The Highlanders
Story 31, Episodes 140-143, Season 4 Episodes 16-19
Doctor: The Second Doctor
Companions: Polly Wright, Ben Jackson, Jamie McCrimmon
The Highlanders is certainly not helped by its lack of surviving material, but is a rather standard affair.
The Review
Today, Whovians wonder why pure historicals aren’t around anymore. Well, its because they kind of sucked. Rather than being in a crucial dramatic situation like the sci-fi adventures, the historicals largely see the Doctor and his companions meandering throughout history. The crew gets caught in the middle of the end of a failed Scottish rebellion, and almost gets sent to work as slave labor in Barbados. The Doctor manages to smuggle weapons aboard the Annabelle and the plot is foiled. To me, it’s more of a credit to Marco Polo on how good it is compared to these stories. I think I may have been lacking some historical context though, as I was a bit surprised to see Scottish revolts as late as 1700s.
Now one thing an animation/discovery of original story could net us is looking at the Doctor’s clever identities. Taking the guise of ‘Doktor von Wer’, a German doctor (based on talking about, well, germs), as well as an old maid, it sure sounds like Patrick Troughton is doing some serious acting work. Unfortunately, it’s too hard to tell. It’s also a shame that this era of the classic series mainly just uses the companions as more characters to create sub-plots instead of genuinely exploring their relationship with the Doctor, something well-improved on by the new series. At the end of the story, legendary Jamie McCrimmon joins the team, though it’s hard to get much of a read on him yet.
The Highlanders is dull and uninspired, just like most of the historical stories. Ah well.
6/10 Hey, Jamie’s here!
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 