The Highlanders

Ever since I started watching this show, faithful viewer, at least 60-70% percent of my brain has been consumed with thinking about Doctor Who. Those few, stray thoughts concerned with food, sleeping, family, friends, other fictional pursuits, and *ahem* romance are soaked though in a soup of sci-fi delight. As a result, I’ve become remarkably adept at finding references to my beloved show in everyday life, in even the most seemingly unexpected places. One place that I never dreamed I would find a Doctor Who reference (until I saw this serial, that is), was in a series of novels called “The Outlander Series.” Written by Diana Gabaldon, they’re really cool and excellent books and I really recommend them. A while ago, I engaged in a little gratuitous Wikipedia-ing and, much to my surprise, I discovered that the male lead of the Outlander novels, Jamie Fraser, happens to be based on a very famous character in Doctor Who history, whom we meet in this very serial. Jamie McCrimmon is his name (the spelling differs from episode to episode, so I’ll just go with what doesn’t make my spellcheck freak out), and he has set the record for the longest-serving companion on the show so far. Starring in 117 episodes, thank you very much, Jamie is practically an institution within Doctor Who.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t really have a lot to do in this serial. The main focus of the plot this time around is on the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden, which is explained here. Jamie, along with Laird McLaren and his children, are fleeing the battle when they meet up with Our Heroes. Events occur, and they all end up embroiled in a nicely complicated bit of espionage with the triumphant legions of British soldiers who are still lurking in the area. The title proves ultimately to be misleading; it’s not a tale of adventures in the highlands, which is what I was expecting. Instead we get a bit of a pirate story, along the lines of “The Smugglers” from earlier in the season, just with the added bonus of men in kilts running about. (It should be noted here that I have a bit of a thing for guys in kilts. I’m not sure why, but I don’t mind either way. I suppose I could try and explain it, but frankly I just prefer to enjoy it).

My favorite thing about this serial is watching Ben and Polly in action. Honestly, they’ve been a bit useless up ’til now, and it’s great to watch them coming into their own. Ben is filled to the brim with daring-do and ends up pulling quite an impressive Houdini move that needs to be seen to be appreciated, so I won’t spoil it here. And as for Polly…holy moly. She’s positively dangerous this time around! I told you right when she joined Team TARDIS that she was an incredible looker, faithful viewer, and this time we get to see her couple her incredible beauty with cunning and grace. I’ll tell you, this girl can accomplish more with a flick of her eyelashes than most people can in a month. In particular, her relationship with a young lieutenant named Algernon Ffinch (which I’m not sure how to pronounce) is enough to make the hair rise on the backs of male Whovian necks. What happens is that Polly uses her considerable charms to rob and blackmail this poor slob to within an inch of his life. Now, I would have suspected that that kind of treatment would result in a fair amount of animosity towards his blackmailer, but Algie throws me for a loop when he seems, at serial’s end, to have fallen in love with her! Either he’s developed a bit of understanding for Polly and her plight, or he just likes being tied up and bossed around by a pretty girl. Either way, the end result is that he turns into an ally for Team TARDIS and is rewarded with a kiss on the cheek from Polly. Ah, bless.

On the Doctor front…ach. Not so groovy. Troughton still seems strange and not-Doctor-ish to me, although there are flashes of familiarity. His fondness for odd hats, his casual BS-ing about archaic medical terms, and his laconic genius are all endearingly memorable. However, what with the broad comedy German accent he employed throughout the serial (he called himself Doktor von Wer, to make things worse; it’s “Doctor Who” in German), the rather alarming malpractice he employed to keep his would-be captors out of commission, and his gratuitous cross-dressing, it’s tough for me to get a bead on him as a character.

All in all, this serial was…not terrible. It wasn’t great, but based on the brief flashes on video I could scrounge from this recon, it was actually pretty neat when it first broadcast. I even got to see a bit of the final battle scene, which takes places on a pirate ship between Redcoats and assorted Scottish rebels. Apparently, that’s a rare thing to find, and it was pretty awesome to watch. Once again, I am forced to shake my fist at the heavens and curse the fact that this is one more serial that us radical Whovians are not able to enjoy completely.

Stay tuned til next time, faithful viewer, when the Doctor goes head-to-head with something that looks suspiciously like Old Gregg…