The Reaping (audio story)
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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 travelling 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 Sixth Doctor - Colin Baker
- Peri Brown - 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
- Dominique van Gysegham - Denise Bryer
- Natalie Hamilton - Allison Karaynes
- Cybermen / Commander Zheng / Alan-56 - Nicholas Briggs
References
- At an indeterminate point in the far future, the British monarchy was deposed and the last monarch was executed. Footage of that event could be viewed through the Gogglebox.
- 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. (EDA: History 101)
- In the scene based on Lanzarote on 9 May 1984, Janine asks Peri whether she has heard that the Soviet Union has withdrawn from the 1984 Olympic Games which are to be held in Los Angeles. This is consistent with the fact that, in reality, the USSR did so the previous day in response to the USA withdrawing from the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
- Advertising for the television series Miami Vice is heard whereas Nate Chambers describes it as "that new show" when attempting to distract the Cyberman which had been his father Anthony Chambers. In reality, the series premiered on NBC on 28 September 1984, the day that the majority of the events of The Reaping take place.
- The Mondasian Cybermen are seemingly familar with the Anno Domini Gregorian calendar as they understand the reference made by the future Cyber-Leader to the year 1984. This would suggest that Mondas is monitoring transmissions from Earth in preparation for their planet's approach to Earth and the ensuing attempt to drain its energy, both of which will occur in December 1986. Considerably earlier in his personal timeline, specifically towards the end of his first incarnation defeated the Cybermen on that occasion. However, the strain of the conflict led to his subsequent regeneration into the Second Doctor. (DW: The Tenth Planet)
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.
- Commander Zheng, one of the earliest Mondasian Cybermen who was introduced in BFA: Spare Parts, returns for a brief cameo appearance towards the end of the story. He is depicted as still being operational in September 1984. It is therefore logical to assume that he was on Mondas during the events of DW: The Tenth Planet, which took place in December 1986, and perished when the planet was destroyed.
- Besides the Doctor, Kathy and Nathaniel Chambers are the only characters to appear in both this story and BFA: The Gathering.
- Claudia Christian, who plays Peri's mother, is three years Nicola Bryant's junior in real life.
Continuity
- The opening radio broadcasts refer to the launch of the British airship R101 in October 1930 (BFA: Storm Warning), the first manned mission to Mars (BFA: Red Dawn), St. Gart's Hospital (BFA: The Harvest) and the 2012 London Olympic Games (DW: Fear Her).
- This story is resolved by the events of DW: The Tenth Planet, specifically the destruction of Mondas in December 1986. The original CyberMondasians 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.
- The fact that the Doctor cannot remember meeting Peri's stepfather Professor Howard Foster on Lanzarote on 9 May 1984 (DW: 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. (BFA: The Gathering)
- Peri departs the TARDIS for an unspecified period of time — but it is long enough to re-enrol 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 BFA: The Gathering.
- The virus that the Cyberman intended to use had the ability to turn flesh into metal. A similar virus appears in both VG: 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. (BFA: The Gathering)
- Peri refers to her first meeting with the Fifth Doctor and Turlough (DW: Planet of Fire) and the circumstances surrounding the Doctor's recent regeneration. (DW: The Caves of Androzani) The Sixth Doctor would later claim to have experienced problems with his memory since that regeneration (CC: 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. (BFA: The Gathering)
- The White Rabbit pub on Embankment, that Mrs Van Gysegham's husband once owned, is possibly the same "White Rabbit" that Hex had his birthday party in. (BFA: The Harvest)
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 occurred five months after DW: Planet of Fire.
- For the Sixth Doctor and Peri, this story occurs after BFA: ...ish and before MA: State of Change.
- For Peri, it also occurs after the Fifth Doctor audio BFA: The Gathering and Peri's experiences in BFA: The Veiled Leopard, two adventures which occurred simultaneously (relatively speaking).
- From the Doctor and Peri's perspective, relative to adventures featuring the Cybermen from the future, it occurred after DW: Attack of the Cybermen and DW: The Tenth Planet but, for Earth's inhabitants and the Cybermen native to 1984, it occurred beforehand.
- For Kathy Chambers, it occurs 22 years before BFA: The Gathering.
External links
- Official The Reaping page at bigfinish.com
- The Reaping at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
