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Score: 6 out of 10 Audio and LanguagesThe non-musical part of the 5.1 audio mix is front-loaded like those of most TV shows. All episodes are shown in their original fullscreen ratio. Digital errors are sparse, there are no serious moire problems and edge enhancement auras are non-existent. Colors and black levels appear to be a bit muddied too, although again, much of that may be due to the original lighting choices. It's hard to tell if that's the digital transfer or merely the fact that some key episodes take place in unusually dark or eccentrically lit scenes, but in any case, the shows on this set seem to be a bit harder on the eyes than previous Highlander releases. Score: 5 out of 10 The VideoThe show's original broadcasts have always had a grainy film look, but it seems to be magnified in this set. McLeod's final, triumphant quickening - the pyrotechnic show that erupts after one immortal defeats another and absorbs the loser's power - plays out to the strains of Amazing Grace, a hymn in which the narrator proclaims: "I once was lost and now am found."But the opposite was true for Highlander's final season of Highlander, when a once-confident show spent the whole time and never quite finding itself. In a world without Duncan McLeod, occasional love interest Amanda (Elizabeth Gracen) turns into a gold-digger, Methos joins his old pal Chronos to lead an ubermafia, while Dawson breaks with The Watchers (the secret group that records the lives of immortals) and gets a bad haircut. At the other end of the season, the series-ending To Be and Not To Be sequence employs another trite, overused device, as McLeod gets his version of It's a Wonderful Life. The Ahriman cycle upset the balance and degenerated into good side/dark side clichés resolved by confrontations with a midget who could pass for a reject of a parody of a Fellini film extra. The show's surface conflicts revolve around characters beheading each other, but the ongoing tension between immortal life and normal existence grounded the show and kept it from spinning beyond any suspension of disbelief. Highlander's fascination isn't merely with characters that live forever, but with the notion that they do so in a world like ours, facing contemporary concerns and worries. Will you listen to how that sounds?"In another setting, it wouldn't sound so bad. Even the writers seem to admit as much, speaking through McLeod's Watcher and best friend, Joe Dawson (Jim Byrnes): "The bad guy in this thing is a Zoroastrian demon named Ahriman, a thing that comes back every thousand years to try to take over the world. That left just eight shows for the supposed hero, and four of them were eaten up by the opener and finale, both two-part stories and each hokey, albeit in different ways.Ĭreative consultant David Abramowitz had grand designs for the first two episodes, Avatar and Armageddon, but he describes the final product as merely okay. The babe shows were largely forgettable detective affairs, though fans might get chuckles from a bra-less Dara Tomanovich in a soaked white blouse and the idea of Claudia Christian posing for the original Kama Sutra drawings. Of the 13 episodes on this set, four were generic "babe" programs used as tests of the female immortal concept that become Highlander: The Raven, and another episode had no McLeod at all. Fortunately, budget pressures killed the idea, so producers wrapped up the Ahriman story in a two-part opener for season six and spent most of the remaining, abbreviated season thinking about spin-offs. Given the Highlander team's track record with dystopias (again, Highlander 2), the prospects for cheesiness were strong. Producers envisioned the last run as a bleak future world devastated by the demon Ahriman, who had started haunting McLeod in season five's finale. And a little bit of too much everything yielded Highlander season six.It could have been worse. Too much fantasy and you get Highlander 2, one of the worst sci-fi/fantasy movies of the last 20 years. Too many guns and cops and it turns into a generic TV adventure. Too much introspection becomes depressing. It's a storytelling formula that collapses when one element overpowers the rest. The Highlander, Duncan McLeod (Adrian Paul), and the world's oldest immortal, Methos (Peter Wingfield), masked the weight of their years with easy smiles and ready jokes. Elements of the fantastic co-existed with historical fiction and contemporary adventure. At its best, Highlander blended genres and moods.
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