The Highlanders (Doctor Who)

031 – The Highlanders
Doctor Who serial
The Doctor and Polly encounter the Highlanders Alexander McLaren (left) and Jamie McCrimmon (right)
Cast
Doctor Patrick Troughton (Second Doctor)
Companions Anneke Wills (Polly) Michael Craze (Ben Jackson) Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon)
Others Donald Bisset — The Laird William Dysart — Alexander Hannah Gordon — Kirsty Andrew Downie — Willie Mackay David Garth — Solicitor Grey Sydney Arnold — Perkins Dallas Cavell — Captain Trask Michael Elwyn — Lt. Algernon Ffinch Guy Middleton — Colonel Attwood Peter Welch — Sergeant Tom Bowman — Sentry Barbara Bruce — Mollie Peter Diamond — Sailor
Production
Directed by	Hugh David
Written by	Elwyn Jones Gerry Davis
Script editor	Gerry Davis
Produced by	Innes Lloyd
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer	None
Production code	FF
Series	Season 4
Length	4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Episode(s) missing	All episodes
Date started	17 December 1966
Date ended	7 January 1967
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Power of the Daleks The Underwater Menace
List of Doctor Who serials

The Highlanders

Author	Gerry Davis
Cover artist	Nick Spender
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	90
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	15 November 1984
ISBN

The Highlanders is the completely missing fourth serial of the fourth season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 17 December 1966 to 7 January 1967. This serial is the first appearance of Frazer Hines as companion-to-be Jamie McCrimmon. Although audio recordings, still photographs, and clips of the story exist, no episodes of this serial are known to have survived.

Following the Battle of Culloden, the British army is triumphant over the rebel forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie. When the TARDIS arrives, the Doctor, Ben and Polly encounter fleeing Scots rebels and are taken prisoner by them. They all hide in a deserted cottage with the Laird Colin McLaren, who has been badly wounded; his daughter Kirsty; his piper Jamie McCrimmon; and his son Alexander, who dies defending them from a patrol of English soldiers mopping up survivors. The patrol leader, Lt. Algernon Ffinch, is an ineffectual fop, but his Sergeant is more forceful and takes the Doctor, Jamie, Ben, and the Laird to be hanged. But Polly and Kirsty manage to slip away.

The two women hide in a cave, then an animal pit, from Lt. Ffinch, who believes the Prince to be one of them following the rumour that he fled the battlefield as a woman. Eventually Ffinch finds them, but they trick him and steal his money. Later in Inverness, the nearest major town to Culloden, they run into him again and use his previous foolishness to blackmail him.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, the Royal Commissioner of Prisons, a shady character called Grey, plots to enslave any highlanders still alive and ship them to the colonies. He makes contact with an unscrupulous sea captain called Trask who agrees to use his ship “The Annabelle” for this. Amongst the prisoners he identifies for sale are the Doctor, Jamie, Ben, and the Laird. They are taken to the prison in Inverness with many others, but the Doctor cons his way out, and overpowers Grey and his secretary Perkins to make his escape. Grey is freed by Trask, who reports that the transportation plan has begun and arranges for a number of prisoners, including Jamie, Ben and the Laird, to be transferred to the ship. The prisoners learn that they are being sold as slaves but most accept this fate, believing seven years indentured labour to be better than the gallows. Only Ben, Jamie, the Laird and one of his friends, Willie Mackay, refuse to sign. When Ben attacks Grey, Trask has him thrown into the sea at the end of a rope.