The Monthly Adventures #059 - “The Roof of the World" by Adrian Rigelsford

The TARDIS team of the Fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem is not one I often hear talked about. And that’s no surprise really, placed in a small, one episode gap and up against such popular characters as Charley and Evelyn, this trio of adventurers never really stood a chance; couple that with the fact that their list of episodes is, on the whole, far weaker than their fellow Main Range companions and it seems the lost pharaoh was doomed from the start. I find this a terrible shame because the idea of a young woman running from an ancient throne to travel around the universe with an 80s Baltimorean and a space wizard with a penchant for cricket sounds great but these three were never really the focus. However, every once in a while, Erimem got put in the spotlight. Ancient gods are returning from the grave and the young pharaoh is at the root of it all, so without further ado, lets visit The Roof of the World.

On a trip to a remote cricket match in Tibet, the Doctor and Peri lose Erimem to an ancient and malevolent power that’s all too familiar with her. But what lies in the White Pyramid? And how does it know of Erimem of Thebes?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I like Erimem, I really do, but even I can agree she’s the weakest of the original fifty’s recurring companions. Very little direction and a confused personality, paired with a sometimes decent, sometimes irritating performance from the most-definitely-not-Egyptian Caroline Morris, make Erimem often a weak link and I find that an entire story focused on her would have to do some heavy lifting to work. And boy does The Roof of the World try; for all intents and purposes, I like what Rigelsford does here. I think Part 2, purely focusing on Erimem being dragged through a series of traumatic hallucinations, was a really interesting way to build the story and a nice structural experiment but the choices surrounding Erimem in the first place I find strange. All the possibilities from having a pharaoh travel in the TARDIS are squandered by a bizarre sense of naivety that doesn’t really work. Honestly, I find Erimem to often be a lesser Leela - trying to learn of a time and place that is not her own but without the range that made Leela so enthralling. It also didn’t help that I’m often disappointed by Caroline Morris’ vocal performance, especially when she’s doing her possessed lines (what was the direction there, Kermit with a smoking addiction?).

As for story, I’m in two minds about The Roof of the World. It certainly has a lot of potential but I don’t think Rigelsford always capitalises on it. The first part especially is great: the setting is wonderful, Davison is firing on full cylinders and there’s a really good sense of atmosphere. The ominous whisperings and Erimem’s abject terror at “The White Pyramid”, along with the fantastic moment of seeing the Great Old Ones in Williams’ pictures, make this up to be a low-key horror story, built upon some good tension and ambiguity. This continues on through the second part, with the introduction of unknowable Eldritch beings as our villains and the surreal, nightmarish visions Erimem is put through. However, as the story goes on, this becomes less and less the case. It noticeably gets more generic, in the end feeling like any other Doctor Who story. The pace of the third act is nice but there’s very little tension and the choice to give unknowable alien gods personalities and voices removes any existential fear you could pull from them. If The Roof of the World had stuck to its villains being unseen “Great Old Ones”, we could’ve had something fantastic on our hands but they’re discussed without a shred of ambiguity that might leave them feeling like a threat.

In the end, we get to a climax that I find particularly dull. Near tensionless and over too soon, it mostly consists of the Doctor chatting with far too congenial ancient deities and Peri attacking a cloud with liquid nitrogen. It’s far too humdrum for this type of story though it is elevated by some particularly good sound design. I don’t know if it's this story in particular or just a few months break from Big Finish but the soundscape present here is absolutely a highlight of the audio, really helping to visualise some of the more jumbled scenes.

Is there anything particularly special to say about The Roof of the World? It’s one of those stories that tend to blend into the background for me, with nothing that special placing it above its peers. Despite a unique Part 2 and some half-decent character work for a half-decent character, The Roof of the World fails to hold any style that might save it from obscurity, although that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad time.

7/10

Pros:

+ It’s nice to have Erimem fleshed out a little more

+ Part 2 was a brilliant little departure from formula

+ Had a fantastic atmosphere in the first half

+ Unique and interesting setting

+ Incredible sound design

Cons:

- Caroline Morris’ vocal performance wasn’t incredible

- The villains could’ve been far more interesting than they were

- The second half was far more generic than the first

- The climax was somewhat of a damp squib