Brain Child: I have such a lot of time for both Wendy
Padbury and Zoe. Something just clicks with me with regards to the character,
she complimented Patrick Troughton’s Doctor by playing the smart ass to his
nutty Professor and managed to breathe new life into Jamie as well by coming
from such a different background that a cultural comparison said an awful lot
about both of them. It also helps that Wendy Padbury is a fine actress who
effortlessly recreates the character on audio (okay she sounds a little older
but you have to cut the actress some slack in that respect but the enthusiasm
and spark in the portrayal is still there). I love how affectionately she talks
about the show in the bonus interviews and confesses in The Uncertainty
Principle that it was the best job she ever had. Sometimes when people enthuse
about the show it can come across as retroactively jumping on the bandwagon of
something that is now in vogue again (stand up Maureen O’Brien) but that never
feels like the case with Wendy. The way she and Frazer Hines rib each other
constantly shows how well they get on and they both talk so fondly about their
time with Patrick Troughton. It must have been a very happy time for the show
behind the scenes. The running storyline that began in John Dorney’s Echoes of
Grey has proven to be the salvation of the Troughton companion chronicles,
something tangibly dramatic for me to get a handle on and follow. Her
relationship with Jen isn’t your typical prisoner/jailer liaison but something
much more interesting. Jen is sympathetic and genuinely wants to help Zoe but
has the authorities breathing down her neck. Zoe meanwhile is trying
desperately to make sense out of the disturbing idea that a whole section of
her life has been stolen from her. Its taking something that made dramatic
sense on television (the heartbreaking theft of Zoe’s memories with the Doctor)
and playing games with the concept (especially in The Memory Cheats, still my
favourite Troughton CC).
Zoe’s head is full of images and noise, people she doesn’t
even know. They have punched a hole in what is holding back her memories but it
is all random moments and feelings. Zoe’s claims of memory tinkering are being
investigated but she doesn’t have much time left as she is being accused of
sedition, extortion and threats to personnel. They are invented charges to make
Zoe tell them her secrets of time travel. When Zoe started travelling with the
Doctor she found the idea desperately unfair…there was so much to see and do
but life was so fleeting that there was no way she could fit it all in. Romance
is almost an anathema to Zoe, it’s the complete opposite of behaving rationally
and logically and so to find herself attracted to somebody is disturbing
because it isn’t something that she can control. How intriguing that Zoe should
find herself attracted to such a socially awkward, irrational boy, not the sort
of person she would ever imagine herself falling for (love’s funny like that)
or that she would aspire to pairing up with. Zoe is sixteen and Archie treats
her like an equal, not a child prodigy. Memories of the TARDIS being a spacious
control room that can take them to other worlds simply doesn’t tally with the
visual images of the battered blue police box on the wheel. Its rather telling
about where her mind was focussed when Zoe has sketchy memories of the TARDIS
but she can clearly recall details about Archie. Zoe felt let down by Archie
when he attacked the creatures without knowing if they meant any harm or not
but also feels ungracious for turning on him when he had just saved her life.
Zoe’s colleagues on the Wheel have told Jen that she cold, calculating and
profession which doesn’t tally with the concerned, emotional young lady that
Zoe describes in her travels with the Doctor. Either she’s lying or proximity
to the Doctor and Jamie changed her. Zoe feared telling Archie how she felt
about him because he might reject her and because it would be harder when she
lost him for good.
Oh My Giddy Aunt: When Zoe states that the Doctor could
charm practically anyone I knew that Simon Guerrier had nailed Patrick
Troughton’s interpretation. He’s still doing it today. The Doctor’s comical
Wellington boots save his life at one crucial point. He has such a kind, gentle
way about him that he could extract any information out of anybody. Zoe had
learnt from the Doctor that there were creatures out there that needed to be
fought but they only did so when they had to.
Standout Performance: The glorious Wendy Padbury. Engaging
at the microphone and behind the scenes.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘As a scientist you worry if there’s no
inconsistency. You want a margin of error.’
‘Science is all about inconsistencies. About evidence that
falsifies theory.’
‘Even with total recall we embellish our memories in
hindsight, altering the facts to fit the story.’
‘Is Time uncertain? And stepping out of the TARDIS is like
opening the lid on the cat? All futures exist at once until we impose one over
another…’ – that is such a fascinating concept and way of looking at the Doctor’s
travels (that he actually crystallises time by stepping out into a particular
period) it was worth telling this story just to get to this observation.
Great Ideas: I have to say the cover is particularly
memorable, especially when you consider that it is the combination of Wendy
Padbury and her daughter with the former exposed as being younger than the
latter. The disturbing Golem like creature that has its hand wrapped around the
side banner is quite a sight too. Cutting straight to the funeral of a young
girl, of the awful wrongness of parents burying their child is an attention
grabbing way of inviting the audience into the story within a story. I love the
idea of playing about with the idea of memories being unreliable, of Zoe
pulling on a thread that has one face at the end of it (in this case, Archie)
and letting the details emerge. We never know whether what Zoe describes really
happened or is a fiction conjured up in her mind and she certainly isn’t
convinced that she was a time traveller. I also like the device of having Zoe
relay the story to Jen and her checking out whether those details are factually
correct. It means we can ascertain whether the story has the bare bones of the
truth to it or is simply being made up as it goes along. Even more brilliantly
Zoe claims that she could have simply read the same documents as Jen and used
them to build her story…she’s nothing if not a realist. The Company doesn’t
need to prove that Zoe went back in time but that she saw something of value to
them. That would be enough to keep Zoe alive. How creepy is the imagery of the
squat, withered creatures stepping out of the shadows into the rain and
attacking the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe? The scrambled egg substance is residue
from the space time vortex (see also Guerrier’s novel The Pirate Loop for a
more in depth look at this substance) and sometimes the TARDIS gets clogged
with the stuff as it barges its way through the maelstrom. Atomisation is the
method of dispatch of choice by the Company, not just killing you but scrubbing
you out of existence. Is Zoe’s evidence more reliable than the facts because
its inconsistent? Zoe wonders if there is a good reason that she doesn’t
remember her time with the Doctor…because it is something that is unsafe
to know. That’s a very logical way of looking at it. Something that Zoe has
seen, something that the Company can’t let slip through their fingers is what
they want and they are willing to threaten Jen’s children in order to get her
to co-operate and dig it out. The Feynman machine smashes a hole in space time
and they are lucky that they don’t fall into the future or past. The creatures
have only been trying to help them, to tell them how to fix the breach. Meg,
dead and alive at the same time, breaking Zoe’s heart as she actualises and
steals Archie’s affections away. A machine that can bridge the dimensions,
something that would be very valuable to the Company. I wonder what else they
can mine out of Zoe’s memories from her travels with the Doctor? Will they
eventually go after the secrets of the TARDIS?
Audio Landscape: Digital lock, door opening, fizzing
aspirin, rain lashing, a church bell ringing, social atmosphere of a pub, an
almighty explosion, bird song, a groaning bus, reception jingle, a disturbing
ghostly voice, Padbury’s scream which is still the best in the business, Jamie
running into a burning house, heart monitor.
Standout Scene: Simon Guerrier is certainly putting his
education to good use as he has Zoe in engage in some real science and
mathematics but not in a way that alienates the audience. He has a way of
bringing massive concepts to life but making their application about people so
we can relate to them. We use strings of 1s and 0s to stand for letters and
words, we can use them to build pictures, models in three or more dimensions,
create worlds beyond our own ability to imagine them. In the years since
Turing’s first room sized computers all that’s really changed is the complexity
of those strings of numbers and the speed at which they’re processed. Driven by
need (military systems, banking) all these installations depend on long complex
codes to keep their security systems safe and Fineman glibly suggested a way to
make computers even faster. Super position is a nucleus at the heart of an atom,
so tiny that it is barely observable and radioactive. Decayed and undecayed at
the same time, a mix of probabilities until you try and measure it, it only
because one thing or the other until we impose certainty on it. Just
like Schrodinger’s Cat. Transplanting these scientific theories into something
tangibly emotional like Jamie lying in a hospital bed (both alive and dead at
the same time) is a great way of getting the audience to connect with these big
ideas.
Result: ‘I remember everything…and I remember nothing.’
There is so much to admire in The Uncertainty Principle; the continuing saga of
Zoe exploring her blocked memories, the central storyline that allows a younger
version of the character to experience the first stirrings of romance and the
intriguing and spooky mystery at the heart of the tale. It seems that with the
dream team of Guerrier, Bowerman, Yason and Fox nothing can go wrong. Actually
for Guerrier this is a script that struggles a little within the fundamental
narrative (its gripping to a point but seems to fizzle out right at the end so
it’s a relief that there is a second climax to bolster the latter half of the
release) but his dialogue is so full of intelligent observations and clever
ideas (especially the way he explores how potentially deceptive Zoe’s memories
could be) that on a moment by moment basis the story is packed full of
substance. There is plenty of dramatic incident too which Lisa Bowerman does
her usual sterling job bringing to life with the help of two of the best sound
designers and musicians in the business. The framing device for the Zoe
companion chronicles is so strong at this point that it threatens to rival the
main storyline for interest and at times succeeds. The Troughton CCs have been
a mixed bunch, ranging from the banal (The Emperor of Eternity, Fear of the
Daleks) to the sublime (The Glorious Revolution, Resistance) but with this
ongoing narrative they have struck gold at last and I am eager to see where
this story of Zoe and her fractured memories is heading. Wendy Padbury makes
reading this dense script look effortless but also gets to explore a more
emotional side of Zoe and she is ably supported by her daughter in the pivotal
role of Jen. These stories are proving what I had always suspected about Zoe, that
she has far more to offer if you dig a little deeper. The Uncertainty Principle
takes a good look at what makes this girl tick, during her time with the Doctor
and afterwards and underneath all that plucky charm is a fascinating,
multi-layered character whose exploration proves absorbing. More please: 8/10
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