I really like this Story! Is it as good as many other Second Doctor Stories or Pure Historicals? No. But it really doesn't have to! It knows it wants to be a fun romp and I think it does success at it. Two is still in his more 'wacky' early phase and while a Side effect of Throughton still trying to figure out what kind of Doctor he wants to play, I find it more than amusing here! I think we get some hilarious Moments here, be it some great Slapsticks ('Your Eyes') or 2 taking a new Role as "Doctor Wer". Not to mention that we got Jamie out of this, seeing how he was portrayed here is very interesting, since it's such a drastic change compared to what we ended up getting later down the line. I will say I agree with one Point that was brought here, which is that Polly is really not well characterized here at all, she just comes across as too mean and that's not my Girl Polly!

Outside of that, I don't have many complaints. Sure it does suffer from being a Recon, some of its comedic Moments don't come across as well as they otherwise would, but I still think this is a very fun one for sure!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“THE HIGHLANDERS: THE BIRTH OF JAMIE IN A DYING GENRE”

The Highlanders is something of a landmark in Doctor Who history—not because it breaks new ground, but precisely because it doesn’t. It marks the final "pure historical" story of the classic era until Black Orchid in 1982, and serves as a bridge between the show’s early educational roots and its evolution into more science-fiction-driven narratives. It also introduces a certain Jacobite piper by the name of Jamie McCrimmon—one of the longest-serving and most beloved companions in the show’s history. That’s a lot of historical weight to carry for a four-part serial that's completely missing from the archives.

TO CULLODEN AND BEYOND

The story starts strong with an engaging setting: the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden, where the defeated Jacobites are being hunted by Redcoats. It’s a grim historical backdrop, but the tone quickly shifts as the TARDIS crew are captured and thrown into a web of prisons, slave ships, and legal trickery. There's a certain romp quality here that jars with the historical tragedy around them, and that tonal mismatch is never quite resolved.

The first episode struggles under the weight of character introductions—an issue made worse when watching a recon with few surviving visuals. Keeping track of who’s who becomes a chore, and even a strong cliffhanger (the Doctor and Ben about to be hanged; Polly and Kirsty falling into a pit) doesn’t quite lift it above the murk of confusion.

THE SECOND DOCTOR TAKES CENTRE STAGE

The real joy of The Highlanders lies in watching Patrick Troughton settle into the role. This is the first serial where his Doctor feels fully formed: playful, cunning, and full of disguises. Whether he’s masquerading as a doddering German physician or donning drag to outwit his enemies, the Second Doctor turns deception into an artform. It’s a far cry from the gruff, irritable First Doctor, and it sets the tone for how the character will evolve over the decades.

Troughton’s chemistry with Michael Craze’s Ben is already well-developed, and the pair make a fun team, even if the script doesn’t give Ben much to do. Their dynamic foreshadows the “Doctor and best mate” relationships that become a staple of the show.

JAMIE JOINS THE CREW

Frazer Hines makes a confident debut as Jamie, even if his actual joining of the TARDIS crew feels abrupt and underwritten. He’s given a solid amount of screen time alongside Ben, and while he doesn’t immediately stand out, his likability and loyalty are established early. It’s no wonder he quickly became a fixture.

PLOTLESS WANDERING AND DISGUISED ESCAPISM

The actual plot of The Highlanders is thin and repetitive. Characters are captured, escape, are recaptured, escape again, and so on. There are slave ships, taverns, jails, secret documents, legal wrangling, and lots of cloak-and-dagger antics, but none of it really builds to a crescendo. The entire final episode takes place on a ship, and with no moving footage, the climactic battle is left entirely to the imagination—a battle of sound over spectacle.

The highlight, again, is the Doctor’s antics. His scenes with Solicitor Grey, particularly the one where he hides the man in a cupboard, are delightful. His theatrical dress-up helps paper over the cracks of an otherwise forgettable historical.

A CAST OF FORGETTABLE FOES

The supporting cast does little to elevate the material. Polly and Kirsty spend most of the serial plotting and scheming on the sidelines, with Polly’s storyline relying heavily on manipulating the hapless Algernon Ffinch. It’s not her strongest outing. Ffinch himself is a forgettable presence, despite a slight redemption arc (think Norrington in Pirates of the Caribbean). Captain Trask is a cookie-cutter slaver, more memorable than Pike from The Smugglers, but only just. Then there’s Solicitor Grey and his snivelling assistant Perkins (who reminds me of Smee from Peter Pan), who veer close to pantomime.

PRODUCTION VALUE IN A VISUAL VACUUM

Reports suggest the story boasted strong production values, especially in its costuming and ship sets. Unfortunately, since all four episodes are missing, we’re left with telesnaps, stills, and audio—making it hard to fully appreciate the effort put in. The reconstructions are competent but can’t overcome the repetitive plotting or the lack of visual flair. What might have played as a swashbuckling period adventure on screen often feels more like a plodding audio drama in its current form.

A STRANGE NOTE TO END ON

It’s fitting, in a way, that the last of the pure historicals feels like a genre on its last legs. With the departure of this format, Doctor Who would fully embrace sci-fi and horror, exploring historical settings only through the lens of alien interference. The Highlanders might not be the best farewell to the historical, but it served its purpose—and gave the show a new direction through Jamie and the evolving Second Doctor.

📝 VERDICT: 53/100

The Highlanders is more important than good. It marks the farewell of the pure historical and the introduction of Jamie McCrimmon, while showcasing Patrick Troughton’s emerging brilliance as a playfully deceptive Doctor. The story itself is thin, repetitive, and tonally inconsistent—leaning more on farce than the drama its setting deserves. While the Doctor’s disguises and comedic turns shine, the lack of visual material and a dragging pace make it difficult to recommend as anything other than a historical curiosity. Fun in patches, but very much a story lost to time—both literally and figuratively.

Sad that this story is all lost as it introduces Jamie. Not a fan of telesnaps, so i can't really enjoy this one.

A bit of a nothing of a serial, with all characters making truly baffling choices. Ah well, at least Jamie is here

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.