MR 024: The Eye of the Scorpion

Huh. Who knew that it would take a Fifth Doctor audio to bring us out of this slump of bad audios. He doesn't get many W's. Savour the moment.

The Doctor and Peri change history by saving a Pharaoh to be's life accidentally. A Pharaoh that the Doctor doesn't recognize and he knows all the Pharaohs, so he says. They then save her life again in the next twenty minutes. This starts an epic historical complete with political intrigue and some light sci fi elements thrown in. I'm a little disappointed it wasn't a pure historical, but that's fine.

The assassin who tried to kill Erimem, the Pharaoh to be, said that there was another heir. Which sparks a whole debate amongst the council of priests as to whether she is legitimate. Erimem, the Doctor, and Peri uncover a whole conspiracy to dethrone her and allow a mercenary army to come in and take control of the capital of Thebes. Followed by a large chase and battle sequence that is quite fun as the forces in Thebes go to unite with the forces of Giza and stand a better chance.

The sci fi element here is that the mercenaries are subject to a gestalt telepathic entity that has taken over the minds of anyone it touches. It's inside of Peri as well and uses her as a spy. And she gets to ask a bunch of fun questions about military defenses and such. The entity wants to take the Doctor's TARDIS and escape off world. The Doctor eventually defeats it when it tries to go into one entity to take over the Doctor and gets taken down when the Doctor and Erimem question everyone the gestalt has taken over. And it ends up inside of a cat. True story. The Doctor can get his revenge on cats after nearly shooting on in Resurrection of the Daleks.

Erimem ultimately doesn't want to become Pharaoh and leaves with the Doctor and Peri. And good thing too because she's a fun character.
There's a lot of fun stuff here. Peri and Erimem already have fantastic chemistry. I see why I remember enjoying them so much. And why I remember only enjoying the Fifth Doctor when he's with these two. They're great. There's a fun little sequence where the Doctor blots out the sun to convince the priests that Erimem is indeed the true Pharaoh. The battle sequence is very fun. Just everything is a great time honestly. Not the best, but certainly an A tier easily. I enjoyed it immensely.

Like I said, the Fifth Doctor doesn't get many W's, so I'll give him this one. It really is a shame that they don't do audios with him and Peri anymore because they have great chemistry. And Erimem is good for their dynamic as well. I'm looking forward to more with them. Unfortunate that Erimem doesn't have that many audios and that they abandoned this Five/Peri TARDIS team, but what can you do.