Line #41 Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho060MedicinalPurposes


1	AKA. "The One Where Creator/DavidTennant Saves the Day By Hugging the Villain to Death"
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3	The TARDIS lands the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn in Edinburgh, Christmas 1827. The Doctor immediately realises that the infamous body snatchers (and occasional murderers), William Burke and William Hare, must be around, in the middle of handing fresh corpses over to a Dr. Knox for medical tests.
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5	The Doctor can't wait to meet the men, because however abhorrent they must have been, they were an important part of history and did it ''for science''. Evelyn doesn't agree at all. They soon meet every single HistoricalDomainCharacter in the plot: an alcoholic whore named Mary, a mentally disabled street performer named Daft Jamie (Creator/DavidTennant!), Hare (who's trying to get it on with Mary), and Knox. Suspiciously absent, however, is Burke, so team TARDIS goes off to investigate. Also, the Doctor, very nostalgic for daft young Scottish men named Jamie, takes Daft Jamie under his wing.
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7	Dr. Knox, a classic CardCarryingVillain, tells Evelyn and Mary that he's fully aware of who the Doctor is -- in fact, the Doctor is like the Jekyll to his Hyde. The Doctor points out that 1827 is, in fact, thirty years before Stephenson would even be born, let alone write ''Literature/DrJekyllAndMrHyde'', meaning Knox is a time traveller, meaning that things are a lot more complicated than they seem.
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9	Knox turns out to be a human with a stolen TARDIS (don't ask how -- the episode never really explains it) who was hired by some aliens to do virus tests on humans for medicinal purposes. Sadly, alcohol grants immunity to the virus, so coming to Edinburgh ''really'' wasn't the smartest thing to do. Luckily, a few murders in, Knox realised that he could also just set up a GroundhogDayLoop, keep on murdering everyone over and over in creative ways (sometimes involving Hare and Burke, sometimes not), and charge some other aliens to watch. Sadly, this means that the web of time is close to tearing apart. Luckily, Daft Jamie is able to see through the loop, thanks to being InspirationallyDisadvantaged. Even more luckily, Jamie isn't immune to TheVirus because he doesn't drink, so the Doctor simply takes him into the TARDIS, vworps over to a month later (just outside the GroundhogDayLoop), and casually tells Jamie that Knox is the reason Jamie's now famous. Leaving out the part where Jamie's fame is because he's ''dead''. Jamie's so delighted that he hugs Knox to bits... infecting him with TheVirus. The Doctor happily leaves a very scared Knox behind, vworps back to 1827, and drops Jamie off on the street so he can go get killed by Hare and Burke. With the timeline reset, the Doctor has to admit that he hates having to send people to their deaths like that, but that it's all part of the big picture.
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11	!!Tropes
12	* AnachronismStew: ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde'' is referred to a full 3 decades before it's written. This is a plot point.
13	* AncientTomb
14	* AdmiringTheAbomination: The Doctor is intrigued with meeting two criminals.
15	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Some mild examples. Notably, there's no mention at all of the fact that Burke and Hare were both married, and their wives were almost certainly accomplices in the murders. Also, Kevin O'Leary and Tom Farrelly have the wrong accents - Burke and Hare were from [[UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland Tyrone and Armagh or Derry respectively.]] Farrelly's [[UsefulNotes/IrishAccents Cork accent]] is from the wrong end of the country entirely. That said, there's also plenty of [[ShownTheirWork detailed historical references]] too.
16	* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Subverted, Knox has a TARDIS, but isn't a Time Lord. He's also not [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Knox the real Dr Robert Knox]], who survived another forty years, and presumably took his rightful place back when the timeline reset itself.
17	* BreadAndCircuses: When Knox realised that his original plan wasn't working, he instead just made a GroundhogDayLoop and invited some shady alien types to come watch him murder people over and over.
18	* BriefAccentImitation: The Doctor does Mary's accent for a slight jab.
19	* CardCarryingVillain: Knox ''delights'' in being evil, and says so very explicitly.
20	* TheChessmaster: The Doctor is on a roll.
21	* TheConstant: The TARDIS is this to the Doctor.
22	* ContinuityNod: The Doctor meets Daft Jamie, and recalls his companion, Jamie [=McCrimmon=].
23	* CutHisHeartOutWithASpoon
24	* EurekaMoment: When the Doctor realizes Daft Jamie might not be as Daft as he seems.
25	* ExactWords
26	* ForegoneConclusion: Everyone who died in history dies in this episode, albeit in a more timey wimey way.
27	* ForScience
28	* GroundhogDayLoop
29	* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Daft Jamie's mental disability leads to two things: he doesn't drink alcohol because it makes him feel weird, and he's able to see through the GroundhogDayLoop. On the one hand, not drinking alcohol means he's gotten infected by TheVirus. On the other hand, when the Doctor tells him that Knox is responsible for making Jamie "famous" in the future, Jamie is so happy that he hugs Knox, spreading TheVirus to him. Just as the Doctor planned.
30	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Everyone.
31	* HoistByHisOwnPetard
32	* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Mary.
33	* InTheStyleOf Robert Shearman, bizarrely enough.
34	* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Jamie.
35	* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: The Doctor and the TARDIS, as Evelyn points out.
36	* NeverGotToSayGoodbye: Of sorts. The Doctor laments he never told former companion Jamie that he was a very brave man.
37	* RippleEffectProofMemory: Daft Jamie.
38	* TheScottishTrope
39	* ShoutOut:
40	** The Doctor quotes Creator/AlfredLordTennyson. [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho057ArrangementsForWar Again]].
41	** Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde
42	* SpannerInTheWorks: Without Jamie, Knox' plans could've gone off without a hitch.
43	* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: Justified due to the fact it's a TARDIS.
44	* ThirdPersonPerson: Daft Jamie.
45	* TimeyWimeyBall: Seriously.
46	* UnPerson: Jamie doesn't get treated well by people, except for Mary.
47	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Subverted. Knox' house is his TARDIS and Evelyn asks how the citizens of Edinburgh could possibly fail to notice. Mary tries to HandWave it, but it turns out that the whole thing is in a big giant GroundhogDayLoop in the end.
48	* TheVirus: A superpowerful alien flu.

Context Recap / BigFinishDoctorWho060MedicinalPurposes