The Reaping (audio story)

The Reaping (audio story)

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The Reaping
Doctor:	[[doctor::Sixth Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Peri Brown
Main enemy:	Cybermen
Main setting:	Earth, USA, Baltimore, September, 28th, 1984
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Joseph Lidster
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	David Darlington
Release details
Release number:	86
Release date:	September 2006
Format:	2 Episodes on 2 CDs
Production code:	6Z/C
ISBN:	ISBN 1-84435-196-3

The Reaping was a 2006 Big Finish Productions audio story featuring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant.

It was notable for featuring significant details about Peri's life in Baltimore, Maryland, and was, at least from the perspective of Peri's mother, a direct sequel to DW: Planet of Fire. It also began a loose trilogy featuring a "future", time-traveling band of Mondasian Cybermen that had some commonality with the Cybus Industries Cybermen that had recently been featured in the BBC Wales version of Doctor Who.

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.

Cast

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

References

• Miami Vice is name-checked as a television show that was "new" to the Chambers family.

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.
• 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.
• The mondasion cybermen make a brief appearance, commander Zheng is mentioned (Spare Parts).

Continuity

• This story is resolved by the solution to The Tenth Planet – the destruction of Mondas. The original Cybermen of that story are briefly used.
• Janine Foster, Peri's mother, is both introduced and killed in this story. The young Katherine Chambers is also introduced here, who goes on to be the central guest character in The Gathering.
• Peri departs the TARDIS for an unspecified period of time — but it's long enough to re-enroll in university. She rejoins the Doctor when her mother is murdered. There is no indication that she had any contact with the Doctor between leaving and rejoining him.
• The Gogglebox —a vast library system inside the Moon — was introduced here, later seen in The Gathering.
• The virus the Cyberman intented to use had the ability to turn flesh into metal. A similar virus appears in VG:Blood of the Cybermen, and Realtime.

File:The Reaping comic preview.png

Comic preview from Doctor Who Magazine issue 373. Illustration by Martin Geraghty.

Timeline

The Reaping had a complicated timeline. Different characters experienced it in different ways.

• For Janine Foster (and Mrs. van Gysegham), it occured after DW: Planet of Fire and before The Gathering.
• For the Sixth Doctor, this story occurs after BFA: ...ish and before MA: State of Change.
• For Peri, it occurs before the Fifth Doctor adventure BFA: The Gathering and Peri's experiences in The Veiled Leopard, two adventures that occurred simultaneously.
• From the Doctor and Peri's perspective, relative to adventures featuring the Cybermen, it occurred after Attack of the Cybermen and The Tenth Planet —but for Earth's inhabitants, it occurred before.

External links

• Official The Reaping page at bigfinish.com
• The Reaping at the Doctor Who Reference Guide