Doctor Who: The Reaping

As I mentioned in my review of the Attack of the Cybermen DVD, the Doctor Who audio lays from Big Finish Productions have really given Colin Baker a chance to shine. The quality of writing on the audios allows Baker to demonstrate just what he could have done if he had been given material this good to work with on the actual television show in the mid-1980s. The Reaping is no exception, showing Baker at his strongest.

The same applies here to the Sixth Doctor's companion Peri, played by Nicola Bryant. Peri was often ill-used throughout much of her time on the show. At times her relationship with the Doctor was written to consist of little more than squabbling. That, and the producers seemed more interested in sticking Bryant in costumes that showed off her cleavage than giving her well-written dialogue.

It is implied in Peri's debut story Planet of Fire that she has issues with her family. She certainly does not get along with her stepfather. This is fertile ground for Joseph Lidster, author of The Reaping, to explore.

The Reaping delves deeply into Peri's background. We finally meet her family and friends. We also find out about her relationships with them, relationships that have been severely strained due to her long absence while she was off with the Doctor.

I would go so far as to say that in The Reaping Peri received more character development than she did during her two years on the television show.

Peri learns that the father of her good friend Kathy has been brutally murdered. Shocked and upset, Peri has the Doctor take her back to home town of Baltimore, Maryland in September 1984 for the funeral. At the graveyard, Peri is reunited with her mother Janine. And all is not well.

Peri, as the audience knows, has been traveling all about in time & space with the Doctor for the last year of her life. But from the point of view of Janine back in 1984, her daughter just up and vanished one day, with a word to no one, and could not be bothered to telephone or even send a letter to let her mother know that she was safe.

Janine is played by Claudia Christian, who appeared on Babylon 5 as Commander Susan Ivanova for four seasons. I really enjoyed Christian's performance on B5, where she made Ivanova one of my favorite characters. Christian does an equally good job in The Reaping, playing an angry & disappointed mother whose dissatisfaction with her daughter turns to amazement as she learns what Peri has really been up to all this time.

Bryant, likewise, does an excellent job with Peri, who is grief-stricken at her friend's loss, and deeply hurt by her mother's disapproval. Peri experiences an emotional gauntlet in The Reaping, and Bryant really brings the character to life.

The relationship between the Doctor and Peri is also explored. We see that, underneath all of the arguing, the two care deeply for one another. At one point, fearing the Doctor might be dead, Peri admits to Janine and Kathy that the Doctor is her best friend. I wish we had seen the friendship between the two characters explored to this degree on the television show. My compliments to Lidster for delving so deeply and movingly into their relationship.

As a quick glance of the cover to The Reaping will show, the Cybermen are the villains of the story. Even though they are actually used rather sparingly, they are nevertheless very effective. Inserting them into the mundane domesticity of 1984 Baltimore makes them appear even more alien and menacing than usual.

Lidster taps into the simultaneously horrific and tragic nature of the Cybermen. The Doctor sadly retells the Cybermen's origins, how in order to survive on the dying planet Mondas, they slowly but surely began replacing organic flesh with metal, plastic, and computer circuits. Their cybernetics were a means to an end, a desperate gamble for survival. But they ended up replacing too much of themselves, and lost their ability to feel emotion. Survival became an end unto itself, as they marched out across the galaxy, determined to convert all organic life.

That is exactly what the Cybermen are doing in The Reaping. Their numbers severely dwindled after multiple defeats, they want the Cyber race to survive. And so they travel back in time to convert all of humanity. They see this as an improvement, believing that the elimination of messy feelings & emotions will end chaos and bring about order. That's the true horror of the Cybermen. They don't want to conquer the world or destroy it; instead, they wish to transform everyone into logical, emotionless Cybermen. In so many ways, that is a fate worse than death.

In the classic serial Tomb of the Cybermen, the Cybercontroller coldly informs a group of captive humans "You belong to us. You shall be like us." Lidster has the Cybermen in The Reaping reiterate that chilling pronouncement.

On the whole, The Reaping is a very strong story. But there are a few weaknesses. The Cybermen's plan seems to rely on a couple of honking big coincidences. The ending of the story is unnecessarily downbeat, and cuts of potential future storylines. And there are a couple of unresolved subplots left dangling.

On that last point, I realize Lidster was setting things up for a semi-sequel, The Gathering, which is the next entry in the Big Finish audio series. I haven't listened to that one yet, but I'll probably pick it up in the near future.

Despite those few issues, I found The Reaping a well written production, with quality acting by Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, and Claudia Christian.