HIGHLA-L Digest - 26 Aug 2005 to 27 Aug 2005 (#2005-106)
HIGHLA-L automatic digest system (LISTSERV@lists.psu.edu)
Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:00:11 -0400
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
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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!
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> 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)
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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
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End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 26 Aug 2005 to 27 Aug 2005 (#2005-106)
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