|
|
 |
|
Jamie
(1966 - 1969 & 1985) |
|
| Frazer
Hines |
|
| Frazer Hines was born in Yorkshire
in 1944 and his first acting performance was at the
age of eight. Further stage, film and television work
followed including the 1957 Charlie Chaplin film A
King in New York. Television roles include The
Silver Sword in 1957 and 1958, Emergency Ward
Ten in 1963 and Coronation Street in 1965.
In 1972 he took on the role of Joe Sugden in the long
running soap Emmerdale Farm which he played
until 1994. During this time he continued to make
the occasional appearances in theatre and on television
including as a guest on the word and numbers game
show Countdown and two Doctor Who stories "The
Five Doctors" and "The
Two Doctors".
Due to his love of racing horses he became an amateur
jockey and he has his own stud farm. He recently made
a brief appearance, in the costume of Jamie, on the
BBC National Lottery programme which looked into the
story of the missing episodes. |
|
|
|
 Jamie
Robert McCrimmon, a Scottish Laird's piper, is trying to escape
with his clan chief from the English Redcoats during the aftermath
of the Battle of Culloden in 1746 when he meets up with The
Doctor, Ben and Polly.
 |
| The Highlanders |
|
He
was destined to become one of the series most popular and
best remembered companion: even though he was originally
only cast as a minor one off character, he impressed the
production team so much that, upon realising the character’s
potential, they hastily rewrote the end of Jamie's first
story "The
Highlanders" to include him as a companion.
The end scene now had The Doctor inviting Jamie to join him
for his own safety during this troubled time in history.
Possible it is because of this sudden addition to the TARDIS crew that his character failed to receive much development
in the next few stories (To the extent that he spent most
of "The
Moonbase" unconscious after hitting his
head in the reduced gravity when jumping on the surface of
the moon).
Due
to his background, Jamie was a very brave and loyal companion.
His fierce courage more than compensated for his lack of
intelligence and he was always willing to sacrifice himself
to protect The Doctor and his fellow companions. He stubbornly
refused to be beaten by anything, challenging such diverse
enemies as the omnivorous Androgum Shockeye - despite Shockeye
having previously attempted to eat him - ("The
Two Doctors")
and the dog-like Tyrenians ("The
Colony of Lies")
in tests of combat, and he was very trusting of The Doctor,
especially when faced with something that was beyond his
comprehension and understanding.
 |
| The Enemy of the World |
|
The
Doctor and Jamie had a very much teacher/pupil relationship - to
the point where The Doctor once had Jamie writing lines after he
killed the last Gallifreyian woprat in existence when they discovered
it in a crashed prototype TARDIS, albeit because it had been about
to attack Jamie’s fellow companion Victoria ("Heart
of TARDIS") -, and Jamie relied upon The Doctor for explanations
of the technology which were mostly beyond his comprehension. However,
despite needing to have even the simplest of things explained to
him, he took everything in his stride although originally believing
most things to be the products of sorcery, such as mistaking a Cyberman for
the phantom piper that appeared to members of his clan on their deathbeds
("The Moonbase"). The longer Jamie stayed with
The Doctor the more knowledgeable and accepting he became, focusing
primarily on the consistencies he experienced in his travels, such
as weapons always requiring accurate aim in order to do damage ("The
Colony of Lies").
Jamie's
low IQ, however, was sometimes an advantage, as was the
case when he was captured by the Krotons who, after testing
him, assumed that he would not be a threat, thus giving
him the chance to escape and warn The Doctor ("Krotons"),
Jamie’s resourcefulness and ability
to be overlooked resulting in The Doctor’s first of
many victories over his former friend Koschei (The Time
Lord who would later become known as The Master) ("The
Dark Path"). Even so, The Doctor would sometimes take
advantage of Jamie's naiveté when he was clowning
around to play his minor jokes. One example was when Jamie
announces that he has an idea on how to capture a Yeti in "The
Abominable Snowmen" and The Doctor replies while dragging
Victoria away
'Victoria,
I think this is one of those instances when discretion is
the better part of valour. Jamie has
an idea. Come on'. However, despite this a lot of
his ideas were successful, such as when he disabled a robot
Yeti by
putting a rock in its chest cavity to stop the control sphere
that powered the Yeti reactivating the robot instead ("The
Abominable Snowmen"). His background as a warrior
meant that he was always ready and able to stand up and
fight
when the situation required it, once rallying a group of
Menoptera - the butterfly-like inhabitants of the planet
Vortis - to help them fight off their invading enemies the
Rhumon, while also challenging the Rhumons to think about
their reasons for fighting with the Menoptera by challenging
two captive soldiers to justify their actions to Menopteran
children, forcing them to recognise that they had no reason
for their attempted conquest of Vortis ("Twilight
of the Gods").
 |
| The Krotons |
|
He
became very much attached to Victoria and because of their
strong brother/sister relationship he was very distraught,
along with The Doctor, when she decided to leave. However,
his anguish was to be short lived when they meet up with Zoe,
Jamie occasionally demonstrating a strong affection for
her even if it never progressed beyond friendship. During
this time, The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe were briefly separated
when The Doctor was shot and presumed dead after they accidentally
materialised on board a restricted military base, Jamie
being virtually brainwashed by a charismatic leader on the
Earth of the present during his time away from The Doctor
to the extent that he initially refused to accept The Doctor’s
survival as he otherwise couldn’t cope with the actions
he had committed for Mackenzie, although he eventually came
to terms with his sins and his friend’s survival ("The
Indestructable Man"). Jamie travelled in the TARDIS
for three years and throughout most of the Second
Doctor's era, notably making him the consistently-longest-running
non-Doctor actor in the show. He was forced to leave, along
with Zoe, when The Doctor's own people, the Time Lords,
caught up with The Doctor and put him on trial for all the
meddling he had done. As part of The Doctor's punishment
Jamie is returned to Culloden with all his memories of his
travels in the TARDIS erased except for his first adventure
("The
War Games").
 |
| The War Games |
|
Jamie
would appear in a further two Doctor Who stories; The 20th
anniversary special "The
Five Doctors", in 1983,
where he appeared as a holographic image that was intended
to ward off the Second
Doctor; and in the 1985 Sixth
Doctor story, "The Two
Doctors" where
he helped the Sixth Doctor and Peri rescue the Second Doctor
during the Second’s
time working with the Celestial Intervention Agency prior
to his exile (The later novel "World
Game" established
that the Time Lords returned Jamie to The Doctor to act
as his assistant on The Doctor’s request, restoring
some of Jamie’s memories and adjusting them slightly
so that he recalled Victoria leaving to study graphology
to account for her absence).
 |
| The Five Doctors |
|
The
Sixth Doctor encountered Jamie again when he apparently
arrived in an alternate version of 1780 where the Jacobites
were fighting against the mysterious and ruthless ‘Overlord’,
Jamie now leading the Jacobites under the alias of ‘the
Black Douglas’. Despite Jamie lacking any memories
of his previous time with The Doctor, he swiftly decided
to trust The Doctor as they investigated the mystery of
the Overlord’s presence and the industrial production
that was taking place as a result. Further puzzled by various
anomalies in the present time period, The Doctor invited
Jamie to resume his travels with him, Jamie agreeing to
the offer out of curiosity at The Doctor’s talk of
their previous time together despite his own disbelief about
The Doctor’s references to an old friendship between
them. However, their subsequent trip resulted in them arriving
on a fake version of the Titanic - The Doctor guessing that
it was artificial due to such anomalies as the first officer
carrying an incongruous gun or the band playing the same
tune over and over again -, where they were rescued from
the sinking by none other than Captain Nemo and the Nautilus
of Jules Verne’s "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under
the Sea". With this information, The Doctor realised
that he was actually in the Land of Fiction, now under the
control of Zoe after she had trapped a Cyber-ship in the
Land of Fiction when their attempt to convert her restored
her memories of her time with The Doctor. Requiring The
Doctor’s aid to stop the Cybermen, Zoe had attempted
to summon The Doctor, but when he had landed on the outskirts
of the Land, she had created a fictional duplicate of Jamie
- the Jamie that The Doctor had been travelling with - to
help protect the Time Lord until he could reach her. With
the Cybermen defeated, The Doctor and Zoe departed from
the Land of Fiction, leaving the fictional Jamie to help
protect the Land’s new Mistress - Alice of "Alice
in Wonderland" - as she assumed control of the Land
and recreated it in her image.
|
|
|
