The Harvest by: Dan Abnett directed by: Gary Russell: What A Nice Plump Frame, What's His Name Has...Had...Has

The Harvest stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor with Sophie Aldred as Ace and Philip Olivier as Hex.  It was written by Dan Abnett, directed by Gary Russell and released in June 2004 by Big Finish Production.

 

St. Garts Hospital in London holds a secret program where organs are being harvested for the mysterious C-Program and a mysterious D. McShane is investigating with a janitor only known as the Doctor.  Through their investigations they receive help from a staff nurse known as Hex Schofield who has had an old friend die on the operating table.  This is the premise behind The Harvest and it reminds me very much of the premise as written on the back of one of the Virgin New Adventures which is great as this run of adventures really only fits after Lungbarrow as the console is the TV Movie console.  It also fits in as the story is structured like a Virgin New Adventure like Birthright where the Doctor doesn’t really appear in Part One apart from one or two lines, but his presence is felt as Ace is there on the Doctor’s business trying to figure out what is going on behind the closed doors and we cleverly get to see the villains pulling all the strings, without revealing who they are until the end of Part Two where yes they are Cybermen who are trying to get their flesh back.  That in itself is a clever idea as the Cybermen still aren’t an actual hive mind, they just act logically, so some of them with damaged circuits want to become human and make a deal with humanity to convert them back while they give humanity their own technology.  It is such an obvious idea I’m extremely surprised it hadn’t been tried before in another story.

 

The Cybermen as seen in this story almost come across as sympathetic as they are the ones who want to become human again.  The way they describe the sunlight on their skin, their returning emotions and the pain is much like a child who is taking their first steps are like.  Even though they are childlike here they are still Cybermen and still have that logical thought pattern and the superhuman strength which almost makes them scarier as their emotions aren’t going to impede the logic.  The influence the emotions make on their decisions sees them become even more powerful, making it a scary thought if this happened to more than the seven Cybermen featured in this story.  Having different voices coming out of the Cybermen also highlights just how scary they are as the voice modulation is varied from character to character.  They aren’t the only Cybermen as the C-program staff are slowly converting some of their own into Cybermen where Abnett really missed out on making them even more ruthless.  You have them acting still like humans which is really a problem when you have the two races having examples of turning into each other and it could have been explored a lot more than it ever was.

 

This story introduces the new Seventh Doctor’s companion in Hex who is a nurse at St. Garts who although at first he has an aversion to going out of his comfort zone.  This allows Ace to change his perception from being stuck in the same for a desire for the unknown and adventure of time travel.  Hex may be a little annoying with his almost constant oh my God-ing throughout the story, Philip Olivier gives a great first impression as the character with subtle hints at him being a part of one of the Doctor’s master plans.  The Doctor and Ace, much like in the Virgin New Adventues, stay in the background in this story just so we can get some time explaining who Hex is as a character.  It’s so we know what motivates him and what his values are considering we already know the Doctor and Ace and I think that works for the best.  That is of course not to say McCoy and Aldred aren’t giving good performances.  They are especially Sophie Aldred’s Ace who feels like an Ace not post The Rapture, but post Set Piece as a more experienced woman who is about to enter the Time Lord Academy.  McCoy’s Seventh Doctor is also a bit of a weak link as he has a few odd line reads here and there which just stick out in a large way.

 

To summarize, The Harvest is full of some great ideas with a writer who knows how to realize their potential, but not fully.  There are implications which were never explored which makes the story suffer for it.  The companion introduction is done well as we know who Hex is but there are quite a few problems with him and the Doctor.  80/100.