Highlander season 4: Deliverance

I fast forwarded through Duncan being Really REally EEEEVUL
blah

but when people start trying to save him it gets interesting

I had mixed feelings about it being Methos who manages to reach him. I mean, his student, his Watcher, they've known him for longer. Amanda knew him for long and long. He has friends. But then there's Methos, and he's just this guy who met him last year. How has he earned being Mac's salvation?

Well, flip side, he earns it here. Its that 'sympathetic character' thing. This time he's doing something that is in no way, shape or form selfish. He left Alexa - someone who has very limited time - to come and try save Duncan's soul. That's a pretty clear declaration of what side he's on.
"You're too important to lose."

D/M yaays


That bit at the end where they go back to Mac's place together... I feel like someone went 'oh noes, too queer! quick, bring on the girls...' I mean, suddenly this woman we haven't seen all season is there, and Methos remembers he has a girlfriend, and the serious D&M vibe is denied being a D/M thing because look, girls!
ITs kind of childish.

The holy jacuzzi is... dodgy.
Though they do get a nice fire-vs-water thing going on with this one paired with the one last ep.

Whenever Highlander gets too much magic in it it gets dodgy. Because I'm interested in choice, and the magic is always frelling with choices and consequences.
But this time we get plenty reasons to call mundane with metaphor. Mushrooms he ate last ep, cave full of gas this ep. Hallucinations. This wasn't necessarily magic, it was played out mind metaphor, dramatised.

the problem I have with the thing with the demon later is apparently we're not supposed to read it as Duncan going nuts again. even with outside help. nooooo, that time (out of all the many) it was actually a real live demon.
WTF? 100 odd episodes in, that's a bit too much of a corner.

This ep though, its Duncan goes nuts, and comes back again. Played out at top speed for television, but plausibly enough.
I read the other day that warriors took to Buddhism because they understood it as being in a life and death struggle for the fate of your soul.
Which is what we get here.

It isn't just old Duncan vs new Duncan
the Clan MacLeod part is the part that tries to take care of the world
the other guy just likes to fight
so its fighting for the right reasons winning against fighting for fun.


Once again I'm impressed with Peter Wingfield as an actor.
which, okay, I'm biased.
but there's a lot he does with this stuff.



The sudden existence of Sean Burns becomes a bit of a character problem for Duncan though. And a continuity one. He's dealt with insane Immortals before, ones that used to be his friends. That split personality guy way back when Tessa was alive, and that depressive guy. He killed one and said about the other its hard to get in therapy because you'd have to explain about Immortality. Yet now they introduce an Immortal psychotherapist that Mac has been friends with since the first world war. Why didn't he send his other friends to him for help?
The only answer is 'because the writers hadn't invented him yet'.
But if you're trying to build something consistent in world with the canon we have, Duncan ends up looking very bad. It ends up with 'because it wasn't convenient', or something that looks very much like it. He didn't take the trouble. He took a head instead. Big huge character problem.


I like that these eps attempt to confront some of the problems the structure of the show brings up - the killing, the nightmares he mentions. He's been killing every week for as long as the show has been running. That's a problem for him. So they send him to therapy. And, okay, he kills the therapist and has visions instead, but is very dramatic.

I do rather wish TV wouldn't always kill the pshrink. Would be nice if they helped.


Basically, good eps, very thinky if you want to dig into them, nice Methos, and the whole thing stays the right side of too much. Just about.

(no subject)

been watching DVDs

I already looked at my Grand Fanfic Epic Of Doom and realised how much I apparently wanted to write Due South

now I watch Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
and keep finding bits that inspired me



I should probably worry



or, you know, not, since I'm writing at about a word a day right now :eyeroll:
*sigh*

Highlander season 4: Methuselah's Gift

Now this just might be the perfect episode.

which is odd, because it doesn't fit the template at all.

but, Methos, Amanda, and so many brilliant lines I'd end up quoting it all if I quoted the good bits.

"You try being her"
"As much as I can for as long as I live"

*hugs Methos*
*hurts for him*
( Read more... )

Methos is a fascinating character as much for what he doesn't say as for what he does.

I mean the other way to look at it, unfortunately, is to see him as being puppeted badly by the writers (though acted brilliantly, whatever they hand him). He does things because it suits the plot, doesn't say things because that would take the story the wrong place. And some days I think thats so. That Peter Wingfield makes me a fan of Methos, and not the writers at all. But other days its more fun to assume it All Makes Sense, and attempt to put it together.


Is now 11pm and I sleepy, so I stop there. Is much more I could squee about, or think on, or say. Maybe later. Shall probably have time to go back through my favourites before the convention, and this is so very on the list.