The Reaping (audio story)

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. It was, from the perspective of Peri's mother, a direct sequel to DW: Planet of Fire. It also began a loose trilogy featuring a time-travelling band of Mondasian Cybermen from the future (relative to 1984) with some commonality with the Cybus Industries Cybermen which had recently been featured in DW: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel.

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

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 Mondans 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 BFA: 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 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. (BFA: The Harvest) Furthermore, Ace would later meet Henry Noone in the White Rabbit on several occasions between June and August 2027. (BFA: A Death in the Family)
 * 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)



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 twenty-two years before BFA: The Gathering.