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The Shadow Heart was the one hundred and sixty-seventh story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Jonathan Morris and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and introduced Chase Masterson as Vienna Salvatori.
It was the third story in a 2012 multi-Doctor trilogy, beginning with the Fifth Doctor and ending with the Seventh Doctor.
Publisher's summary
One empire has fallen and another has taken its place. The race known as the Wrath are expanding into new territory. Only the Earth Empire stands in their way.
It's been fifty years since the Doctor last visited this sector of space. And one man in particular has been awaiting his return. As the mistakes of his past come back to haunt him, and with a price on his head and bounty hunters on his tail, the Doctor is heading for a last reckoning.
The pieces are finally coming together. Somewhere deep within the Shadow Heart.
Plot
Part one
to be added
Part two
to be added
Part three
to be added
Part four
to be added
Cast
Crew
- Cover Art - Alex Mallinson
- Director - Ken Bentley
- Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
- Music and Sound Design - Wilfredo Acosta
- Producer - David Richardson
- Script Editor - John Dorney
- Writer - Jonathan Morris
Worldbuilding
- The Wrath War was fought approximately fifty years earlier, shortly after the Sixth Doctor's departure from Cawdor. As he programmed them to uphold the rule of law no matter what, the Wrath Justice Fleet attacked and invaded any planet which they considered unjust. It is rumoured that they have abducted thousands of people and transported them to the Wrath homeworld which is known as the Shadow Heart.
- According to the bounty hunter Vienna Salvatori, the Doctor is the "most wanted man in the twelve constellations."
- Earlier in his personal timeline, the Doctor met a future version of Vienna on the planet Thagros.
- Horval describes the Magros swamp as smelling like "an Ogron's armpit."
- The Wrath have offered a substantial reward for the capture of Kylo Sorsha.
- Kylo's palace on Thagros is an exact replica of the Sorshan Royal Palace, which was destroyed by Princess Aliona eighty years earlier.
- The Doctor comments that his voice sounds nothing like that of his sixth incarnation.
- The Earth Empire war galleon Trafalgar is the flagship of the Seventeenth Earth Fleet.
Notes
- When the Doctor wakes up after temporarily stopping his hearts, he states that he was merely "pining for the fjords", a reference to the "Dead Parrot" sketch by British comedy act Monty Python.
- Even before the release of this story, a series featuring the character of Vienna Salvatori, appropriately titled Vienna, was announced, and started with The Memory Box in February 2013.
- This audio drama was recorded on 16 and 17 May 2012 at The Moat Studios.
Continuity
- Talbar refers to Vortis. (TV: The Web Planet)
- It has been 80 years since the Fifth Doctor visited Sharnax (AUDIO: The Burning Prince) and 50 years since the Sixth Doctor visited Cawdor. (AUDIO: The Acheron Pulse) Both planets were located in the Drashani Empire, which has since fallen to the Wrath. Vienna uses a memory sifter to ascertain his identity.
- The Doctor tells Talbar and Horval that he survived the crash-landing of another ship during his fifth incarnation. (AUDIO: The Burning Prince)
- Kylo tells Aliona that the Doctor has changed his face once again since they last met. (TV: Time and the Rani; AUDIO: The Brink of Death)
- Kylo used the traces of Aliona's DNA contained in the royal carcanet, which was given to him by the Sixth Doctor fifty years earlier, to clone her 54 times. (AUDIO: The Acheron Pulse)
- Vienna refers to the Earth Empire's corrective institutions. (TV: Frontier in Space)
- The Doctor claims that he can survive in the vacuum of space for a brief period of time. (TV: Nightmare of Eden, TV: Four to Doomsday, AUDIO: The Death Collectors, TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
- The Doctor refers to Aliona's cousin the late Empress Cheni. (AUDIO: The Acheron Pulse)