Medicinal Purposes

Main Range #60

Released: August 2004

Listened: 6/13/20

This is another dark story, which starts out as a historical featuring the Edinburgh body-snatchers Burke and Hare, but it quickly takes a turn. When the Doctor learns where they are, he’s eager to meet Burke and Hare, much to Evelyn’s disgust. It’s kind of out of character for the moral crusader Sixth Doctor, but he’s taking the long view of history in this case. But something is going awry with history, as this Robert Knox is rather more than the Scottish Doctor he appears to be. There’s a bunch of timey-wimey going on in the background, but it’s darker than usual, and there are more sinister time-traveling powers involved. This is a tough one on Evelyn, but she’s getting more accustomed to the idea of what can and can’t be changed in history, even though she doesn’t particularly like it. Knox will be back again, but not for a while. This story also features a relatively unknown actor named David Tennant as Daft Jamie. Tennant will go on to star in various other Big Finish stories, but he’s somewhat typecast by that point.