all is forgiven’) that backfired and caused him unexpected grief. Nonetheless, it also offers up some incredible insight to the program through the first period of drastic change in the leading man.

Doctor Who The Companion Chronicles- Quinnis

Quinnis

By Marc Platt (directed by Lisa Bowerman)
Story 5.6
Released 31 December, 2010

The TARDIS lands on the planet Quinnis in the fourth galaxy, a strange world of mystery and exotic landscapes; a world of wonder and delight as well as danger and strife. Soon the Doctor has set himself up as a miracle worker and Susan is on her own, with only the young orphan girl Meedla to keep her company.

I must pause to give a tip of the hat to Matthew Clark for getting me interested in this disc. His review of Quinnis was so compelling that it set me on an audio journey into the realm of the Companion Chronicles (expect more to come). These stories are different from the other Big Finish Doctor Who audios in that they rely heavily on narration and feature a much slimmer cast. They also delve deeper into the past of the program, employing actors from the 1960’s such as Peter Purves, Anneke Wills, Frazier Hines and of course Carole Ann Ford to reprise their iconic television roles.

This story is based on a line of dialog from the 1963 TV adventure The Edge of Destruction in which the Doctor recounts a moment when he and Susan traveled to the fourth universe and nearly lost the TARDIS on Quinnis. Set before the Doctor and Susan arrived in 1960’s London, Quinnis begins in the post-Dalek Invasion world. Susan writes a letter to her husband David, trying to come to grips with events in her present by recalling her adolescence. There are a few references to adventures that I have not heard yet (likely the Eighth Doctor story An Earthly Child?), I was a bit confused at first but once the action shifted to Susan’s recollection, it was much easier to follow.

I must admit that as a character Susan fell flat for me outside of her stunning performance in An Unearthly Child where her otherworldly behavior was as intriguing and beguiling as Ford’s peculiar expressions and far off stares. It informed the understated theatrical device that the Doctor and Susan weren’t just time travelers, but strangers to our world and dimension. In Quinnis, Ford revisits this take on Susan and the result is phenomenal. A quaint and innocent young girl, Susan is prone to mischief with the best of intentions as her grandfather vainly attempts to protect her from harm.

Marc Platt’s prose comes to life with startling clarity, the interlacing structure of arches that make up ‘Bridgetown’ painted with not only his words of description but an engrossing soundscape. The natives of Quinnis are untrusting of outsiders, but the Doctor and Susan make due by handing out Turkish delight and smiling at the wares of the bazaar. When he learns of the long drought that the town is under, he expresses interest… and is soon in over his head as the heralded ‘rain maker’ intent on solving all of the peoples’ problems.

Carole Ann Ford (Susan)

Left to herself, Susan finds Meedla tugging at her arm. Voiced by Carole Ann Ford’s daughter, Tara-Louise Kaye, Meedla is both creepy and cute all at once. Perhaps it is her ‘far too frail to be true’ quality that marked her as trouble to me, but the instinct was on the money. While the Doctor struggles to design a mechanical solution to the drought, Susan is taught by Meedla about the ‘hungry’ plains below of yellow grass, moving about without the hint of a breeze.

Susan also learns how the populace is seized with a great fear of the ‘bad luck bird’ and watched in awe as they set up intricate traps of netting laced with sticky material. When Meedla calls out for help in the middle of the night, captured in the net, Susan is desperate to help her friend and cuts her free… without thinking how the girl could have possibly gotten into that situation.

Ford voices several characters in Quinnis, including a touching impersonation of William Hartnell, complete with huffs of frustration and soft gentle sighs of affection when his crotchety ways go too far. This is a beautifully rendered adventure so finely composed to create a complete dramatic experience, placing the listener in a fantastic weird world of possibilities… so much like Doctor Who of old.

Doctor Who The Companion Chronicles- Quinnis can be ordered directly from Big Finish and local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.