Highlander [Season 1, Episode 1]
The Gathering
Shown 3 Oct 92
In the city of Seacouver (set in Seattle, filmed in Vancouver)
a teenage burglar named Ritchie breaks into an antiques store.
The owner, Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul -
Merlin: The Return
) has bigger problems to worry about - he fights sword-wielding maniacs, and decapitates them.
Yes, Duncan is an Immortal.
His cousin Connor (Christopher Lambert -
Tarzan: Lord of Greystoke
) drops by to give some exposition.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 2]
Innocent Man
Shown 10 Oct 92
The show starts with an opening monologue by a very bored-sounding Adrian Paul.
The intro credits, to the Queen song Princes of the Universe,
has clips from many episodes' flashbacks and is better than that of later Seasons.
Mac takes Tess for a drive in the countryside,
to meet an old friend who lives in a remote cabin.
However, another Immortal gets there first.
A homeless man (Vincent Schiavelli -
Tomorrow Never Dies
) witnesses the Quickening, and gets arrested for killing the victim.
The Sheriff, a suspicious-looking fellow with a strong Southern accent
(deliberately out-of-place in the Pacific North-West) files a report.
Seacouver PD links the killing with a previous decapitation,
and sends a detective to investigate.
This leads to dodgy interrogation tactics where the cops try to coerce a confession
from a mentally incompetent man who is denied legal access to a lawyer,
Meanwhile, a beautiful lady TV reporter (
Amanda Wyss
) investigates any story involving swords. She starts by interviewing Tess about Ritchie’s break-in,
and then goes to the redneck town to investigate the murder.
Mac tries to discover who the real killer is.
Not only does he have to avoid attention from the cops and reporter,
he also falls foul of the bloodthirsty local rednecks.
They may have hated the dead man (he was an outsider, not one of their clan)
but they want to avenge him - well, it is an excuse for them to hurt someone.
The flashbacks, despite lacking a date or location,
are set during the American Civil War.
Mac was a Yankee Abolitionist about to be hanged as a spy,
despite wearing a Federal uniform.
He met the log cabin-dwelling buddy, who was a Southern officer and a gentleman.
Nice to see that not all Southern boys were treated as villains.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 3]
Road Not Taken
Shown 17 Oct 92
A bike courier single-handedly attacks a gem depository,
exhibiting superhuman strength followed by amnesia and a fatal brain aneurysm.
By strange coincidence, the courier is Ritchie's best friend.
Ritchie teams up with the dead guy's GF Angie (
Christianne Hirt
) to find the man who put him up to it.
By even bigger coincidence, the courier had been dosed with a brainwashing drug
that was invented by Mac's friend Soon-Tek Oh (
).
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 4]
Bad Day in Building A
Shown 24 Oct 92
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 5]
Free Fall
Shown 31 Oct 92
A new female Immortal (
Joan Jett
) seduces Ritchie.
She is being stalked by a creepy guy with a goatee beard.
Mac spends twenty thousand dollars on a masamune sword!
Yes, it is impressive that he has that kind of money lying around,
but the blade is a bargain at the price.
He does not intend to sell it,
he adds it to his personal collection so he can pass it on to a protégé.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 6]
Deadly Medicine
Shown 7 Nov 92
Mac gets hit by a car and ends up in the ER.
His supernatural powers of regeneration
bring him to the attention of Dr Joe Pantoliano (
Goonies
). Worse, Joey Pants is an obsessive who takes his work home with him.
The lady reporter (
Amanda Wyss
) hears that Mac has disappeared from the ER.
She puts things together,
realising that several other patients have disappeared over the years.
The cops never got this far in their investigations, but who cares?
However, she is willing to conduct a solo interview with Dr Joey,
even though she has every reason to believe he is a serial killer.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 7]
Mountain Men
Shown 14 Nov 92
Mac is out of town, so Tessa goes off hiking by herself.
She gets kidnapped by a trio of mountain men led by Caleb (Marc Singer -
Beastmaster
). Mac must hunt them down and save her single-landed - the sheriff (Wes Studi -
Last of the Mohicans
) and his posse will only slow him down.
The flashbacks are of Mac’s time as a mountain man himself.
He had travelled there via Japan,
and swapped some Judo knowledge for survival skills.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 8]
Revenge is Sweet
Shown 21 Nov 92
Mac has a new customer, a feisty Latina woman who is interested in a very specific sword.
It is spoils of war, the former property of an Immortal that Mac dueled twice.
The first time was during highway robbery of a stagecoach in the Eighteenth century,
twenty-five miles from Dover in England.
The most recent time was New Years Eve, 1989.
Mac won the duel, but his opponent fell in the river and no body was ever found.
Is the femme fatale working for him, or is she an unwitting pawn in his game?
Ritchie gets a new job, selling second-hand cars.
Mac does not approve, although he is selling second-hand swords.
Ritchie sells a car to his not-a-girlfriend, Angie (
Christianne Hirt
) and learns to regret the decision.
A local gang thug is murdered, and Mac is the cops' main suspect.
To start with, the body was found outside his shop.
Secondly, the killer may have used a sword as the murder weapon.
However, the lady reporter (
Amanda Wyss
) does not make an appearance this week.
Also, the murder is not mentioned again in the show, so it must have gone unsolved.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 9]
The Sea Witch
Shown 5 Dec 92
Yet another Evil Immortal pops up from MacLeod's past.
This one is a Soviet turned Nazi;
funny how Stalin's crimes are always painted over,
to make Hitler's seem worse (as if that were possible).
The episode's title refers to the name of a ship, possibly a reference to the title of a book by
Alastair MacLean
.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 10]
Eyewitness
Shown 12 Dec 92
Tess witnesses a woman being murdered.
In real Rear Window style, nobody seems to believe her.
Except the killer, who comes after her.
Since the only people who know she reported it are the cops themselves,
it should be obvious to anyone that the killer is a cop!
Luckily for Mac, the killer is an Immortal
so Mac has an excuse to chop his head off.
It turns out that the victim was a Fatal Attraction stalker,
and the poor Immortal only wanted to escape a stifling relationship.
Would it have been acceptable to let the victim reveal
the existence of Immortals to the general public?
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 11]
Family Tree
Shown 19 Dec 92
A con-man working in a casino is held responsible for a massive debt.
The owner sends her pretty-boy henchman (Peter Deluise -
SeaQuest DSV
) to pressurise the debtor.
Ritchie goes looking for his father, and finds the old con-man.
The flashbacks are of Duncan circa 1620 in the Highlands of Scotland,
becoming an Immortal and then being disowned by his father.
It turns out that Mac was a foundling - as are all Immortals, we later discover.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 12]
See No Evil
Shown 6 Feb 93
There is a serial killer in town.
Well, ANOTHER one.
He is a human, but he is copycatting an Immortal that Mac killed 67 years previously.
The lady reporter (
Amanda Wyss
) is now a series regular.
She investigates - but as a blonde she is just the killer’s type.
Will she be the damsel in distress again?
Ritchie tries to take the killer on single-handedly. Unfortunately,
Ritchie has no idea of subtlety and cannot conduct surveillance properly.
A pity, since he is supposed to have been a professional thief.
However, at least he is not an annoyingly perfect Marty Stu character,
like Wesley Crusher in
Star trek: TNG
.
Tessa offers herself as a decoy to catch the killer.
After all, her best friend (a supposedly empowered career woman)
has been horribly traumatised by nearly getting killed.
At least it is not yet ANOTHER of Mac’s friends who was the murder victim.
But will Tess be as incompetent as Ritchie or as fragile as the career woman?
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 13]
Band of Brothers
Shown 13 Feb 93
An evil Immortal has declared war on Darius,
a peaceful Immortal who lives as a monk on holy ground in Paris.
The villain cannot kill Darius on holy ground,
so he decides to lure him out by attacking Darius' proteges instead.
and top of the list is Duncan MacLeod.
Yes, we finally have a villain who cares about The Game and The Gathering!
The lady reporter (
Amanda Wyss
) takes an interest in Mac again as he has to save the day quite publicly.
However, she does not reappear as a character because the show changes to a different city …
This is the start of the Paris-related storylines the show follows.
After all, since half the money for the show came from a French TV company
It is only right that half of it should be filmed on French soil.
That said, the German/Canadian co-production Huck Finn and Friends
featured few German actors but was filmed entirely on Canadian soil.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 14]
For Evil's Sake
Shown 20 Feb 93
Paris is under attack from a trio of killer Mimes.
Mac remembers the modus operandi - they are hired killers led by an Immortal.
Now they work for an Islamic terror network.
In the flashback, the Immortal Mime assassinates an aristocratic French peace envoy
who wants to negotiate a truce with the English.
This pre-dates the French Revolution, but by how much is unclear.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 15]
For Tomorrow We Die
Shown 27 Feb 93
There is a mass-murdering thief on the loose,
so the Police Detective asks Mac for help.
By strange coincidence, Mac has indeed met the killer before.
The villain’s name is Xavier St Kloud - a great name,
and he is definitely a Kimmie.
Mac's flashback is only ten years or so.
He was in Paris when he met Tess ...
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 16]
The Beast Below
Shown 6 Mar 93
Ritchie takes Mac and Tess to meet his new GF,
an understudy at the Paris Opera House.
Unfortunately they wander into a storyline stolen from
Phantom of the Opera
. There is a Special Needs Immortal lurking in the basement -
and by strange coincidence,
Mac saved him from superstitious peasants once upon a time.
The friendly Immortal falls in love with the Opera Diva,
but she is an evil bitch who manipulates him into killing people for her.
She sees Ritchie’s GF as a rival, so Mac has to intervene.
The climax is a sword-fight on the rooftop of the Paris Opera house
It is in broad daylight,
so there is less chance of falling but it is not a good place to take a Quickening!
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 17]
Saving Grace
Shown 13 Mar 93
Grace is Mac's Immortal Gal-Pal.
She is being stalked by a former lover, Carlos (Georges Corraface -
Christopher Columbus
).
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 18]
The Lady and the Tiger
Shown 24 Apr 93
Acrobatic Immortal Jason Isaacs (
Event Horizon
) murders a prison guard and makes a dramatic escape from a moving vehicle.
He is out for revenge on Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
), an old flame of MacLeod’s.
Mac takes Tess (and Ritchie) to the circus, where the star act is ... Amanda!
She tries to seduce Mac, for old times sake - and then to lure him in.
After all, as a femme fatale she would willingly sacrifice Mac in order to save herself.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 19]
Avenging Angel
Shown 1 May 93
Martin Kemp (The Krays) is an SAS commando (retired) with a specialty in unarmed combat.
He is also an Immortal, but because of his religious obsession he thinks he is a divine messenger.
He becomes a serial killer and starts a one-man campaign against the local Godfather,
who is a super-pimp.
A French super-pimp, that is, so he lacks the 1970s sense of style.
Mac is the first Immortal on the scene, and tries to teach the newbie.
Unfortunately the religious psycho rejects Mac,
instead choosing to believe himself to be one of the Knights Templar.
Worse, by incredible coincidence
one of the high-class call girls working for the super-pimp is a friend of Tess!
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 20]
Eye of the Beholder
Shown 8 May 93
Ritchie meets a beautiful woman.
By incredible coincidence she is a supermodel who works for an Immortal who is a friend of MacLeod’s.
They discover this coincidence when Mac takes Tessa and Ritchie
(yes, the third wheel again) to a fashion show.
The Immortal in question has an obsession with beauty.
Unfortunately this obsession drives him to break the law by stealing beautiful art treasures,
and then he must kill in order to protect his secret.
At least this time it is Ritchie who gets dragged into the murder plot, not Tessa.
The Immortal owes Mac a favour.
But will this notorious cad act honourably this time?
Ritchie gets himself compromised,
but he actually shows some street-smarts and gets a gun first.
Yes, there is logic to the plot ... although the villain is one step ahead of him.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 21]
Nowhere to Run
Shown 15 May 93
Tessa takes Mac and Ritchie to meet a friend of hers, Anthony Stewart Head (
Buffy
). Unfortunately, this friend’s son has recently been accused of raping
Marion Cotillard
). Worse, her father is Peter Guinness – leader of an army of well-armed mercenaries.
AND he happens to be an Immortal into the bargain.
Yes, Mac does not need to wait for the Gathering ...
all he needs to do is let Tessa and Ritchie make friends with random strangers
who coincidentally get themselves targeted by murderous Immortals.
Highlander [Season 1, Episode 22]
The Hunters
Shown 22 May 93
Mac’s best friend Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey –
Sliders
) arrives in town. We have never seen him before,
but we get some flashbacks of them fighting side by side centuries ago.
In all fairness, we did not know of Darius (Mac’s last living mentor) until ten episodes ago,
and he has not appeared since.
Unfortunately it turns out that Fitz has been followed
by a band of surveillance experts who dabble in assassination.
Darius and Fitz are both on the hit-list.
Can Mac save his friends, or will there be a sacrificial lamb
and the opportunity to play Who wants to live forever? on the soundtrack?
Worst part of the episode?
Mac’s Nooo moment (think Luke when Obi-Wan gets killed, or Obi-Wan when Qui-Jon gets it)
is every bit as wooden as his monologue at the start of every episode.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 1]
The Watchers
Shown 2 Oct 93
This is the much-improved version of the show,
with ongoing storylines rather than stand-alone episodes.
The most obvious improvement is the intro monologue at the start,
with Joe Dawson (Jim Byrnes) providing a better voice-over than the Macleod (Adrian Paul) version.
Mac and the others flee back to Seacouver.
He decides to take proactive measures, hunting down the Watchers before they come after him again.
He takes the manuscript to a local bookstore to get an expert opinion on it.
The bookstore is under surveillance too.
Despite the Watcher creed of non-interference, their martial arts skills are quite impressive!
Tess and Ritchie are left to get the antique store set up again, in new premises.
Someone puts them under surveillance,
so Ritchie uses his street-smarts to lose the tail.
Unfortunately, when they go on the run they have no way of contacting Macleod.
He thinks the villains have abducted them!
Mac gets some exposition about the Kurgan's movements,
including an explicit reference to Conor taking his head eight years previously in NYC.
Yes, the events of the original
Highlander
movie are canon here, but it was not the final battle so Conor did not get the prize.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 2]
Studies in Light
Shown 9 Oct 93
Mac takes the wife and kid to an art gallery to see a photo display by a fellow Immortal, Gregor.
They bump into an old flame of Mac's, who he inspired to be an art photographer many decades previously.
She has never gotten over him, and since she is on her deathbed
it puts Mac's relationship with Tessa into a new light.
Ritchie starts hanging out with Gregor.
Unfortunately, Gregor is in a live-for-the-moment mentality.
This means putting himself (and his new Mortal friend) in unnecessary jeopardy.
Gregor's mental state means Mac must eventually confront him.
Unfortunately, somehow Gregor conceals a 2-handed bastard sword under his leather jacket.
Mac, despite wearing his signature trench coat, soes not always carry his katana.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 3]
Turnabout
Shown 16 Oct 93
Joe Dawson asks Mac to do a favour for him.
Track down and duel an Immortal serial-killer.
Mac refuses – after all, he is not going to do wet-work for the Watchers.
However, it turns out that Dawson is the one doing Mac a favour.
Mac’s old friend Geraint Wyn Davies (
Forever Knight
) is in town. He is being stalked by the Immortal serial killer.
The twist is a predictable cliché.
However, the guest-star’s acting brings this above average.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 4]
The Darkness
Shown 23 Oct 93
Ritchie tries to impress a fortune-teller (
Traci Lords
), and gets her to read Tessa’s palm. She only has bad news to tell.
A mortal is abducting the wives of Immortals,
luring them into an ambush and decapitating them.
Tessa and Mac are lined up as the new victims.
The only way a Mortal could be tracking Immies is if the Watchers are involved.
Horton is never mentioned by name, but he may have inspired the killer.
Despite Mac helping Joe in the previous ep, Mac never mentions Dawson this time.
The killer’s advantage is that he uses a blacked-out room,
which he can see perfectly in thanks to his night-vision goggles.
This is clearly influenced by the then-current movie
Silence of the Lambs
.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 5]
Eye for an Eye
Shown 30 Oct 93
The British Ambassador drops by the local consulate, with only a single bodyguard.
Mac’s ex, Annie Devlin (
Sheena Easton
), and her PIRA murder squad try to kill him.
Luckily, Mac and Ritchie just happen to walk past and do a Patriot Games intervention.
Annie’s newest lover is killed, and she swears revenge on Ritchie.
Mac gets a free pass, for old time’s sake.
The flashbacks are about seventy years ago (prior to 1992, making it circa 1920).
Mac hung out with Annie and her mortal husband,
a known terrorist who gets killed by persons unknown
in a fictionalised shoot to kill incident.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 6]
The Zone
Shown 6 Nov 93
Joe calls in Mac for help.
A Watcher was murdered while keeping an eye on a political rabble-rouser in a desolate district of town called The Zone.
Joe just asks Mac to see if the trouble-maker, Kanaan, is a Kimmie.
His name begins with a hard-C sound, and he is evil,
so he meets most of the criteria.
But is he an Immortal?
Charlie (Phil Atkin –
War of the Worlds
) offers to guide Mac through the dodgy neighbourhood,
thus perpetuating the negative stereotype of African-Americans as poverty-stricken.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 7]
Return of Amanda
Shown 13 Nov 93
Season 2 continues - the French babe bit the big one, and Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) guest-starred in a couple of episodes.
Amanda is an old flame of MacLeod’s.
IMHO she did not deserve to be given the spin-off series -
there must have been SOMEONE they could have used instead.
I mean, the actress was former Miss America, had two guest-star slots in Season 2,
slept with Slick Willie Clinton once ...
Hmm ...
Richie also left the series, temporarily - these days the sidekick is Charlie
(Phil Akin, the token crippled black guy from Season One of
War of the Worlds
).
So with such a wealth of talent at their disposal,
why the hell did the Producers select
the woman with the most off-putting bleach-blonde bob-cut
in the North American TV industry?
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 8]
Revenge of the Sword
Shown 20 Nov 93
Reviewed Feb 1999 [wednesday & thursday, ITV]
Mac lets the gymn get used as a location for a low-budget kung-fu film.
A Vietnamese-American movie star is targeted by the local Tong.
In the flashbacks, Mac remembers a run-in with organised crime back in the early 1900s.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 9]
Run For Your Life
Shown 27 Nov 93
Reviewed 16th Feb 1999 [Tuesday]
An Immortal (Bruce A Young -
) tries to steal Charlie's car.
It turns out he wanted to be a baseball player.
Can Mac help his dream come true?
The ep has a sequel -
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 4] Manhunt
.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 10]
An Epitaph For Tommy
Shown 4 Dec 93
Reviewed 17th Feb 1999 [Wednesday]
Mac is out for a jog when he gets jumped by Rowdy Roddy Piper (
They Live!
). Piper has the advantage, then decides to quit the fight
– and takes out a nearby human on the way out.
Mac investigates – the evil Immortal had no reason to have a grudge against him,
and no reason to expect him to be there.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 11]
Bless the Child
Shown 29 Jan 94
Mac and Charlie (Phil Atkin –
War of the Worlds
) are out for a drive in the countryside
when a young woman asks for their help.
She is on the run from an abusive relationship,
just like the girl Richie helped in the previous episode.
This Damsel in Distress plotline could easily become over-played.
Mac and Charlie decide to help her, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, she is trying to protect her baby.
Secondly, the gun-toting rednecks chasing her (led by Ed Lauter) start shooting!
There is only one brief flashback, to the 1920s.
The rest of the story is set in the modern day,
making this quite an unusual episode as having a bland, non-Game-related plot.
This is unnotable except for the appearance of
Carolyn Dunn
as a 1920s Flapper in the gratuitous flashback scene.
Ms Dunn is notable only for her role in the Israeli-made Florida-set Detective show,
Tropical Heat, which also co-starred Vancouver resident Ian Tracey.
Tracey is a veteran of SF shows like
The Outer Limits
and
X-Files
, and later appeared himself in
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 5] Glory Days
. The third regular cast member of Tropical Heat, Rob Stewart, was in
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 5] Rite of Passage
.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 12]
The Fighter
Shown 5 Feb 94
Guest-stars include Nicholas Lea (
X-Files
) as brother to a babe-of-the-week.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 12]
Under Color of Authority
Shown 12 Feb 94
This week's Immortal-of-the-week is Jonathan Banks,
an instantly recognisable face from the likes of
Freejack
. He plays a Bounty Hunter whose fanaticism about Law
conflicts with MacLeod's idea of Justice.
This time he is chasing a young woman that, by incredible coincidence,
Ritchie bumps into and decides to protect.
This episode allows Richie to develop more as a character,
and lets us see him try to adapt to his new life as an Immortal.
Will Ritchie take his first quickening?
He chickened out when it came to killing a woman,
but his chivalric sense of honour
(what twenty years later would be called benevolent sexism)
would easily allow him to kill to protect one.
The flashbacks are of Mac’s time in the wild west.
Mac was a newspaper man, a friend of Lochlyn Munro (
Jason Vs Freddy
). But Jonathan Banks was a bounty hunter,
and Munro had been friends with a gang of train robbers ten years previously.
This points out a couple of inconsistencies in the laws Mac obeys.
Ten years is a long time for a human,
but nothing to an Immortal who can carry a grudge for centuries.
Also, if an Immortal challenges a human to pistols at dawn it is hardly a fair fight!
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 14]
Unholy Alliance: Part 1
Shown 19 Feb 94
Shown 24th February 1999 - Tuesday
MacLeod is hunted down by a pair of Season 1 villains.
Xavier St Cloud is on the rampage - and in order to make up for the arm he lost to MacLeod,
he has chosen to cheat in his duels.
He has his opponents gunned down by a hit-squad hired by his accomplice, Horton.
Mac meets a damsel in distress (
Stacey Travis
), although he never looks beyond the obvious.
So much for his seen it all before attitude to blatant subterfuges.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 15]
Unholy Alliance: Part 2
Shown 26 Feb 94
Shown 2nd March 1999 - Tuesday
MacLeod returns to Paris, which queues a flashback compilation of scenes with Tessa (
Alexandra Vanderoot
). Then he goes about taking care of the bad guys,
and associating with his new love interest.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 16]
The Vampire
Shown 5 Mar 94
Shown 9th March 1999 - Tuesday
MacLeod is still in Paris this week, so the usual sidekicks are missing.
The comic relief from the previous episode is still around,
to fill the void left by Richie.
A serial killer is on the loose.
He is an Immortal that Mac tangled with in the past,
and that is not the only reason he has kept out of police attention for so long.
He changes his methods with every spree,
and has currently decided to make murders look like accidents.
Mac met the killer in Paris in the 1920s,
when there was a rash of deaths attributed to a vampire.
The story is mostly set in the past, with framing scenes from modern day.
This balances out one of the previous episodes,
which was mostly modern with only one historical scene.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 17]
Warmonger
Shown 12 Mar 94
Shown 10th March 1999 - Wednesday
Yet another Evil Immortal (Peter Firth -
Chill Factor
) pops up from MacLeod's past.
This one is a Soviet VIP.
Irish actress
Angeline Ball
pops up as a blonde American investigative journalist, just like the
Amanda Wyss
character in Season one.
She is investigating Drake, which brings up an interesting fact.
Since many Immortals are involved in criminality,
they will be on the lookout for rivals, police, reporters and other investigators.
How the Watchers can function against such surveillance-wary targets is not explained.
Also, please note that Mac’s love interests tend to be blonde.
This makes sense when you consider that his first love, Deborah Campbell (
Laurie Holden
) was blonde … but the lack of brunettes is indicative of Hollywood’s casting strategy.
Brunette is equated with ethnic,
and blonde hair is far more prevalent in Hollywood movies and TV shows than in real life.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 18]
Pharaoh's Daughter
Shown 30 Apr 94
Shown 11th March 1999
MacLeod opens a sarcophagus, unwraps the mummy -
and discovers the corpse is an immortal woman named Nefertiri (
Nia Peeples
), preserved for 2000 years, who speaks perfect English!
The Evil Watcher thread turns up again,
and there is a nice twist on the main Evil Immortal plot.
This episode keeps the audience guessing,
even up until the final climax - who is the real villain, and who will win the duel?
Who is the real villain of the episode?
Is it Konstantine, a millionaire Immortal who was formerly a Roman centurion
but today has amassed an apparent fortune?
Is it his aide, who has a Watcher tattoo and may be one of Horton’s extremists?
Or is it Nefertiri herself, who bears a grudge from her death two thousand years ago?
After all, she is haughty and arrogant with a hint of delicious cruelty.
We have not had a female villain since the Bond girl that Ritchie faced,
and neither Ritchie nor Mac have actually taken a woman’s quickening so far.
On the bright side, it is nice to see one of Mac’s few love interests so far
(other than Amanda) who is not a blonde!
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 19]
Legacy
Shown 7 May 94
Shown 18th March [Thursday]
Amanda’s mentor (from 850CE) is defeated by one of her former proteges.
He is after a set of supposedly magical crystals.
Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) has one of them, and she uses it as bait for a trap.
MacLeod gets suckered into helping her.
The flashbacks are the first to have a date,
and include Mac’s first meeting with Amanda in 1635.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 20]
Prodigal Son
Shown 14 May 94
Richie returns, pursued by an evil Immortal who kills humans and frames newbie Immortals.
Naturally, Ritchie flees to his teacher – MacLeod.
This time, not only has the villain met MacLeod before -
he actually DEFEATED the Highlander!
Mac tangled with the killer twice –
once in the 1600s, when he was learning from Conor,
and once circa 1740 when he was learning from a middle-aged French Immortal.
Unfortunately unlike the previous episode
there are no date-stamps on the flashbacks.
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 21]
Counterfeit (1)
Shown 21 May 94
Horton is back - AGAIN!
He has his goons break a woman out of prison.
She is given plastic surgery, and lessons in art history.
What is his cunning plan?
Horton's other assistant is assigned to gain Ritchie's confidence.
He poses as someone that has lots of things in common with him.
Ritchie, supposedly a cynical street-wise kid,
never suspects that his new best buddy is too good to be true.
And guess what? It is the first part of a 2-parter!
Highlander [Season 2, Episode 22]
Counterfeit (2)
Shown 28 May 94
Mac knows that Horton is up to something.
But can Dawson be trusted?
After all, he has betrayed Mac several times now.
This sees the conclusion of the Horton arc -
and with a psychotic killer posing as MacLeod's dead love interest,
we know it is all going to end in tears.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 1]
The Samurai
Shown 1 Oct 94
Mac arrives in Charlie's Gymn in SeaCouver, straight back from Paris.
But now he must head off to Tokyo again, to help
Tamlyn Tomita
. Her great-great-grandfather did Mac a favour in 1792,
and she seeks refuge from her Billionaire husband, Stephen McHattie (
).
Mac was shipwrecked and washed ashore in feudal Japan in 1792.
He was taught the samurai code, and gifted a katana.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 2]
Line of Fire
Shown 8 Oct 94
Richie's ex, Donna, turns up.
She left him two years ago, and she has an 18-month-old son she claims is his.
Mac assures Richie that immortals cannot have children,
but Richie decides to live in denial
and try his chance at the wife-and-kids life.
Mac has a flashback to the time he spent with the Lakota Sioux in 1872.
A mad biker named Kurran (Randall Tex Cobb -
) is in town, looking for trouble.
He has no respect for holy ground,
although he behaves like the Kurgan in other ways.
And by strange coincidence,
he used to be a scalp-hunter in the Wild west ...
Joe Dawson is setting up his bar in new premises.
The others drop by for advice.
Mac does not bother using his katana this episode.
Instead, to honour his Native American friends,
he uses a heavy-bladed spear.
And his quickening allows him to glimpse them again.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 3]
The Revolutionary
Shown 15 Oct 94
A self-proclaimed freedom fighter is in town with his entourage,
attempting to get political support.
Someone takes a shot at a priest who is his hanger-on.
After all, martyrs make for great publicity.
The fellow is an old ally of Mac's.
They served together with the Mexican rebels of 1867.
Mac wants to give Maximillian a chance to abdicate,
but the other guy wants to kill everyone (including prisoners).
He is a lot like Mac was a hundred years previously,
before he met The Samurai ...
There are a couple of great characters among the hospital staff,
and hopefully they will become recurring characters.
Lisa Howard
is the chief doctor - think Cuddy from House, M.D..
The Medical examiner is a cheery sort,
like a gayed-up Duckie from N.C.I.S. ... on speed!
This is the last regular episode of Charlie (Phil Akin -
War of the Worlds
). But Mac has other friends - Joe Dawson and Richie,
even though they are nowhere to be seen this episode.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 4]
The Cross of St. Antoine
Shown 22 Oct 94
Dawson has a girlfriend, a lady art appraiser.
But when he calls round her house one night,
he sees her being murdered.
The cops are clueless (this is not Law and Order, of course)
so he gets Mac and Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) to help investigate.
While retracing the victim's last day,
Mac sees an artefact that reminds him of an encounter with another Immortal.
It is a gilded cross that was originally created on orders of a Byzantine Emperor,
to celebrate the defeat of Norman mercenaries working for the Vatican.
Presumably it is gold-plated, not solid gold,
because people hold and carry it as if it was very light-weight.
Somehow the Vatican must have stolen it,
because in 1817 the Vatican sent it all the way to the Americas.
Not as part of a mission to build a cathedral,
but for a priest to keep in a log cabin in the Montana territory.
Mac first saw the cross in Montana in 1817,
so he must have gone straight there after Waterloo.
At the same time he met a fellow Immortal,
an illiterate trapper (Brion James -
Alien Mine
). Since Brion James is the biggest rent-a-villain of the 1980s,
it is no surprise that he ends up being the villain of the episode.
Strangely, when they first meet neither Immortal has a sword on them.
Mac does not even have his Katana,
his most trusted possession gifted to him 25 years previously.
The villainous mmortal changed his name,
adopting a new persona and unintentionally evading the Watchers.
He not only becomes literate in English,
but becomes educated in a number ofd different languages and cultures.
Much like Mac - but taking it a step further,
by leaving The Game altogether.
Instead of selling his antiques for personal gain,
he is a collector - he keeps items for their cultural value.
In many ways he is a better man than Mac entirely,
if it were not for his habit of strangling photogenic women.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 5]
Rite of Passage
Shown 29 Oct 94
Duncan has a mortal friend with a rebellious teenage daughter.
The girl is in a car crash, and ends up waking in the morgue as an Immortal.
Mac takes over as her Mentor, saying that he always knew she was a pre-Immortal.
Of course, this means he knew about Ritchie all along as well.
Duncan keeps bumping into the Lady Doctor (
Lisa Howard
). Despite being in the title credits, this is only the second epiosde she has been in.
However, given the amount of violence MacLeod's mortal friends encounter
he is likely to end up in her hospital a lot.
Until mid-Season when he returns to Paris, of course.
Mac has to keep the girl out of sight of her grieving parents
until he can hand her off to Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
), a far more suitable mentor.
After all, her teenage hormones are taking over.
But worse - an old enemy named Axel (Rob Stewart -
Peter Benchley's Amazon
) is in town.
By incredible coincidence, his tactic is to recruit beautiful young female Immortals
and use them as honeytraps to lure in male Immortals.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 6]
Courage
Shown 5 Nov 94
For a large city the size of SeaCouver,
there seem to be an awful lot of coincidences.
Mac's Biker buddy, Brian Cullen (John Pyper Ferguson -
Alphas
) spends his time getting drunk, getting high,
and trying to pick fights with Ritchie.
Mac goes out jogging on a bicycle trail,
and literally bumps into Doctor Anne (
Lisa Howard
). Later on, Mac visits her hospital -
just as Cullen has been brought in!
Back in 1810, Mac and Cullen hung out in Switzerland
when Cullen was the greatest swordsman in Europe.
In 1854, they met up again in San Francisco amid the Gold Rush,
when Cullen had chosen the opium pipe instead of fighting a challenge.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 7]
The Lamb
Shown 12 Nov 94
Mac and Richie meet a ten-year-old Immortal named Kenny.
He is being hunted by a man named Ross,
who claims Kenny is a monster.
Which one is the villain of the week?
Is Kenny a Kimmie?
Doctor Anne (
Lisa Howard
) is now Mac's regular date.
Of course, that makes her a great damsel-in-distress.
This ep re-uses a couple of tactics that Mac should have prepared for.
One is the honeytrap - the idea of a weak Immortal
putting Mac at his ease so he could be taken off-guard.
Secondly, the idea of using a vehicle as a weapon ...
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 8]
Obsession
Shown 19 Nov 94
David (Cameron Bancroft -
Codename Eternity
) is an Immortal friend of Mac's.
He is getting married, and wants Mac to be his Best Man.
Unfortunately, Mac fails to learn from his personal experience
of David's inability to deal with previous marriage problems.
David was a bit of a Judd Fry
- forbidden to marry the woman in the Big House
in Philadelphia in 1825
because of his low-class roots.
Mac is pre-occupied with his own relationship problems.
Like David, he is in a relationship with a mortal woman - Doctor Anne (
Lisa Howard
). But can he tell her the truth without being rejected the way David was?
Mac's flashback to 1882 puts him in a similar position,
where he fell in love with a woman who was unavailable to him.
It is nice to see Mac as a flawed character.
So many episodes of the show are simple
Kimmie comes to town, Mac the Paladin defends a damsel
cliches. But the last few episodes have given us
a series of flawed antagonists who Mac (and the audience) can relate to.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 9]
Shadows
Shown 26 Nov 94
Mac has visions of a mysterious shadowy figure.
Every time Mac tries to fight, it melts away.
By strange coincidence,
Mac's friend Garrick (a psychic Immortal)
has recently come to town.
Mac has not seen him since 1665,
when they were almost burned as witches.
Doctor Anne (
Lisa Howard
) is frustrated because Mac will not open up to her.
She knows that something is different about him -
he has no medical records,
so either he is avoiding police attention
or he is using a false identity ...
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 10]
Blackmail
Shown 3 Dec 94
The Immortals have been around for thousands of years,
and presumably there has been the occasional eye-witness to a duel.
But this time the witness has a contemporary (1994) video camera.
Worse, the witness is a corrupt lawyer who wants Mac to kill his wife,
thus avoiding an expensive divorce case.
But it is never good for mortals to mess in the affairs of Immies.
Meanwhile, Mac has bigger fish to fry.
The villain that Mac beheaded was half
of a murderous duo that he first met in England in 1805
- after his Samurai encounter which cured his Jacobitism,
but before Waterloo and emigration to the USA.
The villains murdered a man, and framed a friend of Mac's -
a sailor he had served with (apparently on Nelson's fleet).
One of the villains is a real swordsmaster,
played by Anthony Delongis (who plays another Kimmie in
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 15] Duende)
and there is an impressive duel in a hedge maze.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 11]
Vendetta
Shown 4 Feb 95
An Immortal friend of Mac's is in trouble with a mobster.
To save himself, Mac's weasel-like friend offers to lure Mac into a trap.
Mac met the weasel in 1938, when he got involved with Peggy McCall (
Tamara Gorski
). She was a Gangster's Moll, and it all ended badly.
Doctor Anna (
Lisa Howard
) is back. She offers to give Mac a second chance.
She mentions that he has no scars - not even an appendectomy.
But she does not ask questions, even when he takes down a gun-toting hitman.
Luckily, she missed the impressive fist-fight
when he takes down two baseball-bat-wielding thugs!
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 12]
They Also Serve
Shown 11 Feb 95
Young Immortal Michael Christian (Barry Pepper -
Battleground Earth
) gets help from his Watcher, Rita Luce (
Mary Woronov
). He takes out a Chinese girl who taught Mac some Kung Fu in the 1780s.
The Chinese Immortal's watcher is one of Joe Dawson's colleagues.
He suspects Rita is too closely involved with her target,
but Joe's friendship with Mac puts him in the same boat.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 13]
Blind Faith
Shown 18 Feb 95
Religious leader John Kirin (Richard Lynch -
) comes to town.
He was one of Mac's arch-enemies,
a mercenary who sold Mac out to General Franco in the Spanish Civil War,
and who abandoned orphans to the Khmer Rouge
so he could get rich smuggling drugs.
He claims to have changed his ways - does he really want to be a better man?
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 14]
Song of the Executioner
Shown 25 Feb 95
Somewhere in Europe, 1658, Mac goes to stay in a monastery run by fellow Immortals.
Brother Paul welcomes him, and Brother Timon teaches him how to read and write.
But Brother Kalas has his own agenda, sneaking out every time an Immortal steps off Holy ground ...
In modern-day Seacouver, Kalas comes to take revenge on Mac.
He frames Joe Dawson, then goes after Anne (
Lisa Howard
).
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 15]
Star-Crossed
Shown 4 Mar 95
Doctor Anna (
Lisa Howard
) is still in the credits,
but Mac has relocated to Paris (as he does every year)
and will probably not be seeing her again.
In Verona, 1637, Mac faces off against Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey –
Sliders
), a fellow Immortal who has seduced the daughter of Mac's patron.
They discover that they have more in common than they thought.
In modern-day Paris, Mac has to cope with the fall-out from the Anne incident.
He meets up with Fitz again, but Kalas is stalking them.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 16]
Methos
Shown 11 Mar 95
Kalas captures and tortures his Watcher.
It is only surprising that this kind of thing does not happen more often.
After all, most Kimmies are super-villains in their own rights
and therefore must employ counter-surveillance techniques
to detect police surveillance on a daily basis.
Anyway, Kalas wants info on the Watchers network,
so he can find the oldest Immortal alive - Methos.
Mac goes hunting for Kalas.
He has a flashback to the last time they met - Paris in the 1920s.
Kalas had put his medieval monastic choir training to good use,
becoming the best (and richest) male Opera singer in the world.
He claims to be grateful to Mac kicking him out of the Monsatery
Let's hope for his sake that nothing happens to his vocal cords ...
Joe Dawson puts Mac in touch with Adam Pierson,
a Watcher assigned to the Methos Chronicles.
Pierson knows who Methos is ...
and has a couple of plans for taking care of Kalas.
After all, by killing mortals (even Watchers),
Kalas changed the rules.
Richie Ryan changes his haircut as a disguise,
although he keeps using the same name.
He gets a job as a mortorbike racer for Team Saracen.
There is a bit of rivalry with the other racers.
This does not have anything to do with the main storyline,
it just appears to be filler.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 17]
Take Back the Night
Shown 29 Apr 95
Richie is still bike-racing in France.
He has evidently closed Charlie's gymn in Seacouver for good.
But bike-racing is a dangerous sport,
and Richie has to be prepared to fake his death at a moment's notice.
A gang of gun-toting Parisian thugs mug a fellow.
In a scene resembling the ending of one of Mac's lovers,
the victim and his wife are both gunned down.
But she is Ceridwen (
Kim Ulrich Johnson
), a hot female Immortal.
She goes on a revenge rampage, like one of the backdoor pilot episodes from the final Season.
She started by killing Romans during Boudicca's revolt,
but was a more peace-abiding Flora MacDonald when Mac went on his murderous Jacobite rampage in 1745.
Now their roles are reversed, with Mac urging caution.
After all, Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) came up with the idea of calling the cops when a mere mortal dies.
Bonnie Prince Charlie features heavily in the flashback.
Strangely, he has a Scottish accent - in real life,
he was raised in Italy by his father (the Old Pretender),
who had been raised in France by his father (James II and VIII, formerly Duke of York), who had been raised in England.
Anne is still in the credits.
And we find out why in the final scene .
But how will Mac explain to her how his scars all heal perfectly,
but Kalas lost his vocal cords?
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 18]
Testimony
Shown 6 May 95
Doctor Anne (
Lisa Howard
) arrives in Paris.
A woman on the same flight collapses of an intestinal blockage -
yes, by incredible coincidence Anne shared a plane with a drug mule.
By even greater coincidence, the mule works for a Russian cartel
led by yet another of Mac's old foes, a Kimmie named Kristoff.
In 1750, Mac fled the Highlands and went east across Cossack land.
He encountered the locals, led by Kristoff, who took him in.
However, much like the cattlemen of the Wild West
the Cossacks do not want to be fenced in by dirt-farming Poles.
The Czar pays the horsemen to keep his grasslands free of invaders.
Mac complains that there can't be a single weapon in the whole village ...
but scythes and pitchforks are weapons,
that is where the infantry pike (precursor of the bayonet) came from.
Ritchie is still in Paris, even though he died a very public death.
He hangs around for too long, and brings unnecessary attention on himself.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 19]
Moral Sins
Shown 13 May 95
During the Second World War,
Mac put aside his moral convictions about getting involved in the politics of mortal men.
He joined the French Resistance of General De Gaulle.
The villain of the week used to be a German policeman hunting Gaullist insurgents.
After Mac and a gang of De Gaulle's cut-throats attacked a lightly-armed German convoy
(leaving no survivors), the German cop threatens killing the monks in retaliation.
Well, the monks were part of the Gaullist conspiracy,
so it is not exactly the same as killing random civilians
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 20]
Resonable Doubt
Shown 20 May 95
Mac gets called in to deliver a ransom to a murderous Bonnie and Clyde couple
who stole a priceless sketch by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Mac's flashbacks are to 1930, when he was trying to re-open a Bank Account in Paris he started in 1837.
By incredible coincidence, just that moment a couple of Immortals try to rob the place at gunpoint!
The villain of the week was once a Kimmie's protege.
The Kimmie recruited him when he was a pre-teen gutter-tyke,
This means the Kimmie could detect a pre-Immortal,
so Mac could thus sense Richie before his first death.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 21]
Finale (1)
Shown 27 May 95
Kalas breaks out of prison in predictable style,
killing a couple of guards on the way.
He then discovers who helped him - Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
), who wants to kill him on Mac's behalf.
Suffice to say, things to not go according to her plans.
Kalas has his new minion recruit a gang of underworld thugs.
The plan - revenge on Mac, Amanda and anyone else who gets in his way.
Mac has other things to worry about.
Joe Dawson and Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) are back in town on Watcher business.
The widow of one of Kalas' victims intends to go public with the existence of the Watchers and Immortals.
Naturally, this exposure will be disastrous for all concerned.
Mac's flashback is to his time in North Africa, 1653,
where he met Xavier St Cloud for the first time.
The two almost came to blows,
but Mac's Arabic mentor duelled Xavier instead.
Following his example,
Mac will not abandon his friends to Kalas.
Highlander [Season 3, Episode 22]
Finale (2)
Shown 3 Jun 95
The widow threatens to reveal the entire contents of the disk to the media.
But Kalas interferes, which is convenient
because now Mac and the good guys only have a single villain to worry about.
The flashback is to Istanbul in 1753.
The Ottoman Sultan wines and dines Mac,
hoping to hire him as a military advisor.
Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) is a slave-girl in the harem,
intent on stealing whatever treasure she can get her hands on.
Mac and Amanda were old friends even at that stage,
indicating that his recent fling with Anne was nothing important.
Mac has his final confrontation with Kalas
on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower.
Yes, after three years of filming the show in Paris
we finally get to see its most famous architectural attraction.
Twice in one episode, in fact,
just to make up for lost time.
Also a pity is the fact that with the exception of Xavier St Cloud,
Kalas is the only Immortal to have faced Mac so many times.
Such a villain would have been better used across the three Seasons.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 1]
Homeland
Shown 1 Oct 95
Mac is still in Paris,
where he recognises a medieval bracelet for sale in an art gallery.
It was grave-robbed from his hometown of Glenfinnan in Scotland.
Naturally, he goes there to sort things out.
Mac's flashback is to 1618,
when he duelled a friend for the hand of Deborah Campbell (
Laurie Holden
). But two years after her death and his exile from the village,
he returned to discover that a Kimmie Viking raider named Kanwulf
had sacked the village and killed his father.
Irony indeed, since MacLeod means Son of Ljotr
the MacLeods are descended from Vikings who settled in northern Scotland.
It turns out that Kanwulf is still around,
and he is responsible for the grave-robbing.
He also murders some humans,
as sacrifices to his pagan god, Odin.
Mac has few allies - Joe Dawson tagged along, and a barmaid named Rachel MacLeod (
Kirsten Minter
, who looks like
Joanne Kelly
). Unfortunately they do not remember that the murders of humans
is a matter for the human police,
and that Mac would be best served by returning
the sacred axe that he once stole from Kanwulf.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 2]
Brothers in Arms
Shown 8 Oct 95
Andrew Kord, an Immortal and ex-Marine turned Arms dealer,
has an assassin after him.
Kord is a friend of Joe Dawson,
while the hitman is Charlie (Phil Akin -
War of the Worlds
)!
The Flashbacks are Dawson's.
In 1968 he was a rookie in the USMC in Vietnam.
Kord was his platoon sergeant,
who saved his life after he lost both legs to a landmine.
Kord's watcher recruited Dawson into the watchers.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 3]
The Innocent
Shown 15 Oct 95
A Kimmie named Mr King (Callum Keith Rennie -
Battlestar Galactica 2003
) is after a mentally retarded Immortal (Pruitt Taylor Vince -
Identity
). Ritchie tries to protect the innocent,
while Mac fights the guilty.
But things become a lot more difficult than they expect.
Mac's flashbacks are to the Dakota territory in 1868.
He saves a Native American from an eevil Southerner who brought him as a slave.
However, complications abound.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 4]
Leader of the Pack
Shown 22 Oct 95
A kimmie named Kanis (Justin Louis -
Stargate: Universe
) has a pack (okay, a trio) of trained rottweillers that he uses on his opponents.
He has a bone to pick with Mac, so to speak.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 5]
Double Eagle
Shown 29 Oct 95
A down on-his-luck gambler named Kit O'Brady comes to Seacouver.
He wants to borrow money from Mac to buy a race-horse named
Double Eagle
that just happens to be in Seacouver too.
The flashbacks are to 1888, when Kit ran his own gambling saloon named
Double Eagle
in San Francisco.
Mac was having a good time there, until Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) turned up with a dodgy French accent.
Naturally, Kit ended up staking his deeds to the saloon on a poker game with her.
Kit blames Amanda for taking his saloon.
She in turn accuses him of burning it down.
In a typical comedy episode,
Mac spends all his time running around
trying to make sure they do not bump into each other.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 6]
Reunion
Shown 5 Nov 95
Kenny the evil child Immortal is back in town.
He cannot heal his arm for some reason,
so he finds refuge in the hospital.
Dr Anne (
Lisa Howard
) takes pity on him,
even though he tried to run her down with a car the last time they met.
Kenny is being chased by another Kimmie named Kincaid.
Mac sailed with Kincaid's crew in the South Pacific, 1776,
when the man drove his own crew to mutiny.
They marooned him on an island,
where he starved for a hundred years.
Naturally, he blames Mac.
Anne gets Mac, who brings Kenny home to meet Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
). Kenny already knows Amanda - they met when be became immortal in England, 1182.
She inspired him to use his confidence-trickster tactics.
Now he tries to set her against Mac.
Finally, Anne and Amanda get to meet each other.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 7]
The Colonel
Shown 12 Nov 95
Mac is abducted by a gang of thugs,
and locked in a straight-jacket.
He uses the old Lethal Weapon 2 shoulder dislocation trick to escape,
and discovers that he has been set up by a Kimmie named Colonel Killian.
Back at Joe's bar, Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) gets sick of getting stood up by Mac.
She spots a young female thief,
someone who reminds her of herself,
so she decides to bond.
Unfortunately, the girl thief is a bit obsessive,
and starts to model herself on Amanda.
In the trenches of the Western front in 1918,
Mac was a field medic.
Killian was a red-badged staff officer in the British Army.
At 11am the ceasefire order arrived,
but Killian chose to disobey it.
He led a bayonet charge,
which as an Immortal meant he had an unfair advantage.
The Germans must have ignored the ceasefire too,
because they opened fire on the advancing men.
Killian got sentenced to death,
and gave an outburst of uncanny accuracy.
Do you not think we will fight Germany again?
he shouts, before making allusions to his Immortality.
Mac passes this off as insanity,
and has the Judges replace a merciful death sentance
with a life sentance in a lunatic asylum.
Ironic, since in the previous episode showed Mac genuinely attempted mercy
by replacing a Kimmie's decapitation with marooning on an isolated island.
The villain's plan this time is to lock Mac in a cell for seventy years,
with a functioning toilet and fifty years worth of supplies.
Not entirely inhumane, of course -
better than the German officer who go fifty years at the bottom of the river Seinne.
Will Joe use his Watcher connections to make up for getting Charlie killed in
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 2] Brothers in Arms?
And will Amanda accept nearly getting her new protege killed?
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 8]
Reluctant Heroes
Shown 19 Nov 95
Mac and Ritchie see a Kimmie shoot someone dead in the street.
They corner the killer, but the cops intervene before Mac can take his head.
The FBI Special Agent on the case
is a brunette with big hair and a tiny red dress.
Mac met the killer in England in 1712.
Mac was at the Court of Queen Anne,
playing politics so the Highlanders would not be provoked into supporting a Jacobite rising.
The Kimmie was a professional duellist,
paid by those who wanted to prolong the war against Louis XIV of France.
Mac is branded a coward for not testifying against the killer.
He carries this taunt for almost three centuries,
a terrible problem for a proud man like MacLeod.
He takes the whole affair very personally,
always blaming the workman and not the one who hired him ...
or the intended target,
who provoked such an expensive and deadly response.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 9]
The Wrath of Kali
Shown 26 Nov 95
Mac's contacts from his days as an antique dealer
play a role in the story this week.
He helped the local University buy a bronze statue of Kali.
Unfortunately, a Thugee Cultist wants the statue back -
and nobody seems to have seen
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
!
Mac previously met the Thug in India, 1764,
at the start of the British Empire's two centuries of development.
Colonel Ramsey and his snobbish, slutty wife (
Molly Parker
) need Mac's advice on how to handle the thugee Cult.
But as much as Mac derides the English,
he is a hypocrite when he interferes in a suttee funeral.
Richie starts taking lessons from the Thug,
whose philosophy appeals to him.
Mac is put in a philosophical quandry.
Is it okay for the Thug to kill everyone who has a different honour code from him?
As Immortals, there is only one honour code they can both believe in: trial by combat!
Might makes right, because ... there can be only ONE!
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 10]
Chivalry
Shown 3 Dec 95
Normandy, 1659.
Mac saves a stagecoach from some highwaymen,
despite knowing the passenger is a fellow Immortal.
Luckily for him it is Kristen (
Ann Turkel
), and she rewards him well.
Richie's foster-sister (
Emanuelle Vaugier
) applies to join a modelling agency - and Kristen is the boss-lady.
Richie ends up as Kristen's new toy-boy.
Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) is back in Seacouver.
He has been following Kristen.
She is the ultimate bunny-boiler.
And Methos is a man who was born long before the Age of Chivalry -
what he refers to Mac as
living by a set of rules that were cool when you were a kid.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 11]
Timeless
Shown 4 Feb 96
Mac is friends with a pre-Immortal (
Rae Dawn Chong
) who is a world-class pianist.
An Immortal wants to kill her
so she can have eternal youth.
But will it all go as smoothly as it sounds?
Back in England in 1663,
after Mac had escaped the bunny-boiler of the previous episode,
he earned a crust by working with a travelling theatrical troupe.
The troupe's leader is an Immortal,
who prides himself on his ability to spot talent.
But in the modern day he becomes obsessive.
In contrast, Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) falls for a girl named Alexa.
She is Joe Dawson's barmaid ...
but she has the opposite of Immortality.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 12]
The Blitz
Shown 11 Feb 96
A mysterious explosion takes out the main station for the Seacouver Subway.
Well, it's an underground railway in the Pacific Ring of Fire,
so it never had a chance.
Whoever designed it was having an off day.
So does Doctor Anne (
Lisa Howard
), who is nine months pregnant
and yet ignores the first rule of emergency medical response.
She charges straight in,
ignoring the orders of the rescue foreman,
and adds to the toll of victims.
Not only is her paramedic buddy trapped by rubble,
she herself has to give birth in a cliched confined space.
Back in London in 1940,
Mac got involved with a lady journalist.
With German bombs falling on the city every night,
they got trapped in a similar situation.
Finally, we discover why Mac bought the house
and spent the last few eps fixing it up.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 13]
Something Wicked
Shown 18 Feb 96
Koltek, Mac's Native American Medicine Man friend, comes to town.
They first met in 1872, when Mac was on the vengeance trail after Kurran killed his squaw.
Koltek absorbs the evil from the people he protects - like a
Sin-eater
. And when he takes the quickening from a Kimmie named Kant,
he starts to act like him.
Mac previously met Koltek in Greenwich Village, 1958.
when they were both looking for another Kimmie - Bryce Korland.
Those were the days that Mac wore sunglasses indoors at night.
Koltek took the Kimmie's head ...
but if he takes too many evil quickenings,
will he become evil himself?
Mac has to hunt down his old friend.
Can he cure him?
If the cure fails, can he kill him?
But if he kills him ... will Mac have a Dark Quickening too?
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 14]
Deliverance
Shown 25 Feb 96
Mac's ship arrives in port.
By incredible coincidence it has arrived in France,
where Mac has friends and a house-boat.
This is lucky indeed,
because Mac's kimmie personality will prevent him from making any new friends.
Mac was a stretcher bearer for the French Army
on the Western front in France, 1917.
He befriended a fellow Immortal, a doctor named Sean Byrne.
Sean can hypnotise a shell-shocked Frenchman,
but can he help Mac?
Dawson has tipped off the French Watchers.
Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) arrives, to help Mac get back on his feet - mentally speaking.
This involves a magic cavern with a wishing well
where he can duel a halucination of his evil self.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 15]
Promises
Shown 2 Mar 96
Mac is in Paris, hanging out with his distant relative Rachael MacLeod (
Kirsten Minter
) from Highlander [Season 4, Episode 1] Homeland.
She is a Canadian, attempting a very poor Scottish accent.
And while she is a reasonable love interest,
she can also double as a damsel in distress.
The flashback is to North Africa in 1755,
only two years after Mac and Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) fled Istanbul.
Mac met a fellow Immortal named Kassim.
The two Immortals were honorable warriors,
and made a deal - a life for a life.
Kassim spared the life of Mac's mortal friend,
and now he calls in the debt.
Mac must assassinate a Third World dictator who is visiting Paris.
Will Mac honour his bargain?
Or will he decide that a life for a life
only applies in certain circumstances -
for example, avenging a murder but not prevent one?
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 16]
Methuselah's Gift
Shown 28 Apr 96
Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) is attacked by a gang on mortals.
It seems she is being hunted by someone getting info from the Watchers.
Luckily she wears full-body pajamas in bed,
instead of lingerie (or even her birthday suit).
The flashbacks are to Amanda's time with Rebecca, her mentor in 850CE.
The hit-team are after Rebecca's magic stones -
the Methusalah Stones, which can extend a human's lifetime.
Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
), posing as Adam Pierson (his own Watcher!)
discovers a couple of suspects.
One is the bossy and paranoid head of the department.
The other is a rookie Watcher
who always seems to be in the wrong place at the right time.
The Watchers as an organisation seem to have a tendency towards corruption in recent years,
because of horton's gang.
Amanda regards Methos as a suspect too.
After all, his GF from
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 11] Timeless
still has her medical condition.
Will they duel to the death,
or team up to rob the Watchers' vault?
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 17]
The Immortal Cimoli
Shown 5 May 96
Momma's boy Crispin Bonham-Carter gets killed in an RTA,
and comes back to life.
The mystery is ... how can an Immortal have a birth-mother?
They are all supposed to be foundlings!
MacLeod and Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) go to the circus,
and by coincidence meet Cimoli who works there
... as an illusionist who can defy death.
Mac tries to train Cimoli,
but the illusionist is not a warrior at heart.
Since Cimoli's act is hardly low-key,
he attracts the attentions of someone named Kase.
Yes, another Kimmie!
This one killed a previous apprentice of Mac's -
a headstrong Frenchman who had more in common with Ritchie.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 18]
Through A Glass, Darkly
Shown 12 May 96
MacLeod meets an old friend - Dougray Scott (
Mission Impossible 2
). As well as being Immortals they both served under Bonnie Prince Charlie
- both in the rising of 1745,
and in another attempted coup a couple of decades later.
Scott is an amnesiac, but eventually manages to have some flashbacks.
This is an interesting development,
as he remembers perceiving things differently from how Macleod did.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 19]
Till Death
Shown 19 May 96
Macleod's Immortal friends include a couple who have been married for 300 years.
They renew their vows every century, and the anniversary is coming up.
Mac's flashbacks are to when they met in 1696,
while Mac was competing with Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey –
Sliders
) for the lady's affections.
Naturally, after three centuries of marital bliss there are a few strains on the marriage.
They dodged the gillotine in 1796, but now things are getting stale.
Mac wants to help them keep their relationship together.
Fitz is gone, so he ropes Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) in to help.
Methos mentions a time in the Dark Ages when he and half a dozen Irish monks
took a rowing boat to Iceland.
Nice reference to the legend of Saint Brendan the Voyager,
although historical research shows that the journey was actually performed by a pagan King.
Highlander [Season 4, Episode 20]
Judgement Day
Shown 26 May 96
Dawson is kidnapped by the Watchers, who put him on trial.
In the 3 years since Joe first talked to MacLeod, the Watchers have lost 88 agents!
Of course, they ignore the fact that most of those Watchers were corrupt bastards
who broke the group's rules for their own personal gain.
MacLeod tries to rescue Dawson.
The Watchers take this as further proof
that Dawson's friendship with Mac is the root of all their problems.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 1]
One Minute to Midnight
Shown 28 Sep 96
Mac must clear his name by tracking down the real killer.
It turns out to be an old friend of his, Jacob,
who wants revenge for his wife's death at the hands of Horton.
Mac and Jacob were gypsies together in Europe in 1847,
where Jacob developed his sense of persecution.
This ep asks a series of moral questions.
The killer is out to murder ALL Watchers,
not just Horton's gang.
This is clearly wrong -
but so the Watchers have the moral right to execute him?
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 2]
Prophecy
Shown 5 Oct 96
Mac quits Paris and returns to the USA.
But someone is waiting for him.
Cassandra (
Tracey Scoggins
) is an Immortal with the ability to see the future.
Mac met her in 1606 when he was 13 years old and still a pre-Immie.
He and his cousin went out looking for a predatory wolf,
and he found the Witch of Donan Wood.
Cassie is on the run.
Her former protege, Roland Kantos (Gerard Plunkett -
Fringe
) is now a Kimmie,
using his powers of verbal persuasion to give him an edge in combat.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 3]
The End of Innocence
Shown 12 Oct 96
Richie is still under a lot of stress,
after his falling out with Mac last Season.
He copes by drinking and starting fights with random Immortals.
One of the Immies that Ritchie kills is the squire of a killing machine.
The victim himself was a thousand years old,
but his master (or perhaps his lover) must have done most of the fighting.
Unfortunately, the master is a killing machine named Harrish Klay
who slaughtered Mac's teacher (Graham Ashe, tutor of Ramirez) in 1657.
Even Mac is intimidated by him.
Joe Dawson tries to look out for Mac and Richie,
but Mac insists that this is a conflict of interest
with his duties as a Watcher.
Will he stay with the Watchers,
who need experienced men to help them reform after the massacre a few eps ago?
After all, the last thing they need is another Horton.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 4]
Manhunt
Shown 19 Oct 96
An Immortal baseball player (Bruce A Young -
) is challenged by another Immortal in broad daylight.
His victory is witnessed by people who can identify him,
and he has to go on the run.
Mac is friends with the fellow,
who seems to be constantly in trouble.
Mac rescued him from a lynch mob in the 1920s.
In the 1990s, Mac advises him to leave the country
and sit things out abroad for a few decades.
That is how Mac survived for centuries.
Every time Mac flits between Seacouver and Paris,
he is running from someone.
The player is hunted by another Immortal - Detective McCormick (Eric McCormack -
Dead like Me
). The detective bears a grudge going back to the time
that he freed the player from slavery.
The player broke an important rule that Mac has learned -
do not kill mortals.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 5]
Glory Days
Shown 26 Oct 96
Ian Tracey (Huckleberry Finn and Friends)
was a small-time gangster in Chicago, 1929.
Now he is a cold-blooded killer for hire,
and a master of disguise (to defeat modern technologies like CCTV).
After a chance encounter,
he decides to use his skills for free and collect MacLeod's head.
Luckily, Mac has an edge of his own.
Joe Dawson is still in town,
and still on speaking terms with Mac.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 6]
Dramatic License
Shown 2 Nov 96
Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) attends a book-reading by Carolyn Marsh (
Sandra Bernhardt
). Apparently she discovered the far-flung legends of
a Scottish warrior named Duncan MacLeod who defends the weak.
She has turned these tales into a series of romance novels - real
Romancing The Stone
kind of thing.
The flashbacks are quite informative.
Duncan was in love with Deborah Campbell (
Laurie Holden
), who was betrothed to Duncan's cousin.
The villain of the piece (Terence Koventry) is in town,
but he has more justification for his actions than first shown.
This is all played purely for laughs.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 7]
Money No Object
Shown 9 Nov 96
Richie takes Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) to a loan shark (Colonel Maybourn from
Stargate SG-1
). Unfortunately the place gets robbed by her old flame,
Cory Raines (Nicholas Lea -
X-files
) - who takes her hostage. sort of, anyhow.
Cory is a psychopathic idiot who takes Ritchie out
just because he is an Immortal.
Normally, armed robbers on the run try to stay low-key,
so as to avoid unnecessary attention.
Cory still drives a car from their Bonnie and Clyde days.
Cory is the kind of guy who would use a carbomb as a diversion,
without thinking about the possibility of bystanders getting hurt.
He is not evil, just an ass.
To get answers out of an unhelpful witness,
Macleod goes undercover as an eccentric French film director.
Yes, this ep is played for laughs.
Cory even breaks the fourth wall
and addresses the camera directly
when MacLeod gets blown up.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 8]
Haunted
Shown 16 Nov 96
Kathy Evison
thinks she is haunted by her dead husband.
It turns out that her husband was a friend of Mac's,
so she seeks him out for help with vengeance.
The dead hubby only married Kathy because
she looked like his wife from San Francisco in 1886.
He hoped that she was a reincarnation.
He also believed that the Quickening involved taking the victim's soul.
It turns out that Richie has not been keeping track of his kills.
He has been taking out older, more experienced Immortals for over a year,
and he does not even bother to remember their names.
Luckily Joe Dawson is around to help him with the details.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 9]
Little Tin God
Shown 23 Nov 96
Shown 15th October 2001 - Monday
MacLeod is attacked by a trio of amateurish newbie Immortals
- including a very young-looking Roger R Cross (
First Wave
). They think they are angels, and an evil Immortal from MacLeod's past
has made them think that he is god!
MacLeod has been stuck in the role of Satan,
and he's outnumbered four to one.
Worse, the newbies are so stupid they try to take him out on holy ground!
The villain was self-proclaimed god to some remote Incas in Peru, 1830.
In typical Inca fashion they still performed human sacrifice.
Luckily for MacLeod, he and his guide are riddled with diseases
to which the natives have no apparent immunity.
With the speed it acts it is probably not syphilis,
although given his many centuries and many lovers it is probable that he has it.
Luckily, MacLeod has an ally of his own - Joe Dawson the Watcher.
We learn a bit more about the Watchers' history,
and about the only recorded Quickening on holy ground.
The fact that the Watchers' Council is still in turmoil
is given as the reason the villain's deeds are going unchecked.
The token genuine Christian preacher's only bible quote is
Ezekiel 25:17 - yes, the Tarantino version!
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 10]
The Messenger
Shown 30 Nov 96
Shown 16th October 2001 - Tuesday
Richie meets a new immortal - Ron Perlman (
Alien Resurrection
), who claims to be Methos, the oldest Immortal.
He preaches a doctrine of love and peace.
Season Five's opening credits have an extensive and unwieldy voice-over
by Joe Dawson. However, the visuals are great.
MacLeod meets the episode's villain.
His flashback takes him to 1864, when the villain is
the evil Confederate officer in charge of Andersonville POW camp.
Boo, hiss!
MacLeod knows that Perlman is not Methos,
because the REAL Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) is hanging out at MacLeod's flat.
While Richie believes the peacenik message, nobody else does.
Is the fake Methos setting people up and taking their heads himself?
The climax features an incredibly surreal quickening,
but the ending leaves many questions unanswered.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 11]
The Valkyrie
Shown 1 Feb 97
Shown 17th October 2001 - Wednesday
It's Moscow and a reactionary politician is plotting race-hatred.
Ingrid (
Musetta Vander
) enters, in skimpy negligie but with deadly intentions.
Back in Seacouver, MacLeod bumps into Ms Vander.
They originally met in Berlin 1935,
when MacLeod was working for British Intelligence.
Now she's on the run from the police.
MacLeod and Ingrid were apparently key members of Operation Valkyrie,
both planning and performing the assassination attempt on Hitler
that is usually attributed to Colonel Klaus Von Stauffenberg.
After the war she worked for Mossad, MI6 and the CIA.
These days she kills extremist politicians to make up for the botched
attempt on Hitler (who was very badly-acted, IMHO).
She only attacks White Power racists,
not the Black Power extremists or Latino seperatists.
She talks about a world without tyrants,
but she wants to limit democracy and remove freedom of speach.
Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) gloats while Mac has a crisis of conscience.
Can he allow his friend to continue murdering mortals?
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 12]
Comes a Horseman
Shown 8 Feb 97
Shown 18th October 2001 - Thursday
Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) uses his centuries of knowledge to appear on a TV quiz show.
MacLeod fears that this may have attracted unwelcome attention,
and sure enough Immortals start to gather.
One is Kronen (Valentin Pelka -
Queen of Swords
), a villainous robber who MacLeod first met
at Agua Dulce in South Texas, 1867.
Apparently, a few years after Mac was a slave-runner
he joined the Texas Rangers!
The second Immortal to pop up is Cassandra (
Tracey Scoggins
, acting in serious mode and using an English accent for some reason).
She provides us with some helpful exposition and a flashback.
Kronen was originally Kronos, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Yes, apparently the four oldest Immortal warriors teamed up,
and spent the Bronze age raping and pillaging their way across Asia and Europe.
Cassandra was originally a foundling child raised by desert nomads.
The Horsemen wiped out her village and killed her, making her Immortal.
Then one of them took her as his concubine,
but lacked the will to murder her later on.
Methos has history with both Cassandra and Kronos.
When this is revealed, he breaks off his friendship with MacLeod.
Mac is very judgemental of his friend,
a man who he always knew had a shadowy past
but had lived honestly in more recent centuries.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 13]
Revelations 6:8
Shown 15 Feb 97
Shown 19th October 2001 - Friday
Kronos and Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) get together with the other two horsemen.
It is now the Scientific Age,
and Kronos has a plan to bring about the Apocalypse and get world domination.
It involves a water-borne virus
he has obtained from the bloodstream of monkeys.
Kronos only found out about Methos because he saw him on TV.
He had also assumed that Silas and Caspian were long dead too.
But he still has a super-weapon ready to use,
as if he had been planning on getting the Horsemen together all along.
Meanwhile, MacLeod and Cassandra (
Tracey Scoggins
) are on the trail. We get to see the source of Cassie's grudge:
she's not angry at Methos for what he did to her, per say.
This episode was directed by Adrian Paul himself.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 14]
The Ransom Of Richard Redstone
Shown 22 Feb 97
Shown 22nd October 2001 - Monday
This is a tongue-in-cheek episode,
a nice change of pace after the tense two-parter.
It starts with a car chase involving a red sports car
and a James Bond-style theme tune.
Richie is living the life of a Casino high roller.
However, he manages to get himself kidnapped.
MacLeod goes to investigate.
Since he had visited the casino in 1978,
he has to disguise himself as older!
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 15]
Duende
Shown 1 Mar 97
Shown 23rd October 2001 - Tuesday
MacLeod is back in Paris, living in his river-barge again.
He meets up with a lady-friend of his who has a feud with an evil Immortal.
The Kimmie wants the woman's twenty-something daughter,
because he could not get the mother.
MacLeod was friends with the evil Immortal in 1850, Spain:
the evil dude (Korsone, played by Anthony Delongis)
was a fencing master and Mac was his student.
Not only is DeLongis a rent-a-villain from
Star Trek: Voyager
, but he is also a real-life swordmaster who later worked on
Queen of Swords
with Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) and Kronos (Valentin Pelka).
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 16]
The Stone of Scone
Shown 26 Apr 97
Shown 24th October 2001 - Wednesday
1720, Westminster Abbey, MacLeod and Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey –
Sliders
) plot against King George I.
This is played purely for laughs,
and is completely convincing both politically and in all other ways.
They sort out their differences in a game of golf ...
1950, and the two guys are golfing again. Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) is there too, and as well as scamming Fitzcairn
she joins them in a plot to steal the Stone of Scone.
Of course, since she is a Yank she does not know what she is after.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 17]
Double Jeopardy
Shown 3 May 97
Marc Warren (Mr Teatime in
Hogfather
) is in Paris, imitating the murderous thievery of Xavier St Cloud.
The French Police question MacLeod,
because of his involvement in the original case.
Detective
Stacey Travis
, Mac's love interest from the last time Xavier was investigated,
is back in town too.
The flashbacks are Warren's, as he became Xavier's apprentice in 1803.
Mockney Warren is strangely miscast as a French Aristocrat,
although most French characters are played by English actors.
It is also strange to see MacLeod as a redcoat,
an officer in Wellington's Hanoverian army in 1606,
only a couple of decades after he sided with Dougray Scott
to help Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobites and their French allies invade England.
The climax is on a rooftop overlooking the Eiffel Tower.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 18]
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Shown 10 May 97
An Englishman named Keane comes to Paris.
He's spent 200 years looking for MacLeod,
to get even for Mac's revenge spree after Culloden.
Bonnie Prince Charlie is portrayed as having a Scottish accent
(or an American attempt at one) ...
while in reality he was raised in Italy.
MacLeod and the Redcoats all talk as if the Jacobite cause was an independent Scotland.
However, in reality they wanted to impose a Tory government in Westminster.
And as an Immortal, MacLeod should never have gotten involved in petty politics.
Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) gets Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) to help.
Methos has apparently quit the Watchers,
but still has a pistol and a silencer.
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 19]
A Post-Modern Prometheus
Shown 17 May 97
Shown 26th October 2001 - Friday
Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) is buddies with MacLeod and Joe Dawson again,
and they're all back in Seattle again.
They meet up with Lord Byron, now a soft-rock musician and superstar.
He's a total drug-head who corrupts the morals of young musicians.
Typical bad role-model influencing youth propaganda.
This is especially hypocritical when Mac himself is a
kill-crazy adrenaline junkie.
We get a flashback to Switzerland in 1816,
to the night of the infamous party on Lake Geneva.
Lord Byron and Percy Shelley consume Laudanum,
while Methos passes himself off as a Doctor with an interest in
dissecting corpses to discover the secrets of life.
Byron has a sword-duel with a cuckolded husband,
and Mary Shelley sees the Quickening ...
Highlander [Season 5, Episode 20 - Finale]
Archangel
Shown 24 May 97
Shown 29th October 2001 - Monday
Mac and Richie are hanging out in Paris when they are
approached by an OAP archaeologist.
The OAP tries to tell them about a prophecy that Mac will be the champion
of Good who saves the world from Evil.
In the mist, Mac sees his old enemy, Horton the evil Watcher ...
We get a flashback to 1625, when Mac had been an Immortal for two years.
We see his first Quickening, and he mentions that he later met his teacher,
his cousin Conor MacLeod.
Since the prophecy only gives the surname MacLeod as the champion,
why does nobody think that it will be the older, wiser Conor?
It turns out that the villain is a Zoroastrian demon
that taunts Mac by appearing in the guise of Kronos and Richie.
The demon kills people off in scenes that are inferior
The Omen
rip-offs, and tries to drive Mac insane.
MacLeod's incredibly weak-willed and indecisive,
especially for a 400-year-old warrior.
Joe Dawson and Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
), for some reason hanging out together in Paris,
both refuse to believe in demons.
They can believe in supernatural Immortals, though.
Richie stays open-minded, and tries not to lose his head.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 1]
Avatar
Shown 4 Oct 97
Richie is dead.
Mac has spent the last year in seclusion in a Tibetan Monastery,
reflecting on his sins.
Luckily, Holy Ground protected him against Immortals and Demons alike.
Now he returns to Paris,
and tries to convince Joe Dawson of the danger that the Demon presents.
For some reason, the Demon did not do anything for the whole year that Mac was in Tibet.
But now he is back, it targets the Professor's assistant
(the bossy English girl from The L Word).
The demon cannot kill Mac itself, it can only create illusions.
But the girl's thuggish younger brother (Danny Dyer -
) has a pistol and a machete.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 2]
Armageddon
Shown 11 Oct 97
Ahriman the Demon uses the appearances of Kronos and Horton to get up to no good.
He taunts Mac, but to no effect.
Dudley Sutton (Lovejoy) is a priestly monk type.
His brother committed suicide,
and the Church of Rome automatically condemns his soul.
This makes Dudley vulnerable to temptation.
Joe Dawson dreams that he gets his legs back,
but Ahriman the Devil asks for his soul in return.
This 3-episode mini-arc seems to be the moment the show jumped the shark.
As villains go, the demon lasted three episodes and yet never gets mentioned again.
In contrast, a Kimmie usually is lucky just to survive a single episode.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 3]
Sins of the Father
Shown 18 Oct 97
With Mac sworn to put up his sword for good,
a female Guest Star does most of the work.
This episode is the first in a series of backdoor pilots for the female-led Immortal show
>The Raven.
The guest star, who takes up most of the show, is a female Immortal named Alex Raven.
Yes, they named the show after her character
even though they chose a different character as the series lead!
Alex Raven is working for Ian Richardson (
), who wants to coerce a French bank into paying him sixty million dollars.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 4]
Diplomatic Immunity
Shown 25 Oct 97
Mac's Immortal buddy has managed to make a living from his immortality.
Even better than the circus escapologist act,
because this way is off the record and very hush-hush.
He gets himself hit by an expensive-looking car, and then his grieving widow (
Anita Dobson
) extorts hush money from the rich driver.
MacLeod's other best-buddy-of-the-week is US Diplomat Ed Bishop (
UFO
), who has his expensive car borrowed by Alexis Denisof (
Angel
). Will these two plotlines overlap?
After all, Immortal trouble seems to follow Mac's mortal friends around.
The Immortal con-man has access to a range of sophisticated silenced assassination guns.
And MacLeod is nowhere near as good a bodyguard as he should be.
But will Mac pick up his sword and face a fellow Immortal again?
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 5]
Patient Number 7
Shown 1 Nov 97
This was a test run, one of the fore-runners for the TV show
Highlander: Raven
. A beautiful Blonde Immortal (
Alice Evans
) is an amnesiac in Paris,
being chased by henchmen of a Serb General who is on the run
for his war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
To make it a fair fight at the end,
the villain fancies himself as a swordsman.
That said, he is not an Immortal so his fate
(and especially that of his minions) seems a bit unfair.
Her flashbacks are to 1640, when she served Queen Anne against the evil Cardinal's henchmen.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 6]
Black Tower
Shown 8 Nov 97
Mac's GF is kidnapped. Worse, his ponytail is now gone.
1634, Scotland - an English Aristocrat plays The Most Dangerous Game.
He is a villainous anti-bloodsports player - he only hunts poachers.
Mac finds him after he became Immortal,
but the aristocratic fool ignores all Mac's advice.
Now the Aristocrat has hired gunmen and a CCTV nerd.
They are making a computer game.
Mac has to bump off the hired gunmen, Die Hard style.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 7]
Unusual Suspects
Shown 15 Nov 97
This is a whodunit parody farce set in 1929.
Mac must help Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey –
Sliders
) solve his own murder.
Cleo Rocos
is Fitz's beautiful widow.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 8]
Justice
Shown 22 Nov 97
Justina Vail
is an Immortal Assassin.
Yes, this is one of the fore-runners for the TV show
Highlander: Raven
.
Vail wants to kill Mac's new fencing partner.
It turns out that her adopted daughter was the man's wife.
Vail is blind to the woman's faults,
and blames the husband for everything.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 9]
Deadly Exposure
Shown 31 Jan 98
Sandra Hess
is a female Bounty Hunter.
This is cliched crap,
It's also the third Immortal babe on a revenge quest story in a row this Season!
Hess goes undercover as a stripper in Miami to catch a smuggler.
Then she goes on holiday in Paris, where her friend MacLeod lives.
By apparent coincidence, the smuggler's employer just happens to be lurking nearby.
She teams up with a himbo male model - like Cover-up in reverse.
Her flashbacks are to 1833,
when she seduces and captures Mac for a bounty.
Mac declares I'm no traitor!
Ignoring his Jacobite past, of course.
That said, he was a Redcoat at Waterloo,
so his loyalties are fluid.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 10]
Two of Hearts
Shown 14 Feb 98
Claudia Christian
is an Immortal Bounty Hunter.
Her arch-enemy is Jim Fenner from Bad Girls.
The flashbacks are to the 1270s, during a Crusade.
Claudia has a dodgy accent, and wields a sword.
The villain recruits peasants for the next Crusade,
He offers them absolution if they die,
and Claudia calls him a liar.
However, in the 1090s the Pope himself made the offer!
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 11]
Indiscretions
Shown 2 May 98
The villain of the week used to run slave-ships across the Atlantic.
Now he fixes up out-of-work models like
Paris Jefferson
with long-term all-expenses-paid stays in exotic countries.
Like all Immortals he has a Watcher,
but he is a professional criminal and thus constantly checking for surveillance.
His Watcher is a babe, but she is just out of the Academy.
This is a recipe for disaster.
Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) is four thousand years old, he knew Gilgamesh ...
and the villain is an old enemy.
They face off, but Methos does not duel any more.
Mac is in London this week,
so Methos and Joe Dawson team up together.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 12]
To Be (1)
Shown 9 May 98
Liam O'Rourke (an IRA bomber from 1946) wants revenge on Mac.
Yes, Mac may have stolen the Stone of Scone,
but he drew the line at bombing pubs.
O'Rourke is annoyed because he served a life sentance,
so he kidnaps Amanda (
Elizabeth Gracen
) and Joe Dawson.
Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) helps Mac.
Unfortunately, since he also misleads Joe Dawson
about the meaning of the word vomitorium
it seems we cannot trust him at all.
Mac is reunited with Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey –
Sliders
), who is his guide to an alternate universe.
Highlander [Season 6, Episode 13]
Not To Be (2)
Shown 16 May 98
This is a version of
It's a Wonderful Life
. Mac sees what the world would have been like if he were never born,
and understands how he affected the lives of Tess, Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey –
Sliders
), Richie, Methos (Peter Wingfield -
Stargate SG-1
) and Kronos.
Highlander
Highlander
Highlander: The Raven [Season 1, Episode 1]
Reborn
This starts with a new, true origins are unknown intro by Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert).
This is set in the near future, in a post-apocalyptic world.
Methos (Peter Wingfield -