Highlander: The Series Season 1

A DVD Review

The award winning television series based on the movie of the same name in which an immortal hero from the Highlands of Scotland must fight immortal baddies to the death with swords. To the death you say? Why yes, to the death, because even though the characters are immortal, if their heads come away from their bodies, it’s over. So through the centuries these immortals have fought one another to survive, struggling to reach the time of The Gathering when the few who remain will battle for the Prize of ultimate knowledge and power.
Like most first seasons Highlander gets off to a shaky start. The first few shows must be used to both introduce the concept, as well as the characters. In the first episode, “The Gathering” The audience is introduced to Duncan Macleod of the clan Macleod played by Adrian Paul, younger (by 50 years) kinsman of film Highlander Connor Macleod played by Christopher Lambert. In an almost unheard of move, the powers that be managed to get Lambert to appear in the first episode as a sort of passing of the torch, or sword as the case may be, from one immortal to the next which in my opinion gives this series more credibility that many other TV shows based on movies have. We are also introduced to Tessa Noel, Duncan’s love for the past 12 years played wonderfully by Belgian actress Alexandra Vandernoot, and a street punk named Richie Ryan, played by Stan Kirsch, who will turn out to be much more than he appears later on in the series.
One of the problems the powers that be had with the show for the first half of the season at least was figuring out how to do a weekly action/adventure program based on a character that has to fight to the death to survive. Originally they decided that Duncan would not only fight the immortal baddie of the week, but also get himself involved in mortal affairs, solving crimes and meting out appropriate justice. A noble concept, but one the writers and producers ultimately could not make work, as one will see in viewing the series; the “immortal of the week” episodes were for the most part stronger, writing wise and visually. The show was a Canada/France co-production so about half way through the first season, the show moved to Paris to shoot, and it is at this point that the series really takes off. The viewer is introduced to Darius, the immortal warrior turned Catholic priest and long time friend to Duncan, played by the late Werner Stocker, immortal baddie Xavier St. Cloud (Fine Young Cannibal lead singer Roland Gift), and the incorrigible Hugh Fitzcairn, played by the Who’s Roger Daultry.
The stories are told, for the most part, in the modern day with the occasional flashback to a point in Duncan’s past in which he found himself in a similar situation, or when he’d had a run in with the immortal of the week, or an old friend. The first season, for it’s occasional faults, does still manage to convey the happiness, and the heartache that Duncan has gone through in his four hundred years, giving the viewer a sense of the “magical” world of the immortals, as well as a peak into how the series would progress over it’s next five seasons.
The DVD set includes eight discs featuring all 22 episodes of the first season from "The Gathering" to "The Hunters." It also includes a ninth disc which is a CD-ROM containing all the first season scripts. Extras include pre episode intros by Bill Panzer, the original series promo "Making of" featurette, Watcher Chronicles of all the mortals and immortals from season one, and a hilarious ten minute blooper reel. The sound is remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1 (like EVERYTHING that's on DVD SHOULD BE these days, but alas, isn't) and sounds better than it ever has before, both on TV and on the VHS season releases, and is presented in 1.33:1 aspect ratio in which it was shot.

All in all, the first season gets three stars out of five.