Memories of a Tyrant

Main Range #253

Released: 11 July 2019

Listened: 5/12/20

This story and the next are later Main Range releases (the third part of the set is much later, for Reasons). Peri seems quite comfortable with the Doctor now, and he’s more kind towards her. They’re doing the “Doctor’s old friend calls for help” story, in this case a famous lawyer whose client may be a genocidal tyrant...except he can’t remember who he is, so they’re all at a facility specializing in memory recovery to find out. The first half of the story is a slow boiler, with very gradual revelations, punctuated by the cliffhangers. Ultimately, the story wants to be about deeper issues of how memory forms personality, and whether it’s ethical to punish someone for acts they can’t remember. So it ends up being ambiguous, and frankly a bit jumbled at the very end, but if you can concentrate on what’s going on, it’s a good story.