This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Axis of Insanity

This story is an exploration of Erimem's character. While I like the idea of that, it proves to be fairly shallow. It doesn't really tackle anything unique to her royal background and serves mostly to put her through more trauma with the veil of "character development". Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good and worthwhile moments. There's an especially good exploration into her dynamic with Peri and the Doctor but it doesn't do anything I haven't really heard before.

The setting is quite nice and the way Erimem interacts with it is fairly unique. The soundtrack is also fantastic, it's not too noticeable to be distracting but it perfectly accentuates the emotions in every scene and generally captures the mystery and wonder of the mountains throughout.

The performances here are on top form, the highlight is absolutely Caroline Morris as Erimem who goes through such a range of emotions here but both of her co-stars are equally as fantastic. The scenes where Erimem believes her friends have turned on her in the afterlife is an especially great showing of both Peter Davison and Nicola Bryant. The way they switch from kind and trustworthy to almost vicious was exceptional and so was Erimem's reaction to it.

I think had I been exposed to this earlier I would have heralded it as some marvelous character-piece but when you take a step back and look at what actually happens, Erimem goes through a lot of trauma and remains mostly the same character by the end.

Next Story: Three's A Crowd