The Highlanders Episode 2

The one where the Doctor impersonates a German doctor and a Scottish washerwoman...

The Highlanders episode 2 is the first and (as of 2017) only time that Doctor Who has been shown on Christmas Eve, and perhaps fittingly, it all feels rather like a pantomime. I wrote in my review of episode 1 how I wasn't keen on Patrick Troughton's interpretation of his Doctor, and the silliness just continues here. This version of the Second Doctor feels so spectacularly unfamiliar that he barely feels like the Doctor at all.

In the scenes where the Doctor, Ben, Jamie and Colin are imprisoned in a waterlogged jail, our time-travelling hero is really rather irritating. He claims he is glad they are in the predicament they're in, as he's just beginning to enjoy himself (the predicament is that they're being sent overseas to become slaves in Barbados, so I suppose every cloud has a silver lining...). He also whips out his annoying recorder again and blows out a tune, rousing the other prisoners into a rowdy singalong, as well as yelling the somewhat controversial "Down with King George!" because he likes the echo.

Some might claim he's doing all of this on purpose, but when he convinces the jailer to let him out because he claims to have information about an assassination plot against the Duke of Cumberland, it has no connection to the frenzy of activity and noise he's caused earlier. He just does it for devilment, and it's just annoying. And silly.

Things don't improve when he confronts Solicitor Grey at the Sea Eagle pub. He affects his cod German accent once more (either Troughton isn't very good at German accents, or he's putting on a dodgy accent as the Doctor) and then sets about assaulting Grey by smothering him with the McLaren standard, binding him by his hands and gagging him. He then throws him in a cupboard and turns his attentions to Grey's sidekick Perkins, who he convinces has "print blindness" and needs to lie down with his eyes closed for an hour. This is a ruse so that he can escape of course, but a ruse which involves somewhat vindictively banging the clerk's head against the table to provoke a headache. This whole routine is done with Troughton's dodgy German accent and just seems really silly. I could imagine Sylvester McCoy doing the whole thing much better (ironically, with his own Scottish accent!) in his Season 24 guise. Think of the bit in Paradise Towers where he befuddles the Caretakers with their rule book, the scene in Dragonfire where he confuses Arnheim with mention of the "semiotic thickness of a performed text", or the moment in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy where he talks the Bus Conductor to death. I can't help but think that, on this rare occasion, Troughton fails terribly.

And then he goes and impersonates a washerwoman and uses another dodgy accent. It's just so silly. I know Doctor Who can be a silly programme, but for some reason, I just don't click with all this.

Much better is the magnificent Anneke Wills as Polly, who continues to suffer the simpering Kirsty. After last week's cliffhanger where Polly fell into an animal pit and then a mysterious stranger came at her with a knife, it's really rather underwhelming to discover the stranger is weepy old Kirsty, who rather than rescue Polly, merely falls in the pit with her. Pathetic girl! And then she starts crying, which provokes another justified barb from Polly: "Oh not again. Didn't the women of your age do anything but cry?"

Polly's fab in this episode, luring Algernon ffinch (or "F-finch" as she insists on calling him!) into the pit with them so that they can rob him and escape. Polly teases and humiliates the Redcoat officer by threatening to tell his colleagues that he was captured by two girls. Polly may not get very far in this episode, but she certainly makes the best impression.

Poor old Ben and Jamie get little to do in this episode except get pushed around by their captors, but worst of all is the writers' treatment of the character of Colin McLaren. The laird has been injured since the very moment we met him in the opening strains of episode 1, and has barely spoken a word. Poor Donald Bisset is given next to nothing to do except stagger from set to set vaguely moaning! Once the Christmas cake and sherry are out of the way, The Highlanders needs to step up a gear and focus if it's to leave any positive impression on me at all!

First broadcast: December 24th, 1966

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Anneke Wills is marvellous as Polly, who is written so well by Elwyn Jones and Gerry Davis.
The Bad: Where to start? Patrick Troughton's misjudged performance, coupled with an outrageously OTT turn from Dallas Cavell as the stereotypically "ooh-aarrrr" pirate Trask, offers plenty of ham to chew on.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode 3...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode 1; Episode 3; Episode 4

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-highlanders.html

The Highlanders soundtrack is available on BBC CD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Highlanders-Television-Soundtrack/dp/0563477555