Tuesday, April 14, 2009

BIG MAC ATTACK

I caught an old episode of 'McMillan & Wife' last week, that has a very tenuous link to 'Highlander' and 'Doctor Who'.

In "Death Of A Monster, Birth Of A Legend", Commissioner Stuart McMillan and his wife Sally (along with their maid Mildred and Mac's assistant, Sgt. Charlie Enright) returned to the ancestral homeland of the McMillans near Kinross, Scotland. There they got caught up in solving the murder of Mac's uncle Michael, "The McMillan", which had been arranged to look like a suicide.
During the course of the investigation, they learned of the family history: on the eve of the Battle of Kinross, four McMillan generals discovered that one of their compatriots, a member of Clan MacCready, had remained behind, hidden in the castle. As punishment for his cowardice, the others walled Ian MacCready up behind the wall of the tower, and it is said that his ghost still walks the halls of the castle.

Only afterwards did the McMillans find out that MacCready was also a thief - he had hidden away the McMillan treasure which was eventually discovered during the investigation.

I Googled "The Battle of Kinross", but all that comes up are references to a music festival featuring Rage Against The Machine. So I'm not sure it actually occurred, but acting on it being fictional, I'm going to say that the Battle of Kinross probably took place in 1746. There were a series of battles between the Jacobites and the Hanoverians, culminating with the Battle of Culloden which decisively ended the Scottish uprising against British rule.

The Battle of Culloden is important for Toobworld because two of its best sci-fi characters fought during it: Jamie McCrimmon, a Companion of 'Doctor Who', and Duncan MacLeod of 'Highlander' fame (the successor to his cousin Connor from the movie franchise).

There's nothing to say that any of the McMillans ever knew the MacLeods or Jamie McCrimmon, but then again... who's to say they didn't? Who knows? Maybe Jamie eventually married into Clan McMillan. (I'm sure there must be some record of whom he married in other sources like the various tie-in novels, but I don't count them in the TV canon.)
BCnU!
Toby O'B

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