The Veiled Leopard

It's Monte Carlo in 1966 and the Doctor has left Peri and Erimem on their own to carry out a mission for him: they are to make sure that the famous Veiled Leopard diamond does not get stolen from a costume ball. An out of character move for the Doctor to assign them this sort of task, but it gets more complicated when two other guests, also sent by the Doctor - but his future self - arrive to steal it. Will it be Peri and Erimem vs Ace and Hex, or is it all part of the same agenda?

The Veiled Leopard is one of those fun freebie adventures made by Big Finish and given away with copies of Doctor Who Magazine, but for something that is free it's still given the proper production values as if it was something they were selling along with the rest of the line. The performances are very professional as always, although at times the sorority sister antics of Peri and Erimem start to get a bit ... silly. All that giggling. Bah.

What's interesting here is we have the fifth Doctor's companions on collision course with two of the seventh Doctor's friends; when listened to in a historical perspective it's all fine and dandy but from, say, the first time listener's point of view this could be a bit confusing. Ace will not actually join the show until the season finale for 1987, and Hex is a character created just for the Big Finish line, much like Erimem. But the play is done in such a way that the two sides never come into direct conflict; they pass each other in hallways or maybe overhear each other's conversations across rooms but never realize who the other pair are.

Because of the way I am doing this I have never heard a play with Philip Oliver as Hex before, so this actually serves as my own introduction to him. How do I like him? Well for starters I know what Olivier looks like, so I am not having and trouble imagining him side by side with Sophie Aldred as Ace. His accent takes a bit of getting used to; he's actually a nursing student from what we would consider "current" time and he comes from somewhere called Mersey, I believe. So you have Ace's sort-of Cockney up against his... whatever it is. But I got it. For the most part. I'll just call it a teaser for later.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is busy with some business of his own; business that will bring him into collision with his past once more, and a bit of his future as well...

NEXT EPISODE : THE GATHERING

The Kingmaker

A visit from a robot collections agent from a publishing house in the future prmopts the Doctor to make a trip back in time; he is in default for delivery of a book he was contracted to write during his time in exile with UNIT. In doing so, however, the Doctor is separated across several years from Peri and Erimem who end up embroiled in the mystery of Richard III and who killed the two princes in the Tower of London. But there is an extra player in this game: another time traveller from the Doctor's past is present, stirring the pot with his own ideas and pushing Peri and Erimem further into the web of deceit. And the closer their circumstances bring them to the Doctor, the less their chances of being reuinted begin to seem...

There has been talk of this sort of story in the past, where the action is spread over two time periods and the characters communicate back and forth but do not cross paths again until the climax, and it works quite well in The Kingmaker. The premise of the Doctor writing under the pen name of "Doctor Who", though is a bit of a sticking point, but the concept is amusing, especially when the Dead Ringers cast provides the recorded voice of the fourth Doctor in recorded notes on history. And watch (or listen) for the cameo appearance of the ninth Doctor ... sort of.

The Kingmaker is played for laughs, a comedy in the midst of a lot of more serious, heavy adventures where terrible things happen to the TARDIS crew. There are planety of laughs and a reassertion of Erimem's character, although having her going around breaking arms of people who touch her bum seems a bit... silly. Especially after everything that has happened to her recently. Peri gets to the the resourceful one during the separation, and the Doctor wonders how he will ever escape the robot collection agent.

And no I am not going to say who the other time traveller is.

NEXT EPISODE : THE VEILED LEOPARD

The Council of Nicaea

In AD 325 in the city of Nicaea, theology, philosophy and politics are brought together for the first time in a council with delegates from the civilzed world attending. The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Peri, and Erimem as visitors and observers only, until Erimem finds herself swept up in the struggle of one man to be heard - a man history says will die, but a man Erimem swears to help live. The Doctor has always said that history cannot be rewritten, but he has also said that the future can be shaped - whose perspective will win out?

This is something I have always wondered about. In fact, it's something a lot of other people have been wondering about as well. The Doctor is always very keen to preserve the web of time where Earth and its history are concerned, but on other planets where he is an outsider, he topples regimes left and right without any mention of that planet's history or future or if what he is doing is the right thing. Here we have the same dilemma at last; Erimem knows nothing of the future of Earth, only that it has one and the fine details are something the Doctor gets to worry about, so without historical perspective it seems theoretically possible that she can indeed change things. Unlike Barbara's intentions in The Aztecs, Erimem is not acting to preserve an entire culture but to ensure that in her eyes justice is done for one man, and she comes perilously close to stepping into history and becoming a part of it.

The Doctor has never been at such direct odds with a companion before, even during the worst of his arguments with Tegan, and as such he doesn't use any of his Time Lord guile to have Erimem dealt with, but instead continuously attempts to reason with her and convince her he is right and she is wrong. And poor Peri, stuck in the middle, feels the heat from both sides although she does ultimately believe that the the Doctor is right and risks alienating Erimem from them once more. And you know... three adventures in a row Erimem is put through the wringer, you've got to wonder how much more of this she can take, royalty or not...

NEXT EPISODE : THE KINGMAKER

Blood and Hope

It's the American Civil War. The TARDIS had brought the Doctor, Peri and Erimem to the most turbulent time in American history, and within moments of their arrival they are separated; the Doctor falls in with the Northern army but the girls find themselves attempting to survive amongst the racist attutides of the Deep South. With family loyalites split on either side of the border, three strangers immediately draw suspicion, especially if one of them appears to be a slave with more freedom than she should...

It's amazing how the small novella format of Telos packs just as much of a punch as an entire televised or Big Finish adventure. Writers labouring under a tight format have to be mindful of keeping the plot simple yet entertaining, the characters developed but not overwhelming, and here Iain McLachlin succeeds. And as the first writer to bring Erimem to the series, he is faced with the challenge of adapting his own creation to a reverse circumstance; Erimem came into the series as a Pharoah with slaves of her own, and now she has to stay hidden and pretend to be a slave herself, even enduring the physical abuse that came with the role.

Brilliant. And fun. Great book. Read it.

NEXT EPISODE : THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA

Three's A Crowd

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Peri and Erimem to a space station in the future, and on the planet it orbits a new Earth colony is ready to begin. The trouble is, though, the colony is not going according to plan, and the people living there seldom venture out of their quarters; living in isolation has made it almost impossible for them to socialize without attacks of nerves. All this goes on under the watchful eye of the colony's leader, Auntie, but is Auntie also watching as the colonists are murdered by forces unknown?

Erimem is still suffering from the effects of her encounter with the anceint evils in the Himalayas, and it has made her distant from the Doctor and Peri. Peri wants Erimem to feel liek she is part of the crew again but as soon as they arrive on the colony the inevitible happens and Erimem is lost in a transmat cubicle and dropped on the colony. The Doctor doesn't pay as much heed to Erimem's personal issues as Peri feels he should, but after so many companions the Doctor may be used to their adjustments to life on board the TARDIS. And anyways, he has bigger things to worry about: big lizard people hunting down the colonists for sport. Auntie promises the people in her charge a return to their home planet now that the colony is folding, but their departure from the planet only delivers them into the hands of the hunters.

Auntie isn't evil. She's a woman trying to cope with an impossible situation; to defy the invaders outright will only bring about mass slaughter, but letting them be picked off one by one buys her time to hope for help to arrive. And it's not as if her robot, Butler, is much help, armed though he is. I'm thinking C3P0 on a caterpillar track. And white, for some reason.

Did I like Three's a Crowd? Yes. I believe I did - more for the characterizations and interplay of the regular TARDIS crew than anything else. It's been a while since I actually listened to it - and I am trying to get caught up here - and the one thing that stands out the most is just that; the TARDIS crew manage to heal their wounds and carry on. The last major blow to the dynamic was the death of Adric, and since then Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough and Kamelion have all left as matters of routine, the most marked of them being Tegan following her posession by the Mara (and maybe Kamelion seeing as he's dead), but Erimem's suffering and confusion brings some of the most human moments in the series to life - at least, in the series to date if we are to look at the Big Finish audios in their linear progressions with the rest of the show. The new series on TV right now takes these things farther and throws all new light on them - but we're not quite there yet...

NEXT EPISODE : BLOOD AND HOPE

The Roof of the World

The Doctor, Peri and Erimem arrive in Tibet in 1917 and the Doctor is invited to a cricket game held by English explorers and military personnel. High up in the Himalayas, though, and ancient evil is sitting waiting to awaken and resume a spree of destruction and terror it commenced centuries before being banished to this place. And as the TARDIS arrives, it senses its opportunity at last.

No, it's not another Great Intelligence story. I myself thought it might be what with the setting not being too far down the road from the old Det-Sen Monastary of The Abominable Snowmen, but no. In fact there's no reference to it at all, although the Doctor does drop the name of Lord Cranleigh from Black Orchid to smooth the way a bit with the English army.

What this story is, though, is a big character peice about Erimem, who is feeling a bit distant and traumatized by recent events. Peri is at least somewhat braced for her adventures with the Doctor due to her contemporary (insofar as 1984 can be contemporary when writing from a 2007 viewpoint) background, but for Erimem things are not always as easy to absorb or understand. Her cultural isolation from her companions makes her ripe for an attack by the disembodied force in the mountains, and it plays upon her feelings of abandonment and insignificanc, even convincing her that the Doctor and Peri feel relieved at the idea of being without her, when the reality of it is they are desperate to find her and bring her back to the fold.

Now I'll admit that I found the whole Erimem as fish-out-of-water a bit irritating after a while, but that's what happens when one tries to pack away a whole adventure every day and not space them out to an extent. As you can see by the date it's been quite a while since I blogged any of this - and for a time I considered stopping altogether but there's just something about Doctor Who that makes you want to talk about, it to write about it, to think about the characters and dig into what motivates them. Erimem's motivation is unique; in the eyes of her people she has trancended life itself and lives amongst the gods, but she knows that she is a mere mortal, as are her companions, and they deal with the god-like. What her destiny would have been if she had stayed on Earth is anyone's guess, and what it will ultimately be with the Doctor is a greater puzzle still, but her perspective on the TARDIS and her companions is unique as the only period companion since Victoria Waterfield.

For now, though, she does have a future. Of course the Doctor saves her. Of course they go on.

NEXT EPISODE : THREE'S A CROWD

The Axis of Insanity

The TARDIS is drawn to the Axis, a hub where damaged and twisted timelines are gathered and held in a perpetual loop. The Overseer of the Axis has been attacked and overthrown by one of the minds trapped in a dead timeline, and now the Jester sits upon his throne. The Doctor ventures into the twisted realm to help, and Peri and Erimem are soon drawn from the TARDIS as well, but the Jester proves to me more than he seems, and his plans stretch far beyond simple escape.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one. Another adventure where the TARDIS is operating outside of space and time as we know it, and for such an empty void it seems to be pretty full; the Toymaker, the Land of Fiction, and now this. I guess it's just a handy way to explain away things like shape-shifting and let some evil character seem formidable with the power to alter reality.

But Axis keeps alive the tradition of Erimem being separated from the Doctor and Peri and beat up. Yeah we get it... only the baddest of bad guys beat up girls.

NEXT EPISODE : THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

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