The Harvest (audio story)

The Harvest
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Ace, Hex
Main enemy:	Cybermen, Farrer, David Garnier
Main setting:	London, October 2021
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Dan Abnett
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	Gary Russell, Jason Haigh-Ellery
Music:	David Darlington
Sound:	David Darlington
Cover by:	Lee Binding
Release details
Release number:	58
Release date:	26 June 2004
Format:	4 Episodes on 2 CDs; Download
Production code:	7W
ISBN:	ISBN 1-84435-096-7
Main Range
← Previous	Arrangements for War
Next →	The Roof of the World
Production order
← Previous	Medicinal Purposes
Next →	The Juggernauts

The Harvest was the fifty-eighth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Dan Abnett and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Sophie Aldred as Ace and introduced Philip Olivier as companion, Hex.

It was the Seventh Doctor's entry in a loose trilogy of stories surrounding an attempted Cyberman invasion of Earth, further detailed in The Gathering and The Reaping.

Publisher's summary

On the morning of 12 October 2021, Hex woke up. He was expecting to go to work at St. Gart's in London as normal and, that evening, have a great time in the bar of the White Rabbit, celebrating his 23rd birthday.

But after his ex-flatmate is wheeled into A&E following a bike accident, and the strange young woman from Human Resources tries to chat him up and an eight-foot-tall guy in a Merc tries to run him down, Hex realises things are not going quite as he expected.

Then in a Shoreditch car park he meets the enigmatic Doctor, who explains that he's an extra-terrestrial investigator and something very strange is going on up on the thirty-first floor of St. Gart's.

Therefore, aided and abetted by the Doctor, and his other new friend, 'Just McShane', Hex decides to investigate. Trouble is, everything that goes on at the hospital is being observed and noted by the occupants of the thirty-first floor; occupants who are none too pleased that people are poking their noses into business that doesn't concern them; occupants who will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that no one discovers the truth...

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
• Ace - Sophie Aldred
• Hex - Philip Olivier
• Subject One - William Boyde
• Doctor Farrer - Richard Derrington
• David Garnier - David Warwick
• Doctor Mathias - Paul Lacoux
• System - Janie Booth
• Polk - Mark Donovan

References

Individuals

• Ace tells Hex that she has been travelling with the Doctor "for a surprisingly long time."

Locations

• Hex was educated at Aigburth, Merseyside and obtained his nursing degree from Middlesex.
• St. Gart's Brookside Hospital belongs to the Euro Combine Health Administration.
• By 2021, Totter's Lane is a commercially zoned area of Shoreditch which is mostly made up of office blocks. A car park has been built on the former location of I.M. Foreman's junkyard.

Notes

Comic preview from DWM 344.

Textless cover art

• Hex was the first companion of the Seventh Doctor to be created by Big Finish Productions.
• Although the Doctor discovers that Hex is the son of Cassie Schofield in this story, this information was not revealed to the audience until AUDIO: Thicker Than Water, which was first released in September 2005.
• Both this story and its prequel AUDIO: The Gathering take place on the relevant companion's birthday. 12 October 2021 is Hex's twenty-third birthday and 22 September 2006 is Tegan Jovanka's forty-sixth birthday.
• An illustrated preview by Martin Geraghty appeared in DWM 344.
• Hex's status as the Seventh Doctor's latest companion was foreshadowed in He Jest at Scars..., which was released in September 2003. In the story, the Valeyard tells Melanie Bush the names of various companions with whom the Doctor might have travelled. Aside from Ace and Hex, they included Peri Brown, Evelyn Smythe, Charley Pollard and C'rizz.
• This audio drama was recorded on 30 and 31 March 2004 at The Moat Studios.
• This was the only main range story to be released in 2004 to feature the Seventh Doctor.
• This story was originally released on CD. It is now available as a download only.

Continuity

• The Doctor has a sonic screwdriver. (PROSE: The Pit, Blood Heat) He lost it in TV: The Visitation.
• The Fifth Doctor and his former companion Tegan Jovanka were involved in the circumstances surrounding System's creation in Brisbane, Australia on 22 September 2006. (AUDIO: The Gathering)
• Presumably, the White Rabbit bar where Hex has his birthday party, is the same "White Rabbit" on the Embankment, which Mrs van Gysegham's late husband had owned prior to his death in 1977. The Doctor had visited it at least once by the time of his sixth incarnation. (AUDIO: The Reaping) Ace would later meet Henry Noone in the White Rabbit on several occasions between June and August 2027. (AUDIO: A Death in the Family)
• The Doctor discovers that Hex is in actuality "Little Tommy," the son of Cassie Schofield, whom he and his companion Evelyn Smythe met in AUDIO: Project: Twilight and AUDIO: Project: Lazarus. He would later reveal this information to Evelyn in AUDIO: Thicker Than Water. Having previously observed him from a distance in AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor, Evelyn would eventually meet Hex in AUDIO: A Death in the Family.
• The Doctor refers to the fact that he witnessed the creation of the Cybermen on Mondas. (AUDIO: Spare Parts)
• Ace tells that Hex to warn her when "it gets all eyestalks and sink plungers" and then to "run like hell." (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks; AUDIO: The Genocide Machine)
• In the far future, radio and television broadcasts concerning St. Gart's Hospital could be accessed via the Gogglebox inside the Moon. (AUDIO: The Reaping, The Gathering)
• The Harvest also exists as the final part of a trilogy comprising: The Reaping, The Gathering and The Harvest. This was retroactively done by Joseph Lidster.

External links

• Official The Harvest page at bigfinish.com
• The Harvest at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for The Harvest at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide