The Highlanders is the last of the purely historic stories, in that there are no aliens or monsters - just common or garden human villainy. Some try to argue that Black Orchid is the last historical, but that story just couldn't help but have a monster (and we'll have a great deal to say about what is wrong with it when we get to it).
The main reason given for the abandonment of the historicals was that viewers didn't like them and switched off. Poor ratings for The Gunfighters, which producer Innes Lloyd and Davis inherited, is the excuse often cited. This isn't the whole picture, however. Some episodes of the OK Corral story did better than The Tenth Planet - which helped launch the more favoured "base under siege" monster stories. What was really bad for The Gunfighters was not so much the viewing figures as the audience appreciation ones. Feedback from viewers was often negative about historical stories, with the audience claiming they preferred the outer space / monster stories.
Like the second to last historical, The Smugglers, The Highlanders goes more for literary historical than celebrity historical, though this time it does at least dwell on a particular famous historical event.
Budget conscious, it decides to dwell on the aftermath to the Battle of Culloden, 1746, rather than the build up or the battle itself.
There are two authors credited, but it was only one of them who actually wrote any of it - story editor Gerry Davis. Elwyn Jones had to withdraw at a very early stage, leaving Davis to write it himself.
As with some other depictions of the Jacobite Rebellions, this story tends to make it a more simplistic English versus Scots affair. English Catholics supported the Jacobite cause, and many Scottish Protestants supported the English crown. The rebellions were more of an addendum to the European Wars of Religion, rather than a foretaste of future England v. Scotland football matches at Wembley or Hampden.
With The Highlanders, the English characters are generally baddies, and the Scots ones the good guys. The only nice Englishman - Lt Algernon ffinch - is only helpful because Polly and her new friend Kirsty blackmail him. He's also presented as a bit of an upper class twit.
The story introduces Jamie McCrimmon (played by Frazer Hines). Believing he was only going to be appearing in four episodes, he adopted a lilting Highland accent. Once offered a regular role, during the studio recordings, he realised that this accent would be unsustainable and went for what he himself termed more of a "TV Scottish accent". Hines is actually from Yorkshire, but had a Scottish mother. He played a Scots boy in the 1956 Hammer sci-fi film X - The Unknown, and in the 1957 BBC TV adaptation of Huntingtower, so had experience of using a Scots accent.
The McCrimmons are a real family. However, at the time of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion they were allied with the McLeod clan - who were pro-government, so Jamie should technically be on the side of the Redcoats. They really were noted pipers (though we never actually see Jamie show any interest in playing the pipes throughout his long tenure in the TARDIS - despite the Doctor having a set in the TARDIS trunk).
This is Patrick Troughton's second story as the Doctor, so the character has not properly developed yet. He does a lot of dressing up and pretending to be other people (a German doctor, an old washerwoman and a Redcoat soldier) but this aspect of the character won't last beyond this story (apart from an obsession with hats, but even that will fade rather quickly). He is also rather aggressive and ill-tempered. There's a slightly malicious side to his anti-authoritarianism.
On finding a Scottish bonnet with the Jacobite cockade on it, he snorts "romantic piffle", which isn't very open minded of him. He should be more accepting of both sides of an argument.
Later, he'll gleefully smash someone's head against a table - repeatedly. The Second Doctor is still cooking.
Plot wise, there isn't much to be said - until we get to the end. The main villain of the piece plans to make a fortune selling Jacobite prisoners into slavery, and he gets arrested at the conclusion for this. Trouble is, Jacobite prisoners were sold into slavery - officially. Solicitor Grey is only doing what others were doing, so it's hard to see how he will be punished for it.
Jamie has shown nothing but loyalty to his laird, and yet when he has the chance to go abroad with him to safety he abandons him and decides to accompany the Doctor and companions back to the TARDIS. What does he intend to do once he has bidden them farewell in this now hostile land where he is going to be a hunted fugitive? Why does he agree to get inside a small wooden box with three people he hardly knows? For a poorly educated 18th Century country boy he seems to grasp rather quickly that this box can travel by itself.
When it came to the novelisation, Gerry Davis took the opportunity to amend a line of dialogue. ffinch threatens someone with 300 lashes, which would have undoubtedly proven fatal, so he changes it to a more survivable 6 in the book.
Dallas Cavell, as Captain Trask, seems to think he's understudying Robert Newton as Long John Silver, with far too may "Ooh Arrs!" and "ye scurvy dogs!".
One unfortunate line of dialogue: "Take a man round the rear, sergeant".
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