Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Newbie viewer!

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Newbie viewer!

    I finally seem to be able to post! I'm NileQT87 a.k.a. Amber and I only watched the show within the last few months. I'm 32 years old (33 next month). I had only watched the film last year because of the Queen soundtrack, though I had heard about the show for years and years, given that my absolute favorite character of all-time is Angel (Buffyverse).

    I even made this fanvid before I had seen the series, but after I had watched the 1986 film:


    Suffice to say, I absolutely love the tragic immortal and alienated outsider tropes. I have Asperger's, so outsider characters are ones I naturally gravitate towards.

    Here's a not-so-little rundown of my thoughts while watching the show over several months and then a comparative meta:

    Currently giving Highlander another shot after giving up on it after 4 episodes before. It has definitely improved from the first episodes, which were beyond cheesy and camp. It's still really repetitive with a murderous immortal getting beheaded most episodes interspersed with a bog-standard killer thrown in on occasion. The tragic immortality romance is most of the show's depth in regards to Duncan and Tessa, along with Tessa wanting children she can't be given. Closest thing to an arc in this very episodic show so far is the meddlesome reporter and the police noticing Duncan keeps turning up at crime scenes. The season did improve about halfway through, at least.

    I have enjoyed recognizing various actors like Vincent Schiavelli (R.I.P.) and Joe Pantoliano.

    This show is really showing its age (1992). It's in that awkward part of the '90s where it still looked like the worst fashion trends of the '80s. Mullets everywhere. And yes, terrible picture quality and distracting filters. They kept the SFX from the 1986 movie (the Quickenings, for example), which genuinely looked like a Queen music video (in the most comical way). The sidekick kid is a goofy time-capsule stereotype.

    So, here's to me being even more dated! I was 5 years old when this show started. LOL.

    I've been hearing about the show for years due to it being one of the various tragic immortal hero shows. I was reminded to try it again after seeing the actor who played the Kurgan in the 1986 movie in The Mandalorian (recognizing him even with a full face of prosthetics 33 years later).

    Restarted my Highlander watch yesterday. The show picks up tremendously when it goes to Paris and you can tell a lot more money was thrown at it. Almost done with season 1.

    It's still highly episodic, but there are some recurring characters now outside of the mains that help the episodes feel connected. Darius is one of the best additions. Duncan wanting a family he can't have and that hanging over his relationship with Tessa is probably the biggest overarching character/relationship development. It's copied, of course, from the '80s movie (with the happy ending removed).

    Notre-Dame in half of the background shots keeps making me sad.

    Geesh. This show just went from marching in place with Cases of the Week to killing off half its recurring cast and turning another immortal.

    R.I.P. Darius and Tessa within a few episodes of each other. I liked them both a lot. I also wish Fitz could have stuck around. Besides Darius, I think he was actually my favorite of the immortal friends so far. I'm utterly shocked they killed off Tessa (might have to look up if the actress wanted off the show), though I suppose you could see it coming in an episode that had Duncan proposing to her. She was his main connection to the human world and the love interest.

    I suppose immortality was all they could do for the Richie character, given that he was one cliché away from being a perfect casting choice for Saved by the Bell.

    The show also grew a recurring storyline with the Watchers in the season 1 finale (the f-ers killed Darius). Dawson appears to be the big, new character coming out of that.

    The show has now returned to the same inner city streets and forests of Canada. Not as pretty as Paris cathedrals and cafés, but I suppose it was to be expected. The show just had (err... in 1993) a seismic overhaul in both cast and scenery.

    Tony Head (Giles!) appeared a few episodes back, though the episode was a weak one.

    Horton was well-acted and genuinely loathsome. Still hate him for killing Darius, who just wanted to live peacefully as a monk for 2,000 years (the Roman soldier doing penance).

    So far, my favorite storyline in season 4 has been Duncan and Methos (please, come back) with Joe Dawson, then the Watchers coming after Dawson for breaking the rules of non-interference.

    I really want to see how far back Methos really goes with the Watchers (he's 5,000 years old), though he's used the Adam Pierson alias for just a decade with them. Also, interesting dialogue about Methuselah (can't help but notice the name similarity). That he wanted to use the immortality-granting crystal to save a girl with just months to live was bittersweet and made him endearing.

    The tease the season before of being exposed to the world was a good one (though Kalas sucked--he's practically a parody of all the ridiculously cheesy villain voices by making him actually have throat trouble), but I kind of wish they had gone further with the risk. At least Fitz came back in flashback, even if he's dead.

    Amanda is the sometimes girlfriend that keeps coming back and then her little kleptomania problem starts turning up again.

    It's understandable, but I do wish Dr. Anne Lindsey had gone further than her getting scared of Duncan's life when she found out. I swear I've seen a bit of the subway collapse episode with her giving birth (probably decades ago in rerun and had no idea what it was).

    And the episode parodying purple prose romance novels was just... 🤣 Amanda's little Bonnie and Clyde pastiche, but with a lot of grave digging every time they got shot, was also funny.

    On a purely superficial note, thank goodness fashion improved from the early '90s even by the mid '90s. The perms, mullets, shoulder pads and other '80s-leftover monstrosities were distracting. I welcomed the Scully hair, grunge, dark makeup and Clueless fashion arriving. Duncan had a bad case of high-waisted dad jeans with tucked-in baggy shirts (often with... vests). At least the ponytail is shoulder-length instead of down his back like season 1. It's Fabio enough.

    And yesterday, I just hit the episodes that give Methos a big pile of dark backstory and him turning on the bad gang he used to do evil things alongside thousands of years back. It gave him a nice little redemption arc, as well as it challenged Duncan's ability to be friends with someone who had been that awful. Basically, he was Death of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It was always visible that he didn't have Duncan's chivalry streak and actually commented on it belonging to a time period he was not from, but it was pretty obvious he also no longer fit with the unrepentant murderers the other three still were and was the clear brains of the bunch.

    The flashback season opener episode that introduced Cassandra suffered a bit from not wigging the kids who played young Duncan and his friend, who were totally sporting late '90s haircuts (think Nick Carter of The Backstreet Boys). But it's good that we got backstory that tied Cassandra to Methos.

    I'm so glad they've kept the character. Duncan, Dawson and Methos are the best characters the show's got still.

    And I totally recognized the She-Mantis (Musetta Vander) in The Valkyrie, which aired very close to Teacher's Pet. Ditto Beverley Elliott a.k.a. Granny from Once Upon a Time (played the woman who delivered Anne's baby and a hospital office lady several seasons before that).

    I'm at the point in the show where Buffy has begun and the fall/spring 1996/7 fashion collection trends are totally noticeable! Short-sleeved turtlenecks, miniskirts and velour are everywhere. Duncan is also now dressing like Angel (or Angel like Duncan, though Duncan didn't always dress this way), complete with the long, black fabric jacket and wide dress trousers. Except he tucks in his big, blousy shirts more. It's hilarious.

    So, it looks like for the final season, they actually attempted their first season arc with an ancient Persian demon who can make people see a lot of dead people and can control life and death. The actor who played Horton is back as the main form the demon takes. It reminds me a lot of Buffy's First Evil as a way to bring back a lot of old faces.

    Except this one has that quaint, old millennium bug hysteria worked in with a demon who shows up every thousand years.

    The media hysteria around Y2K was already hilarious at the time, but man, does it date movies/shows now. Also, first sightings of 'futuristic' metallic pants and tube tops (there was a huge '70s fashion revival at this time with bell-bottoms, tube tops, miniskirts, sheath dresses, platforms and tall boots) in a club scene. Oh, the late '90s nostalgia. The Y2K bug coincided with a bunch of 'futuristic' fashion trends with a lot of metallic and neon (lime green was really pervasive). Amanda was sporting the brick-colored lipstick and knee-high, chunky-heeled go-go boots a few episodes back, and a lime green short-sleeved turtleneck a few episodes before that.

    Richie got in the way of Duncan fighting off hallucinations and got his head chopped off, only for Duncan to realize what he'd done after the fact and flee to a Malaysian monastery for a year.

    To be fair, Richie always seemed like he was at such a risk as easy pickings with all the other immortals around. His heart was never in fighting. Comparatively, even the 814-year-old child immortal (definitely Highlander's take on Anne Rice's Claudia) had more drive to survive and the treacherous, conniving, ruthless streak to pull it off that Richie never had. He only survived as long as he did because of Duncan being so fond of his buddy, like he was the son he couldn't have. In the few times he did fight someone out of his league and far older, it was always talked about as a fight he normally should have had no business walking away from. The other immortals who liked him tended to try to intervene to keep him out of those mismatches. So of course, it's Duncan who took his head for extra pain and it was when he couldn't differentiate between what was real and a hallucination.

    The biggest shock is Adrian Paul with short hair. 😱 As odd as the huge ponytail was (preferred it shoulder-length and worn down), I got used to seeing him with a lot of hair. Some of the long-haired flashbacks didn't even need a wig (when he wasn't full Braveheart with braids in it), while it was the short-haired ones that did. The short hair instantly aged him, IMO. He actually did a pretty amazing job of not seeming to age for five of the six years.

    Just realized why they killed Darius way back in season 1, despite being so obviously set up as a big character who had a lot of history with Duncan. The German actor died of a brain tumor shortly after he last filmed in 1993. Now I know why he never came back, despite several other dead characters having numerous return flashbacks or, in Tessa's case, a Doppelgänger episode. Along with Tessa, the character loomed large even when he was long gone.

    Methos was very much Darius' replacement, though it was a good call to take his backstory in quite the opposite direction. I like them both.

    I've had other shows where actors have died very prematurely (Angel: the Series--Glenn Quinn and Andy Hallett, only 31 and 33 respectively, plus Doctor Who--Roger Delgado's chauffeur in Turkey drove into a ravine), but it wasn't so close to their last filming.

    Werner Stocker died very close to the season 1 finale and the call that he was ill and dying was right before he was supposed to film for it, where he was clearly doubled as a body off-camera for Darius' death.

    Elisabeth Sladen likewise worked on The Sarah Jane Adventures up until she could no longer film due to cancer. Delgado certainly would have appeared again had he not died (his death affected Jon Pertwee greatly and led to him leaving the show), but the Master could be endlessly recast as a fellow Time Lord.

    In Hallett's case, it was well after the show in 2009, even if the tooth infection that went to his heart occurred during season 5 (he was rushed to the hospital from the makeup trailer). In Quinn's case (he had previously had a long-running part on Roseanne), his drug addiction was the reason he was written off in 1999 before his heroin overdose killed him in 2002. His short stint on the show also loomed very large, despite only being in 9 episodes.

    Carrie Fisher's death likewise dealt a blow to the Sequel Trilogy's script development.

    I also just realized that Fitz is Roger Daltrey of rock band The Who. He had quite an extended run in flashbacks and turned into one of Duncan's most frequent friends. He tended to be in a lot of periwigged 17th-century scenes and one of the funniest recurring cast. Joan Jett also appeared way back in season 1 and was instantly recognizable, though not nearly as impressive as an actress.

    I'm also impressed they had Jim Byrnes' Joe Dawson on the show as a double-amputee (leg prostheses and walks with a cane) whose actor really is one in real life. His musical abilities (blues singer) appeared on the show frequently. The show really found its secondary star when he was introduced and he became the main face of the 'humans' and the good side of the Watchers (who are otherwise pretty dodgy, with Horton as the ideologue who wanted to kill all the immortals as abominations).

    Alexis Denisof! It's my baby Wesley. Okay, playing a druggie murderer, but it's still him. And one of the better episodes of the final season so far.

    Speaking of the Buffyverse, the actor that played Sirk in AtS' Home/Destiny is in the next episode.

    After two episodes without Duncan and a whole lot of failed spinoff ladies, I get a Joe and Methos team-up to save his captive daughter! Favorite of the final season so far, though the 1929 Fitz flashback caper was by far the funniest. If only there were more Joe and Methos. I was missing them. That should've been the spinoff!

    Just finished the It's a Wonderful Life-style finale.

    Probably Adrian Paul's best performance in the Tessa scenes (such a bittersweet return--and the only one whose life would've been better in the sense of not being dead, even if unfulfilled, without Duncan). I feel like Tessa's time on the show was way too short, but the character clearly still came across as the love of his life.

    Fitz (in the role of Clarence/Ghost of Christmas Past/Present), Methos and Joe were also all a joy and easily my favorites of the supporting cast. Amanda was there, too. Tessa was actually my favorite of the ladies. I never cared for Richie (whose actor Stan Kirsch just committed suicide this year), but he was there, too. I love to hate him, but it was also great to see Horton (best villain of the show).

    It also ended with a bit of a retrospective fanvid montage. It was definitely bittersweet in the context of showing Darius, as Werner Stocker had been dead 5 years by that point (he was only 38 years old). He had a really serene quality and gravitas that gives so much weight to those memorable shots that are always shown of him. The Waterloo battlefield one always gets me.

    I'm also glad the show ended in Paris instead of Vancouver-pretending-to-be-Seattle (dubbed "Seacouver"). The really strong episodes tended to be in the Paris halves of each season. I loved how they cast a lot of foreign actors--some with strong accents. The last season had a lot of unfortunate filler and a weak start (though Ahriman offering Joe his legs back was f-ing heartbreaking), but the finale worked for me.

    ====

    Buffyverse vampires (at least the soulful ones) don't belong in the bloody monster list entirely, even if the soulless ones are monstrous by default. Angel is pretty much exactly the curse of immortality trope along with the redemptive, tragic antihero and shares a ton in common with the more heroic Highlander immortals who keep suffering all their friends and lovers dying.

    A high proportion of the throwaway immortals that get beheaded (and a few Duncan stupidly let go like the one played by Joan Jett and 814-year-old Kenny stuck forever as a 10 year old, who was totally a retelling of Anne Rice's Claudia--one of the things that most separates Methos from him is he doesn't have that chivalry streak regarding women) were just unrepentant murderers, too.

    While Buffy tends to be a bit more black & white in her thinking on human and non-human with the exception of the ones with human souls, Angel's world is the gray area where humans can be evil (Wolfram & Hart) and some demons or non-humans are amongst himself, his best friends (Doyle and Lorne) and his own son.

    Note that vampires, like immortals, can't naturally have children and it's something we see constantly treated as one of the things Connor MacLeod, Duncan and Angel all want most. In Angel's case, he does get the son he thought he could never have, even if it's a prophesied impossible birth for an apocalyptic scheme. He also had the child stolen and raised to hate him.

    We also see this same forbidden/unable to father children trope (note the Doctor was a grandfather from Day 1 and possibly is a Spock-like hybrid himself--it's more that he's terrified of losing family) touched on with the Doctor in Human Nature/The Family of Blood, which echoes what he said about watching all of his companions "whither and die" and "the life I can never have", and Castiel in regards to him playing surrogate father to Jack Kline the nephilim, who is the son of Lucifer and an abomination that angels are supposed to kill. Castiel was earlier part of missions to kill nephilim with his fellow angels.

    It's very akin to the several immortals we see who adopt surrogate children. It's constantly brought up in regards to Tessa and Buffy's inevitable tragic futures and what they're giving up by being with Duncan and Angel, respectively. It's one of the main reasons Angel breaks up with Buffy. Duncan, Richie, Amanda and a few others were shown as either being tempted to play parent to someone else's children or with a younger-looking or new immortal they can pretend is theirs.

    Russell T Davies' Doctors also really pushed the curse of immortality trope hard. The Doctor/Rose were indeed inspired by Buffy/Angel. Jack Harkness was again inspired by Angel and having the darker, more adult spinoff.

    While Jo Grant had been the first companion to express feelings for the Doctor way back in Jon Pertwee's era (she outright says she's picking her new Welsh hubby because he reminds her of a younger version of the Doctor), Rose Tyler was the first character whose plotline actually explored the Doctor's requited feelings, temptation and part of him wanting to pretend he was a human man. While Human Nature was originally a Sylvester McCoy book, the David Tennant (the most seemingly human of the Doctors, yet it only furthers how alien he really is) version is tempted by a human life with Joan Redfern in a way the former never would be.

    It's the Doctor's I Will Remember You (Angel's day of humanity on the day that never happened) and ends the same way. Like Angel giving up humanity offered by the Mohra and the Shanshu, the Doctor has a greater duty to the universe and must give it up. The elusive Prize in Highlander when there is finally "only one" immortal left is pretty much exactly Angel's Shanshu Prophecy--the temptation of a human life with love and children, and then human death.

    Yet, we see the flip side of this with the conversation between the Doctor and Jack, the not-quite-men who can't die and keep regenerating from various deaths (yet the Doctor had already seen Jack die as the Face of Boe) wanting to be around for the end at the end of the universe. Methos is the character who seems determined to outlive everyone (5,000 years already and 68 dead wives) and has a very different take from Duncan on the inevitability of everyone dying around them, which increasingly wears Duncan down to the point where he's nearly given up before his It's a Wonderful Life-style dream intervention. You get the feeling that the Doctor, Methos and probably Spike actually want to keep living forever, whereas it's nothing but pain for Angel and Duncan to keep losing everyone they've ever loved.

    Castiel of Supernatural (being an angel, he's older than humanity entirely) is yet another ancient immortal non-human who is surrounded by human friends and is always on the outside looking in on what he can never have. He keeps wanting to find his belonging, thought he'd found it, yet being included in the Winchesters as part of their real family seems so elusive for him and Jack, especially given the situation with Mary. Dean's 'humans vs. other' outlook also makes it difficult for him to finally feel like he belongs somewhere, in addition to having no angel family to go back to either (given most are dead at his hands or hate him). When Castiel was rendered human for several months (see I Will Remember You and Human Nature), he was outright kicked out of the bunker by Dean due to Gadreel seeing him as a threat and holding Sam's life over Dean. Even when there was that little glimmer of hope that he could finally fit in, it didn't go that way.

    Angel likewise began not being able to fit in with either his vampire family or amongst humans, being both and neither at the same time. He actually did try to go back to Darla twice and every time humans found out about him prior to Buffy, it went horribly wrong (getting hanged in the Hyperion's lobby being the most tragic).

    I haven't seen beyond two episodes, but Nick Knight of Forever Knight was another pre-Angel vampire example of the immortal/mortal trope (ditto the "vampire detective" trope--Angel actually payed tribute to that show's influence in Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been? with a guest actor) and that show was contemporary with Highlander. Highlander's last two seasons overlapped with Buffy. Tony Head and Alexis Denisof were both on Highlander prior, as were the actors who played the She-Mantis and Sirk. Vincent Schiavelli was in everything back in the day, including both Buffy and Highlander.

    Although the romance angle was more cautionary tale of obsession with a side of villain-turned-antihero than epic forbidden love on both sides, '60s-'70s soap opera Dark Shadows also had Barnabas Collins as a lovesick vampire trying to forever recreate his long-lost Josette. Though this early example of the archetype lacked the usual guilt complex (Angel, Duncan, the Doctor, Castiel, etc... are all loaded with guilt and worn down by loss and being forced to do things they hate, along with their sacrificial/savior hero complexes), despite some pretty heinous acts towards Willie and Maggie, whose characters got fridged to turn him antihero.

    Forever Knight also featured a vampire that wanted to become human through a scientific cure by his scientist love interest, which is a plotline straight out of Barnabas' relationship with Dr. Julia Hoffman and her ill-fated cure that causes rapid aging. The Shanshu and Prize are comparatively very mystical, not scientific, and rewarded to only one possible recipient whose identity is not certain. Castiel and the Doctor's bouts of humanity are artificial, as they're characters who were never humans or even raised like them in the first place, though Castiel is essentially a body-snatcher in Jimmy Novak's human corpse (his real form is deadly to the human eye and his voice is ear-splitting). The Doctor's biology rewrite is through one of his many TARDIS gadgets, as his species is already capable of changing form. The Mohra blood was regenerative, which makes it more similar to the scientific cures, except it's a demonic weapon being used to eliminate a hero.

    Highlander skirted Duncan turning up at crime scenes a lot early on with reporters and law enforcement getting very interested in him, but they never had a Detective Kate Lockley-type character who actually found out the secret. The first seasons had a reporter and a cop who were on Duncan's trail in both Seacouver and Paris, as well as the government lady. Dr. Anne Lindsey also was questioning Duncan's lack of medical history before she was let in on the secret finally. She's probably the closest to being the Kate character, especially since both reacted very negatively to the secret and actually had done some investigation.

    These characters are 'othered' a lot, often unintentionally by their own friends who don't always realize how non-human one of their friends amongst them is. They get so used to thinking they're one of them that they forget it when they talk about non-humans or unintentionally exclude. See Angel Investigations hugging out in the sunshine while Angel is sulking in the shadows (only Wesley realizes it, as he's often mirrored with Angel as the ones constantly feeling left out) as an example. Dean has a big mouth and doesn't always think about what he's actually saying in front of Castiel a lot of the time.

    These are all curse of immortality characters who are portrayed as the outsider who can never truly fit in amongst humans. They're also all portrayed as destined to eventually lose everyone they've ever loved.

    Watching Highlander only this year, I can definitely see a number of things it influenced in the Buffyverse. Angel is the most obvious, given he has a lot of the same story tropes. One of the recent comic writers working on the Angel property outright compared Angel at length to Duncan in an interview.

    While it might seem obvious to talk about the human Watchers, many of whom on both shows are highly shady with a few good apples amongst a lot of rotten ones, the Highlander ones are more distant observers and chroniclers who aren't supposed to ever get involved or even known about and hide what they know from the immortals.

    See Horton hunting immortals (calling them "abominations") and killing Darius, the closest to a saint amongst them, and the treatment of Joe to the point of putting him before a firing squad for being cozy with Duncan and Methos. This is very similar to the wetworks team (out to assassinate Faith) criticizing Wesley for the "perversion" of working for a vampire and Buffy having quit because they refused to help cure Angel when he was poisoned.

    The Buffyverse ones on the other hand are trainers and researchers who actually contribute their knowledge to the fight, despite Slayers not being entirely human either. The Watchers' Council treats them as rather disposable and replaceable. Giles does have an arc similar to Joe, though he actually loses his job over it, where his inappropriate fatherly attachment to Buffy and interference with the cruel Cruciamentum test gets him in trouble with the Council.

    We also saw a few Watchers other than Joe who were getting too emotionally invested, picking favorites or being unable to hide their dislike of who they have to follow without interference.

    On the reverse, we had bigotry coming from the other side with the Scourge (pure-blood demons eliminating half-breeds like Doyle). The Initiative also had a fair amount of black & white thinkers in regards to Riley coming to terms with the fact that Buffy was in a relationship with a vampire (Angel), Willow used to date a werewolf (Oz) and the Scoobies were then harboring a chipped soulless vampire (Spike).
    Last edited by NileQT87; 04-27-2020, 11:53 PM.

  • #2
    Hey, welcome!
    Highlander: Dark Places

    Comment


    • #3
      Thank you for the welcome!

      And sorry for the ramble.

      It's months' worth of observations I jotted down and then a meta ramble I had written onto a YouTube post that was making a comparison between shows. It was also on my mind due to knowing the show had been an influential one at the time, even if not that widely known now.

      Comment


      • #4
        Welcome welcome!

        You had so much to say, and it was all so great! Except for probably half of the Supernatural information because I am quite behind. I started rewatching it and am currently stalled at Season 6. There came a time when I'd check out an episode, and not feel urgent about checking out others. I made a point to see the musical and Scooby Doo!

        After having watched the entire series of Highlander, and being many years older now, one thing stood out to me.

        To me, Tessa is only the love of Duncan's life because they were able to live together in peace for twelve years. He didn't have that kind of time with any other... mortal lover. Then the series began, and she was often under threat, until it finally killed her. She wouldn't have been out there at night but for that scum Watcher/Hunter. The actress was really sick of being in Vancouver for half of the year and missed the love of her life. She also felt the series wasn't doing her career any favors.

        Comment


        • #5
          Watching The Raven now, even if it's not particularly the most desirable spinoff they could have chosen. Methos/Joe would have been my pick! But they wanted female.

          The love interest is... eh. I'm already spoiled on him being an immortal by the end. I think the main meh part of it is that I was never that interested in Amanda's love life on the show from her P.O.V., but more from Duncan's.

          The actor has a ton of credits (Lonesome Dove, One Tree Hill... seen neither) with only his Once Upon a Time credit as something I've seen, but it's been a long while (hardly a Beverley Elliott as Granny-level of memorability when seeing her twice on Highlander).

          I'm already recognizing good ol' Death (significant recurring part, known for his love of junk food--still wish Dean hadn't put the scythe through him) from Supernatural as Basil. Such an interesting face. The actor was always a joy there and he's already my favorite part of the supporting cast on The Raven. I do like multilingual Lucy, as well. Supporting cast is a bit stronger than what I'm seeing of the leads on The Raven so far.

          I'm always playing 'where have I seen...?' with shows/movies.

          The idea of the cop finding out that the person they're following is immortal is very much the start of Torchwood, too, but gender-swapped. That's how Gwen Cooper learns of Captain Jack Harkness (sees him shot in the forehead and heal from it).

          Detective Kate Lockley from the LAPD has a visual reveal of Angel's game face (and puts a two-by-four through his torso) in the same episode she learns of vampires while tracking what she thinks is a serial killer, but not so immediately in the first season (even though she'd already seen him jump out of a building). Similarly, we have Amanda here getting framed for murder when it's someone else. Coincidentally, Angel (an example of the successful spinoff with an immortal protagonist, along with Torchwood) began in the same 1999 season, as did the original Roswell, but those obviously got picked up for more seasons. Gwen and Kate weren't really love interests, though.

          Duncan kept having cops, reporters and government agents follow him, but they never followed through with a reveal. They kind of felt like dropped storylines they had been considering. They did a nosy doctor one instead (Anne).

          Actually two doctors, given the serial killer doctor (Joe Pantoliano) who was experimenting on Duncan and watched him heal. That could have been an interesting storyline akin to the government alien hunters capturing and experimenting on Max Evans in the White Room on Roswell. If they had done something with those dropped plot threads, the best angle would have been someone who thinks they can benefit from studying immortals and how they work (though we did have that Watcher who wanted to use the Methuselah stone for himself), or someone who thinks they could be a weapon.

          Horton covered the trope of the indiscriminate hunter who wants them eliminated entirely, which definitely also is the case with the government agents in Roswell, though that was after 50 years of dealing with an alien who really was an evil serial killer (Nasedo). Horton knew perfectly well which immortals were dangers to society and those which just wanted to be left alone or actively did good deeds. The first season of Roswell was Sheriff Jim Valenti (who eventually becomes the kids' friend and biggest protector after Max heals his son from a gunshot wound) and then the government on Max's trail after he healed Liz Parker in the diner. Valenti was the good cop with a conscience despite starting out as the kids' biggest threat who wouldn't let the diner healing miracle go, while Agent Pierce was very Horton-like.

          Lucifer also has a cop love interest in Chloe Decker, but they strung out the reveal for a full three seasons (saving her life by taking a whole barrage of gunshots at his wings), even if she, too, had been witness to him being less than normally affected by both gunshots (though she makes him vulnerable due to being a miracle) and carrying her through a burning building well beforehand.

          Nick Knight, Angel and Lucifer actually feature their immortal leads working alongside or within human law enforcement, though Angel's relationship with Kate was very strained after her father died and she kept blaming him for what he was (she eventually lost her career over following too many inexplicable, morbid cases). Knight and Lucifer full-on infiltrated law enforcement with official jobs, though Lucifer (civilian consultant) keeps himself separated like Angel (private investigator without any license or legal identity) as mere consultants.

          I'm assuming that might play out a bit with Amanda and Nick, along with the jewel thief and cop dynamic.

          Definitely tropey for various immortal and/or inhuman lead characters who can take a lot of projectile damage to have their reveals done that way.

          Amanda definitely worked better as supporting than lead, even not taking into account anything to do with actor behavior.
          Last edited by NileQT87; 04-28-2020, 05:58 PM.

          Comment


          • #6
            The big problem, to me, with Amanda as the lead was NOT Amanda. It was the writers. They didn't believe in her character. They didn't even really remember her first episode of the series.

            Comment


            • #7
              Like Amanda being introduced as a thief who liked to hide out in the circus, Jack was also originally a conman with dodgy morality and that was his introduction on the parent show (he was responsible for the whole Nanogene outbreak in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances). However, Jack was a future human for most of his Doctor Who companion stint who underwent his turn to good then until Bad Wolf!Rose made it so he couldn't die after a Dalek shot him.

              Amanda never quite overcame her criminal persona before getting the spinoff, however, which makes her an awkward spinoff. While she was on Team Duncan, she often would end up leaving the group when she got sticky fingers. Even up through the Bonnie and Clyde caper, she was still being tempted to fall back on old patterns and never really overcoming it.

              Methos is a better example of a potential lead whose bad history kicks him in the ass repeatedly (Cassandra and the Horsemen's bio-weapon) and he's willing to do things that Duncan would never do (see the sorts of things Angel and Jack would do, even if it has to be done and there's no choice, that Buffy and the Doctor would be horrified by--Jack killed his own grandson!), but he's not actively doing it anymore. Methos stopped being a Horseman long ago, but doesn't have the chivalry streak that sometimes causes Duncan to act stupidly when sparing evil immortals. Jack and Angel have lots of bad stuff in their backgrounds, but they're largely reformed and entering hero status well before their spinoffs. More than a few of their plotlines revolve around their terrible histories biting them in the ass repeatedly.

              Amanda was not nearly as reformed prior to getting the spinoff, as seen in her introductory theft for The Raven. That also made her a difficult character to turn into an actual hero protagonist.

              Methos would have fit the part of being the less-pristine hero spinoff with a lot of antihero qualities better. He also had the bonus of Joe as an already fully-developed sidekick/mentor character and the whole Watcher mythology, which he was actually more relevant with than Duncan. Methos was a better candidate for a redemption arc, while retaining his antihero persona that separated him from Duncan.

              Methos' plotlines with love interests also tended to be tragic, but incredibly endearing (yet he would keep trying to have them again and again, whereas Duncan was clearly not over Tessa), whereas Amanda's tended to be a bit more frivolous, sexual-rather-than-emotional and off-and-on, especially with Duncan. There was no great love story there. Amanda never had a tragic string of romances like his turn against the Horsemen because of his hostage Cassandra, the slave girl who was murdered because she was with him, the emotionally-affecting situation with Alexa that gave him the most selfless motive for wanting the Methuselah stone and the dream sequence where the girl told Horton, which ended in her death. These immortality trope characters always work better when they are quite tragic especially in romance.
              Last edited by NileQT87; 04-28-2020, 07:12 PM.

              Comment


              • #8
                The writers, with Nick, were trying to recreate the Duncan/Amanda dynamic. That's the only way they knew to put them together.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Can't say I'm fond of the jazz music or the bleached super-short hair. Flashbacks always tended to be more flattering for Amanda because of the hair.

                  Watched two episodes so far. These two have no chemistry. The male lead is particularly lacking.

                  Highlander was also slow-going for me in the first season in spite of the Duncan/Tessa chemistry keeping me watching until things really picked up in Paris. With this, there's a chemistry problem. Adrian Paul and Alexandra Vandernoot were comparatively big on both individual charisma and chemistry with each other that overcame a lot of dated cinematography and repetitive plots. When there was no sign of an arc and the supporting cast was slow to arrive, the doomed nature of the romance counting down to a tragic end gave the show its depth. Actor chemistry/likability/charisma and/or an epic romance emerging quite often save shows with shaky starts, but visible potential.

                  In cases where your lead is something a bit mysterious or doesn't open up easily, the supporting cast is there as audience identification figures. The reveals happen through their eyes.

                  In the case of a spinoff, we already tend to know the once-mysterious lead really well, but characters like, say, Cordelia offset someone like Angel for those who don't identify with the broody, loner, antisocial introvert who originated as Valley-Girl-cheerleader-turned-superhero Buffy's cryptic mystery man (no matter how already cuddly he'd grown). Highlander had Tessa and Richie to appeal to different audiences (saying this as someone who never warmed up to Richie), though Duncan was quite warm and cuddly himself with a big, charming smile and great charisma.

                  Nick is put into that identification figure position here, but... No. I'm just seeing a lot of confused and angry so far.

                  Amanda has the easier charisma (but never the most of the Highlander cast) and is a known quantity (thus, the audience isn't really learning her secret with the new guy, but rather we're waiting for him to catch up and deal with it), but this pairing is making her do all the work, along with a supporting cast who is more likable than Nick.

                  Compare this to Doyle (who actually provides the info-dump, despite being the only new character) and Cordy not needing the info-dump on Angel in his first episode (with Wesley not much later, who was another Sunnydale reject), as we'd already got that with Buffy as our identification figure for the first reveal. Or heck, Tessa already knowing about Duncan. We watched Richie learn despite it all coming after the Highlander movie, but for those who more easily relate to the female love interest, there was Tessa, who had been with him already for 12 years.

                  Generally, the female love interest of the tragic monster/non-human (classic fairy tale pairing à la Beauty and the Beast), even if they're actually the female lead and/or not quite human themselves (see Buffy, who came into her own show already having learned she's the Slayer a year before), is the identification figure in these sorts of stories.

                  Likewise, companions almost always dominate the regeneration story of a new Doctor incarnation. Several of them even have the Doctor knocked out or suffering regeneration sickness for most of their first episode. It's the companions who are the identification figures seeing the Doctor's crazy world or getting to know him. Whether it's Ian and Barbara being nosy teachers who follow their student home to the TARDIS in a junkyard in An Unearthly Child in 1963 or Rose (modeled quite blatantly after Buffy as the blonde London shop girl dropout who speaks with a slangy dialect and lives in a council estate, making her looked down upon as an unlikely heroine--the romance writer in Dramatic License played with the same idea of someone who was decidedly less exotic/glamorous than Tessa who found love with her immortal who wasn't quite so romance-novel-ready as Duncan) discovering the mysterious Doctor in 2005, it's via the companions that we see the wonders and mysteries unfold. It's only in the revival that we really start seeing more of the Doctor's life from his own perspective.

                  Obviously, with Amanda, this is gender-reversed, which is actually cutting out the female fairy tale audience a bit who like to identify with the Beauty. See also Hades/Persephone and Cupid/Psyche, which were key source material for Beauty and the Beast. A gender-reversed Beauty and the Beast would be Castiel/Meg, which is a fallen angel/risen demon (introduced as a villain, but dies redemptively, only to be seemingly still longed for after 7 years) dynamic, or ditto Angel/Darla, who is another ex-villain who dies redemptively in an act of love. The Little Mermaid/Splash is one of the few female non-human/male human stories retconned by Disney into a happily ever after that I can think of! Arwen/Aragorn, as well, now that I think of it. Deckard/Rachael of Blade Runner places her in the role of non-human (though the Director's Cut suggests they both are). Though fair, innocent Ariel, Arwen and Rachael hardly fit the role of Beast as well as Meg, Darla and even Amanda. Except Amanda is not the tragic, redemptive female villain story shared by Meg and Darla who earn the love of someone far more heroic/good who loves them in spite of all they've done and what they are, so that doesn't fit either.

                  This show tries to make Amanda into a bit of a Catwoman with some of that femme fatale dynamic, but Duncan was her Batman, not Nick.

                  The "unmasking" trope is something that has its roots in horror (think Christine Daaé and the Bride shrieking at Phantom Erik and Frankenstein's monster). The brides meet their monstrous grooms and their true visages are revealed. Psyche violates his trust and discovers Cupid asleep, waking him with her oil lamp after promising to never look upon her monstrous groom--finding something beautiful, but inhuman. Subsequently, her story puts her in the path of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. The more terrifying "fairy tale" is discovering Bluebeard's room of dead wives after promising to never unlock the door. Blood (menses and childbirth) and death (la petite mort) also have a lot of feminine allegorical and euphemistic meanings. When it comes to feminine storytelling that follows a fantasy heroine in a tragic forbidden romance, you'll see a lot of the same images. So, while in modern times, some of these othered not-quite-men are not the rejected Monsters in Love of early horror and some are far more benign in terms of actual horror, the roots in feminine storytelling are the same. It has a lot to do with why you see far more feminine heroines with their monstrous or inhuman lovers or would-be lovers than you see of the reverse.

                  Duncan and Tessa with the preoccupation with his tragic inability to give her the children she wanted and the echoes of it with several other love interests very much followed this concept of the incomplete man and lover. You knew his relationships with the Sioux mother and the flapper were over as soon as they wanted his children. With the Highlander immortals, you have multiple cases where immortals are afraid of revealing themselves to their human lover (dying in front of them is frequently their version of the "unmasking") and others well in the process of watching the tragedy unfold once they do know.

                  Then there's something like Lucifer where the female identification figure is totally Chloe reacting to everything crazy around her, but everything supernatural is being kept from her for three years just outside of her view until there's no more denial in spite of the obvious being stated repeatedly all along (his name!) and the risk of likely rejection is forced into being dealt with. It's ultimately forced out of him because of Cain/Pierce, played by none other than good ol' Clark Kent of Smallville (Tom Welling). Lois and Clark is an iconic example of the trope and an example where Clark famously hides behind his glasses and a fake geeky reporter persona.

                  A ton of these characters owe a lot to Superman. Many of these non-human characters who have a brief brush with humanity originate with the plot of Superman II, which likewise ends in duty being chosen over love, even if they're sacrificing everything they've ever wanted. The more permanent solution than the Superman II scenario is, of course, the transformation of the Beast, the mermaid who wishes to be human and Pinocchio wishing to be a real boy after facing a horrifying series of temptations and their consequences. Highlander's Prize and Connor/Duncan's envy of a normal human life is very much consistent with these fairy tales. The Prize and Angel's Shanshu are the Blue Fairy transforming Pinocchio.

                  And this is where Amanda's spinoff doesn't fit. Amanda's spinoff was riding the wave of female-led or co-led fantasy shows, but if you actually start comparing her to '90s female heroines, you get a lot more like Dana Scully, Buffy Summers, the Charmed sisters and Liz Parker than you get femme fatales who struggle for anything approaching a fairy tale romance or even a will they, won't they that teases for years on pure chemistry alone.

                  Duncan/Amanda (rebound and just sex for Duncan, off-and-on fling for Amanda) should've been what not to do in terms of relationships to copy. Even if the lead had to be Amanda, she needed a much more epic love story that challenged her far-less-emotionally-charged romantic history in comparison to both Duncan and Methos. Immortal/mortal (I know he's immortal) and human/other is always about the tragedy of not being able to be together, how forbidden/unfair/wrong it is and the fear of inevitable loss.

                  Immortals being able to sense pre-immortals was always extremely inconsistent. Duncan sensed that one teen girl was an immortal when she was a child and kept in touch with the family, but we never see any sign of him sensing Richie or several others. The sensing of pre-immortals never worked for me in Highlander when it was suddenly introduced out of the blue and didn't make sense. Amanda's season with Nick is just going to feel like another example of that bit of mythology not working for me.

                  Then again, I wasn't a massive fan of the foundling stuff being introduced so late. I haven't watched the movies beyond the original, but it sounds like it was introduced to fit with Highlander II making the immortals aliens. Prior to this retcon, they seemed to be mysterious flukes when they were assumed to be the children of human parents, maybe like a very recessive gene that hits at random. The foundling stuff made them more clearly never human, despite blending in outside of procreation ability until they died. Making pre-immortals inconsistently recognizable pre-death also had the same effect.
                  Last edited by NileQT87; 04-29-2020, 03:59 AM.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Adrian Paul decided to always play Duncan as though he knew Richie was a latent Immortal, even when the showrunners were still keeping their options open. Richie was initially supposed to be set off by Slan in episode 1. And no, the Foundlings were not introduced to fit in with HL2. This was an initial choice that they stuck with because fans are very, very difficult people.

                    In Highlander 2, in fact, originally there was a part where we would have seen Ramirez and Connor born from the mortal women whose bodies hosted these little cuckoos. Latents were always, in the show, recognizable pre-death.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      The episode with the teenage girl felt totally out of the blue for me. And it totally feels off and on even afterwards, though they continued it with the pre-immortal pianist. There's these blatant examples of it, then there's several surprise! examples, even if it might have been preplanned without really showing on-screen evidence of that.

                      Richie did not come across as such, even if the option was there, because that was not the function of his introduction.

                      Show runners keeping their options open definitely came across blatantly with Richie, even if actors might have been pulling for it and the idea might have been there as an option for the first episode. The first episode was more concerned with passing the baton from Connor to Duncan. Richie came across more of an audience identification figure (someone the younger viewers are supposed to relate to) observing all of this, so I think it was a good call not to make him immortal so soon. Tessa likewise functioned as both the female and European audience identification figure.

                      These days, I'd expect some sort of subtle foreshadowing before the event. Maybe something like Duncan making a comment to Tessa about Richie's origins or questioning him about what he knows. But that might be more Golden Age of Television-style writing. Tessa's death had the big foreshadowing with the proposal scene, which is a classic case of building up happiness, only to rip it away. That has become so cliché now that viewers start getting uneasy when they see their favorite characters suddenly really happy with everything going right for them. It usually means somebody is about to die, get betrayed or lose their soul. LOL.

                      Note that there are several blatant examples out there of magical characters who can also function as the more relatable individual even when there's a more human person present (see Samantha Stevens being the witchy housewife vs. bumbling Darrin). Richie did end up as still a relatability figure even after, given his origins were so far from exotic and he was still really young.

                      The mortal-women-impregnated-by-something-otherworldly stuff sounds like it was inspired by the plethora of demigods in mythology, which actually would have worked for me. Changelings are also a folkloric concept, which would have enabled the parents to not realize this isn't their biological child with both parents and immortals believing it.

                      I'm not even totally against the immortals being alien (alien experiments even--I mean, it's not out of my range of fantasy/sci-fi viewing material--the Roswell Pod Squad after all are human clone experiments with the souls/memories of dead alien royalty--and the concept worked because the kids knew nothing about themselves before they made these origin discoveries) if they had stuck to any single origin, which seems to be highly controversial in the Highlander fandom. It just felt like it kept getting retconned.

                      Foundlings also would make it a bit easier to figure out who is a pre-immortal in the cases of suddenly-appearing children who don't seem to have known birth mothers. You'd think someone like Horton would be using that to figure out who is a potential latent before they even die. Anyone with a orphan or adoption story would also be on the potential list to be looked into.

                      It's also a blatant way of not answering the question of what immortals are after the Highlander II answer proved unpopular, yet also leaving room open for it by ruling out their families being fully biological. The answer is really just a giant unknown.

                      But it did feel a bit late to suddenly say that Connor and Duncan's parents weren't really their parents, which did not come across in their initial flashbacks beyond the wacky ethnicities of the French Highlander, the half-Italian Highlander, the Scottish Egyptian-Spaniard, the American Kurgan, etc... It almost feels a bit apologetic for ethnic casting that was all over the place in historical periods where it's a bit silly if you can point to them being foundlings. Richie being an orphan was the only major building block for that.

                      Sorry if I'm being a bit offensive as a new viewer who doesn't know the behind-the-scenes.

                      On a different note, I've been collecting Highlander fanvids that are likely familiar to everyone here (it's a hobby of mine): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...ysL2tIAZ_FWOf1
                      Last edited by NileQT87; 04-30-2020, 05:32 AM.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Maybe something like Duncan making a comment to Tessa about Richie's origins
                        You mean like this conversation from episode 2 of Season 1?
                        Tessa - So he wouldn't tell you why he stole the file?

                        DM - I could guess. He wants to know where he comes from.

                        Tessa - Why can't they just tell him?

                        DM - Because it's against the law. Besides, maybe they don't know.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I guess that was the moment I missed. To be fair, for a first-time viewer, that sounds a lot like every other kid in the system who grew up without an adopted family. Richie is basically Oliver Twist.

                          And Duncan's first flashbacks don't at all suggest those aren't his real parents. Ditto Connor's in the film, which are more or less the same.

                          So a lot of first-time viewers wouldn't be looking for that because of the initial Connor/Duncan flashbacks to compare to. It's only in a rewatch that you're going to link that line to season 5!

                          My comment about Roswell was actually close to the mark. It's the same thing. Mysterious, otherworldly children discovered who don't seem to have any known origins and taken in by a kind family who found them on the side of a road (Max and Isabel) and one placed in the abusive foster system (Michael--though his initial angry, socially-inept personality reflects it more than Richie's--subsequently, they both have storylines about trying to break in to steal files that will help them understand their origins). Interesting connection. Though those "foundling" flashbacks are already there right from the pilot. Also from the '90s. Highlander was basically over, though, by the time even the Roswell High books were published, so it obviously came first.

                          Actually, that would've done wonders for Richie's characterization if he were given a bit of a Michael Guerin-esque search for answers beyond what Duncan could tell him in a more extended storyline that actually went somewhere. It often felt like he was just there a lot of the time and writers didn't know what to do with him eventually. Immortality is a different situation in the sense of most immortals having long outlived their families, but in a situation where one of the immortals was from the wrong side of the tracks and never ended up with an ideal family, they'd have more reason to want to figure out what they really are in a search for belonging.

                          If this were to be rebooted or given a revival, they'd have this part of the mythology developed in hindsight.

                          Deeply sorry about all the meta.

                          I actually made a bit of a sequel multi-fandom, multi-immortal fanvid, but this time actually using Highlander, which I hadn't seen yet when I made the last one.

                          Last edited by NileQT87; 05-02-2020, 02:33 PM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            You may want to enjoy rewatching the show again. Always good for an excuse. I mean, here is the moment in Family Tree when the man Duncan had thought was his father tells him otherwise.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              It became literal. Later.

                              On a first watch, this dialog completely comes across as a father disowning his son because he's an abomination for not dying, which is completely different from saying he's not biological. The father just comes across as superstitious. Fear of the unnatural. You can't be my child. You're a monster. You're a freak.

                              I even brought up the historical belief in changelings replacing biological children with children that have something wrong with them, thought to be demonic. There were some time periods where children with disabilities (what these claimed "changelings" really were) were really treated as damned in the eyes of God. A common medieval belief was that physical deformity was a sign from God for deformity/evil within (see The Hunchback of Notre Dame for a work based on these beliefs). Various sudden afflictions were accused of being the work of witchcraft. Fantasy fiction with magic often uses such superstitious beliefs in an allegorical way.

                              I know you've been in the fandom a long time and so you take it for granted, but I'd assume viewers who had to wait 5 seasons for that revelation took this dialog the same way.

                              It's actually a bit of a trope for these sorts of stories where somebody has become something inhuman, has an unnatural ability and/or comes back from the dead, especially when ye olde historical flashbacks are involved. Heck, sometimes you get similar words just because the parent or community disapproves of someone (for example, a sinner) to the point of disownment and shunning. When it comes to unnatural things, religion enters into it.
                              Last edited by NileQT87; 05-03-2020, 02:37 AM.

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                I don't know. I'm pretty sure I always took it to be a true statement. It's hard to think back to my initial reactions to it. I mean, I know the first time I saw it was on that old Gathering VHS release that had the first two episodes on it, but aside from that I don't really remember what I thought. But then I also saw a bunch of later episodes before, so maybe it was something I just already knew.

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  Originally posted by NileQT87 View Post
                                  It became literal. Later.
                                  Yes. Later in the SAME episode.

                                  Originally posted by NileQT87 View Post
                                  On a first watch, this dialog completely comes across as a father disowning his son because he's an abomination for not dying, which is completely different from saying he's not biological. The father just comes across as superstitious. Fear of the unnatural. You can't be my child. You're a monster. You're a freak..
                                  I think you're focused on the earlier flashback in the episode. This is the other flashback, SAME EPISODE.


                                  DM - I am your son!

                                  Ian - No! And you never were! The night my lady wife gave birth to my only son, stillborn, 'twas brought into her chamber by a peasant woman a boy child, to replace that which was lost.

                                  Comment


                                  • #18
                                    I get very confused by your messages. Most of what you say has to do with unrelated shows.

                                    Some of your assertions, especially about latent Immortals, are just wrong. Right in episode 2 of season 1 are both Tessa talking with Duncan about Richie, and Duncan telling about how he found out he was not the son of Ian and Mary MacLeod.

                                    Comment


                                    • #19
                                      Sorry. And it did take me months to get through season 1 (the villains of the week, episodic nature and some early episodes made me take a several-month break, so it was a long gap between episode 4 and everything else), whereas I blasted through seasons 2-5 very quickly (hence the lack of comments). I clearly forgot that portion of the dialog months later when I gave the show a second shot.

                                      I also switched from Hulu (where the picture quality for this show is utterly FUBAR) to Amazon, even if both are noticeably cropped. That also helped make the show look visually more appealing when it was at least clear. People watching the Hulu version might think the show really looked that bad. I think it did affect my views on the first 4 episodes.

                                      As I said, I liked the show in season 1 a lot more when it got to Paris. Less lame Kurgan copycats (off-putting in the pilot) also started to make the villains better when they had better motives and were a lot less disposable. Generally, I also like serious, dramatic characters, so Richie is far from alone on my list of sidekicks I never quite warm up to. Plenty of great shows have slow starts. Somewhere in the middle, I began to love a lot of characters (Tessa, Darius, Fitz, Joe and Methos being my top secondary characters, and I loved to hate Horton and Xavier).

                                      Early on, it was mostly Duncan/Tessa that kept me from giving up. I'm a sucker for doomed romances, though it was a surprise it was such a short period on the show. And because of my experience in other fandoms, I definitely got that uneasy feeling when Duncan proposed to her in the episode she died. It's now like a trained response for viewers who have keyed into the writing trick of building up characters' happiness in order to have the greatest impact when it's ripped away.

                                      I clearly liked the show enough to include Duncan in a vid. That's far from hatred of the show.

                                      I can think of plenty of storytelling decisions in various other things that take viewers a long time to warm up to (things that fans still aren't happy about decades later and not for misremembered reasons). I clearly walked into a beehive. That the second film had a level of infamy surrounding it because of its use of aliens (still haven't watched it yet) was one of the few things I was aware of.

                                      The point of the meta is a compare-contrast of the use of tropes across similar storylines, many of which involve the curse and tragedy of immortality trope. I watched the show because I knew it was a major influence on later examples of the immortality trope. This is how I heard of the show in the first place, coming from other fandoms. It's basically a monomyth concept (showing my time in the Star Wars fandom there with the Joseph Campbell) going back to the idea that there's no original stories since the Greeks. Hero's Journey is the most famous monomyth, but certain tropes tend to have a lot of similarities across stories that use them. There's a whole site dedicated to cataloging storytelling tropes, after all.

                                      I realize you're getting upset with it. I fully admit I've only seen the show once with huge gaps. I probably do misremember things from the earliest episodes. Clearly, I did. Thank you for the exact quote. It didn't help that I was actually struggling with the Connor-Duncan protagonist switch in those first couple of episodes after seeing the movie first. I appreciated Duncan the more he and the added mythology elements (like the Watchers) got further and further away from the movie. Connor's backstory was a similar disownment and shunning sequence (a take on the Frankenstein villagers accusing the monster), but I don't think it had the foundling element added yet (or do I have that wrong, too?). To add to my confusion, was that one of the movies even got retconned for an unpopular origin take. I very well might have mentally combined the Connor/Duncan backstories because of the similarities.

                                      It's how I analyze stories. I can just leave. I clearly haven't made a good impression.
                                      Last edited by NileQT87; 05-03-2020, 04:22 PM.

                                      Comment


                                      • #20
                                        No, you made a great impression. I only had a problem when you argued with me about what happened in episode two even after I had directly shared the very scene in the episode.

                                        The Connor original Highlander backstory did not indicate anything about his lineage at all, because the movie, I semi-joke, is "practically perfect in every way." Movie II had so many problems with it that the easiest thing for people to focus on was the aliens. However, it also had a lot of treasures. Just they lay floating in a sea of dross.

                                        Movie 2 chose not to go with showing them born to mortal mothers, but that was apparently part of an early draft.

                                        Foundlings all seems to have been decided by the time they started making the TV series. This means in the movie Endgame, which is set AFTER the TV series, they were able to up the angst by Connor's mother refusing to admit that he was not her baby, a question that would not have been asked unless the priest KNEW he wasn't, for one thing. It would have been all "You laid with the Devil, didn't you? He's the son of Satan!"

                                        This is a picture from one page of an early Highlander II script.
                                        Click image for larger version

Name:	Capture.JPG
Views:	163
Size:	49.3 KB
ID:	11876

                                        Comment


                                        • #21
                                          I think you scared her away, Dubi...

                                          Comment


                                          • dubiousbystander
                                            dubiousbystander commented
                                            Editing a comment
                                            Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry about that.
                                        Working...
                                        X