Eye of the Scorpion can be said to pay homage to every decade which preceded its production. Whether by accident or design it featured elements which belong to distinct decades of Doctor Who. That isn't to dismiss it as an unoriginal piece of work, rather to explain why it feels both comfortably familiar and yet disconcertingly anachronistic.

The nineteen sixties was the golden age of the historical story. They briefly visited ancient Egypt in The Daleks Masterplan but that was a generic Egypt, unlike the significant points in Europe's history which were featured in such stories as the Reign of Terror or the Time Meddler. An Aztecs style piece on the culture of ancient Egypt could've been good though one shudders at how many times Billy would've fluffed "Erimem". I suppose "my dear" would've sufficed. They also revisited the idea of the young girl taken out of time. It took them all of ten minutes to give up on Katarina and condemn her to a then-unique fate while in these more sophisticated times the producers feel confident that they can cope with the obvious problems that it creates.

It also features an entire episode - the second - which doesn't feature the Doctor. Scratched by a poisoned blade, the Timelord goes off camera to let the poison worth its way through his system. Peter Davison doesn't sound tanned and rested when he returns in part three so we can safely assume it wasn't a cover story for him to spend a pleasant weekend in Brighton or Blackpool.

Peri's speech to Erimem about women being the equals of men was pure Sarah Jane Smith. One could almost smell the musk of Aggedor as she gave the young Pharaoh in waiting a good old women's lib lecture. It was about as 1970s as you can get without the visual possibilities of comical trousers and hilarious shoes. Maybe it sounds so jarring to our youthful ears because we "know" that what Peri is saying is true. It's something people of our age have grown up knowing without having to have it explained to us.

The action packed chariot escapade in part one would've been right up Pertwee's street. No Doctor before or since would've been able to carry it off with such panache. Tom would probably have managed to lasso the runaways with his scarf and Sylv would've somehow talked them into stopping but only Pertwee would've jumped into a chariot and raced after the helpless Erimem.

The eighties' influence is more obvious - Peri and the Doctor hail from that decade after all. But one reference in particular - to Margaret Thatcher - smacks of crude eighties Britishness. If Peri really is from 1984 then she, as an American, would almost certainly have a positive impression of the Iron Lady. Besides, how many other examples of the type of strong female leader that Peri was talking about come instantly to mind? This sort of trendy right-on joke was already being mocked as long ago as the Young Ones so the author has no excuse unless it was a really complicated post modern early eighties homage.

The cockney gangster villain is straight out of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels with his gruff voice and casual violence.  It is odd to ponder how some contemporary accents are ok for foreign characters to have and others aren't. I thought he sounded like Brian Croucher but then I thought one of the others sounded like Don "Rassilon" Warrington so what do my ears know?

And isn't the whole mind-parasite storyline a bit New Adventurey? On TV it would've been a rubber alien or a Carry On star behind the mucking about with history but in a more sophisticated decade they offer a more sophisticated solution. Except that it is a mind parasite which is transmitted by touch which is silly. How can something pass from mind to mind just because you have physical contact with a person? I suppose on audio they don't have the problem that a TV production would've had where no one on the production side would've bothered to make sure there was no "unauthorised" touching.