Nekromanteia

A corporate battle fleet meets a horrifying end at the hands of the Witches of Taledrun, guardians of the Relic of Sharra. The Doctor, Peri and Erimem arrive on the planet shortly afterwards, lured by tales of the Nekromanteia system, and also fall victim to the unnatural powers of the witches, but also to the schemes of the survivors of the fleet.

This one is actually pretty terrifying. Peri is trussed up to be a sacrifice to Sharra. Erimem suffers not only a shooting wound but a terrible beating at the hands of the commanding officer of the surviving forces. And the Doctor is beheaded and his body eaten by the ever cackling witches.

I ain't kidding.

It's one thing for the Doctor to come face to face with death in the form of a Dalek or a Cyberman or some terrifying alien monstrosity, but for him to be overcome by something mythical and older than himself is quite different. Obviously there's a way out of this situation for him, which doesn't make 100% sense and requires the audience to believe in the separation between body and mind for it to be credible. But it's not the first time the Doctor has had out of body experiences - his visits into the Matrix on Gallifrey being prime examples of these.

The abuse of the girls calls into question a few issues about violence against women in general. Most of what Peri suffers is inflicted by the witches and doesn't have that usual man to woman violence connotation, but where Erimem is concerned her beating is getting off lightly as her punisher had meant to rape her while a female subordinate stood by. A lot of sci fi feels that it has to be more gristly and violent to be perceived as credible these days, and although the televised episodes do not reflect it to the same degree, Doctor Who has started to move into some dangerous territory where the non-canon audios and books are concerned, almost coming close to the line between acceptable and gratutitous. We know the man is a slime, does he have to attempt to sexually assault Erimem to prove it? Now there is the issue of the Doctor's beheading as well, so there's no platform to make this an exclusive violence against women debate, but as the Doctor's companions are predominantly female, the statistics to add up rather quickly. As it stands right now where my blog is concerned, there is more non-canon material to review than actual televised episodes, the gap between 1989 and 2005 being a long stretch of novels and audios wherein limits are pushed and the female companions are beaten up, tortured, shot, and in one case even killed. There will be a total of 10 more female companions in the tales to come and 3 males, so guess which team takes more lumps in the grand scheme.

I don't want to start a crusade, but I want to point out that Doctor Who doesn't exactly need this kind of thing to stay relevant and interesting. The series didn't start out with Susan getting smacked around in the schoolyard by bullies, and Nero never did get his hands on Barbara back in The Romans, so why the show has to evolve away from clever writing and to a more common base I'll never know. Eric Saward, script editor for the televised series, is on record saying that he believes that violence should be shown for what it is but not be gratutious, and I agree; there's always going to be some. But where's the limit?

NEXT EPISODE : THE AXIS OF INSANITY

No Place Like Home

Now that Erimem is a full member of the TARDIS crew the Doctor decides to take her on a proper tour of the ship. Erimem is confused by the configuration of the corridors and believes they are changing as they walk through them, but the Doctor pooh-poohs that notion and says she is imagining it - until he too realizes there is something at work within the TARDIS and the ship is no longer in his control. It seems that a long time ago, something got inside the ship and has been lurking there in the shadows, slowly figuring out how to control the ship, until it is now ready to get rid of the Doctor and his companions and take the TARDIS for its own.

It's a mouse. I don't see any reason to make this more dramatic than it wishes it was. No Place Like Home was a freebie disc made by Big Finish but sent out with Doctor Who Magazine as a little perk for readers and a way to give Erimem some time with the Doctor and get her out from under Peri's shadow, such as it were (that's not a boob joke). And it sort of works. Right up until the disembodied voice starts cackling away to itself about how the Doctor has played into its hands at last, then it's just a joke.

Gallifreyan mouse. Who knew. Good thing Erimem has a miserable cat.

NEXT EPISODE : NEKROMANTEIA

The Church and the Crown

The Doctor is trying to take Erimem to the Braxiatel Collection where she can make a contribution to its section on Earth history when the TARDIS lands in 17th century France instead. At Peri's insistence the travellers leave the ship to show Erimem some of her future, and almost immediately Peri is kidnapped by forces unknown. Musketeers and Church guards clash in the streets as the Church and the Crown struggle for power, but a third force is watching from the sidelines waiting for the right moment to attack and carry out its own plans against France - plans which are complicated by the fact that Peri and Queen Anne are dead ringers for each other.

The Church and the Crown is pretty much a historical comedy about mistaken identities, bickering spouses and wry commentary made while flicking a sword about, almost in the same vein as Donald Cotton's The Romans back in 1964. As with The Romans, the travellers become unwilling pawns in the games being played out around them but not taking any of it very seriously. The musketeers are pretty much played up as a farce, and Peri kicks a lot of men in the balls. Erimem yells at the Royal couple when their bickering gets on her nerves. The Doctor just wants her cat to behave. Yes, I found myself grinning at times while I listened to this on the TTC as I headed to work. Or from work. Either way, the TTC was involved.

This one is just one of many tales that show that Doctor Who does not have to take itself seriously every time, especially every time the action moves to France. Well hang on... City of Death was in France. But the first two times the Doctor and companions went to France (The Reign of Terror, The Massacre) their straits were dire indeed with death waiting around every corner. This time... not so much. Not such a bad thing, really; we should be allowed to have a lighter adventure every now and again. Something to make the listener grin or giggle. I have a feeling that somewhere out there are legions of fans who have the exact opposite opinion of this one, but that's the risk one runs in having an opinion.

How's Erimem doing as a companion? Quite well, really; she's resourceful and very clever when it comes to dealing with royalty, which we all know can sometimes be the Doctor's stumbling block depending on the royalty he meets, so travelling with some is a good plan. Still, it's a bit odd that he was going to take her and have Irving Braxiatel add her to the collection (the collection that has been alluded to before by Romana in The City of Death and will come up again in the future... in a while) but maybe I just didn't get what was really going on.

And it wouldn't be the first time.

NEXT EPISODE : NO PLACE LIKE HOME

The Eye of the Scorpion

The Doctor and Peri arrive in a desert and come to the aid of a young girl on a chariot being pursued by mercenaries. The place is Egypt. The girl's name is Erimem. And she is waiting to be named as Pharoh. The Doctor knows his history well enough to remember that there has never been a female Pharoh in Earth's history, so either there is some disturbance in time or the girl will never be crowned, and the latter seems more likely as Erimem faces challenges to her right of accession and assassination attempts within her own palace. But the mercenary army threatening the city of Thebes is not all it appears to be, and the Doctor soon suspects that there is an alien presence amongst them.

Hmmm. An interesting adventure. Oh the story is very straightforward and well presented with all of the splendour of Egypt, or at least the sounds of that splendour, brought to life through the headphones, although I'm not sure if all the scarab beetles really make a giggling sound when they swarm. And the scorpions, for that matter. This is all minor stuff in the face of the bigger issue: the issue of Erimem.

Erimem never does get crowned as Pharoh. It's pretty obvious to all that she doesn't really want the job anyways as it has made a terrible distance between her and her own mother, her last surviving parent. Erimem is lonely in her position and does not believe she is a "living god", but she can't tell anyone. So why wouldn't she want to leave with the Doctor? And it's not as if the Doctor just readily bundles her into the TARDIS, he does face the dilemma of taking Erimem away before she is crowned and either creating history or damaging it. But in the end, Erimem leaves in the TARDIS and becomes a new companion, bringing the TARDIS crew up to three. There is almost an instant bond between Peri and Erimem, as if they were sisters, which will of course lead to joint efforts at teasing the Doctor, but that's all in the future.

So the real question is, though, is the gap between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani really wide enough to support an extra "season" as it were, including an extra companion who will eventually have to go? Would this have been a good idea to add a companion to the crew with the Doctor and Nyssa while Tegan was absent from the TARDIS crew; it would be more readily acceptable maybe as they were separated for the length of time between two seasons, not just rammed in the gap between two episodes. Somewhere along the line in the future, other Doctors will be meeting other non-televised companions but they will not generate half the comment that Erimem's presence does to this day. Well, maybe one will but that will be more about why he is even part of the cast and the motives of the production team behind hiring him.

I like Erimem. It's good that Peri has someone else in the TARDIS as a friend as she travels with the Doctor, although how there will be such a bond between them and then it never gets mentioned again in the regular series is going to be interesting, and not something that can be readily fixed, even by the retcon fans. Erimem has the distinction of being the first character from a distinct period of Earth history since Victoria Waterfield, although this will change should anyone decide to pen a tale about the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion and Will ... no, I don't think they will. Erimem is also the first non-white companion, even though she is played by Caroline Morris, who is white, and Erimem is never actually seen by the audience.

Can the TARDIS handle a crew of three again? Can the Doctor handle Erimem's evil cat? Interesting.

NEXT EPISODE : THE CHURCH AND THE CROWN

Red Dawn

The Doctor wants to take Peri to alien worlds now that she is travelling with him in the TARDIS, and their first stop is a cold apparantly dead world. The planet is actually Mars, and while the Doctor and Peri explore within the structure they have landed, overhead an expedition from Earth is making final descent for the first time since the Mars Probe visit of 1970. Once the humans arrive it becomes obvious that some of them are not here on a benign mission of exploration, and as that happens, a group of Ice Warriors emerges from hibernation to defend their world.

It's nice to see the Ice Warriors back in action. Well, see being a relative term. The sad truth is the Ice Warriors made their final televised appearance in The Monster of Peladon and even now in this new age of Doctor Who have yet to be seen. Choosing the silibant Martians as audio foes is a bit of a calculated risk as even on television their voices could sometimes dip below audible levels, but they manage to work this time, with their leader, Lord Zaal, evoking Alan Bennion's performances as Izlyr and Azaxyr in both of the Peladon stories.

The Doctor and Peri work well together for having just met, really. Peri is full of questions and sarcasm that the Doctor takes in stride as part of his "nice guy" demeanour. On television they hardly had any time together before things began to change, but Big Finish have given us the chance to see this relationship develop so that when we finally rejoin the Doctor and Peri's televised adventures (and it'll be a while as I mentioned before) it will seem as if they have been together a while.

The human supporting cast is the usual sort of thing we get in these tales: scared of the unknown, unprepared for what they do find, and one of them with a secret agenda that puts everyone in danger when it emerges. Mars continuity is maintained by referencing the events of The Ambassadors of Death and referring to it as the "Mars Probe fiasco", wherein the public was spared the truth of events and told that the project had indeed failed. Turns out, it hadn't, and while the landing party met some Ambassadors from another world, they did indeed discover relics from the civilzation of the Ice Warriors which in turn spurred this landing expedition.

I've only got one tiny beef with this one, and it's the episode length. While the rest of the episodes in Big Finish so far have stuck to the established length of televised episodes as a guideline, one episode of Red Dawn clocks in at just under the 19 minute mark. Okay, only four minutes shy of the usual, you may say, but let me tell you when your day consists of a cramped ride on the 44 Kipling South to Lakeshore you need all the Doctor Who you can get your hands on to keep sane...

NEXT EPISODE : THE EYE OF THE SCORPION