🙏🏼(6.4) = OKAY!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

The Eye of the Scorpion takes place in the fascinating era of Ancient Egypt, where Five and Peri become embroiled in pharaohs, political intrigues, and warring generals. The adventure bears a resemblance to The Aztecs. This is a pseudo-historical, though, with clear The Mummy vibes, as the villains use alien interference in their evil schemes.

This story is, of course, notable for introducing the third original Big Finish companion, the Egyptian princess Erimem, who joins Five and Peri on several adventures.

The opening minutes introduce Erimem in an exciting action scene, and the rest of the story follows her enemies' various attempts to prevent her from ascending the throne following the Pharaoh's death. The story gives Caroline Morris ample space to develop the character, nearly assuming the lead role from the Doctor as she guides Nicola Bryant through the middle parts of the story.

Erimem proves to be a strong-willed woman with a powerful influence, which makes her somewhat special among Doctor Who companions. She works very well alongside Peri, who is much more bearable here. Peter Davison falls to the wayside again.

Part 1 ends with a very classic cliffhanger.

The bulk of this story is fairly typical political scheming, with Erimem and Peri trying to figure things out while their enemies wait in the shadows. While it does a fine job of capturing the era and the characters, it takes a decent while to get going properly. There are a couple of intriguing action scenes and a handful of effective moments, though.

Part 3 effectively halts the momentum, primarily because of a protracted trial sequence that culminates in a conflict between Erimem's allies and enemies. The problem is that it hints at alien interference a couple of times but doesn't do anything about it until Part 4 (and after the very random cliffhanger in Part 3).

Part 4 gets on track again and finds a way to incorporate the Sphinx into the plot. The story effectively captures the intensity of battle and the sense of exploration as the Doctor confronts the alien adversaries.

I appreciate the detailed explanation of the era's culture and customs, particularly during the banquet in Part 1, which serves as a bit of a cultural shock for Peri.

Yanis makes for a power-hungry villain with a terrific performance from Harry Myers, better known as Adrian Wall in the Bernice Summerfield audios. He’s a scheming snake in a similar vein to Tlotoxl from The Aztecs. Horemshep (played by Kro’ka voice actor Stephen Perring), in contrast, is more soft-spoken and doesn’t stand out quite as much.

The mind-controlling aliens don't hold much interest or receive the attention they merit.

Although Erimem joining the TARDIS isn't a particularly exciting moment, it has received good attention.

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.

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

Erimem gets a pretty solid introduction here. I'm excited to see what her adventures might be like give her nature as a historical character. We don't get enough companions like this and I haven't listened to any of her other audios yet.

I found the story pretty weak, though. A very standard and straightforward villain that felt a little over the top to me. I didn't really feel the Egypt setting as much as I would like either. The audio didn't leave me with a strong impression of the setting, especially compared to the last main range outing with Five, Loups-Garoux.

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

Previous Story: Red Dawn

It's a crime that Egypt isn't visited more often in Doctor Who. It's such a unique location rich with culture and that makes this story truly distinct. This story is so atmospheric and it instantly transports you to another world with the excellent sound design and soundtrack.

This story is also remarkable for being the introduction to a new companion, Erimem. Such a fascinating character from the get-go, she's Egyptian royalty, which I can already see bringing a whole new dynamic to the TARDIS team. She's not only that however as she's not superstitious and has a keen interest in learning new things making her well-suited for travels with the Doctor. Thanks to a great performance by Caroline Morris, I'm definitely excited to see where the character of Erimem goes.

But even ignoring all that, this story is an electric action epic that spans a decent chunk of Egypt. It's got assassination attempts, full-scale battles, alien mysteries and climactic fights beneath the Sphinx. It's an all-round great story; quite unique and very fun.

Next Story: The Church and the Crown