The Highlanders episode 1 discussion:
H: Ladies and Gentlemen, Frazer Hines has entered the building!! <cheer>
R: So now we have Pop-Eye, the Hot One, and Polly.
H: Technically not yet, but okay. I guess I shouldn’t have emphasized him yet, as we’re not supposed to know he’s a companion, but I figured everyone already knew. Although the production team at this point didn’t know. They didn’t decide that he was going to be a continuing character until the last episode.
R: I was really proud of Polly for her strong feminist showing up until her “so what do you know, you’re a stupid peasant.”
K: Or until she screamed while falling in the trap.
R: I’d scream if I fell into a pit trap.
M: Wow, creepy villain. OMG.
K: What about the creepy villain?
H: He’s pretty damn cold blooded.
P: I guess he exemplifies what really happened here which is why the Scots are so angry, they are treated the people like cattle to do what they want with. I don’t think he’s creepy because he’s falling into the nobleman’s part of the day.
M: Which is pretty creepy.
P: Yes.
H: I don’t think he’s creepy as in “whoo” but as in he’s a creep.
M: Exactly. As in I actually felt – I cringed. I literally had a physical reaction to him that was unpleasant. Which on the flip side is very impressive as far as the acting goes.
H: Especially since you were doing it from still pictures. So I thought Polly was really impressive in this episode. I think she’s… Doctor Who has this reputation for screaming female characters, but at the same time, while yes they scream, they had some very strong female characters.
P: This is an example where Polly’s leading. I think that she showed her frustration adequately. Also it showed some naivety when they were inspecting the cannon ball crater, because I was expecting munitions to explode.
H: Did they have exploding munitions at that point.
R: They had them, but most cannon balls were straight iron.
K: The Doctor and Company didn’t know what era they were in yet, so didn’t know it wasn’t going to explode. EXPLODE!
M: Apparently the Doctor did, because he just pried it out of there.
H: Although he noticed the gun powder residue.
M: There were a couple of Troughton Doctor moments. “You don’t want to look scared do you?” “Why not?”
H: “Alright, let’s leave.”
M: And then the hat business was good.
H: “I would like a hat like that. Do you think I would look good in a hat like that?”
R: What is the deal with the giant hat?
H: It was a costume idea that they came up with.
M: I think it’s Black Adder the first’s hat, isn’t it?
H: They were real hats. It’s not something the production team made up.
R: When gigantic hats ruled the land.
H: I was going to go back to the hat and point out the Doctor reading the cockade on the hat and saying “romantic rubbish” and throwing it down. That’s an interesting little character moment. Not sure what it says about the new Doctor’s character. Maybe he’s not a romantic.
R: Not a believer in lost causes.
M: Not a believer in getting killed for lost causes?
P: The previous owner clearly got killed.
H: But between that and the cowardice, they specifically wanted to take the character in a different direction.
R: I have to say William Hartnell could think on his feet, but more often than not he would fall into a role, like his bard act in the Romans. But in this one all of a sudden you’ve got a Doctor who immediately goes “Ja ja, not much fun in Stalingrad.” and invents a role for himself.
M: And then sticks to it even after it didn’t really work.
H: It goes back to the cowardice. He’s going to talk his way out of a situation, which is something that the first Doctor manifestly could not do.
R: The first Doctor would have flown into a towering coot rage. “Don’t make me take my cane to you, sir!”
M: Of course rarely did the first Doctor end up in a situation quite a brutal as this one. This one was certainly the darkest events in recent history.
K: Yeah, he missed the brutality in both the Reign of Terror and the Romans that Ian went through.
H: And the Massacre.
M: A lot of the historicals definitely put them in dangerous places but in this case they’re in a place where there’s no rules and people are just getting slaughter everywhere. I think the amount of censored footage that survived shows pretty clearly how brutal even this depiction was.
R: “And this children is why you never allow a dirty northerner into your home.”
M: They definitely showed the English in the bad light.
R: The English were getting the worst of it, but they showed everyone in a bad light. It almost felt more like an American portrayal of the Civil War.
K: Not much different, really.
M: Well it was a British portrayal of a Civil War.
R: I definitely got the sense from the episode that it was a tragedy for both sides.
H: I’m going to go out on a historical limb here and say that it really wasn’t a tragedy for both sides. The Scotts got slaughtered. As they were starting to show, the English killed all the wounded.
P: I think one of the telling moments in the battle was when they showed the Scott moving into a British guy and the other guy with the rifle took him it. It shows that technology was really a component in the war.
H: It was also poor leaderships and supplies. It was a bad scene, in the metaphorical sense.
K: It was my ancestors! <sniff>
H: Your ancestors were likely lowlander Scots, “Miss Royalty.”
R: I surprised to see how much of a bad light they put the British solders in.
K: English.
R: I found that kind of impressive. To have the BBC saying “Yeah, we slaughtered everything that moved and stole everything that didn’t.”
H: To be fair the union with Scotland was 160 years old at this point. I think the English could admit what they’d done at this point. So how did you feel about Troughton’s injections of humor into this. Like the “Doctor Von Wer” joke?
P: What, what’s the joke?
M: “Doctor Who?”
H: “That’s what I said.” Von Wer means Who.
M: It was kind of “thank god” to have the humor, cause the story was soooo dark.
K: Lots of possible cliff hangers. I was almost surprised it took so long to get to the real one. I expected the cliff hanger to be the hanging.
H: Yeah, I couldn’t remember where it came in, so I was expecting that as well. The actual cliff hanger kind of felt anti-climactic after that.
K: But I already knew they were going to get rescued by creepy guy Grey.
H: There were a lot of Highlanders sent to Jamaica as slaves, and most died there.
P: The subplot of the ring was interesting. It sort of showed how much Polly did not know of the situation. She didn’t understand that this woman would die for the symbol of what the ring is.
M: Yes, they showed the English in a bad light, but then they showed the hat and the ring, and what the Highlanders were fighting for.
H: They made a big point of the fact that the symbols were more important than the victory. And Charles Stewart…
K: I said they were my ancestors!
H: was more important as a symbol then he was as a reality.
K: Oh, was he a Stuart?
H: No, not in the least.
<Stewart history is explained, clearing things up a little bit more regarding Ketina’s ancestors.>
K: Well, I’m only a bit Scottish.
P: So anyway, the ring? The viewer knows that she’s protecting an heirloom. And clearly Polly can’t get this concept, even though what England is all about “our crown, our throne, or scepter, our past.”
R: Yeah English was also about taking away “your crown, your throne, your scepter…”
P: Your language.
H: Going back to what Photobug said, Polly’s 20th Century viewpoint may be seen as more pragmatic and less concerned with the symbolic, which is a viewpoint that someone of the 18th Century wouldn’t have understood.
P: This story really tells the plight of Scotland, where they are not only being killed on the battlefield, but also slowly being killed by starvation.
H: And being thrown out of the their homes, and various other things. It was a bad time to be living in the Highlands of Scotland.
M: Let’s face it, if you’re from Earth chances are the British did something bad to your ancestors.
P: Even if you’re British.
M: You can’t have a world spanning empire without acquiring some karmic debt.
R: Gamer moment of the week – when Alexander says “I’ll distract them!” I immediately figure “cool, he’s run off into the heather with sword over his head and lead them away.” but that’s not what he does. He runs straight into them headlong and gets himself killed. Not a great distraction plan. A gamer would have done it right.
H: He was trying to convince them that he had been the only person hiding in that cottage. It did not work, but that was what he was trying to do. Tactically I agree with you, it doesn’t make sense. But I think that’s what he was trying to do.
P: I those days they only had a range of 10 yards with the guns, so it was highly likely they were going to miss anyway.
H: There was a good shot. Sorry, no pun intended.
R: Remind me not to get trapped in a Highland cottage with you guys when the Red Coats are outside.
K: No, you want to be with those guys, cause they’re the ones who are going to run outside and get killed, while you escape out the back.
P: Ronelyn, here’s a reminder. Don’t get trapped in a Highland cottage with us when the Red Coats are outside.
R: Ahhhhhh!
H: I think we’re up to final thoughts.
P: What? There was some good transitional / incidental music in this episode.
H: It was very subtle.
K: There was music? I heard bagpipes, flutes, and drums, but that was all being played by characters.
H: I think there was a little more.
P: I also appreciated that the censors cut some stuff so we could see moving pictures today. Classic Doctor Who is probably the only time I’m glad for censorship.
H: Yeah, the Australians were going for a specific rating for the time slot the show was shown.
P: I like where the story’s going. I like that they’re playing this historical as an accurate fictional representation of what may not have been told in history classes.
M: I think I said everything I wanted to say.
R: Upper Class twit of the year award goes to Lt. ‘Algy’ Algernon Ffinch. Late of His Majesty’s army.
H: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Wait until next week.
R: It’s the double-Fs that do it for me.
K: Jamie! Yay! Boy does he look young. And cute. The Doctor’s German accent was TOTALLY inconsistent, but funny.
R: Like any of the toffee nosed English soldiers would know a German accent if it ran up, bit them, and showed “ja ja!” at the top of it’s lungs.
H: Well that could be why they kept thinking he was French.
P: <sarcastically> French, German, same thing.
K: And I was hoping the Doctor would keep the Highlander hat so he’d ditch the silly huge one. I’d like a hat like that. Okay, not really.
M: Apparently the Doctor has never met a hat he didn’t like.
H: So as I mentioned, this is the last historical of the TARDIS project. And I think they’re going out with a bang.
R: And several booms. And a bunch of arghs. And ‘Amazing Grace’ playing in the background, as it should be.
H: Riiiiight.
P: At least they were accurate by not wearing tartans. I also found the landscape not what I was expecting, because I’m an American I guess.
M: There was that comment “It seems familiar. It’s cold and damp. We must be home!”
R: Welcome to Seattle, dude. Wanna join a grunge band?
H: What do you mean finding the landscape not what you were expecting.
K: Yeah, Scotland is cold and damp.
P: There was not vegetation.
R: Yeah, Scotland. Heather, gorse, and lichen. Scotland. That’s it.
K: It was like in the moors e.g. in the ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ and all that.
H: I don’t know where it was filmed, certainly not in Scotland.
R: Presumably in a quarry painted green.
—
