2-1: The Hunters, The Watchers, Studies in Light

[Tootsie Bee]

Discuss the final episode of Season 1 and the premiere episodes of Season 2:

The Hunters
The Watchers
Studies in Light

[Nicholas Ward]

The hunters and the Watchers were great. They expanded the Highlanders world with additional dangers and opportunities.
Studies in light was a bad episode with an annoying moping immortal, which by the series standard should have lost his head.

[Tootsie Bee]

All episodes are available for free on YouTube courtesy of Cinedigm.

Episode 22: "The Hunters"

"Darius!!!!" A great villain in Horton, but a little silly. The newest musician-turned-actor on the show, Roger Daltry, makes his first and only tolerable appearance as Fitz. He will become insufferable in subsequent appearances.

[Tootsie Bee]

Episode 23: "The Watchers"

Excessive recaps threaten to undermine Joe Dawson's first appearance. Jim Byrnes isn't a rock star, but he already had some albums out by this point, so he kinda fits the musically-inclined casting trend of the series.

[Tootsie Bee]

Episode 24: "Studies in Light"

After two game-changing episodes, we get a smaller one that gives a spin on the franchise's "watching everyone around you grow old and die" theme. Pretty good.

[Aleander]

Despite it marking the sad passing of Werner Stocker as Darius, "The Hunters" is a fantastic season finale, bringing real mystery to the proceedings and a new element that distincts this incarnation from the first two films: The Watchers. I love it from beginning to end, even if the use of Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever" gets to be excessive as the episode went on. "The Watchers" is also good... when it isn't recaping the immediately previous episode, making for reapeat viewing troublesome and remote control-friendly. However, it has the introduction of Joe Dawson, bad-ass extraordinaire, and we're always grateful for that. "Studies in Light" is not bad, but unmemorable.

[Wilusa]

Probably like most fans, I love "The Hunters" and "The Watchers," not interested in "Studies in Light." It's amazing how well "The Hunters" turned out, when they were forced to do so much hasty rewriting. And no one can look at it without remembering the horror of Werner Stocker's having actually died...though he wasn't dead, of course, when the episode was written. Had he died before it aired?

[Mr.Slash]

The Hunters - Horton and his crew were scary. Duncan trying to fight off five or so of them and eventually being saved by Richie, his motorcycle, and his libido was such a great scene. Horton is such a great villain because he was so hell bent on his way, which he firmly believed was in the right and doing what was best for mankind. His repeated death and return was a bit soap opera-ish.

The Watchers - See The Hunters.

Studies in Light - I like Greg. A bit over the top. But the story with Linda was good.

[Wilusa]

I seem to remember someone's having complained that the references to "Mountain Men" in "The Watchers" were unbelievable, because no Watcher could have followed MacLeod on his arduous trek through the mountains. I've been rewatching some episodes, and I don't agree with that. No, the Watcher couldn't have followed MacLeod all the time. But he could have followed the...Forest Rangers, or whatever they were, and learned the outcome. Then he could have tracked the way MacLeod (with Tessa!) had come to reach that location, and found the site of the battle. Possibly, Caleb's decapitated body; at least his axe.

And in "The Watchers," we see MacLeod's flashback memory of the climax of the battle; but I don't think there's any reason to assume Joe knows MacLeod had killed Caleb with that axe rather than his own katana.

[dubiousbystander]

One of the police officers could easily have been a Watcher, too, on Caleb.

[macleodhighlander]

I broke down when Darius died. I wasn't expecting that at all. He was such a gentle soul. Heartbreaking scene at the end when Duncan put him out to sea.

[TheWolfEmperor]

True story. I found Season two of Highlander in a gaming shop on DVD for only twenty bucks. And I thought wow, what luck. I was in a pretty bad place that day and season two has all of my favorite episodes so I thought, this must be the universe trying to cheer me up.

The very next day, the announcement came on my Facebook. Stan Kirsch had committed suicide. And someone on the page where this was announced decided it would be a good time to argue about whether calling it "suicide" was acceptable. I'm like, excuse me, respect please? Is this really the time for a semantics debate?

It's jarring to me just because of the timing and the fact that I loved Stan's work in this series. And it's really hard to revisit this series because Richie was such an integral part of Highlander especially Studies in the Light.

Gregor is basically suicidal. Everything he is doing, his self destructive behavior and his apparent disregard for other people is all basically one big cry for help. And I can't help but wonder what Stan's life was like in those final hours, what led him to do this.

[dubiousbystander]

Gregor is basically suicidal. Everything he is doing, his self destructive behavior and his apparent disregard for other people is all basically one big cry for help. And I can't help but wonder what Stan's life was like in those final hours, what led him to do this.

I figure he must have been in pain for a long time, and some have raised the question of medication. I would guess, in his final hours, he worked very hard to make sure no one would stop him.

[Zzickle]

Just finished going over the official domestic cut of these TWO episodes, kindly provided by the wonderful Gillian Horvath. (I don't have the domestic cut for 'The Hunters', sadly.) I have converted them from their VHS tapes to mpg (m4v) format if anyone is interested in them. Also, the official 'Eurominutes' are now marked out on my transcript pages. [www.zzickle.com/tv/transcripts.html]

And now for the showdown: DVD/European cut vs Domestic cut - who wins?


2x01: The Watchers
Domestic cut loses mainly just some excess flashback scenes. Since we can watch any of the referenced episodes anytime we want now, I consider the flashbacks mostly superfluous, so for this episode...

Winner: Domestic cut!


2x02: Studies in Light
Domestic cut loses the scene where Greg & Richie talk about Immortality, Richie's sassy line about faking being able to ride a motorcycle, and Duncan and Tessa talking about Greg needing therapy (should've sent him to talk to Sean Burns!). For this episode, I have to say...

Winner: DVD/European cut!


Domestic = 1
DVD/European = 1

[johnnybear]

Gregor was a troubled soul too, immortal or not! Quentin Barnes/Michael Moore the same. These two episodes show us the other side of the coin for those blessed or cursed with eternal life! Was Gregor supposed to return somewhere down the line? I'm sure I read he was...
JB

[dubiousbystander]

Was Gregor supposed to return somewhere down the line? I'm sure I read he was...
JB

I think, but am not sure, that he was supposed to be the character in Obsession. Thank goodness we were spared that. It would have been painful to see him be a monster.

[johnnybear]

That's the one where that immortal has a fight with Ritchie and McLeod comes to his aid right and then the immortal wants to kill Duncan as well even though they're old friends?
JB

[dubiousbystander]

That's the one where that immortal has a fight with Ritchie and McLeod comes to his aid right and then the immortal wants to kill Duncan as well even though they're old friends?
JB

I think that's "Courage". That one has no relation in any shape or form to Gregor.

Obsession is this one:

[johnnybear]

Obviously I've seen this episode but it's not one that springs to mind at first...
JB