Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *
Cast: Sylvester McCoy, James Wilby, Kirsty Besterman, Chase Masterton, Eve Karpf, Alex Mallinson, John Banks, Jaimi Barbakoff.
“God, I live a complicated life.” muses the seventh Doctor as the effect of time travel and his position within a story that has criss-crossed a hundred years and three of the classic doctors comes under the scrutiny of a 100 year vengance . The Shadow Heart sees the culmination of a story that started in The Burning Prince with Peter Davison, continued with the superb The Acheron Pulse with Colin Baker and now sees the weirdest but ultimately intriguing part with Sylvester McCoy.
The Aliona or the Drashani trilogy, depending on which way the listener wants to look at the three stories, has been an enthralling mixture of the differing personalities that the 5th, 6th and 7th Doctors possess but without the mess and fuss of having all three on the same C.D. Not that these stories that employ the multiple use of a Doctor on one particular story ever lack the conviction of the stand alone Doctor tales, for example the 50th audio drama by Big Finish, the superb Zagreaus or the quirky opener to the series The Sirens of Time, but the audio drama’s always seem to work better when it just one Doctor’s thoughts and voice that the listener can identify with.
John Dorney’s Rick Briggs’ and now Jonathan Morris’ scripts set in the heart Drashani Empire has seen the idea of the Doctor’s actions and consequences a useful insight into the nature of the man. Too few times on the television programme does the Doctor ever see what wheels he sets in motion in righting a wrong, the cost of his actions to others. Perhaps the only time in recent memory is at the end of Christopher Eccleston’s tenure as he realises the links he has forged in helping the Daleks control humanity for 100 years. The Drashani Trilogy doesn’t play on that devastating realisation but shows the almost callousness attitude the Doctor sometimes conveniently uses is leaving a situation and not staying to watch the fall-out of his actions.
Although The Shadow Heart isn’t quite as intense as the two previous stories, Sylvester McCoy makes the absolute most as being the enigmatic and strangest Doctor and the script by Jonathon Morris has its moments of pure comedy which is employed neatly to relieve the tension. This is never more enjoyed more than the interaction between The Doctor and the two associates he manages to get to help him, the dubiously employed Tolbar and Harvel, played with consummate ease by Eve Karpf and Alex Mallinson.
On the back of this release, Big Finish has announced that Chase Masterson, who played the bounty hunter Vienna Salvatori, will be getting her own spin-off series in the Doctor Who universe. Whether this will be a good move remains to be seen but in the whole of Jonathan Morris’ story, it is perhaps unfortunate that the part of the bounty hunter is possibly the most predictable and unsatisfying. In all the years that Big Finish has been going, the tremendous characters they have imagined and bought to life, there are many of them that would have deserved a spin-off more than Vienna Salvatori.
A pleasing end to the multi-doctor story set in the Drashani Empire and an excellent look at what the Doctor sees when forced to look at the consequences of his actions.
The Shadow Heart is available to buy from Worlds Apart on Lime Street.
Ian D. Hall.