Production Code: FF
First Transmitted
1 - 17/12/1966 17:50
2 - 24/12/1966 17:50
3 - 31/12/1966 17:50
4 - 07/01/1967 17:50
Plot
The time travellers arrive in Scotland in the aftermath of the battle of Culloden. The Doctor gains the trust of a small band of fleeing Highlanders by offering to tend their wounded Laird, Colin McLaren; but while Polly and the Laird's daughter, Kirsty, are away fetching water, he and the others are all captured by Redcoat troops under the command of Lieutenant Algernon ffinch.
Grey, a crooked solicitor who sells prisoners for transportation to slavery in the West Indies, then secures the group into his custody. Polly and Kirsty blackmail ffinch into helping, and the Doctor eventually wins the day by smuggling arms to the Highlanders, who are being held on board a stolen ship, the Annabelle.
Grey and the ship's unscrupulous captain, Trask, are overpowered and the vessel returned to its rightful owner, MacKay, who agrees to take the Scots to safety in France.
The Doctor, Polly and Ben return to the TARDIS, where they are joined on their travels by the young piper Jamie McCrimmon.
Episode Endings
Leaving Kirsty hiding in a cave, Polly heads off to try to rescue her friends. Unable to see in the dark, she falls into a covered pit. She tries to climb out, but a hand clutching a knife reaches down to her. Polly screams.
Jamie, Ben and the Highlander prisoners are being taken out to the Annabelle in a rowing boat by Trask. Trask warns them that the only way off the ship is straight down to the bottom of the sea - a point graphically illustrated as a prisoner is pushed over the side and bubbles are seen rising from the depths.
Ben has been captured and tied up for daring to cross Grey. Sentenced to be dropped from the yard arm, he is lifted from the deck and swung out over the side of the Annabelle. He is dropped into the sea, hauled out, and then dropped again. Trask smiles as bubbles rise to the surface...
The Doctor, Ben and Polly enter the TARDIS, accompanied by Jamie. The TARDIS dematerialises.
Roots
Kidnapped.
The Magic Flute (the stuff that the Doctor spouts as Von Wer is Mozart's masonic mysticism).
Peter Watkins' drama documentary Culloden and the legend of the McCrimmons. According to this Donald Ban McCrimmon, the last of the fabled McCrimmon pipers to the clan McLeod of Skye, followed his Laird onto the English side. Captured by loyal Scots, all the pipers went on strike until he was released. A few days later he was shot dead. Although this may be a fable invented by mad Angus McKay, Queen Victoria's first piper, The Highlanders clearly indicates the McCrimmons' continued survival.
Dialogue Triumphs
The Doctor : "Down with King George!"
Jamie : "So you are for the Prince after all."
The Doctor : "No, I just like hearing the echo!"
"I've never seen a silent lawyer before."
Double Entendre
"Will you both give us your word that you'll not molest us?"
"Take a man round the rear, sergeant"
The Doctor : "There is no plot," [the Doctor carefully assures Grey]
Continuity
The Doctor carries a magnifying glass and a conker. He threatens people with an unloaded pistol throughout, despite professing a lack of ability with it. Jamie can't swim, and is the son of Donald McCrimmon, who, like his father, was also a piper.
We hear his battle cry of 'Craeg An Tuire' for the first time. He boards the TARDIS on condition that he teaches the Doctor how to play the bagpipes.
QV
Location
Culloden, 1746.
Trivia
Well known actors Hannah Gordon and Donald Bisset star as Kirsty and the Laird.
The Doctor appears in an array of disguises: a German doctor, an aged washer-woman and a Redcoat.
Myth
It was decided to keep Jamie on as a companion due to positive audience reaction. (Gerry Davis and Innes Lloyd were initially uncertain how Jamie would work as an ongoing character and so Frazer Hines' initial contract for the part allowed provision for three further options to be taken up on a further three four-part stories.
Hines' contract was signed on 2 November 1966 and location filming for The Highlanders took place from 14 November. On 21 November an extra piece of location filming was scheduled, believed to be a revised final scene in which Jamie enters the TARDIS - Hines' performance during the location filming having convinced Lloyd and Davis that the character had the potential to become a regular. Location filming for The Underwater Menace, which also featured Jamie, took place on 13 December, three days before the first episode of The Highlanders was transmitted.)
Goofs
Ffinch threatens his men with 300 lashes apiece (In the book, Davis alters it to a less terminal six.)
The Jacobite rebellion is erroneously presented as an Anglo-Scottish conflict, rather than the attempt to restore the Stuart dynasty as it actually was.
Fashion Victim
The Doctor wears his 16th century hat, 4 various disguises and drag.
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Patrick Troughton
Ben Jackson - Michael Craze
Jamie - Frazer Hines
Polly - Anneke Wills
Alexander - William Dysart
Colonel Attwood - Guy Middleton
Kirsty - Hannah Gordon
Lt. Algernon Ffinch - Michael Elwyn
Mollie - Barbara Bruce
Perkins - Sydney Arnold
Sailor - Peter Diamond
Sentry - Tom Bowman
Sergeant - Peter Welch
Solicitor Grey - David Garth
The Laird - Donald Bisset
Trask - Dallas Cavell
Willie Mackay - Andrew Downie
Crew
Director - Hugh David
The Highlanders