The Monthly Adventures #024 - "The Eye of the Scorpion” by Iain McLaughlin

Of all the companions original to the Main Range, I hear the least about Erimem. I find this strange because a rebellious pharoah-to-be who ran away before her crowning sounds like a fascinating character, yet her run was incredibly short and I hear practically nothing about most of her stories (except for one, but it’s not for good reasons). I listened to The Eye of the Scorpion for the first time about a year ago, but I’d somehow forgotten basically all of it, which I suppose isn’t a great sign but oh well. So on a relisten, did I find anything new to love? Not really.

Landing in the planes of Ancient Egypt, the Doctor and Peri save a woman on a chariot being chased by a would-be-assassin. Discovering her to be Erimem, the first female pharaoh, the pair uncover a plot to dethrone her lead by an unearthly creature.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

The only thing I think anybody comes to The Eye of the Scorpion for is the introduction of Erimem, so let’s just get that out of the way. I like her. Not as much as I like Evelyn or Charley in their first stories or anything, but I think she seems promising. I like her relationship with Peri, her personality seems fun, she reminds me of Leela quite a bit, just slightly more integrated into society. I love the idea of historical companions, I think so much could be done with people who really don’t get technology or space travel, and I’m excited for what could be done with such an interesting character. At least, I hope something is done with such an interesting character. Though the choice for her to be played by Caroline Morris, who is very much not Egyptian or anything close to it, was a little unfortunate. Besides Erimem, we also have a great sidecast; Fayum is really easily likeable and oddly relatable for an Ancient Egyptian priest, Antranak is a great ally and also really sounds like Nicholas Courtney in my opinion. It’s wonderful when a story can keep you engaged past your main characters, I think it always elevates a script. Egypt itself is incredibly well realised, from the great sound design to how unflinchingly it’s portrayed, with all the ugly bits on show, I think one of The Eye of the Scorpion’s greatest traits is how immersive it can be.

However, I feel the audio does fall short when it comes to its story, which seems to be quite a common occurrence so far in The Monthly Adventures. Besides from things like Peri changing the Sphinx's face to Elvis (I love dumb time-travel shenanigans like that), the story is really quite dull and overall really generic. Our antagonist is a miscellaneous alien intelligence that possesses people and for the most part we’re fighting violent mercenary Yanis, who felt like a cartoon half the time. Eventually, the creature possesses Peri, which is a good idea that could raise the stakes, but it’s really for one scene at the end, which is so tropey it hurts. It’s the “you’re still in there!” cliché that possession stories do, because just shouting at somebody clears them of mind parasites apparently. In fact, The Eye of the Scorpion has a ton of problems like this, where an obstacle is set up and then easily worked around - I’m not sure if there’s a word for that, I should probably find that out. For instance, the Doctor is poisoned at the end of Part One, and by Part Three is fine without anybody’s assistance; he just worked the poison out of his body, which feels like a massive copout for something that lasted an entire quarter of the story. Coupled with the ending, a lot of the solutions here are just unsatisfying, which I find really annoys me.

The Eye of the Scorpion was a great little story to introduce Erimem. It’s incredibly simple but not boring at any point, it works as a companion introduction and that’s all it needs to do. It has great characters and a good setting but a generic script that holds it back.

7/10

Pros:

+ Erimem seems incredibly promising as a companion

+ Egypt is incredibly well realised

+ Varied and interesting side cast

Cons:

- Dull and under effective antagonist

- Tropey ending that runs through various clichés

- Skips problem-solving