HIGHLA-L Digest - 27 Mar 2004 to 29 Mar 2004 (#2004-59)
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Mon, 29 Mar 2004 22:00:02 -0500
There are 2 messages totalling 312 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Season 5 DVDs
2. Season Three dvds: Shadows
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Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 17:54:50 -0500
From: Heidi <heidi@bronze.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Season 5 DVDs
I haven't seen this mentioned yet so.. according to the info on the
Anchor Bay site the Season 5 dvd set will be out in "late summer".
(from www.anchorbayentertainment.com.)
It also seems they're releasing individual DVDs of Unholy Alliance,
Counterfeit and Finale. There were pictures of those on the
www.tvshowsondvd.com site. I guess that's not a total suprise
since they had been released as individual videos several years
ago. I don't know if there are any extras for the DVDs though.
Now if AnchorBay would just release the `Best Of' set so we can
get the extras from that it would be nice. My guess is even if
they have plans to release it, they won't say anything until
after the Season 5 set is already out.
=}{=
(heidi@bronze.lcs.mit.edu)
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Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 19:24:21 -0500
From: kageorge <kageorge@erols.com>
Subject: Season Three dvds: Shadows
COMMENTARY: David A. talks about how an episode without other Immortals is
problematic because "a hero is judged up against the ferocity of the
villain." So they wanted a villain who wasn't just another "best swordsman"
coming to town, and discussed doing a story where someone could use
something else as an edge over MacLeod. They layered the story in a way that
played on Duncan's "profound sense of his own personal guilt " - guilt that
he had survived when other people had died, that he couldn't save his clan,
guilt for mistakes he has made over the years, etc., so they created a bad
guy who had a great sense of psychology and could deal with symbols and long
forgotten memories and bring them all out.
The idea was to have MacLeod face an Immortal whom he believed to be an
illusion. The other Immortal in the story was one MacLeod could go to as a
shrink, and would tell him that the best way to defeat the "dream" Immortal
is to deny his existence because that Immortal knows he can't defeat MacLeod
in a fair fight. So, they slowly tried to drive Duncan crazy, then send him
to a shrink who told him to deny the existence of the illusion. But the
illusion turns out to be real, and it is only through chance that he sees
through the illusion, which saves his life.
David Tynan talked a little about Anne Lindsay. Her relationship with
MacLeod was developing, and the writers always wanted to have a strong love
interest for MacLeod. Anne Lindsay was a counterweight to Duncan, because
she saved lives, and didn't know about his immortality. Tynan says that, in
writing an onscreen romance, you can always write great scenes, but when the
actors get the room, either the spark is there or it isn't, and there isn't
much you (or the actors) can do about it. Also, Tynan thinks that MacLeod is
tied down when he has a strong love interest as he had with Tessa, and the
writers were leery of limiting him that way.
They had to make a decision whether Anne was going learn about his
Immortality. That tension was there in the episode, and you feel the
frustration that MacLeod feels as well. Duncan feels that she would be in
danger if she knew of that part of his life, and doesn't want her to know
what is going on and keeps her at arm's length.
F. Braun smilingly announces that he is the only Immortal to have ever
killed MacLeod, albeit only in a dream sequence. The whole idea of being a
nightmare opponent rather than a real one was interesting because F. Braun
got to play the role of the shadow. It was the only episode that contained
five sword fights, which was a huge number, requiring that every shooting
day, they do a combat scene. The costume was difficult to work in, and he
wore a fencing mask painted black to hide his face. The long sleeves were
sewn shut because otherwise they would catch on the blade. F. Braun did four
of the five fight scenes while he was quite ill and running a high
temperature, working hard, under the lights and in a heavy, constricting
costume.
As a choreographer faced with doing five fights in a single episode, he
incorporated the notion that nightmares repeat themselves and they used the
same choreography phrase again and again. The cadence to the fight was
deliberately paced to mimic the rhythm of an accelerated human heartbeat, as
you would if you were in the throes of a nightmare. That holds true until
the last scene, when a rather whacked-out, drugged Duncan realizes that this
time, the image is real.
They also decided to have a little fun with it and show the final beheading
from the point of view of the head. They had a special camera rig that
flipped over when MacLeod swung the killing blow, showing it from the victim
's pov, as though the head were flipping over and landing on the rug. [I had
never noticed that before!]
OUTTAKES: Gillian tells us that the episode ran long and some of the
secondary story of Richie managing a young musician ended up getting cut.
They show a longer version of the scene in the dojo between Richie and Anne
where he introduces her to his guitarist friend. They also show a longer
version of the scene between Richie and Joe, where Joe asks Richie about Mac
acting strangely.
They show a scene from the flashback, where both MacLeod and Garrick are
about to be burned, someone blows a line or some action (I couldn't tell),
and AP says in his Scottish accent, "See? See? A nice mess you've gotten me
into now, haven't you?" and the crowd breaks up laughing.
Then they show Adrian doing the final move of Garrick's decapitation, with
the camera flipping over.
EPISODE: [Charles Wilkinson, the director of the episode, does a rather
tedious and long audio commentary. I will only interject his views when they
provide new information.]
The episode opens on a scene with Duncan uncharacteristically playing the
piano at Joe's bar, after hours. After complementing Joe on a good show, he
leaves and encounters another Immortal dressed in a hooded long robe. You
can't see his face, and the Immortal doesn't speak. They fight, the
mysterious Immortal slices MacLeod across the middle, and in a dramatic,
very dance-like move Duncan spins around, going to his knees. MacLeod
desperately stabs forward and the katana is knocked from his hand. Before he
can reach for it, the mysterious Immortal takes his head....
And Duncan awakens from the nightmare with a shout, rolling out of bed,
gasping for air, covered in sweat. Anne Lindsay is frightened by his
actions, and the next morning, she expresses her concern about him, saying
that the nightmares have been happening "night after night".
Anne and Duncan go to an art show of a stone carver who sculpts bizarre
gargoyles. He turns out to be Immortal John Garrick. In a flashback, we
learn that Garrick had the gift of sight and back in 1665, he had, from a
distance, sensed the death of his wife and adopted son when their house
burned down. He was condemned as a witch to be burned at the stake, and
Duncan intervenes to stop them, but Garrick is so distraught that he tries
to "prove" what real evil is by killing Duncan in front of everyone so they
can see him come back to life. [NOTE: Duncan comes back to life with the
sword still in his chest, belying the generally held notion that an Immortal
will stay dead until the killing implement is removed.] Duncan, now himself
at risk for being burned at the stake, fights the officials and cuts Garrick
and a young woman free, gets on a horse with the girl (of course), and gets
away.
Back in the present, Garrick gives Duncan one of his gargoyles and as he and
Anne head back to the car, Duncan again sees his mysterious hooded Immortal,
and they start to fight - except that it is an illusion and Duncan is almost
arrested for wielding his sword in public. Anne is worried that something
may be medically wrong with Duncan, causing him to have hallucinations, but
Duncan puts her off.
Duncan starts to worry about his own sanity and goes to Garrick, who
confesses that he has been struggling with his own sanity for centuries and
has "spent more time in analysis than anyone in history". He tells Duncan
that the figure he is seeing is part of an Immortal's racial memory and
racial fear, and represents death. He reveals a statue of the figure he has
carved, and Duncan is shocked that it is the same image he has been seeing.
You can already see Duncan deteriorating, looking more and more haggard as
the worry and sleeplessness wears him down. Garrick lends him some books and
Duncan is reading them, meanwhile reassuring a worried Anne that he's seeing
someone about his problem and "getting a handle on it."
But the hooded figure appears again in the darkened dojo, and this time
Duncan goes after it with a vengeance. It is a fast, brutal fight, and
Duncan is attacking for all he's worth. With the outcome playing out the
same way it did in his dream, Mac suddenly realizes it's not the hooded
figure he's attacked, but Richie. Richie yells at him, asking what the hell
he was doing and, in a moment of near hysteria, Duncan screams back, "I Don'
t Know!" Upstairs, Duncan gives Richie a new shirt to replace the one he had
sliced, and tells Richie about the image, and about how Garrick was trying
to help him.
Anne tries to find medical records on Duncan and can find nothing, and when
they meet later for lunch (with Duncan looking like hell), he's picking at
his food and being generally uncommunicative when she demands to know what
"this guy you're seeing" had to say. Duncan says it's nothing physical and
Anne asks how would he know since Duncan has never been to see a doctor.
Duncan gets defensive and angry, accusing her of going behind his back, and
getting up and walking out after making a scene in the restaurant.
Then we see Duncan perform a beautiful, intricate, flowing sword kata in the
dojo, but once again he is interrupted by the hooded figure, which he sees
in a mirror. "Go away," he tells it. "Go away!" and turns with his sword
drawn, but there is nothing there.
He goes back to Garrick, and he's clearly on a very ragged edge, asking him
how to fight shadows, how to beat something that doesn't exist. Garrick
tells him that fighting the illusion is the worst thing Duncan can do, that
it feeds off his fear. "But it's so damn real!" Duncan cries, angrily
throwing down a huge candle, spraying wax everywhere. "It just keeps
coming!"
"It's only real if you make it real," Garrick insists. "Don't try and fight
it." Garrick tells him he's on the edge of a cliff and if he makes the wrong
choice now, he'll "fall forever." [It does seem like the more Duncan
deteriorates, the stronger Garrick seems, which is something the director,
Wilkinson, said he wanted to show.]
Duncan leaves and we see Garrick continue working on carving his stone, his
unusual ring providing the segue to the end of the previous flashback scene,
where Duncan had helped Garrick escape from the witch-hunting crowd. Garrick
gets on a horse and he and Duncan head off in two different directions, but
the crowd surrounds him and pulls Garrick off his horse. They tie him to a
stake and burn him alive as he screams for MacLeod.
Back at Garrick's workshop, we see him screaming MacLeod's name as (back at
the loft) Duncan wakes once again from a nightmare. Garrick goes to the
statue of the hooded figure. "You left me," he says, "But I won't leave you.
Wherever you go, wherever you run," he leans in affectionately to the
statute, laughing in madness. "We'll be there, MacLeod."
The next morning Mac meets Anne to apologize for overreacting. She says he
should stop trying to pretend everything is okay when it is obvious it's
not, but he says he just needs some time to get over it. She wants to help,
but he says she can't. She gives him a bottle of sleeping pills but he says
he was never one for pills. "Or doctors?" she asks, and leaves. Duncan does
take the pills with him, however.
After talking to Joe about his worries about MacLeod, Richie goes back to
the loft and is trying to cheer Duncan up, but Duncan isn't having any of
it. He looks like death warmed over, and asks Richie if his biggest fear is
that Duncan will hurt himself or somebody else. "Ya know," Richie insists in
frustration, "sometimes you need to listen to somebody else, Mac. You can't
do everything alone."
Duncan tells Richie to go home, but Richie refuses. Duncan warns Richie that
if he ends up going after him again, Richie should "do whatever it takes to
survive!" That really sets Richie off, and he ends up yelling, "I can't kill
you, I can't!"
"Well, you better try, because you're not going to get a second chance."
"Oh, God! I can't deal with this anymore!" Richie says and slams out.
Duncan is barely stumbling around the loft, exhausted and totally strung
out, still seeing images of the hooded figure, when he gives in and finally
swallows the whole bottle of pills. [Wilkinson notes that immediately after
he cut the shot, "It was one for the gag reel. Poor Adrian was coughing and
gagging and spitting because the shot wasn't faked, he really put the whole
bottle of pills in his mouth at once.]
We see Richie return, walking through the darkened dojo. He feels another
Immortal, discovering the hooded figure. "No way!" he whispers.
They fight, and the hooded figure knocks Richie out, and starts to take his
head, but pauses. "I'll come for you later," he says.
We hear the sound of the elevator gate go up. Duncan is passed out on the
couch. He wakes up and picks up his sword, stumbling and wavering,
confronting the hooded figure. Then he throws his sword away. "I won't fight
you," he says. "No more. You're an illusion, a dream." He is eyeing the
figure, facing him down, when he recognizes Garrick's ring.
Garrick finally reveals himself, and goes after Duncan who can barely stay
on his feet. When Duncan asks why, he says it was because Duncan left him to
be burned alive. Duncan dodges around furniture, insisting he never knew
what had happened, that he thought Garrick had gotten away. Garrick says he
never forgot, that he had gotten better at projecting visions over the
centuries - and we see Duncan react to quick visions Garrick puts in his
mind.
[Wilkinson notes this sword fight was the most memorable for him. The actors
in the scene were wrapped up in the role, and on the first take when Garrick
thrust through some bookcases at Duncan, the sword went straight at Adrian's
head, Adrian went down, CD cases exploded everywhere and everyone thought
that Adrian had been stabbed in the face. "It was a horrible moment," he
says, but Adrian just jumped back up again and said he was okay, that there
was nothing to get excited about, and the shooting went on.]
But even drugged and subject to Garrick's visions, Duncan manages to defeat
him, and Garrick goes down with the same spin move that we see Duncan do in
the initial scene. The subsequent Quickening wreaks havoc on Duncan's
apartment, during which Duncan sees visions of the gargoyles Garrick created
and seems to experience some of Garrick's madness.
The next day, Duncan is almost back to his old self, and is talking to
Richie about what a waste Garrick's life had been, and as he is talking he
rearranges the swords in the office back into the "peace" position, with the
hilts pointing to the left - implying that he had been in a war, but the war
was over.
Anne comes to visit, and makes a little speech about she thought that when
she met "The Guy" they would share everything, really know each other. She
says she doesn't know him, and she doesn't think he want her to know him.
Then she gives him back the elevator key.
MY COMMENTS: I really like this episode for a lot of reasons. The visuals
are terrific, Garrick is played by an excellent actor (Garwin Sanford), and
the whole pacing of the episode, emotionally and visually (especially that
first balletic dream-fight sequence, the sword kata and the shadowy fights
in the dojo), is excellent. Garrick's studio is also a study in subtle,
layered visuals that add tremendously to the feel of Garrick's madness.
In general, the whole notion that Duncan is vulnerable to manipulation, that
he can doubt himself to the point where he stops functioning effectively at
all, is a wonderful exploration of a character and adds tremendous depth and
complexity. You just don't see that in episodic television, and the fact
that the writers, producers and actors were prepared to take that risk, to
go to dark places and have the hero acting very unheroic just makes me very
happy. <g> Also, having this episode immediately follow "Obsession" is an
interesting juxtaposition, where we are shown just how human Duncan really
is.
I also thought Stan Kirsch was very good in this episode, although the
secondary story was really relegated to back seat status. He had several
excellent scenes, alternating successfully between providing a little
much-needed comic relief, but also showing some real acting chops in the
tension and high emotion between he and Mac. The scene where Richie insists
that he couldn't kill Duncan, even when Duncan would want him to, is creepy
when you know what eventually happens between them.
MacGeorge
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End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 27 Mar 2004 to 29 Mar 2004 (#2004-59)
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