Sunday 20 September 2015

Companion Chronicles 8.12 - Second Chances

As Jim Morrison once sang “this is the end”, and for the much loved Companion Chronicles, sadly it is.
It is only fitting that the final story in this series has a suitably funereal, doom laden, fatalistic feeling to it.
An aged Zoe has been captured by the mysterious “Company” she is having her memory mined for information and remembers a particularly tragic series of events when she travelled with The Doctor and Jamie – unfortunately, this is all I can say as giving any plot details away would be a major spoiler. Suffice to say the older Zoe gets a chance to revisit these events and try to make things right.
The one thing (of many) I don’t like about the Moffat era is it’s constant messing about with time to solve problems, Second Chances does time travel properly, as it was stated by the great William Hartnell “you can’t rewrite history, not one line”, and in this story it is proven, our protagonists travel back in time to avert a catastrophe, but end up as bystanders caught up in events, you don’t get a second roll of the dice, what has been will be.
As I previously stated, a very melancholy, fatalistic story, it does take a while to get going and does follow on from three previous Zoe Companion Chronicles, but it’s easy enough to get in to.
Wendy Padbury is on fine form as Zoe, and it really is her story with The Doctor and Jamie reduced to cameo appearances, the setting is pure season 6, I could visualise it in Black and White with guards in shiny jump suits and huge banks of computers and dull utilitarian corridors, it’s world building us superb.
Really sorry not to be able to give away any plot, but it really is integral to what is at it’s heart a very character based piece and a very excellent audio.
So have Big Finish saved the best for last with Second Chances? Not quite, but it is very very good indeed and well worth a listen.
With a heavy heart then, I bid farewell to the Companion Chronicles and look forward to their spiritual successor “The Early Adventures”.
Overall, Second Chances is well worth a Second Glance 8/10.

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