Broken Hearts (audio story)

Broken Hearts
Doctor:	Eleventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Valarie
Main setting:	Iptheus
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Lisa McMullin
Director:	Helen Goldwyn
Producer:	Alfie Shaw
Music:	Borna Matosic
Sound:	Lee Adams
Cover by:	Caroline Tankersley
Release details
Release number:	4.4
Part of:	All of Time and Space
Release date:	28 November 2023
Format:	1 X 81 minutes
Production code:	BFP11THCCD0404
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-80240-216-2
The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles
← Previous	Curiosity Shop
Next →	Spirit of the Season
The Doctor Chronicles
← Previous	The Siege of Shackleton
Next →	Spirit of the Season

Broken Hearts was the special fourth story in the audio anthology All of Time and Space detailing the aftermath of the previous audio story Curiosity Shop. It was written by Lisa McMullin and featured Jacob Dudman as the Eleventh Doctor and Safiyya Ingar as Valarie Lockwood.

Publisher's summary

He took her apart, and she told him she was fine. She lied.

He saved their world, and told them they'd be safe. He was wrong.

Plot

Valarie is angry with the Doctor after he, as Mr Foreman, took her apart and used her augmentations to make a weapon to save a planet and asks to be taken far away, needing time to recover from the experience. The TARDIS materialises in a ruined city instead of Medrüth, where the Doctor hoped to leave Valarie with Roanna, and they find a control room which is receiving a distress call. The Doctor detects the life signs of a single survivor of the war that decimated the planet and gets Valarie to pair her implants with the rescue coordination mainframe, after which they receive a message saying that the Doctor and his companion will come to the rescue.

Tracing the message, the two travellers come across a statue erected in honour of the Eighth Doctor and his companion for saving Iptheus and Valarie comes to believe that she does not know the Doctor at all. He explains regeneration to her and realises that the planet's weather is empathetic and was installed by the Time Lords as a weapon against the Daleks. Followed by people made of raindrops, the Doctor and Valarie find a burnt-out Rescuebot with another message saying that the Doctor and his companion will be coming to help and notice that the raindrop people are in the form of the Doctor's previous selves.

The weather rages because of Valarie's fear of the Doctor, whom she learns has killed billions of people in and outside of the Time War, and they become separated. The Doctor is recovered from beneath some rubble by a Rescuebot which has named itself Lionel and which explains that it is the last since Augustus was buried in an underground tunnel during their centuries' long search for survivors. Lionel joins him in going after Valarie and the sole survivor of the war, who seems to be inside a tornado created from their own fear. When he does, he stops Valarie from entering the tornado and does it himself.

Inside the tornado, the Doctor finds Augustus and comforts it, calming the winds down and allowing him to reunite it with Lionel. Augustus malfunctions because of its corroded systems, but Valarie manages to repair it and she and the Doctor realise that, aside from the Rescuebots, there were only ever the two of them on Iptheus; the computer registered three because of the Doctor's two hearts. The Doctor decides to take the Rescuebots to Andraxia and offers to take Valarie to Roanna, but she wants to keep helping him save worlds and he promises to never hurt her again. He hands her a key to the TARDIS, but its doors open when she snaps her fingers.

Cast

• The Doctor / Augustus - Jacob Dudman
• Valarie Lockwood / Lionel - Safiyya Ingar

Worldbuilding

• Valarie leaves messages for her mother, Patricia Lockwood.
• There is a statue of the Eighth Doctor on Iptheus.
• Valarie pretended to find a joke the Doctor made about the Mechnonoids funny.
• The Doctor explains regeneration to Valarie.
• The Time War came to Iptheus three times.
• The Time Lords created empathetic weather during the Time War to turn the Daleks’ rage against them. It was deployed on Iptheus.
• The Doctor decides to take the Rescuebots to the zero velocity ski resort on Andraxia.

Notes

Textless cover

• This story was recorded on 10 August 2023 at the Soundhouse.

Continuity

• Valarie mentions Roanna and her feelings for her, as depicted in The Yearn ^[+]Loading...["The Yearn (audio story)"].
• Valarie is hurting from the Doctor’s usage of her implants to save a world, as occurred in Curiosity Shop ^[+]Loading...["Curiosity Shop (audio story)"].
• The Doctor mentions the Eighth Doctor’s habit of getting amnesia, as occurred in Doctor Who ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who (TV story)"], The Eight Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)"], The Ancestor Cell ^[+]Loading...["The Ancestor Cell (novel)"], Minuet in Hell ^[+]Loading...["Minuet in Hell (audio story)"], Something Inside ^[+]Loading...["Something Inside (audio story)"], In the Garden of Death ^[+]Loading...["In the Garden of Death (audio story)"] and Dreadshade ^[+]Loading...["Dreadshade (audio story)"].
• The Doctor recalls a previous visit to Iptheus involving a skeleton army, as depicted in The Famished Lands ^[+]Loading...["The Famished Lands (audio story)"].
• The Doctor enters a state of deep concentration in order to walk safely through a tornado, an ability he was previously shown to have in The End of the World ^[+]Loading...["The End of the World (TV story)"].

External links

• Official Broken Hearts page at bigfinish.com