The Highlanders - Episode 4

Right lets get this final episode out of the way. It seems like an awfully long time ago since that promising opening episode. It’s probably fair to blame the lack of visual for my lack of interest but actually that would exonerate the writers which would be too good for them. The Highlanders is a terrible story though certainly not as bad as other stories I have mentioned previously. Thankfully the episodes in this story are only 25 minutes long because it meant that we are spared anymore torture of a rather tedious historical adventure.
There is nothing more that I could say about this story because there is nothing more than happens. This is the last pure historical adventure until 1982’s Black Orchid so at least there is sometime to go before we go back into this territory. I cant even comment about the regulars (minus Jamie) because I don’t really recall what happened. No one gets a good amount to do in this story and it seems like Patrick Troughton features very little in this but to be honest I don’t recall much and I am not willing to listen to it again.

The final few minutes were the only good things in the episode. The historical stuff had been dealt with and I couldn’t care less about that but it was how they were going to include Jamie on board the TARDIS. It falls to Polly to do the ‘hang on a minute’ thing which is a fair enough thing considering that Frazer Hines hasn’t exactly been used well in the four episodes and if you didn’t know better then you would be totally surprised and somewhat underwhelmed. I love that the only condition the Doctor has for letting Jamie join them is that he teaches him the bagpipes.

It’s interesting to note that at this moment in time, episode four of The Highlanders is ranked 143^rd out 144. Only The Web Planet – Escape to Danger scored a worst rating. Though the ratings have been on a downwards spiral, in terms of stories its currently 29^th out of 31 with The Web Planet and The Myth Makers getting a worst score. It’s a fair result because as much as I have found the last two episode really boring I cant say that I think that the story is worst story. There is enough goodwill from the fact we have a new Doctor that means I just don’t have it in me to be totally down on this story.