The Eye of the Scorpion is one of Big Finish’s best audios. It is evocative, tense, engaging and exciting.

The 5th Doctor and Peri arrive in Ancient Egypt and immediately meet, soon to be crowned Pharaoh, Erimem. She’s in a runaway chariot being chased by an assassin! It is a great start to the audio and sets the tone for Erimem’s character.

The sound design on this story is exemplary. The initial chariot chase is easily pictured and later scenes set in the desert, the busy market of Thebes, the royal palace and the enormous battles are all vividly brought to life through the sound design, acting and music. All of this presents the listener with a wonderful evocation of Ancient Egypt and, in terms of Doctor Who’s “history of the universe”, is the first ancient culture that has been brought to life so effectively. It also demonstrates how good Big Finish is at creating whole worlds through good scripting, acting and sound design as it mirrors the excellent work done with Mondasian life in Spare Parts and even the alternative prehistoric world created by Adric in The Boy that Time Forgot.

The dialogue is excellent and it is performed excellently by the cast.   Of particular note are Caroline Morris as Erimem, Jonathan Owen as Antranak and Stephen Perring as Horemshep (who would return to the range in the semi-regular role of The Kro’ka in the 8th Doctor Divergent Universe arc).

The first couple of episodes introduce a few too many similar sounding characters (all with odd sounding names) a little too quickly to get a handle on who is who, their motivations and allegiances, but this does become clearer as the story progresses.

Interestingly, Episode 2 recalls the historical stories of the William Hartnell era. The Doctor is poisoned at the end of Episode 1 and does not reappear until Episode 3. Whether this was by design or necessity (was Peter Davison unavailable for some of the recording?) I am not sure but it allows Nicola Bryant and Caroline Morris to develop their characters’ relationship making Erimem’s eventual stepping aboard the TARDIS a logical and natural conclusion to the story. Indeed, it seems strange that prior to this release Erimem was not announced as a new companion (something which I do not think would happen under Big Finish’s current management) and that even during the story it did not occur to me that she may join the TARDIS crew, as listening to it again with this foreknowledge makes it hugely obvious that this was the plan all along.

Nicola Bryant shines as Peri and is given some great material – particularly in the shock ending where she is revealed as the host for the alien intelligence and Nicola gets to perform in her natural accent and as Peri fighting to reassert her own mind.

The climax of the story, where the Doctor and Erimem attempt to confuse the minds hosted in Peri to drive out the alien intelligence is amazing. It is one of the best climaxes to a Big Finish play – probably any Doctor Who story – ever. It is tense and exciting and works superbly on audio as it is all about words not actions.

The climax also sees reference to the Atlanteans with the Doctor defeating the intelligence in a chamber built below the Sphinx by refugees from Atlantis; designed to be a repository for their culture’s knowledge. I wonder if Queen Gallilea was amongst them (as she seemed to be the only ‘speaking cast’ survivor from the destruction of Atlantis in The Time Monster).
Some dating confusion does occur here though, as the Doctor states that the Sphinx is 10,000 years old although I’m not sure if he is implying that Atlantis was destroyed at a similar time. Obviously, Atlantis is slightly mythical in its history so I’m not even sure if this chamber below the Sphinx even exists.

An excellent story and an excellent introduction to a new companion.