Something strange is hiding on the thirty-first floor of St Gart’s hospital and the Doctor and Ace are determined to find out what it is.
Something strange is hiding on the thirty-first floor of St Gart’s hospital and the Doctor and Ace are determined to find out what it is.
THE HARVEST
From Master all the way through to Dreamtime, a gap of *seventeen* releases, Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor featured in exactly one Big Finish play: Dan Abnett’s The Harvest. (Unless, of course, you buy into Big Finish’s outright lie advertising Zagreus as part of “The Seventh Doctor Collection.”) Of course, this wasn’t the company’s fault, as the McGann season was forced up the schedule by the advent of the new series, but for those of us that like McCoy it’s an unbelievably huge gap. Perhaps this gap coupled with the return of some old monsters explains why this story is so overrated — it’s certainly not bad, but a top ten BF release? Never.
I mentioned before that it seems as though comic writers have a hard time with the audio medium — fortunately, Abnett does not suffer from this apparent handicap. He doesn’t overreach himself, opting instead to construct a very traditional Doctor Who environment: brightly-lit corridors, dark basements, a couple of CSO car chases, etc. And the decision to bring back the Cybermen limits Abnett’s scope, so he doesn’t get carried away with insane fantasy villains like Simon Furman before him.
Ah yes, the Cybermen. Careful watching of the televised Cybermen stories reveals that they’re at their most effective when they’re used to illustrate the differences between man and machine (The Tenth Planet, The Invasion, among others). To this end, a story built around the horror of conversion would, theoretically, be an ideal Cyberman story. Big Finish realized this, and so they released Sword of Orion, which dealt in part with the horrors of conversion. Then they released Spare Parts, which dealt with the horrors of conversion. Then they released Real Time, which dealt with the horrors of conversion. Abnett notices this trend and reverses it: in The Harvest, it’s the Cybermen who are trying to convert themselves back into humans! This is a brilliant inversion, but unfortunately it falls almost totally flat because we never really learn their motivation: Subject One tells the Doctor they merely want to recapture their emotional roots, but as it turns out he’s just lying and they’re as murderous and evil as ever. You can’t ask a question this big without an answer. (And “well now they can lie!” isn’t the answer, because they did this all the time in their other stories.)
There are other flaws throughout the play. The script is riddled with cheap shots at the concept of a unified Europe which aren’t supported by anything and just come off as sophomoric. There isn’t enough plot for the running time; the entire second episode is basically superfluous. The ending is horrible: suddenly it’s revealed that there’s a secret code which instantly kills all the Cyber-humans. Nice, that. The entire thing feels like a first draft, as conversations drag on pointlessly and scenes take forever to conclude — does Big Finish have a script editor? Simply tightening this script up would make it so much better.
Sylvester McCoy is inconsistent at best as the seventh Doctor, sad to say. He has some excellent scenes — his final lines to the dying Cyberleader are wonderful, for example — but his long speeches are disasters, as he slips back into his bad habit of speeding through the script and getting all the tonal shifts and inflections wrong. Surprisingly, though, his angry scenes are great — but as I’ve said before, McCoy does great anger; he just doesn’t shout very well. Still, someone needs to give him more direction: we know he can do much, much better than this.
This is Sophie Aldred’s first appearance as the not-NA Ace in about six billion releases going all the way back to The Rapture, and I was stunned to hear her turn in a fine performance. Much like Jonathan Blum’s The Fearmonger, The Harvest realizes that Ace is a perfectly workable character when portrayed as a mature adult rather than as a whiny teenager, and Abnett writes the character perfectly. However, if she is indeed a mature adult, the “Just McShane” stuff doesn’t even make sense — but it’s sounded more and more idiotic with each passing audio, so this is no surprise. I mean, the Doctor still calls her Ace and she’s identified as Ace on the packaging — can we please bring this ridiculous “character development” to a stop?
The Harvest ushers in a new companion (finally!) for McCoy: Hex, played by Philip Olivier. I mentioned in my review of Arrangements for War how that play’s examination of Evelyn’s emotions evoked a new series feeling; here, Hex’s real-world reactions and culture shock to the Doctor and the TARDIS remind one strongly of Rose. Olivier is very convincing in the role, bringing just the right amount of emotion and desperation: I’m looking forward to future appearances. Hopefully the character will develop properly as well — he’s very ordinary in this play, but that’s the point. This is promising.
As for the supporting cast, William Boyde steals the show as Subject One. He’s got a wonderful voice for audio, and captures a perfect balance between human and robot with his intonation. Mark Donovan is similarly effective as Polk, and Janie Booth does a fine computer voice. Richard Derrington’s performance as Farrer is a little cliched, but sounds good nonetheless, while David Warwick’s Garnier is nicely villainous.
On the production front, David Darlington is in charge of the sound design, and generally it’s very good. While I felt the Cyber-footsteps were a little over the top, he accurately recreates a hospital environment and the filter put on the voices of the Cyber-actors is quite effective. Unfortunately, the music is another story: it’s a bizarre electronic suite like that heard on The Sea Devils or Doctor Who and the Silurians. I didn’t care for this music, but many found that it added to the drama — I’ll mark this down as a difference in taste rather than a qualitative evaluation. Gary Russell’s direction seems almost disinterested: other than Boyde, nobody in the cast really stands out, McCoy struggles with his lines at times, and there are pauses between scenes which last way too long.
I don’t see what’s so wonderful about The Harvest. It’s a bog-standard Doctor Who runaround — with all the corresponding problems — whose few new ideas are consumed by the flaws in the plot. Sure, it’s always fun to hear the Cybermen again, but this was the only McCoy release for seventeen months and this is all we got? Unfortunately, just because it’s better than most of the McCoy’s doesn’t mean it’s anything special.
Recommended nonetheless.
6/10