The Highlanders

“Now, we want weapons”

L’épisode est juste une bouffée d’air frais. 

Déjà c’est gauchiste à donf, et du coup ça poutre du tunique rouge dans une ambiance joyeuse, avec le Docteur qui s’éclate à tourner en bourrique les oppresseurs et organise carrément une guerre de libération ! 

Mais en plus de ça c’est carrément drôle car Troughton s’approprie chaque instant avec un Docteur plus vivant que jamais !

I love Jamie <3333333333333333333333333333333333333333

We've been well overdue a pure historical, the second Doctor proving just how different he is from his first incarnation by disguising himself as an old lady and a mustached sailer within 10 minutes of each other.

It's a shame I couldn't see Jamie's debut performance here, as it doesn't come across via audio, but was obviously strong enough to get him signed up as a full time companion. As most fans can sympathise with, I found myself badly wanting to actually see what the episode was like. I have a feeling I'm going to experience a lot of that throughout Season 4.

Really struggled with this story mainly cause the recon is probs imo the hardest too get into so I really hope it get an animated release in the future just so I could enjoy it more

A decent historical that could’ve done with a bit more background and details.

The Doctor, Ben and Polly land in the middle of a battlefield in the Highlands of Scotland. Soon, they come across a small party of Scots that are hiding from the English army. Together they will face the odds as they get captured, split up and make new alliances.

First things first: This story is missing with no animation in sight. There is some fan stuff, but nothing too exciting, that leaves you with three real options: The Target novelization, the telesnap reconstruction, or the narrated soundtrack. For this one, I decided to combine the telesnap reconstruction and the target novel. Overall, I’d recommend the target novel as the best way to experience this story, as it adds a few more character insights. It’s also a bit easier to follow.

That being said, I wouldn’t call this story a powerhouse by any means. The structure is fine, there are plenty of memorable moments, but it doesn’t really stand out as anything noteworthy. Except, of course, for the introduction of Jamie. But even that noteworthy tidbit feels like an afterthought. It just sort of happens.

It actually reminded me a lot of my experiences with “The Crusade”. It is one of the more serious historical stories, but it never really bothers giving you the actual history. From my perspective, it puts stories at a disadvantage. I am not British and I am not too familiar with British history, so I do not know what fight I am even watching. On top of that, the story is missing, so what am I even left with?

Of course, part of that is on me. I am not a British kid from the 60s, so I am not the target audience. But on the other hand, shouldn’t this make kids curious too? Shouldn’t this be the bait to get kids into that history?

There are some interesting parts that show why this is a setting worth exploring: Jamie has a job his entire family has had. The Highlanders have all kinds of honor codes. The “medical” art of bloodletting gets a short mention and we have several mentions of the game whist. All these things make the setting a bit fuller. A bit more realized. But I think it could still have had a bit more meat on its bones.

The story also has its fun moments. Especially surrounding Polly, who is blackmailing a lieutenant in the British army. But all these little parts do not make the story complete. They add little dots to an otherwise blank canvas. It helps, but doesn’t make the total picture more convincing.

But on the other hand, I don’t feel like I have the chance to be entirely fair to the story. It is missing! How am I going to complain about a lack of depth and detail when the story cannot even show me what it had?

That’s why I read the novel. I wanted to see if the story had more to show me when it was completely in prose. But even then, it still left me a bit hollow. Like it could’ve done more.

For example, I really don’t know anything about Jamie yet. He’s a piper and has a bit of a temper. I’d love to see how he develops, but as it stands, there’s really nothing to latch on to. Nothing that defines him.

And I think that conclusion carries over to the entire story. It is by no means bad, insulting or terrible, but it also gives you practically nothing unique or charming. It just happens and then it is over. Far from the worst, but nowhere near the top either.

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.

Yeah okay so this is another historical, and actually it's the last pure historical (i.e. story set in the past with no science fiction elements) until the Fifth Doctor's era. Honestly I can't say I'm that fussed to see them go, I just could never get into these that much; this one isn't really an exception, and as with The Smugglers, the fact that it's entirely missing doesn't really help.

Don't get me wrong, I found some things entertaining here. Patrick Troughton had a penchant for disguises and that shows up a few times here, it's very charming. The doctor one was especially entertaining as he used it to mess with his enemies. This is also probably the best story for companion Polly, as she's paired up with a female episodic character and gets a smidge more to do this time around than run around and scream or play secretary to the men.