#The Highlanders

[fritzmonorail]

Somebody find this serial. Look at what we’re missing out on.

Honestly, every doctor should appear in drag at least once.

[verticalplane]

Ben and Polly on watch for the final lantern signal of The Annabelle

I crudely smashed two telesnaps from The Highlanders together to create a nice picture of my two loves and drew it

[doctorwhogirlie]

Doctor Who - The Highlanders

[pebblenessmonster]

Best charity shop find ever

It seems I'll be busy for quite a while with these...

[therabbitofrassilon]

he is SO cute I think im coming down with something (love)

[normiedoctorwho]

Why didn’t anyone tell me the Highlanders had one of the best one off Who characters?

This dude, Lt. Algernon Ffinch, is just a lot of fun. You feel bad (or at least I did) for how many times Polly keeps ruining his day, stealing all his money, blackmailing him, and even Ben has him at knifepoint towards the end. Then the dude finds out he’s been helping some this greedy asshole prison warden trick/sell the rebels he’s been fighting into slavery and just switched sides. Even lets the tardis team leave INCLUDING JAMIE!

Granted it’s sorta implied he did it cuz he liked Polly too, but that just means that despite her constantly treating him like crap, once he figured out why she was doing all of this he started to like her. Also it’s not like he proposes or anything. She just gives him a kiss on the cheek and he leaves. Never to be heard from again.

But I’ll remember him.

Idk I get James Norrington but more of a doofus vibes from this guy and so I can’t help but like him. Overall fun side character I wanted to highlight.

[cringecompanionapologist]

Random Thoughts on a Very Specific Thing: When Companions Choose Companions

Okay, so, off the top of my head, this has happened four times in Doctor Who's televised run. I'm not familiar enough with EU companions to say anything about what happens there.

Companions have become companions for a variety of reasons. The new series has this idea that the Doctor only travels with "the best" and they usually choose their companions. The classic series had a lot of Companions via Circumstance. Dodo and Tegan thought the TARDIS was a real police box and just walked in at the wrong time. Ben and Polly saw the Doctor enter the TARDIS, got curious, followed him, and then he took off before noticing that they were there. Victoria and Nyssa both lost everyone close to them and became companions because they had nowhere else to go. Ian and Barbara were straight-up fucking kidnapped.

There have also been several stowaway companions. The Doctor didn't invite them, but they Insisted. There are very few classic series companions the Doctor chose. In Logopolis, Four even goes on a rant about it. It's actually a big stand-out moment when One invites Vicki to join him and this would go on to be a bit uncommon. Three had Liz and Jo basically assigned to him by UNIT. That's why companions were often called assistants back in the day. They were basically lab assistants. It was literally their job.

I could go on and on about this, but this thing is supposed to be about the four companions that were chosen by another companion: Jamie, Peri, Ace, and Adam.

Yes, I'm counting Adam for this, not because he completely counts as a companion, but because he was invited to be one and basically failed his test run.

Here There Be Spoilers for the episodes these companions debuted in and probably more.

It's funny how the four examples here are split down the middle. The blondes, Polly and Rose, chose companions to come with them, while the gingers, Turlough and Mel, chose companions to replace them. It also splits down the middle in that Jamie and Ace became the definitive companions of their Doctors, while Peri and Adam didn't work well with the Doctors the joined, with Peri not having much time with 5 before constantly bickering with 6, and Adam just failing completely.

I think some of the reason for this seems to be based on the mindset of the companions that picked the companions. Polly and Mel were mainly thinking of the new companion when they chose them. Polly realized that Jamie was in a rough part of history and maybe it would be nice to take him out of it. Mel spent a while bonding with Ace and realized that she could use a Space Dad.

Rose wasn't really thinking when she invited Adam along. She basically did it because she thought he was cute. 9 was never into it, just humoring her, and then they both sort of ditched him on his first trip to the far future. Look, Adam made his own bad decisions and shouldn't have been a companion, but he also shouldn't have been left completely unsupervised in an unfamiliar time period. He got that stupid computer thing in his head because it was basically required to do anything around there, and then decided to be stupid with it.

Meanwhile, Turlough was thinking of the Doctor. 5 didn't handle Tegan's departure well and admitted to being depressed. When he realized he was going to have to leave, Turlough was aware that the Doctor shouldn't be left alone while already feeling depressed and abandoned. So, he assigned Peri as a replacement.

The actual scene where Peri becomes a companion has 5 clearly reluctant. Either he's decided that he wants to be alone or he's just not that interested in her specifically. Turlough telling Peri to keep an on him probably factored in to him accepting her. Strangely, like with Adam, the Doctor took on a new companion whom he didn't like to humor another companion. The difference was that Turlough chose a better companion than Rose did, so Peri stuck around and the Doctor warmed up to her. That also connects to motivation. The reason Adam was the only truly bad choice is that it was made for stupid reasons. Polly and Mel were thinking "the Doctor would be good for this person". Turlough was thinking "this person would be good for the Doctor". Rose just didn't think.

This isn't me bashing Rose, by the way. Everyone's allowed to make bad choices. But, I admit, comparing her to three random classic companions in this situation doesn't make her look good. Rose was a good companion for 9. Her relationship with 10, no matter how much one might enjoy it, might not have been the most emotionally healthy for them. But, she still was a good companion for the most part. She just doesn't have very good judgement when it comes to who makes a good companion.

Also I did sort of accidentally parallel 9/Rose and 5/Turlough. I did not actually mean to do that.

[demigodofhoolemere]

Blackmail, guns, disguises — what doesn’t this serial have?

[fearsomeandwretchedandwrong]

The Doctor talking about Jamie in The Highlanders: "Did you mark the young Highlander who was with me? The piper?With the soft hands and face?"

[xeresmalfoy]

My babies 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

[fritzmonorail]

Here I go.

[twojamie-o-clock]

Jamie, the Doctor, nightmares, and memories of Alexander McLaren !!! What more could u want

(I’m not over how they brushed past Alexander’s death)

[6-and-7]

The Highlanders The time travellers arrive in Scotland just after the Battle of Culloden. The Second Doctor gains the trust of a small band of fleeing Jacobites by offering to tend to their wounded Laird, Colin McLaren. While Polly and the Laird's daughter, Kirsty, are away fetching water, he and the others are all captured by Redcoat troops commanded by Lieutenant Algernon Ffinch.

Grey, a crooked solicitor who sells prisoners to slavery for transportation in the West Indies, secures the group into his custody. Polly and Kirsty blackmail Ffinch into helping, and the Doctor wins the day by smuggling arms to the Highlanders who are being held on board a stolen ship, the Annabelle.

Grey and the ship's unscrupulous captain, Trask, are overpowered and the vessel is returned to its rightful owner, Willie Mackay, who agrees to take the rebels to safety in France.

The Doctor, Polly and Ben return to the Doctor's TARDIS, where they are joined on their travels by the young piper Jamie McCrimmon.

Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords As Captain Jack comes into the Doctor's life again, the TARDIS is thrown to the end of the universe. As the last remnants of humanity struggle to reach "Utopia", unknown to all, the Doctor's greatest enemy is about to rise again…

The Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones and Jack Harkness return to present day London, horrified to discover that Prime Minister Harold Saxon is the Master. "Saxon" informs the world about receiving contact from an alien race called the Toclafane. Framed as fugitives, the Doctor, Martha and Jack try to sneak in and stop the Master before he unleashes a wave of terror. But his dark ambitions reach beyond the stars…

One year later, the Saxon Master and the Toclafane are rulers of Earth, which is torn apart by a year of hell. The Tenth Doctor has been aged 900 years, and Jack Harkness and the Jones family have been reduced to slavery on the Master's ship, the Valiant. The only hope for everyone on Earth is Martha Jones, now a legend amongst humanity. As the Master prepares to turn the Earth into a giant warship that will ultimately engulf the rest of the universe, Martha must trek through dangerous territory to destroy him, but tragedy awaits her, the Doctor and her family on the day that will pit humanity against the stars…

[doctorwhogirlie]

Doctor Who - The Highlanders

[kcdahippie]

I love how Jamie is just another side character in this story until the Doctor point out Jamie as the prince everyone is looking for. LOLOL. Poor guy got thrown into it but defended himself well.

[therabbitofrassilon]

every pic in this reconstruction is taking me out