HIGHLA-L Digest - 21 Jun 2005 to 22 Jun 2005 (#2005-76)
HIGHLA-L automatic digest system (LISTSERV@lists.psu.edu)
Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:00:25 -0400
There are 3 messages totalling 312 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Season Six DVD Commentary: Black Tower (3)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:52:22 -0400
From: Wendy <Immortals_Incorporated@cox.net>
Subject: Re: Season Six DVD Commentary: Black Tower
> Director Richard Martin tells us <snip> they knew were nearing the
end
> of the whole Highlander series, while the show had some light
moments,
> it felt “monumental.” (He didn’t really explain what he meant by
> that.)
I believe he meant monumentally stupid. This is one of those episodes
that absolutely makes my teeth ache. I remember thinking at the time -
they only had 13 episodes of HL:TS left to write and *this* is how they
chose to go? They wasted an hour on this mind-numbing dren?
> FOOTNOTE: The Watcher Chronicle notes that Lawrence “Dice”
> Dicente was Valedictorian of the 1999 Watcher Academy class,
> <snip>Tribunal disciplinary action when
> they learned Dice had staged the elaborate hoax in order not
> to miss his weekly “X-Files” chat on the internet.”
Does this make any sense to anyone? Is Dice still a Watcher? Is he
Watching Marek? Or are we to believe that he just happened to end up
working for an Immortal? And, in either case, are you telling me that a
man who was Valedictorian of the Watcher Academy didn't recognize Duncan
MacLeod when he walked in? You can't tell me that DMOTCM isn't required
reading at the Academy.
> MY COMMENTARY: Well, it wasn’t awful.
Oh yes, it was <eg>
> Unfortunately Marek was not a particularly malevolent bad guy,
>just a jerk with a serious case of delusional self-importance.
Which could have been played for substance. You don't have to be EVIL to
do evil.
> I know, I know – it was intended to be more amusing
> than threatening, since we all knew from the
> beginning that Duncan would prevail.
By this point in the Series we had already seen Duncan take out a
building full of bad guys several times - going all the way back to
"Bad Day in Building A." It really wasn't amusing. In fact, why should
watching Duncan kill mortals - even mortals with guns- ever be amusing?
> Maybe that was the problem. I never felt like Duncan was in any real
> jeopardy at all. It occurs to me that by this time in the
> development of the series, in order to be a plausible threat
> to Duncan, the bad guys have to be Big Time Major League
> Bad Guys, and Marek sure as heck doesn’t fill that bill.
This is what TPTB have said and I've heard other fans echo it - I still
don't understand it. *Why* did every bad guy have to top the last bad
guy? Why did the writers feel that each season ending problem had to be
bigger and badder than the last season? Why not aim for *good* instead
of bigger? Why not aim for interesting instead of showier? If, by
Season 6, there were no longer any plausible threats to Duncan (an idea
I reject) , it was a dilemma of the writers' own making. The truth is,
if HL:TS was "real", then the biggest threat to Duncan wouldn't be a
Big Time Major League Bad Guy - it would be a regular guy that Duncan
totally underestimated.
>At this point, the only way to really set up
> genuine life-threatening tension is to combine a physical
> threat with an emotional one (which they do in TB/NTB),
> so this particular episode was doomed to mediocrity from the start.
But that had been true since the beginning. From the start we knew
Duncan wasn't going to die. The star doesn't get killed off until the
Series ends (if at all) . All the tension came from either *how* he
survived or from who else was in danger. The drama was in saving Tessa
or keeping Richie safe or trying not to kill an old friend or avenging
an old wound without tipping off the police to your presence or
defenestrating a president without starting a war, etc. There was
*never* any danger that Duncan would lose a fight and die.
This episode was doomed to mediocrity because it was a mediocre idea
carried out with mediocre writing and acting.
> In essence, they had set the bar too high in seasons four and
> five. The Highlander audience expected moral dilemmas, tough
questions
> asked, with no simple, easy answers offered. Showing such a
simplistic
> episode with such cartoonish characters to an audience expecting a
Talmudic
> discussion is bound to generate a negative response.
The bar wasn't set in season 4 or 5, the bar was set high long before
that. It was only in late season 4 and 5 that TPTB decided that "Duncan
the Immortal" wasn't interesting anymore, he had to be "Duncan the
Demi-God". There were still moral dilemmas to be discussed, still
Talmudic discussion to be had - but TPTB had stopped being interested
in that. *If* you are going to have your hero defeat a "god', then
*really* show us how he goes on living afterwards. You're Duncan MacLeod
of the Clan MacLeod and you've just won the Millennia Bowl...what are
you going to do now? I understand that the writers were handcuffed to
some degree in season 5 but they seemed to have stopped trying
altogether. Are we really suppose to believe that only a few weeks
after the events of AAA, Duncan was back to happily snapping the necks
of "assassins"? How about presenting Duncan with some challenges that
require him to consider what he had learned with Ahriman and put that
into practice ... or not? One day the fate of the world rests on you and
the next day it doesn't..and the writers couldn't think of any way to
play that for drama in the world of HL?
I think the writers, as well as the cast, had mentally moved on even
though they still had 13 episodes to make. No one was trying very hard.
Wendy(This is the way the world ends...not with a bang but with a
whimper.)
Immortals Inc.
immortals_incorporated@cox.net
"Weasels for Eternity"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:10:00 -0400
From: kageorge <kageorge1@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Season Six DVD Commentary: Black Tower
Wendy wrote:
> <>
>
>>Dicente was Valedictorian of the 1999 Watcher Academy class,
>><snip>Tribunal disciplinary action when
>>they learned Dice had staged the elaborate hoax in order not
>>to miss his weekly “X-Files” chat on the internet.”
>>
>>
> FOOTNOTE: The Watcher Chronicle notes that Lawrence “Dice”
>
>
>Does this make any sense to anyone? Is Dice still a Watcher? Is he
>Watching Marek? Or are we to believe that he just happened to end up
>working for an Immortal? And, in either case, are you telling me that a
>man who was Valedictorian of the Watcher Academy didn't recognize Duncan
>MacLeod when he walked in? You can't tell me that DMOTCM isn't required
>reading at the Academy.
>
>
I didn't include the date, which was misleading. They recruited him as
a Watcher after the Black Tower episode.
>
>
>>MY COMMENTARY: Well, it wasn’t awful.
>>
>>
>
>Oh yes, it was <eg>
>
>
I disagree. There's a difference between awful and just poor. This was
just poor.
>By this point in the Series we had already seen Duncan take out a
>building full of bad guys several times - going all the way back to
>"Bad Day in Building A." It really wasn't amusing. In fact, why should
>watching Duncan kill mortals - even mortals with guns- ever be amusing?
>
>
Because 14 year old boys like watching things go 'bang' and (for reasons
I can't quite fathom) some bozo still had it in his head that 14 year
old boys were their core demographic.
>
>
>>Maybe that was the problem. I never felt like Duncan was in any real
>>jeopardy at all. It occurs to me that by this time in the
>>development of the series, in order to be a plausible threat
>>to Duncan, the bad guys have to be Big Time Major League
>>Bad Guys, and Marek sure as heck doesn’t fill that bill.
>>
>>
>
>This is what TPTB have said and I've heard other fans echo it - I still
>don't understand it. *Why* did every bad guy have to top the last bad
>guy? Why did the writers feel that each season ending problem had to be
>bigger and badder than the last season? Why not aim for *good* instead
>of bigger? Why not aim for interesting instead of showier? If, by
>Season 6, there were no longer any plausible threats to Duncan (an idea
>I reject) , it was a dilemma of the writers' own making. The truth is,
>if HL:TS was "real", then the biggest threat to Duncan wouldn't be a
>Big Time Major League Bad Guy - it would be a regular guy that Duncan
>totally underestimated.
>
>
True enough. But what you have done is define what it takes to be a
Major League Bad Guy - someone with not just a set of skills that might
present a serious threat, but with an emotional 'hook' that made Duncan
vulnerable.
>
>
>This episode was doomed to mediocrity because it was a mediocre idea
>carried out with mediocre writing and acting.
>
>
Agreed. But mediocre doesn't equate with "awful", it's just...
mediocre, which seems a lot worse when your expectations have been
raised to expect far more than that.
>
>The bar wasn't set in season 4 or 5, the bar was set high long before
>that. It was only in late season 4 and 5 that TPTB decided that "Duncan
>the Immortal" wasn't interesting anymore, he had to be "Duncan the
>Demi-God". There were still moral dilemmas to be discussed, still
>Talmudic discussion to be had - but TPTB had stopped being interested
>in that. *If* you are going to have your hero defeat a "god', then
>*really* show us how he goes on living afterwards. You're Duncan MacLeod
>of the Clan MacLeod and you've just won the Millennia Bowl...what are
>you going to do now?
>
And I think they missed the boat in not taking on that question. What
would it be like to feel like you were born for a particular purpose,
and now that purpose was fulfilled. What's left? Duncan's purpose in
life has always been protecting others, so... now what? In a roundabout
way, TB/NTB tried to look at that, but I think they got caught up in the
whole sum-everything-up necessity and missed the boat - to badly mix my
metaphors. <g>
>I understand that the writers were handcuffed to
>some degree in season 5 but they seemed to have stopped trying
>altogether. Are we really suppose to believe that only a few weeks
>after the events of AAA, Duncan was back to happily snapping the necks
>of "assassins"? How about presenting Duncan with some challenges that
>require him to consider what he had learned with Ahriman and put that
>into practice ... or not? One day the fate of the world rests on you and
>the next day it doesn't..and the writers couldn't think of any way to
>play that for drama in the world of HL?
>
>
Agreed, as stated above. They missed the boat on some really meaty
storylines.
>I think the writers, as well as the cast, had mentally moved on even
>though they still had 13 episodes to make. No one was trying very hard.
>
>
On that we agree.
MacG
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:53:30 -1000
From: MacWestie <mac.westie@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Season Six DVD Commentary: Black Tower
Wendy--
> I believe he meant monumentally stupid. This is one of those episodes
> that absolutely makes my teeth ache. I remember thinking at the time -
> they only had 13 episodes of HL:TS left to write and *this* is how they
> chose to go? They wasted an hour on this mind-numbing dren?
TPTB always trot out the same excuses for Season Sux--they had to try out
actresses & concept for the spin-off, & AP wasn't around for full film
shoots. (Also--Paris is hot in summer.) But, neither applies for this
ep--it was fully DM's story, & AP was in nearly every frame. And it was
egregiously bad. Worse--it was boring.
> The truth is,
> if HL:TS was "real", then the biggest threat to Duncan wouldn't be a
> Big Time Major League Bad Guy - it would be a regular guy that Duncan
> totally underestimated.
Or, who just got lucky. DM got lucky a lot against "better" or at least
more experienced opponents. All it would take is DM having one bad day....
> I think the writers, as well as the cast, had mentally moved on even
> though they still had 13 episodes to make. No one was trying very hard.
Well, WE were trying like hell to make sense of it, as I recall. To make it
anything but the silly waste of time & resources that it was.
As for the Dice-as-Watcher thing on the Chronicles cdrom, I think they were
trying to say he became a Watcher AFTER the events of this ep, apparently
dutifully recruited by Joe as a way to keep the guy quiet about what he'd
seen. The ep aired in late 1997, so I guess Dice jetted through Watcher
Academy to have been valedictorian of the 1999 class. (Actually, there's a
visible newspaper dated August, 1997 just a couple eps ahead in Deadly
Exposure, but THAT contradicts Avatar's clearly taking place 1 full year
after Archangel & also a reference in Justice that it takes place in summer
of 1998, so who knows?)
Nina (Black Tower lost me in the teaser) (raw fish is not seduction food)
(the actress was ... wrong here, but she was much better as Nick's ex on
Raven) (& DM would never let a mortal answer a 3AM knock at the barge door)
mac.westie@verizon.net
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End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 21 Jun 2005 to 22 Jun 2005 (#2005-76)
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