#if this sounds like i'm writing an essay at some points i'm sORRY gjdfksd

[the--highlanders]

liveblogging the Highlanders: episode 1

I haven’t seen this in ages let’s gooooo

reconstruction said ‘a battle rages between Highlanders and Redcoats’. good start guys. but hey, the primary source for this was Prebble, so

LOVE one of the only pieces of moving footage from this serial being the TARDIS doors opening

Polly saying ‘you never give up hope, do you’ about Ben thinking they’re home is so cute.... how many times has this happened before

‘the Doctor allows Polly to lead him up the slope’ I’m.....

Alexander saying they never got close to the government army is interesting because they would probably have been on the MacLarens and Stuarts of Appin regiment, which did bear the brunt of hand-to-hand fighting at Culloden and ended up being surrounded by the government forces. the fact that the laird, Alexander, and Jamie have survived probably means they didn’t make it all the way (I guess because the laird was injured so they fell back?)

Jamie playing his chanter while they’re meant to be hiding is so hecking funny because like. it’s probably just the chanter ripped off the full set of pipes. if that’s anything like a modern bagpipe chanter that’s louder than the actual bagpipes

this kind of takes the interpretation of the film Culloden (1964) that Prince Charles was a widely-disliked coward who ran away as soon as the battle started going badly for him (that film was also based on Prebble, which admittedly I haven’t read, so they may be drawing this from the same source). it’s probably not super accurate but if read from an in-universe perspective says something interesting about Jamie’s more skeptical take on Prince Charles/the Stuarts versus Alexander’s more out-and-out monarchical loyalty, and accidentally reflects the diversity of Jacobite motivations and beliefs

whoop that cannon’s too big for Culloden iirc afshjgd

a Jacobite bonnet with a slogan like that does actually exist!! it was in the Treasures of the British Library exhibition a couple of years ago. don’t remember off the top of my head whether the slogan was original or a later addition - it does seem more romantic in tone than the textile-based slogans I’m familiar with, but I’m not super up on masculine/military-oriented slogans, so I could just be comparing that to a totally different set of items

again the playing on the foreignness of Prince Charles and the Duke of Cumberland as Italian and German respectively seems very in line with earlier films about Culloden - I feel like this serial definitely shows its influences from other Culloden-related media, especially in its general trust of ‘ordinary’ people versus its villainisation of officers and leaders

Solicitor Grey is so wonderfully slimy and a great stand-in for the hangers-on who came to do some dark tourism/see if they could profit after the battle, even if he’s meant to be there in an official capacity

speaking of non-military people around, I love that Kirsty is here!! I love Kirsty in general. it’s implied that they live nearby (her saying her family use the cave as a shelter after a cattle raid), so did she come out to see the battle as many people did, or had she been following along with the army? who knows

I also love Polly and Kirsty’s dynamic, and the way Kirsty is much more reluctant to take action. I’m pretty sure it was meant to be a simple active-modern-girl versus passive-historical-girl, but in so many ways Kirsty is right to be scared. she’s got a sort of contextual street-smarts that Polly’s confidence doesn’t let her have

Two pretending to be a German doctor is just. it’s so funny.

Ben’s perspective here is really interesting too actually!! just the way he interacts with the soldiers, being from the navy himself

‘strange looking scoundrel’ ‘extraordinary rogue’ we’re two serials in and they’ve already summed him up perfectly gdjkhldghfjg

‘you don’t live here do you?’ that’s another thing I like about Polly and Kirsty’s dynamic, it really lets Polly be patronising and stuck-up and flawed in a very human way, without villanising her. Kirsty’s upper-class in her own right, but Polly doesn’t really see it, and it’s a great bit of depth for her