HIGHLA-L Digest - 15 Mar 2006 to 16 Mar 2006 (#2006-59)
HIGHLA-L automatic digest system (LISTSERV@lists.psu.edu)
Thu, 16 Mar 2006 22:00:02 -0500
There are 6 messages totalling 523 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Moving along - actual talk about Highlander
2. HLWW, Carmel and Cons...
3. spoilers
4. lurker looking for a story (2)
5. Season Six DVDs - Indiscretions
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Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 19:51:12 -0500
From: Wendy <Immortals_Incorporated@cox.net>
Subject: Re: Moving along - actual talk about Highlander
I said:
>> (If necessary, fights should be cut to make room for more nekkid
>> sweaty katas)
Rottie says:
>Also I do know
> what I *don't* want to see. I don't want to see any heads
> rolling across the floor and winking at me.
Oh ...yeah. Please! No winking heads :::: shudder :::: It was a terrible
FX and it was icky, too. I know "experts" have claimed that heads can
"survive" for a few seconds after a decapitation but I don't want to see
it.
And I don't want any levitation either. No mattter how well it's done,
it looks cheesy.
Wendy (Maybe the nekkid sweaty kata could slowly morph into nekkid
sweaty headboard rattling?)(Morphing is OK in this one case.)
Immortals Inc.
immortals_incorporated@cox.net
"Weasels for Eternity"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:25:03 -0500
From: kageorge <kageorge1@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: HLWW, Carmel and Cons...
MacWestie wrote:
> kageorge takes exception to my little public service lesson--
>
>> No one cares whether you 'implied' or 'inferred'
>
>
> Um--it wasn't me. It was Wendy. And, actually, she "stated." As she
> is wont to do. But John seemed to think going the implied/inferred
> route somehow made it ugly. And, of course, he picked the wrong
> word. So many people do, but that's no reason to accept it. Just
> like there's no reason to accept crappy Highlander TV movies, even if
> it IS fun to go to cons & squeal a lot & take tons of inexplicably bad
> photos of Adrian & the rest of the cast.
>
> But, back to you. And your "No one cares...." So, now that Carmel's
> gone (again) (supposedly) (I doubt it) (poor sport) (oh, well--she
> doesn't contribute any discussion here anyway), are YOU the one in
> charge & speaking for all?
Not by a long shot, but I have yet to see anyone express any, "You go,
girl!" support for the anti-everything put-downs, snarkfests, and
diatribes. Let's see... anyone out there care about 'implied' vs.
'inferred'? Let's hear a rousing cheer from the pro anti-everything crowd!!
MacG
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Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:36:22 -0800
From: FKMel <sgt_buck_frobisher@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: spoilers
I'm just the opposite, I insist on hunting down ever
spoiler tidbit I can get my hands(eyes?)on and love to
know what's coming in advance. I guess you'd say I'm a
spoiler slut lol.
Mel
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 06:54:06 -0500
From: Heidi <heidi@bronze.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: lurker looking for a story
From: Magneto <magneto@worldnet.att.net>
Though I'd have done that myself if I'd been more certain it was FK.
(that's just the only TV show I can think of that had to do with vampires,
aside from Dark Shadows and I *know* it wasn't *that* heh)
I can't even picture someone trying a HL-Dark Shadows crossover for the
original Dark Shadows that would work. But AP was in the flashback parts
of the remake series.. (some of which I happened to have just rewatched a
few weeks ago.)
=}{=
(heiid@bronze.lcs.mit.edu)
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Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 09:18:08 EST
From: Billie Lee Williams <McCelt2003@aol.com>
Subject: Re: lurker looking for a story
In a message dated 3/16/2006 3:58:38 AM Pacific Standard Time,
heidi@BRONZE.LCS.MIT.EDU writes:
<<I can't even picture someone trying a HL-Dark Shadows crossover for the
original Dark Shadows that would work. But AP was in the flashback parts of the
remake series.. (some of which I happened to have just rewatched a few weeks
ago.)>>
Yes!! I have all those eps--thanks to a lovely friend in Canada; they are
quite fun; I have watched them a number of times--even if it's terrible, and it
has AP, I will generally watch/collect (OK, so sue me). :-)
Persuaded my late grandmother to go to a "Timecon" (Jon Pertwee,
Colin-no-relation Baker, Mark Leonard, etc. <-- ::::::::swoon:::::: <g>) with me, as
Jonathan Frid (I just know I spelled some of those incorrectly) was going to be
there; the lovely man was so touched by how much she adored him, he sat and
talked with her for hours (Frid) afterwards, signed all sorts of things with her--I
thought I was going to have to scoop her up off the floor with a bucket and
sponge, LOL. (Kind of like when I got my picture taken with Tom Baker and he
"loved my hair," though I would DIE on the spot <ggggg>).
Nope, can't see an HL *original* DS crossover!! I used to watch it with
grandmum; she got me hooked on it when I was a kid, LOL!!
Someone from the FK List is helping me find the story, so way cool..........
Forever Yours,
Billie-Lee (who is removing her sig line, 'coz it really seems to mess up the
post even worse than AOL does!!)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:15:26 -0500
From: kageorge <kageorge1@verizon.net>
Subject: Season Six DVDs - Indiscretions
The html version (with screencaps) can be found at:
http://www.wordsmiths.net/MacGeorge/episodes/Season6/Indescretions.htm
(yes, I know I misspelled "Indiscretions", but by the time I saw it all
the links had been done and I'm too lazy to change them.)
COMMENTARY: Jim Byrnes says that because of the vagaries of the
shooting schedule, this was the last Highlander episode shot, and that
he and Adrian had already made their goodbyes. However, because Adrian
was gone things "got a little anarchic on the set."
Peter says there was a really surreal quality to the whole second half
of season six because the show was ending and Adrian had been gone for a
couple of weeks and "Jim and I were shooting what became a Road Movie."
Jim says Joe is a pretty devious character, and you learn a lot about
him in this episode. He also describes Joe's frustration at Methos, a
guy he knew in Paris and had gone drinking with and learns that he had
been lied to all that time, and that "he's this incredible individual",
but he still remembers him as being "my little drinking buddy," and that
they both knew how to push each others buttons, on screen and off.
Peter says it was a good, solid story, and there were some great lines
in it that were to play, and they got in some wonderful adlibs. He
reports that once they got a decent take done, they could experiment and
try things, and "you had the possibility of creating something
interesting that hadn't been intended."
He says he played it the same way as if what they were doing was a
backstory to one of Duncan's larger episodes, but it was a nice way to
end filming the series, even though he says he had never felt he had
played second fiddle to Duncan MacLeod.
Jim says there was a certainly chaotic quality to the show, with a stunt
that almost went really bad, with explosions going off when they weren't
supposed to, but that chaotic quality (as frustrating as it sometimes
was) gave the show an edge that it needed.
Peter says it felt like the show might serve as a very realistic
possible format for a continuance of the show, if that decision was ever
made. Joe and Methos had this whole separate life and relationship
going on that could be the backbone of a whole possibility of flashbacks
and other people and "still anchor it to that Highlander world."
Jim says that the pressure was off, that they all knew they'd be going
home in a week and there was a celebratory mood on the set and you could
see it in the fun and in the adlibs they were doing. It was
freewheeling and enjoyable and would "make the top five" in his pantheon
of Highlander episodes.
Peter says it was a lovely episode for a lot of reasons, but one of the
defining moments at the end of the episode was when Methos says the
line, "Just because I don't like to fight, doesn't mean that I can't!"
That was what Methos was about - "Don't underestimate me, don't take
what you see on the surface."
OUTTAKES: We see several takes of Joe's approach to Methos as Methos is
trying to leave, and Joe is trying to tell him that Amy is in danger and
she is watching Morgan Walker. Each one ends with them quipping and
laughing.
We see several takes as Methos drives around while Joe tells him about
how he got Amy's mother pregnant.
They show a clip of Joe walking away from the SUV, carrying a gas can,
while Methos laughs at him then catches up to him and takes the can
away. Jim breaks into singing, "It's a Long Way to Tiparary".
We see the scene where Joe admits to Methos that he was leading him into
a trap, and Methos tells him he knew all along, and that he'd dragged it
out because he's "easily amused."
We see Morgan menacing Amy (why, I don't know).
We see Morgan acquire his sword from a stagehand as he reaches behind
him to pull it mysteriously out of 'katana space.'
They show the filming of the swordfight. Frankly, it looks a little
awkward and slow. It looks like it was sped up and smoothed out in the
edit process.
The last shot was of the massive quickening, where Donna teases that
they used up all the remaining explosives they had. They only had one
chance to shoot it, so that even though Peter got hit in the face with
debris, he kept right on going.
THE PETER AND JIM SHOW (commentary by Peter and Jim): Watching Peter
and Jim interact as they observed and commented on the episode was quite
amusing. They clearly enjoy each other's company. Peter refers to the
girls in the opening prologue as "Dennis Berry's girlfriends", and they
both note that it was very, very cold. Evidently the actor who played
Walker's henchman was Dutch who worked hard with a dialogue coach to get
his words right, but as in so many cases with non-native-English
speakers, what we hear is not his real voice. As Jim and Peter watch
the title sequence they joke how it was all about Adrian, then laud
themselves when they appear, and Jim sings, "The princess of the universe!"
Peter quips that Dennis liked to spend huge amounts of time on
mood-setting shots of fog and lights, but then wanted to do four pages
of dialogue in only one shot, preferably with a stationary camera. He
also reported that one of the crewman came up to him the day they
prepared to work on the flashback scene and asked if he had met the
woman they had cast as the slave. When he said he hadn't, the guy
responded (in a heavy French accent), "I t'ink you are going to be
verry, 'appy."
Peter also says that David A. asked him what he would like to see
written as a scene for Methos and Peter responded with something about
"hot chicks and lots of sex", and then this scene showed up. Peter says
he was not disappointed. He also joked that he spent months in the gym
when he learned he was going to do that scene.
He says that one of the nice things about the Joe-and-Methos
relationship is that "it had an edge, it could take a bit of
bitchiness." He says they're like an old married couple nagging at each
other.
Jim tended to talk about the locations a lot.
Peter notes that whenever an Englishman plays a bad guy, they tend to
use a Northern English accent, for some reason.
Jim says they had fun the day they had the shootout scene by the car,
that they were near some university somewhere, it was a nice day and he
fired about sixty rounds from his pistol. As they speed away from the
bad guys, Peter murmurs that there was something he really needed to do
before...
And then Methos and Jim are driving out in the country, and they run of
out gas. "Gas! That's what I forgot!" Peter says, and he also notes a
change in the background music, and that from here on out, the episode
takes on a different flavor and is less of a Highlander episode and more
of a road show.
The whole bit where Joe ends up sticking out his thumb to catch a ride
is adlibbed.
At one point Peter refers to F. Braun McAsh as, "a scary fellow in many
ways."
Both Peter and Jim were grinning as they watch the warehouse scene, and
talked about how it was so much fun, like being little kids playing good
guys and a bad guys, but with guns that really went off. Peter
commented that he liked the fact that whenever Methos killed someone,
there was "that slight sense that he enjoyed it." In this scenario, he
had to look after Joe, so Methos took on the persona of an action hero.
Peter says that's what Methos did throughout his life, taking on
different personas to fit the situation.
The scene where Joe tells Methos about falling for Amy's mother and
impregnating her is shown, and Peter says he and Jim were just driving
around in random places with a camera strapped on the car and a director
in the back seat to film four to six pages of absolutely critical
dialogue. Peter says he's driving a left-hand drive car, which he isn't
licensed to drive, and is used to driving in England, where the cars are
right-handed, and Jim is carrying what appears to be a real gun in his
lap. If they had been pulled over, they would have been in real trouble.
The final shot of the Highlander TV series was the quickening. Peter
says it was very scary because it was a long way up, there wasn't much
to stand on, and some burning fragment came down and hit him on the
cheek during the explosions.
THE EPISODE: There are two plots to this episode. The "A" plot is that
Methos is trying to avoid a battle with an old enemy, Morgan Walker,
whom he first met back in the 1800's in New Orleans, when he was a
doctor who treated slaves. He ends up in bed with the lovely Charlotte,
Walker's favorite bedslave, senses Walker's unexpected return and makes
a quick exit. Walker takes out his rage at being cuckolded on
Charlotte, beating her and eventually throwing her out the window to her
death. A still-enraged Walker finds Methos trying to leave town and
accuses him of being responsible for Charlotte's death and challenges
him. Methos declines and disappears into the night.
In the present day, the two Immortals encounter one another and Walker
again challenges Methos, calling him a coward when once again Methos
refuses the challenge. Methos then tries to hack into Joe's computer to
find out more about Walker, but Joe catches him, creating a rather ugly
scene:
Joe is angry that Methos is trying to access the Chronicles, and gets
even more pissed at Methos' explanation of why he and Walker had gotten
crossways. "Just because you couldn't keep it in your pants 200 years
ago, you expect me to turn over the Chronicles?!"
"You'd do it for MacLeod!"
"Well, you see I know MacLeod. Who he is and what he is. As far as
you're concerned..." He tells Methos it's not his job to make his life
easier, but then Methos nastily retorts that it might compromise Joe's
"precious ethics" - "providing, of course, that it's possible to do that
with a /hypocrite/." Joe coldly tells him to get out.
The "B" plot, running simultaneously with Methos' attempt to evade
Walker, is that we discover that Walker's Watcher is the lovely,
elfin-faced Amy Thomas, a new Watcher whom Joe had helped get an early
field assignment because, in fact, she is his biological daughter. She
had known Joe most of her life as a friend to her parents, but only
recently discovered that Joe was her real father as a result of a brief
affair with her mother.
Now the two plots intersect, because Walker, who is purportedly a big
time modeling agent, is kidnapping and selling his models as sex slaves
once they get a little older and less photogenic. Amy figures out what
a bad guy he is, tells Joe, but then Walker catches her and finds her
tapes and chronicles.
Joe recruits a reluctant and bad-tempered Methos to help him find Amy
and the two of them end up on the road trading verbal barbs, with Walker
and his henchmen after them. Walker figures out that it is Methos who
has paired up with Joe, and calls Joe while Methos is efficiently and
rather brutally dealing with the henchmen. Walker demands that Joe
betray Methos to him by shooting him so Walker can take his head, in
exchange for Amy.
Are you still with me, here?
Joe and Methos drive back to Paris and Joe confesses what happened with
Amy's mother, and the two guys appear to be friends again, even if they
do snipe at each other a lot, with Methos getting most of the good,
snarky lines, noting that he thinks they are really bonding. Joe leads
Methos towards the trap, but can't do it and confesses it's a setup.
"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Methos says, his hand rubbing
soothingly on Joe's shoulder.
"You knew?"
"Of course I knew"
"Well, how did you know?"
Methos goes into all the reasons why, then says, "And whenever you lie,
you do this weird thing with your face."
"What?!"
Methos demonstrates.
"Okay, well that's the last time I play poker with you. Why did you
drag this out?"
"I'm easily amused."
"Bonding, my ass."
So, Walker and Methos face off and Joe takes Amy away. They fight, and
just before his final stroke, Methos declares the obvious: "Just
because I don't like to fight, doesn't mean that I can't!"
Joe and Amy have a difficult reconciliation back at Le Blues Bar, but it
seems like there's room for a future relationship. She leaves and
Methos sits at the table, pouring them each a drink.
"She'll be back," Methos says.
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm very old and wise."
And they share a drink, "To someday."
MY COMMENTS: Highlander is at its best when it is about the people and
their relationships - not really about /what/ happened, but about how
the events affect characters we care about. This is a terrific episode
because it peels back the layers of Joe and of Methos and we see them
really *see* each other, perhaps for the first time. The plot itself
was of only passing importance or interest. Oh, it was good to get a
little more of Joe's personal history, and Jim Byrnes has such a
wonderful, expressive face, he is always a pleasure to watch (although
whoever does his hair in France always seems to have him looking like he
has an overgrown, badly done buzz cut. Yech).
We once again see Methos as a doctor (Byron called him "Doc"), and in
treating slaves he demonstrated an altruism that was contrary to his
off-stated position that he only looked out for himself, but then he
turns right around and abandons the woman to whom he had just made love
to face her master's ire alone. It can't have been a big surprise that
Walker took one look at Charlotte in her nightdress, the rumpled bed,
etc., and drew the correct and obvious conclusion that the Immortal he
had just felt had been diddling his woman. So again, we have a
contradiction. Altruistic Methos vs. Only-Out-for-Me Methos.
But the really fun part of the episode is the Joe and Methos Road Show,
the quips, the sideways looks, the rolled eyes, the sarcasm and the
grudging friendship. We do see a good bit of Methos-the-Manipulator in
evidence here. He knew Joe was in emotional agony when he was forced to
(potentially) give up Methos' life for Amy's, yet he let the farce
continue. Was it truly because he was "easily amused"? Or was it
because he knew Joe wouldn't be able to go through with it, and would
never forgive himself unless he was allowed to come to that conclusion
for himself? In my opinion, it was a bit of both.
The plot was so-so; the bad guy was properly oily, but not particularly
interesting; Amy was a little elfin-like to be Joe's daughter, but
showed some Joe-like spunk when she defied Walker even under duress;
Charlotte was really lovely and the sex scene was fun to watch, but I
was annoyed by her fake southern accent and you could see that Peter was
wearing boxers under those bedcovers (Peter was embarrassed by the fact
that his "Calvin Kleins" showed); Methos took out the bad guys quite
handily and easily (Tricky!Methos), and the 5,000 year-old-man hardly
took any time at all to take the bad guy's head.
And Peter was right. The line, "Just because I don't like to fight
doesn't mean I caaahn't!" was very cool.
This was a top-notch episode almost exclusively on the basis of the
Methos and Joe dynamic. Yes, there was some good writing, but a lot of
what makes this episode superior sprang from the very real relationship
between the actors and their consummate skill at portraying characters
they really enjoyed playing.
Highlander is at its best when it is about the people and their
relationships - not really about /what/ happened, but about how the
events affect characters we care about. This is a terrific episode
because it peels back the layers of Joe and of Methos and we see them
really *see* each other, perhaps for the first time. The plot itself
was of only passing importance or interest. Oh, it was good to get a
little more of Joe's personal history, and Jim Byrnes has such a
wonderful, expressive face, he is always a pleasure to watch (although
whoever does his hair in France always seems to have him looking like he
has an overgrown, badly done buzz cut. Yech).
We once again see Methos as a doctor (Byron called him "Doc"), and in
treating slaves he demonstrated an altruism that was contrary to his
off-stated position that he only looked out for himself, but then he
turns right around and abandons the woman to whom he had just made love
to face her master's ire alone. It can't have been a big surprise that
Walker took one look at Charlotte in her nightdress, the rumpled bed,
etc., and drew the correct and obvious conclusion that the Immortal he
had just felt had been diddling his woman. So again, we have a
contradiction. Altruistic Methos vs. Only-Out-for-Me Methos.
But the really fun part of the episode is the Joe and Methos Road Show,
the quips, the sideways looks, the rolled eyes, the sarcasm and the
grudging friendship. We do see a good bit of Methos-the-Manipulator in
evidence here. He knew Joe was in emotional agony when he was forced to
(potentially) give up Methos' life for Amy's, yet he let the farce
continue. Was it truly because he was "easily amused"? Or was it
because he knew Joe wouldn't be able to go through with it, and would
never forgive himself unless he was allowed to come to that conclusion
for himself? In my opinion, it was a bit of both.
The plot was so-so; the bad guy was properly oily, but not particularly
interesting; Amy was a little elfin-like to be Joe's daughter, but
showed some Joe-like spunk when she defied Walker even under duress;
Charlotte was really lovely and the sex scene was fun to watch, but I
was annoyed by her fake southern accent and you could see that Peter was
wearing boxers under those bedcovers (Peter was embarrassed by the fact
that his "Calvin Kleins" showed); Methos took out the bad guys quite
handily and easily (Tricky!Methos), and the 5,000 year-old-man hardly
took any time at all to take the bad guy's head.
And Peter was right. The line, "Just because I don't like to fight
doesn't mean I caaahn't!" was very cool.
This was a top-notch episode almost exclusively on the basis of the
Methos and Joe dynamic. Yes, there was some good writing, but a lot of
what makes this episode superior sprang from the very real relationship
between the actors and their consummate skill at portraying characters
they really enjoyed playing.
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End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 15 Mar 2006 to 16 Mar 2006 (#2006-59)
**************************************************************