Did a search and the older threads on this are pretty old so I hope it's okay if I start a new one.
I started watching about a year ago and finished up tonight with "To Be"/"Not To Be." I probably would have finished sooner but the last couple of seasons really killed the momentum.
Season one was entertaining for me but often in a laughable, cheesy way. The original opening credits have Duncan mumbling the narration like he's backstage, repeating his lines over and over before his big scene. That combined with the corny effects and the great Queen song had me hooked. (The narration during the credits changed around six or so episodes in and it was slightly more professional, I guess. Then later on they made genuinely decent opening credits but I sort of missed the silliness of the original.)
Early on there's a scene where Duncan and another immortal are in a city park, about to fight, but call it off because a car full of kids drove by. That sort of stuff made me chuckle. Duncan fights off killer mimes with a baguette because he doesn't have his sword handy! The tail end of the season improved, with Darius' death and the group of mortals hunting the Immortals, but I watched the bulk of it like I would a bad but fun movie (who told Marc Singer to speak that laughably low in the Mountain Men episode?).
Seasons 2 & 3 were the best in my opinion. Good storylines, nice twists and supporting characters came and went (sometimes I was sad to see them go, but I also appreciated the feeling that anything could happen and just because someone was in the opening credits didn't mean they were going to stick around the whole season) and somewhere in here I went from finding Duncan amusing to really liking his character (along with a lot of the other actors as well).
There's nothing really wrong with season 4, but the magic was wearing off for me. We still had a good plotline, but I'll confess to not being a fan of Amanda and I think it was here she moved from occasional guest to regular.
Season 5 is where it fell apart for me. Too many comedic episodes. And while the cast is always enjoyable, the stories were often ones that didn't need immortals or sword fights to be told (and a few of them didn't have them at all). I suppose after all the lightheartedness, Richie's death could have been very shocking to some people, but it felt very cheap to me. If season 5 had been filled with good Richie stories and then he died tragically, I think I could have gone for that. As it is, it felt like Theo on the Cosby Show being killed in the season finale. The tone of the show just hadn't earned it.
Season 6 was all over the map, with some of the episodes dealing with Duncan's reaction to Richie's death, some random "normal" episodes, sometimes with dead people like Fitz thanks to the ability to show stories out of sequence, some episodes without Duncan at all, and then the rather good finale.
I'm glad I watched the show. There were lots of interesting guest stars (why so many musicians? Roger Daltry, Dee Dee Bridgewater, the Young Cannibals guy, Vanity). I enjoyed the fact they sometimes shot in Europe - it really added a lot to the production values of the show. And as a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it made me realize Joss Whedon did not create the idea of a shocking death (Tess dying really surprised me and pissed me off). I'm glad I managed to go into this show spoiler-free. I do wish they had either ended it earlier or the last two seasons had been drastically reworked.
I didn't ever pay that much attention to how well the flashbacks and Duncan's history worked. For all I know it contradicts itself all over the place, but casually viewing it nothing jumped out (well except that Duncan/von Stauffenberg/Hitler assassination plot didn't sit well).
Just two last things:
Why didn't they carry over the alias idea from the Highlander films? When an immortal would show up and claim to have been searching for Duncan for centuries, I wondered how hard can he be to find since he always goes by 'Duncan MacLeod.'
I feel fairly safe assuming this television show has more beheadings than any other, and that fact would occasionally amuse me while watching it. "It's about this good guy, see, and he cuts people's heads off. Every week."
I started watching about a year ago and finished up tonight with "To Be"/"Not To Be." I probably would have finished sooner but the last couple of seasons really killed the momentum.
Season one was entertaining for me but often in a laughable, cheesy way. The original opening credits have Duncan mumbling the narration like he's backstage, repeating his lines over and over before his big scene. That combined with the corny effects and the great Queen song had me hooked. (The narration during the credits changed around six or so episodes in and it was slightly more professional, I guess. Then later on they made genuinely decent opening credits but I sort of missed the silliness of the original.)
Early on there's a scene where Duncan and another immortal are in a city park, about to fight, but call it off because a car full of kids drove by. That sort of stuff made me chuckle. Duncan fights off killer mimes with a baguette because he doesn't have his sword handy! The tail end of the season improved, with Darius' death and the group of mortals hunting the Immortals, but I watched the bulk of it like I would a bad but fun movie (who told Marc Singer to speak that laughably low in the Mountain Men episode?).
Seasons 2 & 3 were the best in my opinion. Good storylines, nice twists and supporting characters came and went (sometimes I was sad to see them go, but I also appreciated the feeling that anything could happen and just because someone was in the opening credits didn't mean they were going to stick around the whole season) and somewhere in here I went from finding Duncan amusing to really liking his character (along with a lot of the other actors as well).
There's nothing really wrong with season 4, but the magic was wearing off for me. We still had a good plotline, but I'll confess to not being a fan of Amanda and I think it was here she moved from occasional guest to regular.
Season 5 is where it fell apart for me. Too many comedic episodes. And while the cast is always enjoyable, the stories were often ones that didn't need immortals or sword fights to be told (and a few of them didn't have them at all). I suppose after all the lightheartedness, Richie's death could have been very shocking to some people, but it felt very cheap to me. If season 5 had been filled with good Richie stories and then he died tragically, I think I could have gone for that. As it is, it felt like Theo on the Cosby Show being killed in the season finale. The tone of the show just hadn't earned it.
Season 6 was all over the map, with some of the episodes dealing with Duncan's reaction to Richie's death, some random "normal" episodes, sometimes with dead people like Fitz thanks to the ability to show stories out of sequence, some episodes without Duncan at all, and then the rather good finale.
I'm glad I watched the show. There were lots of interesting guest stars (why so many musicians? Roger Daltry, Dee Dee Bridgewater, the Young Cannibals guy, Vanity). I enjoyed the fact they sometimes shot in Europe - it really added a lot to the production values of the show. And as a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it made me realize Joss Whedon did not create the idea of a shocking death (Tess dying really surprised me and pissed me off). I'm glad I managed to go into this show spoiler-free. I do wish they had either ended it earlier or the last two seasons had been drastically reworked.
I didn't ever pay that much attention to how well the flashbacks and Duncan's history worked. For all I know it contradicts itself all over the place, but casually viewing it nothing jumped out (well except that Duncan/von Stauffenberg/Hitler assassination plot didn't sit well).
Just two last things:
Why didn't they carry over the alias idea from the Highlander films? When an immortal would show up and claim to have been searching for Duncan for centuries, I wondered how hard can he be to find since he always goes by 'Duncan MacLeod.'
I feel fairly safe assuming this television show has more beheadings than any other, and that fact would occasionally amuse me while watching it. "It's about this good guy, see, and he cuts people's heads off. Every week."
