The Monthly Adventures #86 - "The Reaping" by Joseph Lidster

I don’t think Joseph Lidster is a writer, I think his chosen profession is just absolutely ruining my day. Every time, every single time I listen to one of his audios, that’s it until tomorrow, I am completely inconsolable. I don’t know when he decided that his entire career should be made up of the most devastating scripts known to man, but that was both a great and terrible day. I haven’t felt like this since Broken. And like with Broken, this story turns a character I liked into a character I would go into battle to protect. The only thing I thought this whole time was “man, poor Peri”. The ultimate character builder is back at it and with him, the most tragic depiction of the cybermen.

Peri is going home. After learning of an old family friend’s murder, she’s returned to Baltimore, but things aren’t like they used to be. Her family’s moved on without her and the world is leaving her behind. But a familiar and devastating force is awakening and the world might not have a say in the matter.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

So, we’ve just had the darkest Doctor Who story with Red, and now we have possibly the saddest. Front and centre, this is an audio about Peri. Now, I like Peri, she’s a fun character and Nicola Bryant is an incredible actress, but I’ve never really grown to particularly care about her. Mostly residing in the most confused and batshit season of the show, she’s never gotten a great amount of time to shine, even in her stories with Erimem. That’s where The Reaping comes in because by god does this one go some places with her character. Returning home to attend a funeral, she finds herself at odds with a family who have grown to resent her in her absence, and the studies of grief and growing apart from your family are utterly devastating. It’s like Aliens of London, but written by somebody who isn’t completely delusional. Bryant puts in her best performance, Lidster gives some incredible, intelligent character interactions and there’s an honestly groundbreaking portrayal of the companion’s family. There’s one particular scene, where Peri overhears her former best friend and mother talking about how they preferred it when she was gone, and it’s genuinely the most tragic scene of Doctor Who I’ve ever heard.

But this story wouldn’t really work without the rest of our cast being on top form, and luckily they absolutely are. Baker is firing on all cylinders and I think Lidster strikes a great balance between the Season 22 and Big Finish styles of characterisation. As for the rest of the cast, Lidster has a real affinity for creating down to earth, homegrown characters so this story about family and loss is just perfect for him. The real star is Peri’s mother - Justine - and the relationship she has with her daughter. Claudia Christian puts in a fantastic performance and I got extremely invested in the pair of them. The way Lidster concludes their relationship, I wasn’t a fan of, but I’ll get onto that.

The Cybermen make an appearance too, and for me, it’s always a gamble with them. I love them conceptually and the original idea and design is perfect in my opinion. I don’t love The Tenth Planet, but I do love that portrayal of Cybermen. Cybermen, for me, rarely get great stories and are far too often portrayed as generic robot men rather than the body horror monster they truly are. Spare Parts had an excellent portrayal of their bleakness, but The Reaping gives an excellent portrayal of their tragedy. Linking cyber conversion and grief is a genius idea and I really like the despondent, dying Cyberleader, letting his lost emotions slip in the throes of death. The scenes between the converted Anthony Chambers and his children hit a little too close to the Yvonne stuff from Spare Parts but I still like the idea and the performance sells it.

I think the thing that really makes The Reaping for me, however, is the funereal tone of it all. The constant rain, the urban setting, the themes of grief, there’s this melancholy that is draped over the whole audio making it a brilliantly atmospheric listen that really puts you in the shoes of the characters. David Darlington also delivers a score very unusual for him but one I’d go as far as to call his best. The haunting acoustics lends a very understated personality to a lot of the scenes, adding to the tragic undertones but avoiding any melodrama that could hamper the message. The Reaping is one of Who’s best depictions of tragedy, and for that I can only commend Lidster.

The story itself is also pretty great; standard Cyberman fare in terms of action but it’s certainly not unenjoyable. It’s carried a lot by its atmosphere, however the first half did posit an engaging mystery with some nice pacing; the scene where Peri realises the Cybermen killed Anthony is really good. My main problem with it is that it begins to take precedence in the final act and I think that’s a real mistake. The twist that there’s only one Cyberman and the whole plot has been a trap to ensnare the Doctor I think is contrived and the script spends too long trying to justify what is a pretty outlandish reveal. I like the solution to the problem - the Doctor tricking the CyberLeader into going to Mondas - but the third act feels pretty much tensionless to me, and mostly because this is a character piece choosing to focus on action. All that stuff I loved in the first act with Peri’s relationship with her family doesn’t really go that far. I think what we get is serviceable but I would’ve loved the conflict to go on a bit longer and have the Cybermen be the backdrop to that rather than the other way around. And the ending genuinely annoys me. So, the story wraps up and Peri randomly decides to keep some Cyber tech, which then promptly blows up and kills her mother. I like the idea of Justine dying, it feels like a fitting ending to Peri’s character arc in this story, but why couldn’t she have been killed by the Cybermen, why did the story end first and then kill her off? The way it’s constructed now, it feels shoehorned in for some extra shedded tears and little else. It’s surprisingly clumsy for this story and was a bit of a sour note to end it on.

However, overall, The Reaping’s pretty close to a masterpiece. This is peak Lidster character writing, but he loses focus towards the end and Janine’s death was the final nail in the coffin for me, causing this story to lose what was close to a 10/10 score. But that first half, the atmosphere, the gorgeous score, the detailed characters all make it worth it. Peri has massively risen in my companion ranking because of this script alone, which is something impressive all by itself. Now I’ve just got to hope The Gathering delivers just as much.

9/10

Pros:

+ Adds some brilliant layers of complexity to Peri

+ Well characterised and likeable side cast

+ Excellent depiction of the Cybermen

+ Wonderfully sombre tone aided by a brilliant score

+ Devastatingly heartbreaking

Cons:

- The story begins to fall apart towards the end

- The script loses focus

Peak cybermen peak peri peak 6ie

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Cryptobiosis

This is probably one of the realest feeling audios out there, along with The Gathering. To clarify, it presents life in the most unglamourised way possible. It has a very somber atmosphere, with Peri finding out about a family friend's death and rushing back to visit their funeral. Like The Gathering, it really explores the life without/after the Doctor. It strips back the fairy-tale like adventures of Doctor Who and takes us back to the real world.

I'm gonna say, I don't think this story would be nearly as effective without Nicola Bryant's FANTASTIC performance. Not only is she really having to pull her weight alongside actual American actors (a testament to how good her American accent is when it blends into the story seamlessly), she's putting in one of the best performances I've seen a companion actor do as Peri is put through the wringer in this story.

While the Doctor is a bit more of a side character here, that doesn't stop Colin Baker from putting in a similarly great performance. The scene where he comforts Peri at the end stood out to me specifically. As for the Cybermen in this story, I think they're very unique here. They're cunning and crafty in a way that regular Cybermen usually aren't and it's fun to listen to.

I think the only thing I disliked in this story was how abrupt and ridiculous Peri's mum's death was. I don't mind her death as a plot point, but blowing up because of a Cyberman gadget the Doctor left behind is a bit stupid. Otherwise, it's a fantastic audio and a really great story for Peri as a character in particular.

Next Story: Recorded Time

There are so many ideas in this one, if they were to have run with and truly exploited one or two of them I think we could have had a classic. It’s looking over the shoulder of Aliens of London and wondering how that same time jump would impact Peri’s family - which is not a bad idea in and of itself, but then it tries to be a big scary, twisted dark story… killing Peri’s mum at the end was completely needless - it was entirely tacked on, added nothing to the plot and we’d only just be introduced to the character.

I loved the Cyberman’s plot and how it was dealt with. The use of trickery and the dead from the graveyard was very smart. I really didn’t like the Cyberman dialogue which essentially amounted to the age old “you see Doctor, emotions can be used against you, they make you weak.” Which has to be amongst the most boring sci-fi tropes.

I’m making it sound worse than it is. Meeting Peri’s family, the 1980s setting and some of the more unique story ideas made this one a 6/10. But it had the potential to be so much more.