HIGHLA-L Digest - 14 Jun 2004 to 15 Jun 2004 (#2004-108)
Automatic digest processor (LISTSERV@lists.psu.edu)
Tue, 15 Jun 2004 22:00:02 -0400
There are 8 messages totalling 532 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Touching Evil (was-- The Innocent) (3)
2. Season Four dvds: The Innocent
3. Highla-L Under Attack (was Re:Touching Evil (was-- The Innocent) (2)
4. Season Four DVDs: Leader of the Pack
5. Highla-L Under Attack
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 09:27:10 -0400
From: Wendy Tillis <immortals_incorporated@cox.net>
Subject: Re: Touching Evil (was-- The Innocent)
Nina:
>> the male lead's performance a bit lacking
>Rottie--
>> I think he is brilliant. Affable and frightening at one time.
I rather like him..he's no Robson Green but then, he isn't trying to be. Green took the character in a different direction- perhaps a more believable one. This Creegan is sometimes too bizarre to believe he would be allowed to keep working. My biggest complaint is the uneven way his disability/difference/damage has been portrayed. Some episodes he is very..um...let's say quirky and in others he seems totally "normal". I assume, however, that this is the "fault" of the scripts and not the actor. It is interesting to watch these episodes and compare them to the British originals. Some of the USA ones hold up to comparison, some don't.
>Vera Farmiga is brilliant in Touching Evil--totally mesmerizing. She's
>always the best thing about whatever show she is in,
Hmmmm...I guess I prefer Nicola Walker portrayal of Susan Taylor (versus Susan Branca). Taylor was pretty much no nonsense - she didn't put up with much of Greegan's s**t and while she came to care for him as a person and a partner, she never got doey-eyed over him. Branca is a little too damaged and fragile herself - for my taste. I suppose that's a sop to American sensibilities- if the guy is going to be fragile, the woman must be fragile too.
> Petey Wingnut (recalling a real Highlander connection
>after all) was fabulous in his recurring role, & his tragic arc was outstandingly
>written. Bradley Cooper as his "replacement" is less successful, I think.
>A brave move after Alias, this edgier role doesn't seem to suit him, so
>far.
Peter did a great job. I hated to see him go even though I knew from the start that he was going to be in only a few episodes. I don't mind Cooper's performance. I think the last episodes with his brother were quite good. (And he looks good in a black trench coat<g>)
It will be interesting to see - if they get a second season - what they do now that they have burned off all of the "British" scripts. Will the writers be able to come up with plots that equal the original ones?
Wendy(Green looked better with his shirt off than Donovan did.)(Shallow?)(Me?)(Want to make something if it?)(I thought not.)
Immortals Inc.
immortals_incorporated@cox.net
"Weasels for Eternity"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 09:39:10 EDT
From: Dotiran@aol.com
Subject: Re: Touching Evil (was-- The Innocent)
In a message dated 6/15/2004 8:28:33 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
immortals_incorporated@cox.net writes:
>>Green looked better with his shirt off than Donovan did.)
Both pale in comparison to the greatest shirtless wonder
http://www.adriansangels.com/59bd51c0.png
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:35:33 -0400
From: Wendy Tillis <immortals_incorporated@cox.net>
Subject: Re: Season Four dvds: The Innocent
>It quickly becomes apparent that Mikey has the IQ and
>outlook of a young child, and that the first man (Alan) and his mortal wife
>Ellen are caring for him.
The second least probable Immortal ever shown. (Kenny being #1). Unless we believe that Mikey was found by Alan soon after his first death, there is no reasonable explanation for Mikey's survival. While he might make the good guys all gooey and sentimental, he wouldn't elicit those feelings in any of the bad guys. And there are a lot more bad guys out there than good guys.
>When Richie says, by way of explanation, "When you find someone
>who's helpless, you've gotta protect 'em, right?" we get a flashback to MacLeod
>in the Dakota Territory in 1868. He encounters a man brutally whipping an
>Indian slave, and intervenes, proving fairly handy with a whip, himself.
And this one was one of the least effective flashbacks in HL history. Not because it was bad in and of itself, it just didn't match the current day situation very well. Away from his people and surrounded by hostile settlers, the Indian boy was helpless. However, in his own element (with his own people)(eventually all grown up) he would have been competent to survive on his own.
>Duncan heads back to his car, to find the two policemen, one dead and one
>unconscious. He finds Richie's jacket and moves along the tracks,
>eventually 'feeling' Richie and locating them.
Did he leave his car - his very distictive and well-known car- parked there next to the dead cop? I always wondered.
>"I didn't mean to hurt anybody, Richie," he says.
>
>"I know." And the whistle of a train coming is heard.
>
>Mikey goes to his knees, putting his head on the track, and tells Richie
>not to worry, that's he's okay and not even scared. "Mikey go see King of
>Trains," he says with a happy smile.
This didn't fit at all. Mikey had not been shown to be smart enough to have made the jump from "Mikey did a bad thing" to "Mikey will commit suicide to absolve Richie of the need to kill him". I think it would have been much more effective if Richie had had to actually do the deed.
>They start to work, and both turn as they hear the whistle of a train go
>by. The episode ends with a montage of Mikey in ecstasy at the train yard while
>the "King of Kings" portion of the "Hallelujah Chorus" plays.
I don't think that Mikey deserved a "death montage". He was a one-time player and the montages were otherwise reserved for main characters. Perhaps TPTB had paid a great deal for the Hallelujah Chorus" and wanted to get full mileage out of it <eg>
Wendy(Why bother fixing up an old house just to knock it off its foundation a week later?)
Immortals Inc.
immortals_incorporated@cox.net
"Weasels for Eternity"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:52:44 -0700
From: "R. Shelton" <rshelton2@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Touching Evil (was-- The Innocent)
At 9:27 AM -0400 6/15/04, Wendy Tillis wrote:
>This Creegan is sometimes too bizarre to believe he would be allowed
>to keep working. My biggest complaint is the uneven way his
>disability/difference/damage has been portrayed. Some episodes he is
>very..um...let's say quirky and in others he seems totally "normal".
>I
I agree Wendy. I've only watched these last 3-4 eps after a friend
told me about it, & am still trying to decide what's going on with
him. I did go to the USA site & read up on it, but they don't say
that much either, except that he has a "sequencing problem & no
shame", and was clinically dead for a few minutes.
>assume, however, that this is the "fault" of the scripts and not the
>actor. It is interesting to watch these episodes and compare them to
>the British originals. Some of the USA ones hold up to comparison,
>some don't.
I didn't know it was originally British either, but the writing on
these last 4 eps I saw was definitely lacking, imho.
>It will be interesting to see - if they get a second season - what
>they do now that they have burned off all of the "British" scripts.
>Will the writers be able to come up with plots that equal the
>original ones?
Are they airing the originals anywhere? I hope they do reruns of the
USA version as I'd like to see the earlier ep/s with Pruitt Taylor
Vince. I saw a rerun time for the pilot at 8:30am (!) last week (odd
time) and they're going to air another called Attachment according to
the site, but it would be nice if they aired them in order.
Rachel
--
Rachel A. Shelton
rshelton2@earthlink.net
@}->->->-
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 17:47:36 -0700
From: "R. Shelton" <rshelton2@earthlink.net>
Subject: Highla-L Under Attack (was Re:Touching Evil (was-- The Innocent)
At 5:33 PM -0400 6/14/04, Dotiran@aol.com wrote:
>At 10:10 AM -1000 6/14/04, MacWestie wrote:
>>were my
>>anal-retentive button pushed by this show like yours clearly is.
>p.s. what on earth does the above mean? And since I am sure it is
>not a compliment :) why bother saying it? You are always asking for
>a *discussion* but can it not exist without vituperativeness?
You know, I have agree completely with Dotiran on this issue. I've
been a member of this list since 1995 and would like to stay "until
the lights go out". But lately, I've been sorely tempted to just sign
off completely & say 'to hell with it" because of this angry, mean
person.
Because, every *single* time something has been posted to this list
in the past year or so, this mean & nasty person feels that they must
jump out and attack. Personally, I'd like Debbie to call them on it
- I am totally sick to death of it & feel that one of my oldest (&
most favorite) lists just sucks big-time now; it's nothing like it
used to be. And it's all due to this one person since everyone knows
the minute they post something, they'll be under attack. I don't read
any of this person's posts anymore (they're filtered straight to the
trash), but of course they still crop up in other people's replies,
as this one did.
I'll probably get flamed to hell & gone for this post, but you know
what? I don't give a shit & I bet there's lots of people here that
feel the same way I do, whether they've been here as long as I have
or not. I realize everyone has the right to express their own
opinion/s here, but this just seems ridiculous & obstructing to
intelligent & interesting discussions, imho.
Rachel
--
Rachel A. Shelton
rshelton2@earthlink.net
@}->->->-
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 21:23:24 -0400
From: kageorge <kageorge@erols.com>
Subject: Season Four DVDs: Leader of the Pack
COMMENTARY: Stan Kirsch begins the commentary by saying he doesn't really
know why Richie took the killing of Tessa so personally. However, he did
love the intensity of the scenario, and had a lot of fun with that. While he
never "got" why he would care so much about Tessa's killer, he felt that, in
some way it expressed the rage inherent in Richie's character that we see
later in the series. [NOTE: SK's comments really surprised me. Richie was
unable to protect Tessa, which Duncan had tasked him with. Of course he
would have enormous feelings of guilt and rage over what had happened for a
whole host of reasons, including that the guy had stolen his mortality from
him in the most traumatic event of his life. The only thing I don't *get* is
why Stan felt even a little bit clueless about it, and he's had almost a
decade to think about it and come up with a good answer, even if he didn't
have one at the time. If I were him, I'd be too embarassed to admit I was
*that* clueless.]
Bill Panzer says he doesn't know whether they ever intended for Richie to
become MacLeod's equal. MacLeod has dealt with the idea of revenge and when,
or if, to take it. Richie hasn't. It's another coming-of-age aspect for him
in the Immortal world. Stan agrees that Richie doesn't understand the price
of revenge, of living with having killed someone out of revenge as MacLeod
has.
Bill P. says that the notion that, in the grey world Immortals live in,
Richie has the chance to revenge the death of Tessa - Mac's favorite person,
Richie's favorite person and mother-figure - but the guy has changed, and
now has a family himself. Having the power of life and death over a mortal,
Richie the Immortal and Richie the human being chooses not to do it.
Stan says that, while it may not have been planned out, he saw some of
Richie's characteristics in the other guy, in the way he was costumed and
presented, he was reminiscent of first-season-Richie, and that was part of
why he didn't want to go through with killing him in the end. [NOTE: I
assumed it *was* planned that way - that the kid represented who Richie
might have become if Tessa and Duncan hadn't taken him in.]
Bill P. - Re: The levitating house. They were in their fourth year, and now
anything they had done before was old hat and they were tired of it. They
wanted to shake things up and change them a little bit. Bill officially
takes the blame for the levitating house. He thought they could have a
Steven Speilburg moment on an $8,000 budget. He thinks they came "pretty
close" to pulling it off. [I disagree.]
OUTTAKES: Gillian tells us that Adrian Paul is a dog lover who often brought
his own Rottweilers to the set. However, the dogs in the episode are
trained, not pets, but "his immediate chemistry with his co-stars is
apparent." We see an outtake of the final scene in the loft with Adrian on
the couch with the dog, who decides to get up at an inopportune moment.
Adrian calmly tells her to stay, keeping his arm around her and continuing
to casually scratch her until the trainer comes in and resets her in the
proper position.
In an outtake from the scene in the park where the dogs are supposed to
follow and attack MacLeod, we see one of the dogs casually sauntering along
as his handler is rather desperately urging him on (to run), but the dog
stops to urinate on a nearby bush. No matter what the trainers do, the dog
is far more interested in stopping to sniff the greenery than putting on a
chase scene for the cameras.
Gillian describes the effort to get footage of the dogs attacking Duncan,
using a stunt double. She says one strategy was to tie the dogs to the
"victim" with fishing line, and as he tugs on the lines, the dogs appear to
be attacking him. "Ed Wood would be so proud," she says (speaking of the
infamous space ship scenes from "Planet Nine from Outer Space", I'm sure.)
We see a stunt double working with three dogs, each tied to his arms with
nylon line. The camera moves quickly as the double thrashes around, creating
the illusion of an attack. In reality, the dogs are just kind of happily
bouncing around, appearing to enjoy the game that was being played by the
silly human.
EPISODE: The episode opens with a man being chased through the woods by a
pack of dogs. They run him down and he fends them off with a sword. He
'feels' an Immortal approach, who knocks the sword out of his hand, then
introduces himself as "Canis" before he takes his head.
In the present, Duncan is strolling along, leaving the university with a bag
full of books, when he is followed by a Rotweiller. He finally stops and
talks to the dog, and offers a hand, but the dog growls at him. At the dojo,
Richie is going over some financial records on the computer in the office,
noting to Duncan when he arrives that he's not going to make money on the
dojo anytime soon. Turns out Duncan is more excited in talking about a
course he will be teaching at the local University on art history.
The next day, Richie happens to recognize a bicycle messenger as the punk
who shot both him and Tessa the night he became Immortal. He tackles him in
the street and chases him into an apartment building, busting down the door
to his and his pregnant wife's apartment, and beating him up, all the time
with the guy denying knowing what Richie is talking about.
Duncan, in the meantime, is teaching his class about the creation of beauty
in the midst of destruction, demonstrating with ancient armor, as a gaggle
of admiring students walks him to his car, he spots the same Rotweiller who
had been following him before, and we get a flashback to England in 1785,
where a beautiful Duchess is fox hunting, and Duncan is riding with her. He
hears a child cry for help and discovers the boy is being chased by a pack
of trained dogs. He shoots one and moves in, only to feel another Immortal.
It is Canis, dressed in white wig and a nobleman's finery. The Duchess, when
told what happened, immediately orders that the dogs be destroyed, and Canis
threatens her life. She imperiously orders that Canis be put in irons to
stand trial for treason.
Back in the present, Duncan follows the dog, who trots off towards a
cometary, where Canis awaits. Now Canis is all in black, wearing a studded
leather collar around his neck. "Still keeping the same company I see,"
Duncan says with a smile. "Must make conversation a little dull." There is
some back and forth banter and Canis makes it clear that he will bide his
time before coming after Duncan, and will use the dogs in the process.
Richie does not convince the police that there is any proof that the kid
killed Tessa. Duncan arrives, looking at the kid (Mark Rosca) with death in
his eye (and we get a flashback to Tessa's death and Richie's awakening as
an Immortal). They leave, and Duncan follows them, watching as they load a
truck with their belongings, and observes Rosca and his pregnant girlfriend
interact with obvious love and caring between them.
Duncan is angrily ripping out the ceiling in the house he is remodeling as
Richie demands to know what Duncan is going to do about Rosca, that he has
to make Rosca pay, that he has to do it for Tessa. Duncan says he doesn't
know. Then Duncan hears a dog barking, heads outside, and we get a flashback
to Duncan making whoopee with the Duchess in her tent. (Evidently he was
master of more than her horses.) They hear dogs barking and howling and she
gets irritated, then they find out that the guards around Canis have been
attacked by the dogs and she decides to have Canis executed immediately,
without trial, and Canis is hung. When Duncan tries to linger behind to "see
to it that the body is buried" the Duchess demands that he come with her
instead. Frustrated that he couldn't stay and take care of Canis, he leaves
and we later see Canis emerge from the grave with his dogs at his side.
Duncan returns later to find an empty grave.
Richie goes to Joe, complaining about Duncan. "If you ask me I think he's
taking this Zen crap a little too far. You know - it's done. It's in the
past. I won't bring her back?"
"It won't," Joe says, then declines to talk about it, saying it was none of
his business, and we are reminded in a flashback that Duncan had cut off
their friendship after Charlie deSalvo's murder.
Duncan goes to the park for a run, leaving his katana in the car. As he
runs, he remembers Tessa and the love and joy they shared, running faster
and faster, remembering her death, and remembering the obvious love that
Rosca shared with his own girlfriend. He stops at last when a Rotweiller
appears in the path, turning back only to find two more waiting for him. He
moves off the path, then makes a mad dash towards his car, but the dogs get
to him first. He is mauled on the arms and legs, but he manages at last to
get his katana, slashing at them, then yelling for Canis to show himself. He
gets in the car only to have one of them jump on the hood, growling and
slobbering on the windshield. He drives away, a dog runs after and is hit by
a passing bus and killed.
Richie goes to Rosca's apartment to find it empty of furniture, but the girl
is there. She says Rosca left him, but Richie doesn't believe her. She tries
to give him a gold necklace to pay him off, insisting that her Mark is a
good man, that he couldn't have done what they said he did.
Duncan stumbles into the loft, bloody but mostly healed. The phone rings. It
's Canis, who accuses MacLeod of killing another one of his dogs. Richie
arrives as Duncan emerges in only an untied robe and his "tighty whities"
(one of the more infamous Highlander moments). Richie finds the bloody,
shredded clothes and Duncan tells him about Canis. "You got a plan?" Richie
asks.
"Yeah," Duncan says matter-of-factly. "I'm gonna find him and I'm gonna kill
him."
Richie says Rosca was gone, and Duncan tells him he cleared out. When Richie
is outraged that Duncan didn't stop him, Duncan says Rosca loves the girl,
and she's pregnant. Richie declares that he doesn't care, but Duncan tells
Richie that he's tried revenge, that he's hunted and killed without mercy,
and that "you'll care," but he doesn't stop Richie when he leaves to go
after Rosca.
In the meantime, Canis does a ritual cremation of the dead dog, declaring
that he shall be avenged.
Richie goes back to Joe, telling him about Canis, asking if Joe knows where
Canis is, but Joe refuses to respond. Richie gets pissed and leaves.
Canis goes to a Rottweiler dog breeder, wanting a female ready to breed.
There is one there, almost in heat, but the woman tells him Lucille is not
for sale. He doesn't want to take no for an answer, and is getting
threatening when Duncan arrives. Canis slips away, but Duncan tracks Canis
down a little ways away, where the dog breeder's little boy is petting one
of Canis' dogs, telling Duncan to "stay" or he will order the dog to kill
the boy, and Canis disappears.
Richie finds Rosca, with him still insisting he didn't kill Tessa. We have
another chase scene, which eventually ends up with Richie with a strangle
hold in the kid, who says he was so loaded "back then" that he doesn't
remember half the stuff he did. Richie keeps at him, describing what he was
wearing until Rosca, in horror, finally realizes Richie is right, that he
*did* kill someone. Richie pushes Rosca over the balcony, just hanging onto
him by his shirt collar, with the kid begging for his life.
Back at the remodeling site, Canis shows up with his dogs, who surround
MacLeod, cutting him off from his katana, but Duncan backs up and opens a
door. "Hey, Lucille," he calls. "Your dates are here." The dogs start
whining, go after Lucille, and lose interest in anything Canis wants them to
do.
Canis and Duncan fight, moving outside, and in an overhead gymnastic leap,
Duncan beheads Canis mid-air. Then we have the levitating house Quickening,
about which the less said the better.
Duncan is relaxing back at the loft, Lucille contentedly on the couch beside
him, and the other two dogs padding comfortably around the place, when
Richie arrives. He tells Richie that Lucille will be returned to the breeder
tomorrow "with interest" (although unless he had the AKC papers on the other
two, and knew which one mated with her, the breeder will probably be pissed
off.)
Richie tells Duncan that he had just wanted to "make it right", that he had
Rosca in his hands, but that he couldn't kill him. Duncan looks surprised,
and a little relieved. "Where's the justice?" Richie asks.
"There is no justice," Duncan answers. "Just mercy."
MY COMMENTS: I like the theme of this show, although the whole thing was
pretty herky-jerky between the Canis plot, the Rosca plot, the
teaching-at-the-University plot and the tension-with-Joe plot. We know for a
fact that Duncan is more than capable of single-minded vengeance, but in
this story we learn that he regrets a lot of what he has done, and that it
haunts him. If there is a message in the show, then that is it.
The flashback didn't work well for me. The costumes looked wrong, and the
Duchess had a bad fake English accent, and came across as an arrogant bitch.
(Horsemaster, eh? Ah, well, a guy has to make a buck where he can and if it
means he has to "service" a lovely, lonely Duchess, I guess he'll just have
to suffer through.)
Unfortunately, this episode has the all-time worst Quickening, in my
opinion. I laughed out loud (and not in a good way) the first time I saw it.
Now it just makes me cringe.
The Richie-chases-Rosca scenes got repetitive, there were a lot of "filler"
flashbacks, and the whole thing didn't hang together very well as a story. I
tried to go back and shorten the episode description, but in the process, I
would have ended up leaving out some of the various plot threads, just
because they were so unconnected and interspersed, so the description is a
direct reflection of the lack of integration of the various relatively
unrelated things going on in the episode.
The best moments, for me, were purely prurient ones, I'm afraid. I enjoy
watching Duncan stumble back into the loft, exhausted and sweaty, ripping
off his bloody sweatshirt and pouring water over his chest. I enjoy a
semi-nude Duncan walking around in only an open robe and his underwear.
So I'm shallow. Live with it.
MacGeorge
All episode commentaries available at:
http://www.wordsmiths.net/MacGeorge/episodes/indexframeset.htm
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 02:40:18 +0100
From: "a.j.mosby" <a.j.mosby@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Highla-L Under Attack
> You know, I have agree completely with Dotiran on this issue. I've
> been a member of this list since 1995 and would like to stay "until
> the lights go out". But lately, I've been sorely tempted to just sign
> off completely & say 'to hell with it" because of this angry, mean
> person.
No flaming from me.
But I'm all for different styles, attitudes, tones and opinions. I support
the fact that we can come here and enjoy, argue, debate, analyse and
procrastinate. And yeah, like everyone, I don't like criticism as much as
praise, but I take it when it's given out and either defend my position if I
feel justified or apologise if I've upset anyone unintentionally. At the end
of the day, sometimes all you can do is agree to disagree. I mean, for
example, Leah and I have had our ding-dongs over the years and probably
still don't see eye to eye on most things. But I think we've both managed to
be pretty civil here even when we have opposing views. It's the thing that
stops a debate becoming a slanging-match, even when a subject can get you
all flustered. When there was both criticism and support for my
'Verbatiming' on the List, I agreed not to post about it as much. No harm,
no foul.
Yes. Sometimes it's that easy.
And yes, there's an art to sarcasm than can be funny. There's a skill to
irony. Even a slight insult can be amusing to all if delivered well. But
sometimes naked vitriol comes across as just that. Snide. Nasty. Negative.
Withered. Cruel. Something needlessly added or said with deliberate venom,
an aside for no other reason than to make someone else seem small or
inferior. Something not even said, but *blink-blink* insinuated to score a
point.
It's rather telling that when someone has already proven they are capable of
coming up with a decent discussion and point, that they still always seem to
feel the need to twist the knife, just for that extra effect. Just to see
the wince.
THAT's the difference between clever and cruel.
John
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 21:51:47 EDT
From: Highlandmg@aol.com
Subject: Re: Highla-L Under Attack (was Re:Touching Evil (was-- The Innocent)
Rachel
I will not let any one person drive me from any list I am on. I agree with
every thing you have said. Where is Debbie? Does this person want the list to
shut down? I believe she does. I have been here a long time also and for
someone to say they are a fan but have nothing good to say or jump on some ones
post. I mostly lurk now but she will not drive me of this list. John you are also
on some lists I am on. BUT I want to know any news. I look forward to knowing
about future Highlander TV/movie shows please keep posting here. I look
forward to it.
Mary
------------------------------
End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 14 Jun 2004 to 15 Jun 2004 (#2004-108)
***************************************************************