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| Caroline Morris |
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 Name: Erimemushinteperem, AKA Erimem.
Format:
Audio and Book.
Time of Origin: Ancient Egypt, 1400 BC.
Appearances: "The
Eye of the Scorpion" to "The
Bride of Peladon".
Doctor: Fifth
Doctor.
Fellow
Companions:
Peri Brown.
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The Eye of the Scorpion
(Iain McLaughlin) |
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History: Erimem easily marks one of The Doctor’s most interesting companions,
particularly since she came close to playing a prominent role in
old Earth history before she began to travel with The Doctor. Originating
from Ancient Egypt, Erimem was forced to take the role of Pharaoh
after her three half-brothers died in various accidents and her father
was killed by mercenaries while out riding, but was faced with various
debates among the priests about her worthiness to take the throne
that could easily develop into a split, the danger being made more
prominent with assassins trying to kill Erimem in the name of the ‘true
heir’. Having befriended The Doctor and Peri when they landed
in Egypt and saved her from an assassin, Erimem provided them with
aid in defeating an alien prisoner of pure consciousness that had
been released from a stasis cell by a group of mercenaries after
it had crash-landed on Earth, the clash between the mercenaries and
Erimem’s army forcing the entity to retreat into a single body,
giving The Doctor the chance to permanently contain the entity with
a telepathic inhibitor. However, shaken by the death that she had
been forced to cause - and with another heir having been discovered
in the form of the previously unknown son of Erimem’s father
and a concubine -, Erimem decided that she could never be a good
Pharaoh now, Peri suggesting that she accompany them in the TARDIS to pursue her interest in learning new things without worrying about
being recognised in the present ("The
Eye of the Scorpion").
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The Kingmaker
(Nev Fountain) |
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Unhappy and uncomfortable about the worship and fear
she received as Pharaoh, Erimem often wished she could simply walk among
her people without being treated as though she possessed a divinity she
herself didn’t feel, a fact that doubtless contributed to her decision
to join The Doctor and Peri in their travels and thus escape to a world
where people would not recognise her wherever she went. Despite her desire
for anonymity, Erimem regularly proved herself to be an able military commander
and combatant, demonstrating a talent for sword-fighting on more than one
occasion and recognising the importance of information to any military
campaign (Although she still had a short temper at times, once breaking
a man’s arm when he simply grabbed her bottom ("The
Kingmaker")).
Even before she came in contact with The Doctor, Erimem’s talents
were not limited to the battlefield, as she demonstrated such skills as
the ability to make a healing salve from natural ingredients found in her
home time. Even after leaving her culture, Erimem remained attached to
Egypt, expressing anger at the perceived disrespect to her culture when
she and Peri visited an Egyptian-themed casino exhibition in the 1960s
("The
Veiled Leopard"), although she still assisted Peri in more
modern cultural endeavours such as helping her set up a Christmas tree
to try and unify a colony on the brink of war ("Far Away in a Manger").
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The Church and the Crown
(Cavan Scott and Mark Wright) |
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Her military skills were seen in her first meeting
with The Doctor when she led her armies into battle against the mercenaries
to help The Doctor find a weapon he needed to defeat the telepathic entity
plaguing her people, and continued to play an important part in her travels.
In her first trip in the TARDIS, upon arriving in seventeenth-century France,
Erimem not only played an important part in allowing The Doctor to enter
a royal ball thrown by the King of France by using her regal bearing to
convince the King that he should have invited her even if he hadn’t
heard of her, but subsequently inspired and lead a combined force of both
King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu's guards against the English forces
of the Duke of Buckingham despite being centuries out of her time and depth
("The
Church and the Crown"). Although her primitive background
meant that even such simple things as windows or ice could amaze her, Erimem
nevertheless regularly showed an ability to adapt to the challenges her
new life presented her with, such as deducing that a cell she had been
sent to via a malfunctioning transmat system must have a more manual means
of gaining access when such an idea had simply never occurred to her ‘cellmates’ after
they had been forced to stay in their room for years due to the lack of
space on their colony ("Three’s
a Crowd").
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The Axis of Insanity
(Simon Furman) |
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Like many primitive companions, Erimem tended
to translate unusual occurrences into terms that she could understand,
although she still had trouble with some ideas. This was particularly apparent
when she was surprised at the discovery that The Doctor and the TARDIS
were not as unique as she had initially assumed when they encountered a
dead Time Lord in a sub-dimension known as the Axis where dead-end timelines
were brought to prevent them causing damage to reality, although she still
had the courage to confront insane shapeshifter Jarro To when he tried
to steal the TARDIS while disguised as The Doctor, even realising that
he had stolen The Doctor’s TARDIS because the TARDIS belonging to
the last Time Lord to visit the Axis was so well-disguised by its chameleon
circuit that he couldn’t find it ("The
Axis of Insanity").
Her belief in the gods of her time was generally ambiguously portrayed,
once claiming that she didn’t believe in them while on another occasion
suggesting that she and Peri kill themselves while they were being held
prisoner in the Tower of London so that they could move on to the next
stage of their spiritual existence ("The Kingmaker"), or comparing
a Khellian to the Egyptian crocodile-god Sobek (Although she was nevertheless
still willing to attack a Khellian general when he threatened to eat her
and The Doctor). ("Three’s a Crowd"). Although she was
once nearly tricked into allowing the Great Old Ones, a powerful race of
beings who posed as dark gods an opportunity to gain access to Earth -
the creatures creating illusions of Erimem’s father and The Doctor
to give the impression that it was Erimem’s destiny to unleash these
creatures, having been sealed in a pyramid of ice by her father when he
realised their power -, Erimem’s strength of will proved to be powerful
enough to allow her to resist their influence, The Doctor later expressing
confidence that she could overcome the trauma of these events after the
Old Ones had been sealed away once more ("The
Roof of the World").
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The Council of Nicaea
(Caroline Symcox) |
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Reflecting
her time’s original belief in sacred animals, Erimem also demonstrated
a high opinion of some of the animals they encountered in their travels,
such as believing that her cat chose to sacrifice himself to serve as the
new lodestone for a machine that could have caused reality to collapse
with the removal of its original lodestone ("Nekromanteia").
She was also willing to learn beyond the limitations of her time, accepting
Peri’s lessons about how to read even if she couldn’t quite
understand some of the texts she was reading, such as Alice in Wonderland ("The Axis of Insanity") or The
Hunting of the Snark ("The
Roof of the World"). Demonstrating an open mind, Erimem was even known
to stand up to The Doctor on issues that she felt were important, such
as defending a man’s right to a contradicting religious point of
view to her own to the point of vowing to remain in that time even after
The Doctor threatened to depart due to the risks of them changing history
("The
Council of Nicaea").
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| Peter Davison, Nicola Bryant and Caroline
Morris |
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However,
the fundamentally harsher attitude of her time was keenly reflected in
her willingness to accept some of the more ruthless practises she witnessed
during her travels than her companions so long as they were done for the
right reasons, such as when she was comparatively casual about a group
of witches sacrificing an archaeologist who’d attempted to steal
a powerful artefact that they had been guarding for centuries on the grounds
that it was the right thing to do according to the witches (Although it
should be noted that the removal of the artefact nearly caused the collapse
of the space-time continuum, making its safety understandably important
to the witches) ("Nekromanteia"). When she and Peri were briefly
trapped in 1483 due to the TARDIS malfunctioning, she expressed a willingness
to kill the young Princes in the Tower when Peri was horrified at the idea,
Erimem later suggesting that she and Peri kill themselves to escape having
to serve as the ‘decoy’ Princes for the rest of their lives
(Although she later claimed that she was merely joking after realising
the horror with which Peri regarded that idea) ("The Kingmaker").
However, her most controversial action in the eyes of her fellow companions
was her near-marriage to Prince Vlad III, the historical inspiration for
Count Dracula - albeit partly to protect The Doctor and Peri from being
punished for the damage they had done trying to infiltrate Dracula’s
palace to ‘rescue’ her -, Erimem actually coming to admire
Dracula’s more noble qualities despite the brutal methods he used
to enforce them before they parted company after Dracula’s brother
led a revolt against him that forced Dracula to retreat back to Transylvania
("Son
of the Dragon").
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The Bride of Peladon
(Barnaby Edwards) |
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Although
Erimem still enjoyed her travels with The Doctor and Peri,
a hallucination she experienced when a parasitic plant tried
to bond with her prompted
her to realise that she still considered it her destiny
to be a ruler, even if she wanted to rule because of her
skills rather than just inherit
the position automatically ("The
Mind’s Eye"). Erimem finally
left The Doctor and Peri’s company during a visit to Peladon ("The
Bride of Peladon"), a world that had been particularly dear to
The Doctor ever since he had first visited it in his
third
incarnation ("The
Curse of Peladon"), Erimem even forming a bond with a newly-discovered
female Aggedor that had survived the death of her mate during
The Doctor’s
last visit ("The
Monster of Peladon"). Having helped The Doctor
defeat a renegade Osiran -
a race who had inspired the gods of Egypt in Earth’s distant past
("Pyramids
of Mars") - who had been
trapped on Peladon by her peers, Erimem decided to remain
on Peladon, recognising that she could relate to its traditions
and society and feeling that she
could help the new king Pelleas become the ruler he had
the potential to be. Although Peri felt that Erimem was
being too hasty, The Doctor accepted
that Erimem had made her choice, and even Peri expressed
confidence that Erimem would make a great queen as they
departed.
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