Ok Big Finish I get it,
you’re emulating the New Adventures and characters in those novels don’t always
appear. That’s great. It really is and the stories of this Box Set
really are, but, and this is a pretty big but, stop crediting Sophie Aldred on
the front of the case when she barely appears in this audio. She isn’t staring, she’s supporting in this
one. That said, Ace’s role in this audio
is done really well as she plays the background role while Benny is the one
doing a lot of things in the audio to get through the story. The story from James Goss who wrote the
excellent The Lights of Skaro from
the first Box Set and comes back to write the third installment in this Box
Set.
The story by James Goss
is actually similar not to anything that the New Adventures would really do,
but similar to something really that the New Series would do. Take an hour long episode, put its focus on a
historical event, and add some science fiction elements. There’s your story right there and James Goss
does this masterfully taking the audience back to Ancient Egypt really to see
how the Osirians influenced Egyptian mythology and culture. It takes us to the reign of Hatshepsut where
the Doctor, who of course has amnesia because he’s implanted his memories into
the Pharaoh’s brain. Benny arrives after
the events of The Vault of Osiris to
find herself wrapped up in political drama as the Pharaoh’s son Tutmosis is
going through stress as his stepmother has kept the throne. He of course goes out into the desert on the
east side of the Nile where Sutekh is as an old man and basically ends the
reign of Hatshepsut.
What strikes you about
the plot of this part of the box set is that Big Finish actually brought in a
specialist to do a lot of fact checking the production. Yes this fictional account of the downfall of
a Pharaoh had a fact checker on hand to correct mistakes and to be honest how
easy it was to fit in the Doctor and Benny into the historical events almost
makes you wonder. I don’t know what
about, but it makes you wonder. Goss’s
characterization of Hatshepsut as played by Sakuntala Ramanee comes across as
this mix of power hungry femme fatale and loving mother. A lot of the conflict surrounding her is
because there is miscommunication which is really the biggest flaw in the story. It comes across very much like it’s a sitcom
plotline but at least composer Steve Foxen doesn’t include a sad trombone in
the score, which is an attempt to emulates Ancient Egypt in a weird way. Hatshepsut also gets to be engaged to the
Seventh Doctor who is posing as her confidant from history, so that’s just
interesting to see the way she and McCoy play off each other. They both are great together and make the
relationship believable even if you can tell that the Doctor is just using her
as part of his latest master plan against Sutekh.
Tutmosis as played by
Matthew J. Morgan is also an interesting character to see as he is almost a
pawn in Hatshepsut’s own master plan to create Egypt as this sort of steampunk,
futuristic version where she rules the world.
Tutmosis is almost like an angry teen, but it is justified as the throne
should be his and as he is pretty young, it’s easy to see why he would be
influenced by Sutekh into destroying his stepmother’s work. Yes Sutekh is the actual villain of this
story and does it very much in the way that he was in Pyramids of Mars where he is in the background until the very
end. The ending of this one really does
feel like the Doctor has lost and Sutekh is going to destroy the world which is
very bleak.
Benny also gets to have
another chance in the spotlight in this audio as she has to be the one to
figure everything out. The Doctor really
isn’t any help to Benny in this story as he’s got amnesia and she’s the one
trying to further his master plan. The
conflict comes because she isn’t in on the plan and is trying to find a needle
in a stack of needles that all look identical as well as trying to keep the
stack intact so it can be carted off to its own life. Yeah this is a great performance from Lisa
Bowerman as Benny is lauded as a goddess and is trying to get everything on
track, but she just keeps failing. It’s
really good and Handcock directs the entire cast really well, more on that in
the next one.
To summarize, The Eye of Horus, while not having
anything to do with the actual eye of Horus as seen in Doctor Who, is a great
story. It works at setting up the
conclusion to the box set while giving us some explanation to the characters of
the story it wants to tell. There are
problems with some of the story feeling too much like a sitcom and Ace really
not appearing in this one much, but it does a lot to keep the tensions high in
preparation for a conclusion. 90/100
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