sholio | Highlander - up to 2x20 (Pharoah's Daughter)

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Highlander - up to 2x20 (Pharoah's Daughter)

I'm, um, tearing through the series at an alarming rate. (It makes great background accompaniment for some of my other tasks. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. *g*)

The scene with Dawson and Duncan at the end of the (otherwise quite silly) vampire episode, where Dawson asks him out for a drink? OH BOYS. SO CUTE. :D :D :D Possibly my favorite scene with them to date.

and hahahaha I love little medieval!Amanda and the dramatic change in her over the centuries.

"But first ... a bath."
"You mean with WATER?"

Actually I get a major kick out of barbarian!Duncan as well. Apropos of the earlier Scotland flashbacks, I'm pretty sure that circa 1600, the Highlands of Scotland were more like lots of small villages of farmers than lots of barbarians wearing furs. Duncan's past looks a lot more like Scotland in, say, 700 A.D. or something. But young!Duncan is so very innocent and cute.

I found the midpart of this season rather slow going, but starting towards the end of the last batch of episodes, I got hooked again. I don't know if the season picks up and gets better towards the end, or if I just needed some time to adjust to Duncan's new post-Tessa circumstances, but it's grabbed me hard again. Awwwwww, Richie's back, and he and Duncan have patched things up most adorably -- or, perhaps, worked their way to a more adult and equal relationship than they used to have. Anyway, drinking on the bridge -- awww!

The quickenings are getting hilariously pyrotechnic. CHEEEEESE! Also, the Egypt episode ... as much as I love the idea of a "time capsule" Immortal, my disbelief was not only suspended but hung by the neck until dead. I can accept the characters in various historical periods (or France, today) speaking "English" because I presume that the viewpoint character -- Duncan -- is understanding and answering them in their own language, as are other characters around them: it's a narrative convention for convenience's sake, but one that doesn't stretch credibility too much. But clearly there's no way that Duncan or other characters are understanding and speaking whatever she's speaking -- Ancient Egyptian, Latin, Greek, whatever was spoken in the Egypt of Cleopatra's era. Heee, as a history buff, this show makes me want to write fanfic just to fix the historical stuff! (I just about broke my brain trying to figure out where Rebecca and Amanda were supposed to be from.)

Beyond that, the Egypt episode really made me wonder about the role of food and water for Immortals. We've seen them eat and drink like anyone else, but logically they'd have to be able to survive starvation or they wouldn't be, well, immortal. So how does starvation affect them? Do they suffer hunger pains? Lose weight? When they eat, do they metabolize food normally?

These are probably the sort of questions that we're not supposed to wonder about.

Speaking of things we're probably not supposed to wonder about, her people must have mummified her, right? So did she have to regrow not just all her organs but her BRAIN? Was she aware of any of that happening? Ew.

On the other hand, just relaxing and going with the flow and trying very hard not to think much, it was a rather fun episode.

"Where are the horses?"
"They're under there. *points to hood; she looks skeptical* They're real tiny."

Anyway, all we have left is the season finale, and then it's onwards to season 3!

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Also, the Egypt episode ... as much as I love the idea of a "time capsule" Immortal, my disbelief was not only suspended but hung by the neck until dead.

ROFL! Yeah, that wasn't such a great episode. *laughs helplessly*

Ahh, Richie and Duncan's reunion. Loved that episode. :)

Yeah, that wasn't such a great episode. *laughs helplessly*

Yeahhhh ... it was frustrating because the basic idea, at least, was one that I really liked. And the execution was just ... you had to either laugh or fast-forward to the next episode, because really, DUDE.

But the Richie and Duncan episode was pure EEEEEEE! Their separation and estrangement hurt, and I really like how they seem to be working their way around to a friendship of equals rather than the mentor-protector and student thing that they had before.

Ahahahah I remember the Cleopatra episode! (Okay, I can't remember if she actually was Cleopatra, I just remember having the HOW DOES SHE KNOW ENGLISH?? debate)(I think we decided she must have picked it up by osmosis, hearing it in the distance over the centuries. Riiiiight...)

The question of starvation is addressed at least in passing (maybe more specifically; at any rate there's a particular description of an Immortal crossing a desert and it's said they "must have died a dozen times from heat and thirst" before they made it out. So apparently they can die, but then the great cosmic reset button restores them?)

--I always was curious about Immortal resurrection myself; its timing is very like the Stargate closing, in that it apparently just happens when the plot demands, anywhere from almost instantaneous to minutes later...!

DDDD: Oh dear, that's ... far worse than I had imagined, actually! But it fits much better with their particular style of immortality; it makes sense in terms of everything else we've seen that they do, in fact, die of starvation or thirst, and then come back. But OH GOD. Trying to imagine doing that over and over in a survival situation, let alone for centuries ... it makes me think of the last episode of series 2 of Torchwood (... you've seen Torchwood, right?) and the rather horrifying thousands-of-deaths fate in that one ...

And LOL, yeah, about the inconsistency of the timing ... though in the case of Immortals, at least, it could be that it depends on how much damage they took? I assume that they stay dead until their heart, lungs, etc. are healed enough to be working again, so it would depend on what had happened to them and how bad it was.

Yup, I've seen TW, and I actually was thinking of HL when I saw that bit (the infinite-deaths scenario is always pretty horrific - it's in some vampire stuff too, I believe...) Though with HL - actually with most of them - I'm always trying to figure out what state they return to life in - are they fully healthy and they have to starve again? Or do they come back still affected? That'd get...frustrating...! *come back to life, get up, take a step, die, come back to life, crawl another foot, die*...

I swear in HL there's times where grievously injured Immies come back fast and other times where not-so-hurt ones take a while...our going theory was that there was sort of a general resurgence - the cosmic reset switch! - every 10 minutes or so, and you came back then regardless of how injured you were. Since there's several times when Immies killed at different times revive at the same time...(though not always)(yeah, we had all sorts of crazy HL theories - some from the general fandom and some from my circle of friends. It's a great show for trying to bullshit everything into making sense - at least if you like a challenge! XP)

That'd get...frustrating...! *come back to life, get up, take a step, die, come back to life, crawl another foot, die*...

BWAHA. But once you got to that point, how would you ever break the cycle? You'd be doing that until someone invented hospitals!

Cosmic reset switch! hahahaha OH DEAR, SHOW. Why do we fan on stuff that makes us come up with explanations like that just to force things into some kind of sanity-making sense? Why do we LIKE it so much? XD

Edit: Although, like you said, Highlander does strike me as a show that really lends itself to that sort of thing, because it kind of, almost, makes sense! Unless you think about it too much! But if you think about it a little more, there seems to be some kind of underlying logic IF YOU CAN JUST FIGURE IT OUT. It's the stuff of which crazymaking fanwank is born. XD

Edited 2011-03-18 18:41 (UTC)

it could be that it depends on how much damage they took?

Or how strong their Quickening is to start with, or a combination of the two...

(Uh, hi -

trobadora mentioned you were going through HL for the first time and since it was my first fandom I couldn't resist dropping by.)

Hello! Welcome! :) I just finished season 2 and I'm looking forward to starting season 3 soon. (I should warn you that I'm kind of a big spoilerphobe, so I've been asking people not to talk about future seasons 'til I get there, but at the rate I'm going, it shouldn't take long!)

Also ... your icon! Hee!

*grins* The icon is one of the very few I ever made - I just loved that outfit on Duncan so much.

And don't worry about spoilers from me - I saw the series in possibly the most nonsensical order possible as the TV station that carried it where I live tended to show it at 3am, randomly stop and start showing it with no warning so I missed great swathes from not checking the 3am schedules every day and jump between series again pretty much at random! So I shall say nothing at all since I only know the chronological order of events through fanfic anyway... (I think I did manage to see most of S2 in order but I wouldn't swear to it.)

*snicker* I'm not sure if I should be more amused by the fact that you can just rattle off that quote or that I can immediately identify it and keep going for a while afterward...how many times HAVE we watched those eps? ^_-

Personally, I think I always got the impression that they come back fully healed, etc...though there may be things that contradict that? It's been a while now....

'ware spoilers, plz! You can always rot13.com if you have to say something I can't read yet (since LJ doesn't allow spoiler-span text anymore). XD

They don't come back fully healed, though, at least from being shot. Or, er ... I guess it's not consistent is it? I can think of a couple of times that they've seemed to just pop back to life unharmed, but more often there is at least a bit of staggering around before they're back up to full fighting strength.

LJ won't even allow spoiler cuts now? Bleh, oh LJ ;-p

And apologies, wasn't trying to spoil, I know you want to remain unspoiled and I respect that (and really am impressed with how successful you've been considering how old a fandomn HL is! ^__^)

More I was laughing about me and Neechan's fanning practices in general, that we've watched a LOT of series so many times that there are large chunks we can quote at will! Oh fandom, the amount of random (and mostly useless, if fun) knowlege I retain for your sake! ^_-

Yeeeah, I was having trouble remembering, but I was pretty sure it was inconsistent more than anything else...again, oh show ^__^ But as neechan said, trying to twist it around so you CAN explain it is in itself one of the great joys of the series ^_-

The problem with you two is that I know what you like, and I know who your favorite character was, so now I have (possibly erroneous) contextual clues for the part that

xparrot was quoting. XD (But in general, I really do appreciate how you guys are bending over backwards to keep me unspoiled. It is MOST impressive!

xparrot in particular seems to have gotten impressively good at discussing things with me that she's already seen without giving stuff away!)

I always thought they did come back fully healed, and the staggering is due to the system taking a moment to realise it's no longer injured. If that makes sense.

(I have icons now! Only I can't use them here because of spoilers. Hurry up! ;))

Hmmm ... maybe? I had assumed that they "reactivate" when they're healed enough for their heart and lungs and stuff to start up again, but they behave as if they're still in pain, having trouble breathing, etc. Er, well, some of the time they do. Also, since I'm not really that far into the show yet, it's possible that the show writers got increasingly impatient with the staggering and started having them just pop back up again for simplicity's sake. Kind of like how the first few Wraith were really hard to kill, but it got to the point where one shot would drop them ...

And I'm looking forward to getting far enough along to see your spoilery icons! :D

Heh, yeah, I suppose the Wraith are a good comparison in some ways. I don't remember the early seasons of Highlander very well, but it makes sense to me.

I've got myself a spoiler-free icon now *points*, but I think you're about half a season away from the first of the spoilery ones.

I found the midpart of this season rather slow going

I know you're streaming this, but you should really get your hands on the DVDs. They have the most fantastic extras ever. Every episode has a little behind the scenes discussion featurette, and many have either bloopers, deleted scenes, or alternate takes. One of the producers was clearly a fangirl and hoarded all this stuff.

And what's so great about the interviews is that they'll totally say things like, yeah, this is what we were going for and it seemed like a great idea on the page, but it didn't actually work at all. Or they'll tell you about the screaming fights they had about the props. Or the time the cameraman lost an entire canister of film and they couldn't reshoot. It's eeeexcellent.

Ohhhh, now I REALLY want them. That sounds completely awesome! I will definitely be picking them up when I can afford it! :D

Someone already told me this show has a great gag reel. I just can't watch any of that stuff yet because of spoilers! But I guess if I bought the DVDs then I could watch the extras for the earlier seasons without having to worry about spoiling later stuff ... HMMMMM. :D

The extras (including the bloopers) go along with each episode, so there's no real worry about spoilers.

(I'd like to take a moment to say a special FU to the DS9 DVDs who put spoilers for the last season on their first season DVDs. At least some series are picking up the habit of putting spoiler warnings on featurettes if they mention events after the disc they are on. I'm watching Numb3rs for the first time at the moment and was grateful for that.)

My sister told me that the Babylon 5 DVDs did the same thing! Luckily she was rewatching it, not seeing it for the first time (she saw it on TV originally; I haven't) but she warned me, if I do watch it, not to watch any commentaries 'til I've seen the whole thing.

This episode was just too fun. And Marcus was a great character. He shows up in fanfic a lot. I remember asking the language question once. Someone got a bit snarky and informed me she would probably be speaking latin which Duncan could surely also speak. But could Marcus' wife? And Maurice? I also considered the mummy idea. I don't think you've gotten to this ep yet, but there is an immortal that was stranded and starved to death.

The writers have often said that the things like the distance an Immortal could feel a buzz or how long it took them to heal had to do more with the storyline and how long they needed it to take than anything else.

Marcus was really neat. Actually, that whole episode ... it's a little frustrating that there were so many things about it that broke my suspension of disbelief, because in general, I really liked the basic idea and the way that it addressed conflict and war and hate. Actually, I love how many of the episodes are about revenge and prejudice and personality changes over the years, but generally without feeling terribly heavy-handed about it. With the setup that they've got, they have a great vehicle for exploring vengeance and redemption and change -- I love that they show us not only characters who used to be cruel killers and mellowed out, but also people who used to be kind and compassionate, but got hardened by the lives they had to lead.

The TV show did a different take on the reanimation and deaths of Immortals. In the initial movie, Immortals were depicted as underwater breathing, basically I can do anything I'd like as long as my head doesn't fall off, unchanging creatures. I think that the TV show had a more practical approach.

For instance, in another episode there is an Immortal marooned on an island with almost no resources on it where he starves to death over and over again. The way he describes it, each time he'd starve to death, he'd come be back and 'do it all over again', indicating that a significant amount of time passed between each point of starvation. That couldn't be possible without having some kind of 'reset point' that an Immortal would reach per each reanimation, but that is not without some exceptions either.

Xavier, an Immortal who had his hand cut off, could not simply regenerate it like a starfish, nor could another Immortal (who will not be named due to spoilers) had his vocal cords removed and ended up speaking like a robot; so as long as things aren't separated from the body (like a head), it would appear that Immortals can simply 'revert' back to a neutral state no matter what shape they may have been in prior to 'death' as long as all the pieces are there.

Now, the issue at hand with a mummified immortal is that base on Egypt's traditions, a mummified corpse by definition has almost all of it's organs removed, as in clearly separated from the body. Therefore, an empty shell would remain and the immortal would presumably be dead once the brain is gone as that is the same as separating the head from the body. So for the episode to be logical, we can assume this did not happen based on the flashback; it does not show the actual mummification process, which can't have happened. Who knows? It might not have. (So it didn't! If, Then, Therefore!)

In terms of waking up after the reset point reanimation, this brings us to a second 'problem'. Our non-traditionally mummified Immortal does not appear to have developed Post-Traumatic-Stress-Syndrome after spending centuries waking up in a prison of darkness to starve to death over and over again while probably screaming; instead she appears to have no memories after her point of death in the episode's flashback. From this, I suggest that Immortals -cannot- reanimate unless the environment is suitable for life, namely air to breathe, a temperature that is not sub-zero, etc. When the sarcophagus is opened by Duncan, there is the tell-tale sound of air pressure escaping. As unlikely as it may seem, it is possible (well in order for the show to follow logic, it HAS to be 'true') that there was not enough air within the sarcophagus to support a suitable living environment for an Immortal's reanimation until Duncan opened it.

SO! With a non-traditional mummification in one hand, and an unsuitable place for an Immortal's reanimation in the other, we have ourselves then a unique case of an Immortal stuck in a 'time capsule'.

Agree? Disagree?

Yeah, the show itself is inconsistent enough that I think at some point "don't think about it, just go with it" is the only option. *g*

There is definitely a certain amount of regeneration that takes place when they come back to life. They can't regrow limbs, as in Xavier's case, but they can clearly heal whatever killed them (we've seen them actually do that on many occasions), so as in, say, the case of the Immortal starving on the island, I'd assume that he came back to life fully un-starved, and then had to starve all over again. (Augh.) But then there are the times when their regeneration is clearly incomplete ...

That's a plausible theory, actually, that they can't come back if they'd just die again instantly! And I can't think of anything in the show to contradict it necessarily. (Come to think of it, I wrote something similar in one fic in which some Immortals froze to death and then didn't regenerate until they were thawed ...) so, yeah, this explanation works fine for me! :D

Torchwood had a similar instance of an immortal character lacking the PTSD you'd expect after being forced to come back to life and die multiple times under horrific circumstances -- in that case he was buried alive and canonically did revive and die in cycles of a few minutes for the entire time he was buried. And had no real trauma to show for it afterwards. Oh well.

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Highlander - up to 2x20 (Pharoah's Daughter)

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Reanimation

Re: Reanimation