The BF Time Warp 024: The Eye of the Scorpion

[SiHart]

The Fifth Doctor gains a new companion in this Egyptian Escapade...

Egypt is in mourning. Pharaoh, the great God-King, is dead. The future of the Two Kingdoms of Egypt is shrouded in uncertainty as the Council of Priests debates the claim to the throne of Pharaoh's only heir.

Out in the deserts around Thebes, Egypt's capital, a warlord chief is assembling an army of mercenaries, waiting for just the right moment to strike at Egypt's heart.

But not all of Egypt's enemies are outside the city. What is the secret of the strange box discovered in the desert?

When the TARDIS arrives nearby, it has apparently been hi-jacked... by the Doctor?

What do you think of this one then?

Si xx

[Simon R]

I remember nothing about it apart from the bit where they get chased by beetles. Or something.

I'm not even sure I got this one at the time. I've a memeory of laying out in the sun listening to it in Sawbridgeworth but that must have been a couple of years after it was released.

[Si Hunt]

This one was okay. A passable adventure story introducing not one of my favourite companions. There wasn't really anything great and memorable about it.

Si.

[stuartdg]

I actually quite like Erimem,although I'm not sure its the strongest introduction she could've had,there is something epic about it that I enjoy however.

[Rob McCow]

As a side issue, Nicola Bryant said at a convention that she was especially pleased to get involved in a chariot race in this adventure. Since she hurt her back, adventures like that have been off-limits to her - but not on audio.

I really liked the Erimem charater in this story. Yet she became increasingly awful every time she returned.

Well done to BF for having an ancient Egypt story where the villain wasn't Sutekh.

[SiHart]

I remember liking this one at the time- it's a good story for Peri, full of excitement and incident. Even Erimem wasn't too bad here, because she was written properly and stongly.

[Jon Masters]

Another 4/5 - a very good setting, an nicely thought out alien menace that is introduced very subtly and cleverly over the four episodes, and some good performances from both the regulars and the guests. Erimem makes a good character as well as an ideal companion (although she occasionally forgets her 'Leela no contractions rule), and the sound effects and plot give the story a nice epic feel. How good it is to have an old fashioned 'Doctor missing for a whole episode' too, as it lets Peri come nicely to the fore (of course, new Series Hoo shakes off fatal poisonings in 2 minutes with a silly dance and terrible overacting )

A few niggles stop it being a 5 - Yannis sounds too much like Reggie Mead at some points (and Brian Blessed's king with his repeated shouts of Kessick !); the bit with the reprogramming and subsequent eclipse is all a load of complete bobbins, and the cover doesn't feature the topless entertainment from Pharoah's banquet

[Anthony Williams]

I wasn't expecting to like this one when I started listening to it. To be honest, I thought that it'd be a dull historical story set in a historical period that I have little interest in, with a new companion that I know to be a little, well... crap.

So imagine my surprise when I realised that this was really rather good! Certainly not up there with things like The Holy Terror, but it was definitely better than average. I must admit that the Fifth Doctor audios seem to be my least favourite of the four Doctors that Big Finish were doing at this point. For some reason, he seemed to get stuck with duds like The Land of the Dead or The Mutant Phase.

So, anyway, back to talking about this story. What worked for it? Well, there was the wonderful tension as the Fifth Doctor states that although he knows all of the Pharaohs of Egypt, he has never heard of Pharaoh Erimem. Something's amiss here, and we are left pondering Erimem's fate. I can imagine listening to this not knowing that she would go on to be a companion, and being left with the impression that this nice young lady would probably die by the end of the story. Annoyingly, I went into it knowing that she would survive to be in the travesty that was Nekromenteia.

But, there were some really interesting concepts here. Parts of this seemed very much out of the Hartnell era - predominantly the Doctor barely being in Episode 2, due to being poisoned. If this were a tv story, my reaction would've been "well, the Doc's off on his holidays!". However, knowing that these are all recorded in a day took that one away from me too! But it was a nice little nod, really. Then there was the alien aspect. I went into this story expecting a pure historical (which I was dreading). So, having it turn into a pseudo-historical with an alien menace was really delightful.

Finally, there was the way in which the story explored Ancient Egyptian culture. As I said earlier in this review, this is a time period that I've never been particularly interested in. In terms of the Ancient world, I'm really interested in Greece and Rome - and my interest in Egypt is only when those two civilizations conquered Egypt. But, McLaughlin's script really made Egypt come to life, looking into the customs and ways. I loved it, and it's certainly kindled a small amount of interest in Ancient Egypt!

Of course, this review would be slightly amiss if I didn't say something about the new companion - Erimem. As I've already said, I wasn't looking forward to this one, based entirely on a future play that she's in. Yet here she's a rather enjoyable potential companion in this story. She knows she's not going to be Pharoah, she fights well during battle scenes and she helps the Doctor and Peri give the alien creature a nervous breakdown. She was well scripted here, and I look forward to hearing more of her in future stories.

All in all, this is not perfect. But it's enjoyable. It gets a very solid 4/5 from me.

[Nyder]

This was my weekend listening - and I rather enjoyed it, although Eminem.....sorry, Erimem is a bit too similar to Leela for my liking. Still, she's joined the TARDIS crew so I'm stuck with her for a while now. I wonder what'll happen.....


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