The Highlanders is an odd tale.  It doesn’t feel like it fits into any particular era of the show.  It’s a historical produced when the production team had decided they weren’t popular enough to be worth producing.  It’s a story with Jamie where he is nothing like the Jamie we know and love.  It’s a Troughton story without a recognisable Troughton Doctor.

I’m never quite sure what I think about The Highlanders.  It was probably one of the last stories I experienced when it was finally released as an audio soundtrack.  The story itself has never made much of an impression on me, even though I’ve probably listened to it 3 or 4 times (and watched a reconstruction).  This time, as part of my marathon, some of my opinions have crystallised and I can see why I seem to have a problem with it.
The principal issue for me is Patrick Troughton.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the 2nd Doctor and Troughton’s performance.  When I did my chronological marathon a few years back, Troughton probably became my favourite Doctor (although I find that a hard ranking to make a final decision on) pushing Peter Davison off the top spot (Matt Smith is now making a good job of budging Troughton down to Number 2).

But Patrick Troughton’s Doctor is hardly in The Highlanders because he spends 90% of the time putting on silly accents and dressing up.  Now, I know that early in production, the dressing up aspect was something which was being tried out as a ‘characteristic’ of this version of the Doctor – probably in a desperate attempt to make him seem different to Hartnell.  To be fair, I think we can forgive the production team, and Troughton, for not really knowing what to do.  Changing a lead actor in this way was unprecedented and I can imagine numerous meetings and discussions about how to continue the series in this way and whether viewers would even accept it.As it is, though, Troughton’s performance isn’t great.  I particularly don’t like the German doctor stuff, which seems too cartoony and silly.  I also don’t like some of the scripting, such as the Doctor’s sudden violence towards Perkins when he bangs his head on the table – twice!

I know the dressing up continues into the next story, The Underwater Menace but Troughton’s version of the Doctor starts to take a clearer shape in that story and by The Moonbase and The Macra Terror, I think he had it pretty much nailed.

Something else I don’t like about this story is how utterly vile Polly is in the first episode.  She is an absolute cow to Hannah Gordon’s Kirsty McLaren and thank goodness she modifies her attitude later on in the story because I may have wanted to give her a good slap if she carried on.  Fortunately, the rest of the story proves to be a strong one for Polly.  Unusually for the female companion she doesn’t spend much of the story in peril, but is actually actively pursuing ways of rescuing the Doctor and Ben.  I do like how she basically uses her sexuality to manipulate Ffinch for her own ends.  It’s always struck me as odd that Polly and Ben were considered, for a long time, to be useless companions.  I remember a cartoon from the long ago days of Tim Quinn and Dicky Howett where there was a gag along the lines of ‘we couldn’t get the ‘useless companions’ we wanted to open some event…but Polly and Ben more than fill their place.  I think the fact that most of their stories are missing from the archives has really done Polly and Ben a disservice because, more often than not, both prove to be really strong characters in many of their stories.

The plot of The Highlanders I also find a little odd.  There is a point in the final episode where I realised that none of the regulars were in jeopardy.  Polly hadn’t been in danger for much of the story anyway, the Doctor had escaped from Trask and Grey and even Ben had managed to get off the ship where he had been held captive.  All three had managed this without help from any of the others.  It is only their compassion that means they hang around to rescue the remaining Scots aboard the Annabelle, due to be sold as slaves in the Americas.  In terms of interfering with history it flies right in the face of what the Hartnell era had established – who is to say that those Scots shouldn’t have been sold as slaves and what damage the TARDIS crew did to the timelines by rescuing them.

Of course, this is because The Highlanders isn’t really concerned with history, but more with telling a ripping yarn in the vein of Kidnapped.  This is a similar ‘history’ to The Smugglers – much more influenced by modern interpretations of history than historical fact.  The difference between The Smugglers and The Highlanders and earlier historical tales such as The Massacre or even Marco Polo, is obvious.  This is a tale concerned more with obvious villains such as Solicitor Grey (a bedfellow of the Squire from The Smugglers) and Trask (who would probably enjoy a drink with Cherub and Red Jaspar (from Doctor Who and the Pirates) who are ultimately defeated by the honourable and worthy Highlanders, loyal and true to the last man standing.

There are a few historical facts scattered throughout to set the scene, though.  The story opens in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden.  Mentions are made of Bonnie Prince Charlie and King George.  And of course, there are the Redcoats and the Highlanders.The Highlanders themselves don’t make a huge impact.  Colin spends most of the time in a state of near collapse.  Kirsty gets pushed around by Polly.  Alexander cops it before the first episode is out (which is something I always forget – I always think he lasts a lot longer).  And then of course, there is James Robert McCrimmon.  Jamie is nothing like the slightly bumbling, loyal, slightly dim, ever so slightly lecherous companion we all know and love.  Frazer Hines’ performance has ‘historical guest cast’ written all over it.  It’s not even particularly convincing at the end when he suddenly appears to help the Doctor, Polly and Ben return to the TARDIS and then accepts their offer to join them.  It belies the fact that his addition to the regulars was a last minute decision as ‘planned’ companions have far more hints around their character and their interaction with the regulars.  Jamie hardly spends any time with the Doctor and practically no time at all with Polly (and she’s the one taking him by the hand and leading him into the TARDIS!).  Of course, it was the best decision they ever made and Frazer Hines’ Jamie is rightly considered one of the great companions.  It’s just that his beginnings are so different to what we are used to from the rest of the Troughton era.

It isn’t that I think The Highlanders is a bad story.  It just isn’t a very good Troughton story or, for that matter, a very good historical.  There are enough good performances and fun scenes to keep the interest, but as a whole it just doesn’t seem to go anywhere.  Were this period of history visited now on TV or by Big Finish, or were it to have featured in a Past Doctor novel, you can guarantee that Bonnie Prince Charlie wouldn’t be off screen for the entire story, or that the Battle of Culloden wouldn’t be represented by a few sound effects, but that was the nature of the direction the series was going in at the time.