Trivia / Doctor Who S4 E4 "The Highlanders"

• California Doubling: Frensham Common in Surrey doubles for the Scottish Highlands.
• Executive Meddling: The reason for the story's existence. A BBC executive wanted to try his hand at writing the show, and so submitted a story outline...and then went off to work on something else and let script editor Gerry Davis turn it into an actual workable script. Though this oddly ended up working out quite well, as Davis and producer Innes Lloyd liked how Jamie had turned out enough to actually make him a full-time companion — normally this would be impractical as it would require paying the writer(s) who created him every time he appeared (as would later be the case with Nyssa), but both this story's writers were BBC staff members, and thus contractually forbidden from any claim to the story's characters — and he ended up staying for the rest of the Second Doctor's run, becoming one of the show's all-time most popular companions.
• Fake Scot: English actors Frazer Hines and Donald Bisset play Highland Scots Jamie McCrimmon and Laird Colin McLaren respectively.
• First Appearance: Of Jamie McCrimmon.
• Missing Episode: This was the very first serial for which the master tapes were wiped, only two months after it finished its original broadcast.^note Frustratingly, the print held by the ABC in Australia survived until late 1976, less than two years before the BBC ended its junking policy and put out a call to foreign broadcasters to ask if they still possessed any Doctor Who episodes. The only surviving footage comes from censor clips, and all of those come from the first episode.
• Self-Adaptation: The televised story and its novelization were both written by Gerry Davis.
• What Could Have Been:
  • This story and The Macra Terror were considered for animation at the same time. In the end, "Macra" won out because "Highlanders"' tartan and outdoor locations were judged too difficult to animate. It's still considered a strong possibility for the future, however, so it may happen yet, especially since it is now the only serial from Season 4 not watchable in some form.
  • The production staff were unsure if Jamie should become a companion. Frazer Hines' contract gave room to appear in three more stories, but the "companion from the distant past" gimmick was already tried once with Katarina before being immediately abandoned due to her character being too inflexible. As such, the staff shot a version of this serial's ending where Jamie bids farewell to the Doctor and company. Ultimately, Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis decided to bring Hines aboard as a regular thanks to how much they enjoyed his performance, and reshot the ending to feature Jamie boarding the TARDIS instead. Jamie would ultimately and ironically become the Second Doctor companion, appearing in every story for the remainder of Patrick Troughton's tenure.
• Working Title: Culloden (changed because of a docudrama The BBC had recently aired with the same name).

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