Who do you love? 31: The Highlanders
A thing to love about The Highlanders: Polly's best scenes, as she merrily passes the Bechdel test and outsmarts the English in a much saucier way than we're used to. Also, “I should like a hat like that”, the best catchphrase until “Are you my mummy?”. Admittedly, the competition is “Affirmative, Master” and “Excellent”, so maybe this isn't saying much.
And it's farewell, or rather fare-THEE-well, to the historicals. Even at their worst, they tended to be good, offering writers a chance to relax a bit about the setting and really get their teeth into the characters and plot. Only one, The Reign of Terror, is actually bad; all of the others are packed with moments of delight and humanity. The Highlanders is probably the second worst. It's remarkably inconsistent in tone, not sure how to play the scene where the Doctor and Jamie's party are all one kick away from actually being hanged. However, once it settles down and decides it's a romp, it's plenty entertaining. This was perhaps the death of the historicals: as the writers got more self-conscious, the middles of the historicals continued to be easy to write, but it got harder and harder to get the Doctor and his friends into the story and to get them out - and not just in a psychic paper way, in a way that caused as little damage as possible to the known facts. Fortunately, David Whitaker has just shown that the base under siege can be used to tell great stories as well; hopefully they'll use this knowledge sparingly.