The Reaping (audio story)

The Reaping
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Peri
Featuring:	Kathy, Nate, Zheng
Main enemy:	Cyber-Leader
Main setting:	Fell's Point, Baltimore, 24 September 1984
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Joseph Lidster
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	Gary Russell, Jason Haigh-Ellery
Music:	David Darlington
Sound:	David Darlington
Cover by:	Lee Binding
Release details
Number of parts:	2
Release number:	86
Release date:	18 September 2006
Format:	2 CDs Download
Production code:	6Z/C
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-196-1
Main Range
← Previous	Red
Next →	The Gathering
Production order
← Previous	The Kingmaker
Next →	The Nowhere Place

The Reaping was the eighty-sixth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Joseph Lidster and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.

It was the Sixth Doctor's entry in a loose trilogy of Cyberman stories, which began in the Seventh Doctor story The Harvest and was concluded in the Fifth Doctor story The Gathering.

It was notable for featuring significant details about Peri's life in Baltimore, Maryland. It was, from the perspective of Peri's mother Janine Foster, a direct sequel to Planet of Fire.

Publisher's summary

On the morning of 9 May 1984, Peri woke up. She was expecting to spend the day relaxing in Lanzarote and, that evening, leave her mother and stepfather to go travelling with some guys she'd only just met.

But things don't always go as expected­ as her friends and family discover when, four months later, she returns home having travelled further than anyone could have imagined.

Meanwhile her friend, Katherine Chambers, mourns her father and Peri finds herself meeting some other familiar faces.

Plot

Part one

The Doctor takes Peri to the Gogglebox beneath the surface of the Moon where she chooses to view the news from 1984 America to see what is going on. Unimpressed by her request, the Doctor goes to find an important book he vaguely remembers leaving at the Gogglebox whilst Peri is plugged into a booth by Alan-56 and distressed to learn of the murder of Anthony Chambers. She gets Alan-32 to take her to the Doctor and tearfully begs him to take her home to see Janine, her mother, and Kathy, her best friend and Mr Chambers's daughter, at the funeral in Baltimore in September 1984. The Doctor wanders off to give Peri the chance to reunite with her mother, but Janine is dismissive.

Pretending to have met Mrs Van Gysegham in Lanzarote, the Doctor learns from her that the homeless man arrested for the murder, Daniel Woods, denies responsibility and is too old to have overpowered Mr Chambers and snapped his neck. She gives him a lift to the wake, but he implies mid-journey that he is part of British Intelligence and has her drive him to the police station in Fell's Point where Woods is being held. Lt Doyle allows him to see Woods despite him being unable to prove his identity and Woods tells him about how he saw a silver man kill Mr Chambers.

Peri breaks down at Mr Chambers's grave and heads to the wake where she asks after Howard, learning that his and Janine's marriage broke down after she accused him of being responsible for Peri's disappearance in Lanzarote.

The Doctor breaks Woods out of jail upon discovering the police department is being controlled by an alien source.

Local TV news reporter Natalie Woods secures an interview with Lt Doyle and succumbs to the same malign influence affecting the police department. They put out a broadcast accusing the Doctor and Woods of being escaped murderers, imploring viewers to "be like us" and remain indoors.

Peri, her mother Janine, and Chambers' children Kathy and Nate find a video cassette which appears to show Chambers prophesying his own death.

The Doctor and Woods go to the graveyard where Woods claims he witnessed Chambers being murdered by a "silver ghost."

After being joined by Peri, Janine, Kathy and Nate, a sound is heard coming from Chambers' freshly placed coffin. To their horror, Chambers bursts from his coffin, now converted into a Cyberman...

Part two

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
• Cybermen - Nicholas Briggs
• Mrs Van Gysegham - Denise Bryer
• Janine Foster - Claudia Christian
• Natalie Hamilton - Allison Karayanes
• Nate Chambers - Jeremy Lindsay-Taylor
• Anthony Chambers - Stuart Milligan
• Kathy Chambers - Jane Perry
• Daniel Woods - Vincent Pirillo
• Lt Doyle - John Schwab

Worldbuilding

Culture

• Through the Gogglebox, the Sixth Doctor stated that you could see the first television performance of the Pussycat Dolls, every Police Academy film and the film Battleship Potemkin.
• When talking to the Cyber-Leader, the Sixth Doctor does an impression of the 1970s British comedian and magician Tommy Cooper.
• When searching for identification, the Doctor finds tickets for the opening night of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in his pockets.
• The Doctor refers to George Orwell's novel 1984.

Individuals

• Ethel Merman was an actress who died in 1984.

Politics

• At an indeterminate point in the far future, though not before the 52nd century, the British monarchy was abolished and the last monarch was executed. Footage of that event could be viewed via the Gogglebox.

Species

• The Mondasian Cybermen seem familiar with the Anno Domini Gregorian calendar.

Gallery

• 

  Original cover art

• 

  Illustrated preview by Martin Geraghty from DWM 373

Notes

• The phrase "86, 87" may be a reference to the Big Finish number for this story (number 86) and that of The Gathering (number 87), both by Joseph Lidster.
• An illustrated preview by Martin Geraghty featured in DWM 373 for this story.
• The Cyber-Leader is from a point in the distant future where the Cybermen have gained time travel based on a combination of their own systems and Time Lord technology.
• Commander Zheng, one of the earliest Mondasian Cybermen who was introduced in AUDIO: Spare Parts, returns for a brief cameo appearance towards the end of the story. He is depicted as still being operational in September 1984.
• Besides the Doctor, Kathy and Nathaniel Chambers are the only characters to appear in both this story and AUDIO: The Gathering.
• The cover-art and some of the dialogue in the story suggests that Peri is attired in the same outfit she would wear in Mindwarp.
• The death of Janine Foster at the conclusion of this story may be the catalyst for the softening of the relationship between the Sixth Doctor and Peri, as seen in stories such as The Mysterious Planet.
• This audio drama was recorded on 20 and 21 March 2006 at the Moat Studios.
• This story is set between Revelation of the Daleks and The Trial of a Time Lord.
• This story was originally released on CD and download. It is now available as a download only.

Continuity

• Throughout the story, the Doctor wonders why people are saying "8687". As revealed in The Gathering, this was his fifth incarnation trying to jog his memory about his reunion with Tegan Jovanka at a bar called the 8687, so that he could do his best to save Nathaniel Chambers. Unfortunately, his plan did not work.
• The opening broadcasts refer to the launch of the British airship R101 in October 1930, (AUDIO: Storm Warning) the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy; TV: Rose), the dawn of the year 2000, (TV: Doctor Who) the first manned mission to Mars in the 2000s, (AUDIO: Red Dawn) St Gart's Hospital, (AUDIO: The Harvest) the 2012 Olympic Games in London (AUDIO: Frozen Time; TV: Fear Her, Good as Gold) and the beginning of World War V in the 49th century (AUDIO: Singularity; TV: The Unquiet Dead).
• Peri had previously requested that the Doctor take her home to Baltimore to let her family know that she was alright but the TARDIS accidentally materialised aboard the USS Eldridge on 26 October 1943. (AUDIO: The Macros)
• The Doctor and Peri previously visited the Moon in 1872. (AUDIO: The First Sontarans)
• Peri mentions almost drowning by Howard Foster's hand the day that she left with the Doctor. This led to the collapse of Howard and Janine Foster's marriage. (TV: Planet of Fire)
• This story is resolved by the events of TV: The Tenth Planet, specifically the destruction of Mondas in December 1986. The original Mondasians of that story are briefly used.
• Janine and Dominique van Gysegham met and became friends while they were both visiting Lanzarote in May 1984. (TV: Planet of Fire)
• The Doctor intends to bring Peri to the Ice Caves of Shabadabadon but the TARDIS instead materialises in the Gogglebox inside the Moon in the far future. His previous attempted to reach the Ice Caves had likewise resulted in the TARDIS materialising in the then newly opened Gogglebox. On that occasion, the Fifth Doctor met Alan-56's progenitor Alan Fitzgerald. (AUDIO: The Gathering) The Eighth Doctor would eventually visit the Ice Caves in the company of Samson and Gemma Griffin. (AUDIO: Terror Firma)
• The Doctor comments that 1984 is "never as good as the book." His eighth incarnation would later meet the novel's author George Orwell in Spain during its civil war in 1937. (PROSE: History 101)
• The fact that the Doctor cannot remember meeting Peri's stepfather Professor Howard Foster on Lanzarote on 9 May 1984 (TV: Planet of Fire) may be designed to foreshadow his inability to remember meeting Kathy Chambers in Brisbane, Australia in September 2006 earlier in his personal timeline. (AUDIO: The Gathering)
• The White Rabbit pub on the Embankment, that Mrs Van Gysegham's late husband once owned, is possibly the same "White Rabbit" where the Seventh Doctor's companion Hex would later have his 23rd birthday party on 12 October 2021. (AUDIO: The Harvest) Furthermore, Ace would later meet Henry Noone in the White Rabbit on several occasions between May and August 2027. (AUDIO: A Death in the Family)
• Peri and Kathy reminisce about an embarrassing incident involving their high school classmate Candy which occurred at their senior prom. Peri had previously told her former travelling companion Erimem the same story. (AUDIO: The Veiled Leopard)
• The virus that the Cyberman intended to use had the ability to turn flesh into metal. A similar virus appears in both GAME: Blood of the Cybermen and WC: Real Time.
• The television interview with Lt. Doyle, who is under the control of the Cybermen, in which he states that "the vagrant charged with the brutal murder of father of two Anthony Chambers has escaped. He is believed to be still in the Fell's Point neighbourhood and is on the run with an accomplice known only as 'the Doctor'" is picked up by the Fifth Doctor while he is investigating unusual energy signatures which appear throughout Earth's history. Based on this evidence, he determines that his future self is already in Baltimore in 1984 and therefore decides to travel to the location of the next energy spike, namely Brisbane, Australia in September 2006, where he is reunited with his former companion Tegan Jovanka. (AUDIO: The Gathering)
• Peri refers to her first meeting with the Fifth Doctor and Turlough (TV: Planet of Fire) and the circumstances surrounding the Doctor's most recent regeneration. (TV: The Caves of Androzani) The Sixth Doctor would later claim to have experienced problems with his memory since that regeneration, (AUDIO: Peri and the Piscon Paradox) which could account for the fact that he does not recognise Kathy on this occasion in spite of having met her future self earlier in his personal timeline. (AUDIO: The Gathering)
• The Doctor mentions that he has visited Earth's prehistory on several occasions. (TV: An Unearthly Child, City of Death, Time-Flight)

External links

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