Day 144: The Highlanders Episode 4

Perhaps the most significant part of this story is the fact that it introduces the Doctor's new travelling companion, a young Scot called Jamie. The major thing that's curious about this is how little the character actually appears in this story. I'll grant that it isn't like Katarina, or Dodo, both of whom were suddenly thrust upon the audience, but instead here we get a secondary character in a run of the mill adventure who is suddenly given the potential to be a companion. It's a brave move, particularly as it means that the audience, although they will to an extent know who the character is, is being expected to trust this new character as a protagonist. And one of the other interesting things is that he was explicitly introduced because they liked the character, given that they already have a young male lead in the form of Ben to take the action scenes. This shows great faith in the way that this character will develop on our screens, and it means that the series is continuing to change, even though it's already changed a fair deal, just in order to find the right combinations of ideas to work as a television programme.

And speaking of that, we also bid a vague farewell to something else this episode, the 'pure' historical stories, i.e. the adventures where the Doctor and co. encounter history and no other alien menaces. They've been written out of the series due to being too dull for audiences of the time, but that is selling them short massively, because they can be incredibly interesting and fun. Marco Polo, for instance, brings with it a great deal of knowledge of Asian culture, and we also get stories like The Myth Makers or The Romans, which take known historical quantities and play with them, creating a great deal of humour in the process. And then we get The Massacre, which is a genuinely good piece of television drama, with an absolutely brutal ending. But, we must accept the fact that some things, whilst they work for some, may not work for others, and so we bid a fond farewell to the pure historicals, and we say thank you for educating and entertaining us every once in a while over the past 144 days.

Day 143: The Highlanders Episode 3

A little while ago, I would have been in a bit of a pickle. Not because The Highlanders is bad, but because it is rather uninspiring, much like The Smugglers, and thus there would be little for me to write about, however there is fortunately one major saving grace: Patrick Troughton. It is absolutely shocking to see how quickly the Doctor has changed, from the grumpy old Hartnell Doctor to the more playful Troughton. Scenes such as those where he imitates a German doctor, or indeed the moment where he shouts out revolutionary phrases within a gaol cell, not because he genuinely believes in the power of the revolution, but instead because he enjoys hearing the sound of the echo come across as those which simply couldn't exist with Hartnell, due to his character simply not having as much fun. But what's also interesting to note is that Troughton only entered the role a couple of episodes ago, and yet he is clearly defined as his own character. For this, we must thank Gerry Davis, the script editor and co-writer of this story, who is able to provide an excellent continuity with character and so the show is able to settle more easily into this new Doctor. It's things like this that ensure that the show will run and continue to run for a long time.

Day 142: The Highlanders Episode 2

Let's have a talk about Polly. She's the Doctor's female companion, and is notable for being the first truly 'modern' companion, being a product of the 1960s youth scene. But she's also quite spunky, and this was something that I'd honestly never considered, thinking that she was just another one in a long line of screaming assistants, yet here she actually does things. While her new friend, Kirsty, worries about how they're all going to die and generally mopes about the place, Polly takes action, and kidnaps one of the Redcoat Lieutenants, before stealing all of his money and escaping his clutches. It's the sort of thing that we'd expect Ben or the Doctor to do, but here we're able to see that Polly is actually quite a forthright companion and is not willing to sit around and scream. It's things like this that draw to attention the fact that there are some things in Doctor Who that you never really think about, like The Highlanders, and perhaps it will bear more fruit as the story continues.

Day 141: The Highlanders Episode 1

A new adventure has started, this time delving into British history as we look at the war between England and Scotland. And I think that I'm right in saying that this is the first time in a Doctor Who historical that the English people have been portrayed as the bad guys, previously being either on the side of good, or at the very least with enough in them to make us sympathise with them. But here, they try to hang the Doctor and Ben, and hunt down Polly in order to capture her to be sent to prison. This is important because it shows how willing Doctor Who is to show history without the bias of nationalism, and it's able to simply tell a story in the way that it wants to. For example, when Ben and Polly meet English characters, they naturally assume that they will be on the side of good, but they fail to realise that history has them as far crueller than they are in their modern world as they have terrible things happen to them. It's a bit of a heavy handed message, yes, but it bears repeating: Who you think will be the good guys won't necessarily be good, no matter what your prejudices of them are. It's a point we might come back to later on as we continue our adventure with The Highlanders.