The Harvest

I dove into The Harvest expecting a fun story and a nice introduction to the companion Hex. I feel I got a serviceable audio that largely delivers on both counts, but the end result hardly felt exceptional to me, either. The Cyberman content didn't really stand out and I don't think I was given a lot for Hex's character that left much of an impression on me. Everyone does a pretty good job in the cast, but I think the writing lacks those essential memorable moments that would have made The Harvest a little more special for me. Compared to Evelyn Smythe's introduction, it felt like it left a lot less of an impression on me. I normally like Dan Abnett than this (currently reading a Warhammer 40k novel by him I'm enjoying quite a bit) but he struggles with endings and it shows here a bit. I do like this take on the "near future" of 2021 - now, of course, our past - that's always pretty neat to see in fiction. Really the whole story has some cool ideas, I'm just not sure it comes together into something I found all that satisfying, and more just average in comparison.

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#058. The Harvest ~ 10/10

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◆ An Introduction

Body horror is a genre that I’m not always keen on, because it’s very easy for writers to lose the horror aspect all together and create a nonsensical blood-bath (which is part of the reason I cannot stand your typical American slasher films). Where the creators of films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre failed, Dan Abnett absolutely succeeds.

They thought the flesh was weak, that science would save them, but a small faction appears to have had a change of heart. Sinister goings on at a hospital in the heart of London, and the introduction of one of my favourite companions.

Let the Harvest commence!

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◆ Publisher’s Summary

On the morning of October 12th, 2021 Hex woke up. He was expecting to go to work at St Gart's in London as normal and, that evening, have a great time in the bar of the White Rabbit, celebrating his 23rd birthday.

But after his ex-flatmate is wheeled into A&E following a bike accident, and the strange young woman from Human Resources tries to chat him up and an eight-foot tall guy in a Merc tries to run him down, Hex realises things are not going quite as he expected.

Then in a Shoreditch car park he meets the enigmatic Doctor who explains that he's an extra-terrestrial investigator and something very strange is going on up on the thirty-first floor of St Garts.

Therefore, aided and abetted by the Doctor and his other new friend 'Just McShane', Hex decides to investigate. Trouble is, everything that goes on at the hospital is being observed and noted by the occupants of the thirty-first floor. Occupants who are none too pleased that people are poking their noses into business that doesn't concern them. Occupants who will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that no one discovers the truth.

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◆ The Seventh Doctor

‘The Harvest’ was one of the first BigFinish plays I listened to, way back in 2017, and it’s always been one of my absolute favourites – which is why I got it signed by two out of the three regulars at ComicCon Scotland Aberdeen this year. Sylvester McCoy delivers a top-notch performance in this adventure, and it’s fair to say that this is the beginning of a new golden age for the Seventh Doctor on audio.

The Doctor claims that explaining his TARDIS requires a two hour lecture with flip-charts and slides. Very few things in space and time tend to make sense, and he finds that shouting about them doesn’t help. He knows that it’s always harder when things get personal, and urges Hex not to remember his friend as just another person used by the Cybermen. Although he is ashamed to admit it, it’s the Doctor’s own fault that the Cybermen survived in the first place (nice reference to ‘Spare Parts’). Confronted with a flat-lining Cyber-Leader, he just walks away and leaves him to die! That’s cold, even for the Doctor.

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◆ “Just McShane”

When Sophie Aldred signed my copy of ‘The Harvest’ at ComicCon, she spoke very highly of it (she told me that she’d made the mistake of listening to it at midnight when she first got her CD copy, and scared herself witless with it). Her performance in this adventure is absolutely top tier.

“McShane” believes that on the list of things in this universe that are going to kill her, sugar is a long way down. She’s been working in human resources for three weeks now, and Hex doesn’t know anyone who knows her real name. “McShane” finds that, where the dimensions of the TARDIS are concerned, the initial open-mouthed shock fades after an hour or so. It’s replaced by an uncomfortable nagging sense of the uncanny which never quite goes away, but that’s a lot easier to cope with in the long run than the slacked-mouth gibbering. The work she does with the Doctor isn’t always this cloak and dagger; it’s been anorak and baseball bat a few times, panama hat and jelly-baby, but usually it’s your basic shambling horror and nasty pongs. If it gets all eye-stalks and sink plungers, she tells Hex to warn her and they’ll run like hell!

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◆ Hex

I’ve so been looking forward to writing this review, because ‘The Harvest’ introduces us to the wonderful Philip Olivier. He instantly makes an amazing first impression on the audience, as the charming Scouse nurse. It’s a brilliant performance, and I cannot wait to dive head first into the rest of his adventures too!

It’s not like Hex to go faint at the sight of blood, look up “strong stomach” and there is usually a picture of him, but it’s the first time since he started working A&E that someone he knows has been carted in. He believes that, sometimes, there isn’t a bright side. Hex tries to convince himself that the TARDIS is just some birthday gag, but proceeds to have a mental breakdown when he realises that’s far from the case. He got involved with the Doctor and “McShane” the moment a great big freak of nature in a Mercedes tried to run him over! Hex has been considering a change of career after everything that’s happened. He hasn’t got the slightest clue what he’s getting into, but steps aboard the TARDIS anyway. Welcome aboard Mr Hex!

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◆ Story Recap

The Doctor and “McShane” are investigating St Gart’s Hospital, because they have reason to believe someone there is conducting dangerous experiments with alien technology. It’s here that they cross paths with a friendly A&E nurse named Thomas Hector Schofield – Hex, to his friends.

Something strange is going on in the top levels of the hospital tower; corpses are seemingly going missing from the morgue, and Dr Farrer is operating on some very special patients in nano-surgery.

Organs are being harvested for a medical atrocity, sanctioned by the Euro-Combine, to fulfil a bargain with their alien benefactors.

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◆ Will Made Flesh

‘The Harvest’ has always been one of my favourite stories with the Seventh Doctor, for a variety of reasons. Chief amongst those reasons is that it does something really unique with one of the show’s most popular villains.

C-Programme was set up after a faction of Cybermen crash landed in the Pyrenees. They began trading their cyber-technology, expertise and knowledge with the Euro-Combine in exchange for organic bodies. With these advanced cybernetics at their disposal, Europe could create astronauts with no need of life-support, thus giving their space programme a monumental advantage.

The Cybermen are nearly as old as the show itself, so I really commend Dan Abnett for doing something so different with them – I don’t think I’ve ever heard a writer do a reverse-conversion plot. It also makes the humanised Cybermen very unique, because for the first time, the tyrants of logic have the ability to lie.

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◆ Sensitive Scouse Nurse

It’s time now to talk about the Doctor’s new friend from Liverpool, and I’m not talking about John Bishop! The decision to introduce Hex is one I wholeheartedly approve of, because the guy is just so utterly charming.

Given how long “McShane” has been travelling in the TARDIS at this point, it’s fair to say that she’s become desensitised to a lot of the horrors and wonders that one can witness when travelling across the width and breadth of time and space. Whilst she was left utterly horrified by Kurtz’s death at Colditz Castle, she is generally more accustomed to life among the stars. Putting her alongside a newbie turns her into a bit of a mentor figure, and it’s a great dynamic that will be built on throughout Hex’s early stories.

Hex is a medical professional, someone gentle and with a heart of gold… which is going to make things very difficult when he realises that the Doctor knew his mother, and that he was there when Cassie Schofield was murdered at the hands of Nimrod!

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◆ Sound Design

This is an ultra-modern audio landscape, but it’s really strange to think that this story is now set three years in the past. St Gart’s is clearly a highly advanced hospital, so I can only assume that this must be set in a universe where the government actually care about giving the NHS the funding they rightly deserve.

Bustling traffic in the centre of London, with Big Ben chiming nearby. The artificial voice of System, as Dr Farrer receives an update on his special patients. Scissors cut through surgical packing, allowing Subject One to see the entire capital through his hospital window on the thirty-first floor. The Atrium of St Gart’s is a hive of activity, with medical staff and guests going about their day. A bleeping emergency alarm, as System gives a diagnoses on a mangled bike courier in A&E. The puffing of a ventilator accompanies the bleeping of an ECG monitor. The White Rabbit is full to bursting for Hex’s birthday celebrations. A Mercedes tries to run-down “McShane” and Hex, before the two make a swift getaway on a moped. An extremely loud but harmless explosion sends the Atrium into utter chaos! The grinding of mechanical blades, as Dr Farrer prepares to have “McShane” and Mathias harvested. The blades of the auto-surgeon dig into the neck of a Cyber-human… decapitating him in the process! The Cyber-humans go completely mad; taking arms and gunning down innocent people in the hospital Atrium! The Cyber-Leader is left to slowly flat-line in his bed.

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◆ Music

David Darlington is also behind the score for ‘The Harvest’, and I absolutely adore it! There is no other way to describe it than “techno”. It wont be everyone’s cup of tea, but those people are just plain wrong.

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◆ Conclusion

“The flesh is weak, isn’t it?”

I remember the day my copy of ‘The Harvest’ arrived from eBay, and I practically wore the CDs out listening to it over and over again. It was one of my first BigFinish adventures, and it’s still one of the best.

A group of Cybermen want to regain their humanity, so have brokered a deal with the Euro-Combine to achieve that goal; they get cybernetic technology for their space programme, the Cybermen get organic bodies in return. I don’t think I’ve heard any writer try to do a reverse-conversion storyline, but Dan Abnett does a splendid job with this script.

McCoy and Aldred are acting their socks off, and they work so well with the latest member of the TARDIS family. I absolutely adore Philip Olivier, and he got the best possible debut outing.

‘The Harvest’ has really stood the test of time, and remains one of the greatest Cybermen stories BigFinish have ever created.