Synopsis:
As they are rowed out to the Annabelle, Ben, Jamie and McLaren see a corpse being dumped overboard - and Trask threatens that this is the only way out for them...
The prisoners are forced below decks to a cramped hold where there are already several other captives. McLaren recognises one of them - a man named Willy MacKay. He is the true master of the Annabelle, but his ship has been stolen from him by Trask, his treacherous First Mate. MacKay had been smuggling guns for the Jacobites when captured by Government forces, and Trask had switched sides to avoid arrest.
He is initially suspicious of Ben, being English, but the others vouch for him. It is Ben who works out that they are going to be sold as slave labour.
Polly and Kirsty approach Inverness, where they decide to pose as orange sellers. They seek out Lt. Ffinch to help them, and find him at the Sea Eagle Inn. His sergeant suspects the women are the ones they were hunting the day before, but Ffinch is easily blackmailed by them and he insists they are old friends.
They are being observed by an old woman, sitting at a nearby table.
Solicitor Grey is on the Annabelle addressing the prisoners. He informs them that they will all be pardoned if they sign a contract, offering them transportation to the West Indies and work on the plantations there for a period of seven years. The alternative is that they will be hanged as rebels.
MacKay warns everyone that he has witnessed conditions on these plantations, and warns them not to sign.
He refuses to do so, as do Ben, Jamie and McLaren.
Ben then asks to read the contract before he thinks of signing one. When Grey hands them to him, he tears them up. Trask orders him taken away and chained up.
Polly sees Grey's clerk Perkins and starts toying with him to gain information about her friends.
The old woman joins them, offering to play cards. Polly discovers that this is the disguised Doctor.
Grey arrives, but fails to recognise the Doctor. He leaves with Polly and Kirsty, instructing Perkins not to set foot outside the inn for the next ten minutes or he will shoot him dead.
The Doctor takes the women to a nearby barn, where he reveals that his pistol wasn't loaded. As an old woman he has been able to move about and gather information from the Redcoats, and tells them that their friends are being held on the ship. Polly suggests a plan to rescue them, but the Doctor thinks that they should capture the whole ship instead, then they could get everyone to safety in France.
They will need weapons, and Kirsty knows that the Redcoats will sell anything for a little money.
Whilst Polly wants immediate action, the Doctor then falls asleep.
Grey returns to the Annabelle with new copies of the contracts. He decides with Trask that Ben should be made an example of, to discourage the others from refusing to sign.
The Doctor, Polly and Kirsty have managed to scrape together a few weapons, but hardly enough for their plan to seize the ship. Polly then discovers that Kirsty has been concealing a gold ring which they could have sold. She did not want to part with it as it belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie, who had presented it to her father. The Doctor convinces her that it should be used to help save the Prince's supporters.
In the harbour, Ben is brought up on deck and has a rope tied around his waist. He is hauled up into the air, then dropped down into the murky waters of the dock...
Written by Gerry Davis & Elwyn Jones
Recorded: Saturday 17th December 1966 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 31st December 1966
Ratings: 7.4 million / AI 46
Designer: Geoffrey Kirkland
Director: Hugh David
Additional cast: Andrew Downie (Willy MacKay)
The Highlanders is about as comedic as the Troughton era gets. (Some might think the next story the funniest - but that's more unintentionally funny). The Romans is often singled out for its humour, but not this fellow historical. Like the Hartnell story, the humour is very much juxtaposed against some terribly grim goings-on. The past was a dark and dangerous place.
The humour mainly comes from the star. After this story, the Troughton Doctor will be rapidly toned down. The Doctor is dressed as a little old woman for the entire episode, and seems to act erratically and impulsively. He once again runs rings around Perkins, but when Polly wants some action he simply yawns and falls asleep.
A comedy sequence in the inn, with the Doctor as the old woman, was cut late in the day, so the humour could have been even more overt. This scene would have entailed the Doctor trying to save his beer as he is being pushed around by some Redcoats and getting cross-eyed and dizzy, only to end with him knocking their head together.
Michael Elwyn continues to play Algernon Ffinch as a stereotypical upper class twit, having rings run round him by Polly and Kirsty.
Considering that she is often perceived as a typical screaming companion, it should be noted how proactive Polly is in this story. She takes the lead straight away her friends have been captured, arguing with Kirsty over her apparent helplessness.
It is Polly who spurs her to action and comes up with ideas such as blackmailing Ffinch and posing as orange sellers.
With this, Polly is recalling that famous 17th Century figure Nell Gwyn (1650 - 1689). A popular actress of the Restoration stage, she was best remembered as a mistress of King Charles II and is mentioned in the diaries of Samuel Pepys. Before her fame she had sold oranges at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.
Ben is also given plenty to do, on the eve of his character being side-lined by the arrival of Jamie. He tricks Grey into handing over the signed contracts which he then destroys, and later pays the price for this with a decent action sequence - more rigging-hanging than cliff-hanging.
Ben's tearing up of the contract was inspired by a similar scene in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped.
Filming took place at Ealing on Wednesday 16th November, to record the cliff-hanger - Michael Craze not being required for the recording of the fifth instalment of The Power of the Daleks. Of the guest cast only Dallas Cavell and David Garth were needed.
Fight Arranger and stuntman Peter Diamond doubled for Craze in the climactic scene where Ben is lowered into the water, having also been the dead body dropped into the harbour at the cliff-hanger of the previous episode.
Rehearsals were cut short for the regulars as they had to do location filming on the next story - The Underwater Menace - in Dorset. This had also entailed them having to give up their day off.
Craze and Hines then missed a further day due to other filming at Ealing.
The opening titles for this episode were played over a shot of bubbles rising, as the reprise from the previous instalment was reduced significantly.
Both recording breaks involved Anneke Wills and Hannah Gordon - the first to allow them to change into their orange seller costumes, and the other to allow them to move, with Troughton, from the inn set to the barn one.
Wills suffered a fluff when she got Ffinch's name wrong. His full name was supposed to be given as 'Algernon Thomas Alfred Ffinch', but Wills got the Algernon and Alfred mixed up.
When Polly says that his disguise suits him, the Doctor replies by calling her a "saucy girl". This was an ad-lib by Troughton.
The closing titles mirrored the opening ones - played over a shot of bubbles rising to the surface.
- The ratings actually increase by around half a million viewers - no doubt due to the New Year's Eve timeslot. The appreciation figure remains stable. It varies by only a single point over the course of the entire story.
- The old woman named Mollie, seen in Episode 2, was supposed to feature in this episode as well, serving in the inn, but her role was given instead to an extra as it didn't require a dialogue part.
- Willy MacKay was originally going to be played by Russell Hunter. However, he had to withdraw late in the day when veteran actor Duncan Macrae fell ill and could not appear in a pantomime version of Treasure Island in Edinburgh. Hunter was called upon to take over, and so MacKay was recast with Downie taking the role. Hunter would eventually appear in Doctor Who a decade later, playing Uvanov in The Robots of Death.
- Downie would later feature in the film Soft Top, Hard Shoulder (1993) - written by and starring Peter Capaldi.
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