Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Highlander: Season Two Blu-ray Movie Review

Heeeeere we are! Born to be kings, we're the princes of the universe...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown August 22, 2010

If I sit down in fifteen years and watch Lost, Battlestar Galactica, The Wire, Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Shield or any other modern TV classic, will they still resonate? Still move me? Still make me laugh, cringe or cry? Or, like so many of the series I fell in love with in the '80s and '90s, will they suddenly leave me cold? Even if my affection remains, will it be deserved? Or will it simply be a natural reaction to an old favorite? A trip through time fueled by nostalgia and a surge of warm fuzzies? Will my children hold any of these series in high esteem? Or will they see them as dated relics of a bygone era, and cast them aside accordingly? These are the questions I find myself asking anytime I revisit a once beloved television show; the same questions I found myself asking as I plowed through Highlander's second season. When it first aired, I didn't skip a single episode. If my parents were dragging me out for the evening, I fired up the VCR, dug out a blank tape, and carefully programmed the Machine of Tomorrow, Today! to record whatever I was about to miss. But that was 1993. I was a sophomore in high school and had yet to develop my palette. This is 2010, and Highlander is more '90s Guilty Pleasure than Must See TV.

"That's right. I said it. I'm probably going to stick with my DVD set."

He is immortal. Born in the Highlands of Scotland four hundred years ago, he is not alone. He cannot die, unless you take his head and, with it, his power. He is Duncan MacLeod: the Highlander.

He, of course, is also series star Adrian Paul, the charismatic dancer and choreographer who took up Duncan's Hideo Koto katana after actor Christopher Lambert, who played clansman Connor in the franchise films, declined a leading role. (Not his best decision.) In Season One, Paul struggled to emerge from Lambert's shadow, overreaching and overplaying his hand, but in Season Two, he settles down, finds his groove and delivers a MacLeod more worthy of the series' smartly conceived, century-spanning storylines. (Credit where credit's due. Highlander employed episodic flashbacks more than a decade before Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse managed to "break new ground and forge new paths," as one notable publication put it, with Lost's critically acclaimed first season.) The introduction of several intriguing elements -- chief among them the Watchers, a secret society tasked with keeping tabs on the Immortals, and the Hunters, a rival faction determined to prevent the Gathering by any means necessary -- certainly helps, and allows both the cast and showrunners to further distinguish the series from its silver screen brethren. Jim Byrnes, playing MacLeod's Watcher Joe Dawson, and Peter Hudson, as Hunter James Horton, are particularly appreciated, and lend the mythos welcome momentum and punchy gravitas.

Even so, other changes and developments serve as a reminder that Season Two isn't quite up to snuff. Stan Kirsch is as precocious and temperamental as ever as wise-cracking street hustler and fledgling Immortal Ritchie Ryan, but first-season regular Alexandra Vandernoot makes a hasty exit in search of greener pastures. While her departure propels MacLeod in a slightly darker direction, it turns out to be little more than a distraction, and not nearly as meaningful as his individual conflicts with Dawson, Horton's Hunters, and every other sneering sociopath-of-the-week who comes looking for trouble. Likewise, the battles are bigger, badder and more violent, but often stumble into the realm of the absurd. (Well, more absurd than a weekly parade of Immortals vying for each other's heads.) Sword fights range from stilted to clumsy to mildly precise, heavily depending on the experience of the actors involved; shootouts reek of pantomimed '90s TV action; and quickening sequences are drawn out and excessive, capping every out-of-frame beheading with a rock-opera orgasm, complete with screeching guitars, bewildered expressions and psychosexual explosions. The writers also rarely deviate from the series' formula. MacLeod encounters a predicament that inevitably traces back to an immortal, expositional flights of fancy ensue (courtesy of the aforementioned flashbacks) and, after forty melodramatic minutes, heads roll, lightning strikes, and a quiet moment of reflection announces the arrival of the credits.

It isn't bad per se -- if nothing else, Season Two effectively panders to its fanbase -- but it isn't gripping either. For better or worse, future seasons toy with the conventions of the franchise even further, turn the tide against MacLeod, drift well beyond the established parameters of the first two films, and really test our heroes' mettle. But the second season? It generally plants seeds the series' third and fourth seasons cultivate and harvest. Even then, I wonder how unforgiving I would be if I didn't have seventeen years of nostalgia roaring through my veins. Would I be able to overlook the stilted supporting performances? The more ham-fisted baddies? The cheesy special effects, the sometimes low-rent sets and on-the-cheap locations? Would the less-thrilling sword fights slap a smile on my face or leave me shaking my head? If Season Two's standalone episodes were separated from those that directly affected the mythology of the series, would I still enjoy the bulk of its twenty-two episodes? If I didn't have such affection for the franchise, would I even care? Sadly, I know the answer to each question, regardless of whether I feel like admitting it. Highlander is a solid '90s sci-fi action series, but divorced from the era and its cult-favorite franchise, it doesn't have much to offer the casual newcomer.

Highlander: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Blu-ray edition of Highlander: Season Two doesn't look quite as bad as its Season One predecessor. "Quite" being the operative word. Hobbling out of the Davis-Panzer production house with a bruised and battered 720p/AVC-encoded presentation, the series' second season is still plagued by innumerable issues. Artifacting, banding, macroblocking, ringing, aliasing and additional compression anomalies are prevalent, while other oddities -- pulldown interference, color bleeding, mosquito noise, and black bar distortions -- distract on a regular basis as well. More distressing is the fact that severe smearing takes a heavy toll on detail, delineation is murky and poorly resolved, and fine textures are an absolute rarity; all of which is, to a large degree, a direct consequence of the "breakthrough proprietary video enhancement and cleaning algorithm" touted in the set's press release and case notes. The team at Davis-Panzer may have wiped away grain and noise, but they also wiped away everything else along with it. Even so, some small strides have been made. Skintones, previously flushed and inconsistent, are a wee bit more lifelike; black levels, once a problem, are a tad more satisfying; colors, once garish and unsightly, are somewhat more natural; and edge definition, once an eyesore, is slightly sharper. It was difficult to tell the difference between the Blu-ray and DVD editions of Season One; Season Two at least outclasses its DVD counterpart, even if only by a slight margin.

Highlander: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Season Two's only remarkable upgrade comes in the form of a rowdy, ground-pounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. For the most part, dialogue is clear and intelligible, LFE output is powerful and persistent, and rear speaker activity, though a product of copious remixing, is fairly aggressive, especially considering the fact that it's attached to a seventeen-year-old television show. Swords clash with ear-piercing strikes, sparks scatter in the midst of thundering explosions, and Quickenings leave MacLeod's surroundings in sonic tatters. Alas, for every point of praise, there is a caveat. Low-end support is strong but cumbersome, stomping around the battlefield without much precision or finesse. Voices are subject to environmental noise, air hiss, muddled recordings, and other seemingly random mishaps. Pans are smooth on occasion, but stocky on the whole; directionality conveys a sense of space, but isn't entirely convincing; separation is passable, but underwhelming; and normalization is functional, but prone to minor inconsistencies.

Highlander: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The 5-disc Blu-ray edition of Highlander: Season Two continues its march to mediocrity with three hit-or-miss hours of special features. Surprisingly, some of the fan-created content is quite good, and handily bests Adrian Paul's video commentaries. Perhaps Davis-Panzer should give the Highlander community more opportunities to commandeer future series releases.

• Adrian Paul Video Commentaries: Series star Adrian Paul sits through two second season episodes -- "Revenge of the Sword" and "The Return of Amanda" -- but tends to quietly stare at his video monitor, offering little more than a small selection of anecdotes and production details. Still, he strikes me as a likable, well-intentioned fellow who genuinely appreciates the affection he's been shown by the series' fanbase. I have a feeling most diehards will be disappointed that Paul doesn't have more to say, but then again, his mere presence may carry more weight than I could possibly understand.
• Fan-Created Video Commentary: Highlander aficionado Marcus Moreno, on the other hand, rarely takes a breath while discussing "The Darkness," delivering a steady stream of production details, a meticulous dissection of the performances, extensive comparisons between the original script and the final episode, a thorough analysis of the themes and characters (as well as how they relate to the series as a whole), and an overview of the photography, costumes, choreography, special effects and more. It's all quite academic, but Moreno wears his stripes with pride and grants fans the sort of shot-by-shot commentary they deserve. His only mistake? Consciously avoiding spoilers. Does anyone sit through a commentary before watching the episode or film it accompanies?
• Season of Change (HD, 66 minutes): Showrunner David Abramowitz, actor Adrian Paul, director Dennis Berry, executive producer Bill Panzer, and other key members of the cast and crew reflect on the series in this lengthy, thoughtful, refreshingly restrained documentary. Easily the best feature in the set.
• Fans Talk About Highlander (HD, 15 minutes): Exactly what it purports to be. The only surprise is that only lasts fifteen minutes. As far as I'm concerned, every one of the passionate fans who appear in this featurette should have been asked to record a commentary track for Season Two's Blu-ray release.
• Fan-Created Watcher Documentaries (HD, 21 minutes): Four home-brewed Watcher mini-docs. You gotta love the commitment of Highlander's fanbase.
• All Over You (HD, 4 minutes): A brief photo montage paired with an on-location musical performance by Jim Byrnes.
• Optional Place Holders: Loathe black bars? Fill them with your choice of two static graphics with the flick of a button.



Highlander: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 




Unless you live, breathe and bleed Highlander, there's little reason to pick up the Blu-ray edition of Season Two. Its video transfer, while a bit better than its DVD counterpart and the Blu-ray release of Season One, is nevertheless a soft, waxy, problematic mess; its rowdy DTS-HD Master Audio track, though vastly superior to any other Highlander series audio offering, lacks finesse; and its supplemental package, despite delivering a solid fan-created video commentary and an extensive production documentary, is altogether underwhelming. Stick with your DVD set and spend your high definition dollar on a release that takes full advantage of the format.