Doctor Who Retro Review: Serial 032—The Highlanders
By T. Scott Edwards
The
Highlanders is an important
serial for a number of reasons – not only is it Troughton's second serial,
wherein we see him settle into the character further following his rather
strange first serial, it is also the introduction of fan-favourite Jamie
McCrimmon and the last real historical for some 16 years. Sadly, this serial
doesn't really serve its primary function; Troughton's Doctor is still as
unDoctorly as ever, flipping frequently from persona to persona.
The first thing about this serial of
note, however, is the incredible violence on display; whilst the serial is set
during one of the most bloodthirsty periods of British history, quite how much
violence is displayed is shocking even now. Interestingly, until now the
travellers have always arrived either before or after the most horrific periods
of history – looking at stories like The
Reign of Terror and The Myth Makers
– but here, instead, the group of time travellers arrives right in the middle
of a skirmish, and subsequently are thrown head-first into the historical
events. Not only is there grim realistically realised death aplenty on screen –
some of which we're able to glimpse briefly thanks to censored material – we're
also told of the disgusting acts taking place off-screen. Women and children
are being murdered, Scots are being hung left, right and centre, and, perhaps
most appallingly of all, the English are making a tidy profit from the sale of
prisoners as slaves.
The Redcoats surround the cottage, led
by Ffinch, and they swiftly deal with the Scots within – what is telling of the
time is that they must "shoot first and take no risks", as the battle
has led them to be reckless and desperate. Alexander's fruitless death, trying
to draw the Redcoats away, shows just how easily life hung in the balance
during the time, again providing a stark contrast from the humour which
underlies much of the dialogue. The complaint about there being no "pickings"
for the Redcoats nicely foreshadows the subplot soon to arise. Ffinch is
wonderfully performed by Michael Elwyn, all stiff upper lip and no nonsense. Once
the Redcoats are inside the cottage though, things become rather more frivolous
once more, as Troughton's Doctor dons a bizarre German accent and the pseudonym
"Doktor Von Wer".
The action is observed by Solicitor
Grey, played with malevolent malice by the brilliant David Garth. Grey is a man
with no regard for human life whatsoever – in contrast with many of the
soldiers, who fight for their King and country, Grey is only interested in the
financial benefits which arise from the war. Perkins, his assistant, played
with obsequious charm by Sydney Arnold is wonderful too, and the pair's
dialogue is laced with sardonic wit.
The group are very quickly split up,
with the Doctor and Ben ending up with the Scotsmen as Polly ends up lost with
a local girl, Kirsty. Polly's character is fascinating here; as in The Smugglers, Polly is a powerful
female, taking control of the situation. Kirsty is a whining, snivelling
peasant, idiotic and simpering to the extreme, and it allows Polly's character
to step to the fore magnificently. Her suggestion that girls of the time can do
nothing more useful than cry and whine is brilliant, and Kirsty's sullen
responses to the danger they are in are brilliantly realised.
The Doctor and Ben, meanwhile, get into
trouble with the invading forces of Redcoats, to the point that they are strung
up on the gallows alongside a number of Scottish insurgents; saved from certain
death, by no less than Grey and Perkins, the group are carried away to be
placed in prison rather than hung. That the Doctor claims his freedom using the
"Aliens Act" is fantastically delivered, and the group are escorted
first to prison, and then "perhaps a sea voyage?" The first episode
ends with Polly giving up on the moaning Scottish girl and heading off into the
moor, falling into an animal trap on her way.
Episode 2 continues with Polly trapped,
and Kirsty swiftly joining her in the pit. With the arrival of Ffinch and his
men, however, the opportunity for the girls to escape arrives. These scenes are
where Elwyn is at his best, all bluster and dour acerbic shouting. He is a
typical Lieutenant of the time, promoted by rank of birth rather than by
earning his way, and the way in which the two girls are able to trick him
highlights his stupidity wonderfully. Likewise, the way in which he deals with
the men is brilliantly over-the-top, as he threatens them all with hundreds of
lashings every time he gives them a simple order – "Fetch my horse, and if
you're not back within the hour, three hundred lashes a piece!" is one of
my favourite lines in the entire serial, preposterously overblown as it is. The
comedy here is brilliant, as Ffinch is left grumbling in a pit, robbed of his
food and money and left tied up. Ffinch's character is petty, childish and yet
all the more charming for it.
In the prison cell, meanwhile, the
Doctor, Ben and the Scots are all having a rather terrible time of things. There's
an interesting discussion about the values of the medical system in place at
the time, wherein Jamie is baffled by the Doctor's credentials on the basis
that he hasn't even bled the Laird yet. The Doctor, here, becomes even more
unpredictable – his behaviour has been erratic since his regeneration, and his
cries of "Down with King George", as well as his encouragement of the
Jacobites to sing their anthem, it seems rather frivolous and dangerous –
whilst he is taken away, as requested, still under the guise the German Doktor,
the others are left in the prison, under the angered gaze of the Redcoat
guards.
This second episode also sees the
introduction of Trask, played with unmitigated relish by Dallas Cavell. As the
pirate captain, he is all "arr"s and stereotypical sayings like "What
in thunder?" and "You swab!" The discussion between Trask and
Grey allows us a glimpse at what the future has in store for the prisoners; the
promise that the Highlanders will work twice as hard as "one of your black
slaves" is ominous.
Once the Doctor is taken to Grey's
office, we are once more confused by the Doctor's behaviour. It seems that,
once more, he is betraying the Scots to save his own skin; of course, it is all
a ruse, and the standard is used to confuse the solicitor, and he is gagged,
bound and swiftly thrown into a closet. The Doctor's quip "I've never seen
a silent lawyer before" is brilliantly delivered, with a quirkiness only
Troughton is capable of. Perkins re-entrance leads to one of the most
disturbing scenes, with Troughton's Doctor taking great pleasure in the trick
which he plays upon the clerk, forcing him to head-butt the table repeatedly to
clear the noises which he is persuaded are subconscious, although actually
emanating from the trapped Grey. The physical abuse seems to be relished by the
Doctor, as he purposefully fools the paper-pusher into closing his eyes to deal
with the banging headache caused by too much reading.
The comedy continues to be ramped up as we
cut back to Ffinch in his hole, becoming discovered by the soldiers he sent for
his horse. His desperate attempts to bribe the soldier to pull him out of the
pit, despite his predicament of having been robbed by the girls, are fantastic,
and again he resorts to threats of lashes – 500 this time – if they don't get
him free. What is wonderful is the dead pan way in which the Sergeant pushes
Ffinch's buttons.
The subplot involving Trask's prisoners
and the slave market has strong echoes back to The Romans, when we last saw a companion being manacled and
man-handled onto a ship intended for slavery. The discussion with the former
skipper, Willy, is both disturbing and comical – particularly the repetition of
the misunderstanding of Ben's terminology with the word "fiddle". At
this point, the serial splits into three separate storylines, all occurring at
once; Whilst he is loaded into The Annabelle, and Polly and Kirsty are heading
back to Ffinch's base to blackmail him. The Doctor, meanwhile, is continuing on
his unpredictable mood swings with a touch of transvesticism, this time donning
a peasant woman's garb to infiltrate the base too.
And that raises the most interesting
question – who exactly is the real
Doctor? (If you'll excuse the pun!) At no point since the Doctor regenerated
into his current form has there seemed to be any stability to his performance. From
his third-person dialogue in The Power of
the Daleks, and his madcap behaviour with recorders, daggers and diaries,
to his impersonation of an Earth Examiner, to his seeming disregard for human
life and relishing of physical abuse here, to his strange German accent and his
fetish for headwear – "I'd like a hat like that!" – and now his
newest persona of an old washer woman, we never know exactly where we stand
with Troughton's Doctor. Whilst Hartnell had flashes of comedy genius, usually
hidden under his gruff exterior, this Doctor is quite the opposite,
predominantly a clown with the occasional serious outburst. But that is what is
so magnificent about Troughton's portrayal. We, as an audience, are helped to
empathise with the companions rather than the Doctor simply because we, too,
don't know quite where we stand with him.
Ben is due to be punished, meanwhile,
for the destruction of the contracts, and there is a sardonic humour to this;
the obsession with bureaucracy is wonderful, and the insistence that the ship
cannot sail without the three-copied forms completed is the saving grace for the
Scottish. The third episode ends, then, with the Doctor, in drag, approaching
Perkins, Polly and Kirsty and forcing himself into their game of whist to pass
the time. He draws a pistol on the hapless clerk, and the three escape the inn
with Perkins having to wait for ten minutes, in fear of his life. Meanwhile,
Ben is bound and thrown out to sea, with only a stream of bubbles breaking the
surface...
Of course, Ben hasn't died, but has
freed himself from the ropes and swam to shore, when he is spotted by an armed
soldier – none other than the Doctor, in yet another disguise. This entire
final episode is, once again, laced with extreme violence and uncompromising
images of death and brutality. Whilst Ben is reunited with the other time
travellers in the inn, the Doctor decides to head to the pirate ship to seek an
audience with Captain "ARRRR" Trask, Grey and Perkins. Blackmail is
used once more as a plot device, as the Doctor claims to know the whereabouts
of Bonnie Prince Charlie, but will only share the information if the price is
right.
In the meantime, Polly and Kirsty are
rowing up alongside the Annabelle, seeking a reunion with her father. This
scene is rather touching – following Colin's claim that he'd do anything to
hear his daughter's voice one last time before he dies, he believes he is
dreaming when he hears her calling from outside. They deliver weapons and share
their plan with the Highlanders trapped within the hold, and then, as Grey,
Trask, Perkins and two sailors enter, led by the Doctor, the Highlanders break
from their slumber with cries of "Creag An Tuir!"
My only issue with this particularly
serial, in fact, is that it feels very much like a retread of The Smugglers, which was only aired 11
weeks prior to this. Due to the season breaks, The Smugglers was included as part of season 4. Had it aired as the
final story of season 3, with the break before season 4 began, this repetition
would be forgivable. Here, though, I find it simply too similar to the last historical
to have aired. It would have been nice, for the last historical of the run, to
have had a complete change of tact and pace. Instead, it all feels a little
familiar.
Of course, the time travellers save the
day, former skipper Willy gets his boat back and sets sail to France with the
Highlanders on board. The turncoat clerk Perkins gets a lovely moment to shine
where, once he has allied himself with Willy and the Scots, snaps his fingers
in Grey's face – something which provides him with tremendous "pleasure".
Trask has been dealt with, shoved overboard by Jamie into "the firth",
and Grey is given his comeuppance from the wonderful Ffinch after he has, once
more, been blackmailed into aiding and abetting the Doctor and his companions,
including the newly arrived Jamie. Polly's flirting with Ffinch is a wonderful
little touch, something which has been hinted at all the way through, and the
group are now truly grateful to him – by his own volition, he has had Grey
arrested and removed, whereby saving them. As such, he has earned that peck on
the cheek.
The group return to the TARDIS, and
despite his apprehension, Polly leads Jamie into the ship, and they
dematerialise once more...
If I'm honest, I'll be sad to see the
traditional historical go. Whilst the sci-fi stories, and the
pseudo-historicals, are the real 'bread and butter' now of what the series is
aiming for, it gripes me somewhat that people still claim the historicals are
boring or pointless. They include some of the finest performances, and
certainly some of the strongest scripts, of the entire show's run. Lucarotti in
particular is something of an unsung hero, and along with Donald Cotton's The Myth Makers, these are some of the
greatest scripts the show has ever produced, performed with aplomb by all
involved, with magnificent set design and costuming.
However, it is easy to see why, with the
role being taken over by Troughton, the decision was made to abolish the
straight historical. With Hartnell, the Doctor fitted in perfectly regardless
of the scenario, playing it straight, as in The
Aztecs and The Reign of Terror, or playing it purely for laughs as in The Romans and The Myth Makers. Troughton, though, is always too frivolous. More
than that, though, is his proactivity. Unlike Hartnell's Doctor, who seemed
happy to go along with things and was heavily invested in his own mantra about
not changing "one line" of history, it is difficult to imagine
Troughton's Doctor having the same level of restraint. He enjoys getting his
hands dirty, throwing himself fully into stories.
That Troughton is so proactive a
character may well be the reason that the show has lasted as long as it has,
but it is also certainly what killed the historical. Still, swings and
roundabouts, eh?
Scott Edwards is a teacher of English and Theatre Studies at Barnard Castle School in the North East of England, with a BAHons in English Literature and Film Studies. He is also a self-professed ‘ming-mong,' and in addition to timelordapprentice.blogspot.co.uk he also runs facebook.com/Classic.Doctor.Who. You can also follow him on Twitter: @TimelordTSE.
Labels: Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton, review, T. Scott Edwards
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