There are 2 messages totalling 253 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. F! F! F! 2. Season Six DVD Commentary: Deadly Exposure ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 10:41:15 -0400 From: madameweezul@gmail.com Subject: Re: F! F! F! Ginny wrote: > I think I might have to actually include spoiler > space! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > We're watching Stargate:Atlantis. I noticed the new > Ronin character is carrying a sword slung over his > shoulder. They just entered a little off-world pub > somewhere, and who do I spy in the corner but our > darling F. Braun McAsh. Proof positive that Ronin's > gonna do something with that interesting looking > blade...? I'm sorry ... with Jason Momoa on screen, you noticed F. Braun in the corner? What were you thinking, woman? Wendy(Ronon kind of reminds me of Tyr from Andromeda.)(Which isn't a bad thing) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 20:48:14 -0400 From: kageorge <kageorge1@verizon.net> Subject: Season Six DVD Commentary: Deadly Exposure Episode commentary w/screen captures available at: http://www.wordsmiths.net/MacGeorge/episodes/Season6/DeadlyExposure.htm TPTB COMMENTARY: Bill Panzer tells us that when they really believed that Highlander was coming to an end, they went through the whole screen-test-spinoff-girl process (I know, we’ve heard about this from many others, but Bill always has to put his own spin on things). Bill says it affected how they perceived the shows, even though they were still concerned with telling a good Highlander story. He felt like the spinoff-woman issue overbalanced what he felt were, for the most part, good stories. But when you take Adrian out of the show, it becomes something completely different and Bill doesn’t think they had appreciated how much of an impact his absence would have on the audience, “and on us.” Writer James Thorpe says he doesn’t think the spin-off test project altered the way he wrote, but he felt it altered the way the scripts were read by the producers as they all felt their way towards the Raven character. Whatever he did, he says, you have to be true to the character you created for that story, and keep them consistent within the story. While they could always depend on the “regulars” to come through and give more than just what was written on the page, for guest artists you could never depend on the quality of the actor, especially when they were casting in Europe. Sometimes however, watching the dailies, you hear the words you wrote spoken and it is more than you ever imagined and it just “blows you away.” Thorpe says that “this was another year of employment” so he loved the idea of a spinoff series. Working on Highlander was his best experience of working in “this town”, so it was a great way to start, but also the worst way to start because it spoiled him for everything that came after. Nothing since has been “as spectacular as Highlander, and not just in the final product, ”but in the way a writer is allowed to and inspired to work.” OUTTAKES: Sandra Hess’s spinoff-girl audition. EPISODE: The prologue opens in a nightclub in Miami Beach, Florida. A comic is attempting to entertain a group of Mafioso types. He is followed on stage by a blond dressed in a skimpy patent leather imitation of a police uniform, complete with gun and handcuffs. Asking sultrily “Who wants to be strip-searched first?” she begins taking off her clothes. She drapes her body over the head bad guy (Vega), who murmurs, “This is my kind of cop!” As part of her strip routine, she puts the handcuffs on him, but then grabs him and pulls him down, holding her gun to his head, telling everyone else that if they move, she’ll kill him. Just then the DEA busts in, and it becomes apparent that they know her (“Reagan”), but she isn’t working for them. During the gun battle, a militarily-dressed stranger steps in and kills Vega, much to Reagan’s ire, who grouses that even though she’ll still collect the bounty, Vega won’t be able to testify against “his friends,” then announces to her DEA friend that she is now going to take a vacation. When he inquires how long it’s been since she’s had a vacation, she says, “Would you believe 250 years ago?” (Eureka! An Immortal! Who wudda thunk?) So, Reagan ends up in Paris at a sidewalk cafe, on the phone to Duncan making a dinner date as she watches a photographer working with a male model nearby. Behind the photographer we see the assassin from the first scene as he instructs a minion to get the photographer’s camera since she accidentally took a picture of him. The photographer gets disgusted with her shots, saying the light and the setting are all wrong and the model should go change his clothes and they’ll start again. She tosses her used roll of film into a nearby trashcan. The model leaves, and two thugs attack the photographer and take her camera. The photographer fights back and they shoot her as Reagan runs toward the fight, arriving too late as the thugs drive off. The assassin coldly berates the thugs for not having gotten the film and they go off to find it (“or else”). In the meantime, Reagan and the model (Murphy) are answering the police’s questions. Murphy blames himself and Reagan takes him to his flat, where we learn he is an unassuming construction worker the photographer thought would be a good model. The thugs show up demanding the film, and Reagan ends up shooting one of them as the other gets away. The police arrive once again, only now Interpol is involved and Reagan gets curious as to why. Murphy and Reagan find the discarded film and develop it, but are followed. Reagan does a little kung fu magic and takes them both out, only to discover they are cops. They end up at Duncan’s barge. In a flashback to London in 1833, we see how she and Duncan met. It seems that Duncan was aggressively seduced by Reagan, who introduces herself as a Countess with a long Romanian title. Round!Heels!Duncan easily succumbs, and soon coats and boots and petticoats are flying off (although it is a bit of a struggle) and she asks him if he is “a man who appreciates variety.” Forthwith, Thinking!With!His!Dick!Duncan ends up tied to the bed. Suddenly she loses the Romanian accent and calls the constabulary to arrest him. It seems that the treason charge was because Duncan was diddling a Duke’s wife. Reagan, who was hired to catch Duncan, is outraged to learn the nature of the ‘treason’, and especially distressed at the prospect of his punishment, which is a beheading. As Duncan is being taken by carriage to his execution, the road is blocked by a cart with a broken wheel with a nun slumped over in the seat. Big surprise – it’s Reagan Cole, who rescues Duncan, then seems surprised when he isn’t overwhelmingly grateful. She protests when in the midst of a “forgiving” kiss, Duncan ties her up and leaves her there. Back at the barge, in the background of one of the fashion photographer’s shots, Reagan spots Mr. Assassin Guy who killed the guy she had been trying to take in for the bounty in Miami. Of course, Assassin Guy’s flunky’s have also spotted and taken a picture of her, and he is now out to get her, acknowledging that she’s smart, but that they’ll “have to be smarter.” MacLeod, with his impressive computer skills, manages to find information on Mr. Assassin Guy on the internet, and learns that he is a Really Bad Guy named Kendall who has eluded the police for fifteen years. Reagan Cole is particularly interested in the fact that there is a $1 million bounty on the guy’s head, while Duncan is more concerned with who he’s in town to kill. The next morning (Reagan slept in Duncan’s bed in what she calls “the futon from hell”), Duncan serves Murphy and Reagan decaf coffee only (so he’s apparently still in a somewhat monkish lifestyle mode). The Interpol cop drops by the barge, dropping trash on the ground much to Duncan’s irritation. The cop says they’d traced a call from Reagan Cole to him, but Duncan denies knowing her and ends up “going downtown” to answer questions. Reagan and Mr. Model Guy (Murphy) get a bite at a sidewalk café, and as he awkwardly suggests that they might date, Reagan spots a headline on a newspaper left behind by another patron. She is convinced that a gathering of leaders to discuss how to deal with international terrorism is where Kendall is going to strike. She rushes off and Murphy (who is demonstrably a few floors short of the penthouse) gets a page on his beeper from his modeling agency and goes off to his apartment, even though he had been warned not to go there. Reagan steals herself a pass to the conference, but runs into the Interpol cop, who expresses his low opinion of bounty hunters, telling her that Kendall will “be in custody or dead in hours,” and gives her a plane ticket to the States. She leaves, only to find that Murphy has disappeared. She finds him at his apartment, and yells at him to get out, but before she can enter, he is shot and killed by a sniper. The Interpol cop ends up in the middle of that investigation, too, and tells Reagan that they found the shooter, and reveals inadvertently that he knew who the person was who last called Murphy. Reagan is furious and hits him, accusing him of setting Murphy up just to draw out Kendall. The Interpol cop says he knows because they had a tap on his phone, and has the local gendarmes grab her to escort her out so she can catch that plane. Reagan reminds him that she is the last person to see Kendall as he looks now, and she is the only one who can identify him. Kendall kills the doctor slated to be at the conference (doesn’t every conference have a doctor standing by at all times?), and takes his place. Reagan spots him, but he slips away. Interpol cop assures her that they have thoroughly checked everything and that the conference site is secure, but clever Reagan finds an oxygen tank in the first aid kit that contains a bomb and while Interpol cop takes it away, she murmurs that, “I think I need a doctor. I feel a major pain in the ass coming on.” She finds Kendall in the dining room milling among the attendees, and accuses him of the murder of Murphy. Kendall coolly tells her that he will be allowed to leave and get on a helicopter that will be there in two minutes because he is wearing a bomb that will explode if his heart stops beating. She brazenly tells him that he didn’t think of one thing – that if she puts a bullet in his brain, it will take four seconds for his heart to stop. She shoots him, then tackles him, pushing him over the balcony into the lake, where the bomb explodes, killing both of them. “Pity,” Interpol cop sighs. Reagan ends up drinking wine with Duncan at the barge, bemoaning the fact that she ended up without the million dollar bounty, but that “Murphy, on the other hand, lost a lot more.” She evidently gets over it, though, as their conversation evolves to kissing and it appears they just might finish what the “Countess” started a century or two before. MY COMMENTS: Blah. The plot was super-lame, Murphy was so nerdy and dumb that it was hard not to feel like the gene pool was significantly improved with his demise. The bad guy was a pretty good bad guy, and it was nice that he wasn’t an Immortal, yet was still worth taking out. The Interpol cop was kind of amusing, but the only really good thing about the story was (as usual) the flashback. Even while I enjoyed the flashback, it was a bit of a conundrum since we have been told that Duncan is a “bright boy” who knows how to take care of himself, but the nitwit lets an unknown Immortal woman tie him up? I know men frequently (always?) think with their dicks, but gimme a break! While I am titillated by the notion of a tied-up Duncan as much as the next red-blooded woman with a pulse, and the picture is just too yummy for words, the whole idea stretched my suspenders of disbelief all out of proportion. And Reagan Cole? Sorry, but she did nothing for me. Very, very ordinary, as was the plot, as was the episode. MacGeorge All episode commentaries available at: http://www.wordsmiths.net/MacGeorge/episodes/indexframeset.htm ------------------------------ End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 26 Aug 2005 to 27 Aug 2005 (#2005-106) ***************************************************************