I was a die-hard fan of the movie “Highlander” when it first came out in theatres. I thought it was original, clever, beautifully edited and had an awesome soundtrack by Queen (though an official soundtrack was never forthcoming, only a Queen album with all the songs). If you’re not familiar with the plot, it introduced the idea that there are Immortals walking amongst us. Some of them have been alive for hundreds, even thousands of years. They are all part of some ‘game’, where they must fight each other to the death (which can only be done by beheading). It is understood that in the end… there can only be one. That ‘one’ would be privy to the ‘prize’, though none of them actually knew what it was. I thought Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery rocked as Connor MacLeod and Ramirez, two of the Immortals trying to keep their heads, and was equally blown away by Clancy Brown as Kurgen… the baaaaad guy. It seemed as though it would be a one shot movie since it had a pretty straightforward ending, what with Connor surviving the centuries old ‘game’ and winning the ultimate prize.

A few years later, a sequel was made that almost ruined the entire story by coming up with an origin for the Immortals, who came from the Planet Zeist (Zeist? Sheesh!). It only got worse from there. There was also a third sequel that was almost as bad. Generally, in the world of Highlander fans, these sequels simply don’t exist.

Then the inevitable happened. “Highlander: The Series” was created and it sort of went back to a time before the end of the first movie. Even though it didn’t really happen chronologically by year, it happened in spirit. In it we were introduced to another member of the MacLeod Family, Duncan (Adrian Paul), who is not quite as old as Connor, but equally able. I had questioned how wise a move it was to create a show based on a move that was highly successful, yet had really bad sequels. The TV show started gaining quite the audience, and eventually made it through five and a half seasons. I admittedly stayed away at first, because I figured there was no way it would be as good as the original movie.

Of course, and odd thing happened, as odd things tend to do and I stumbled across the first four seasons of the series on video a few years back. There they were, four huge 11-tape sets at a local ‘half-price’ bookstore. They were priced much lower than their original cost, and as the clerk accepted an even lower offer if I bought all four sets, temptation won over and I now had a reason to watch the series.

I watched the first episode, and though Christopher Lambert made an appearance in it, it still felt a little off from what the original movie had been. I thought I might as well give it a chance, since I had convinced myself to purchase all four seasons, and I’m glad I did. A few episodes in, the series began to really hit its stride and my wife and I were hooked. Sure, most of the episodes were kind of the same, generally with Duncan’s sensing of another Immortal, and surprise… a big swordfight at the end.

In spite of the similarity of each episode’s plot, the writers were creative enough to make each story stand out on its own, and more often than not they were pretty darn good. The first season ended up re-capturing some of the magic of the original movie and more than kept me interested. The only almost fatal flaw was in the decision to kill off a major character at the end of the season. I was sad to lose the character, but was ready to move on into the second season. My wife had other feelings, however. She never really got over the loss of the character and the series never seemed the same to her. It wasn’t that she was especially fond of the character, but she was opposed to Duncan’s reaction to the loss. I’m sure there were fans that felt the same way, but the popularity of the series never wavered.

The video sets I had were pretty cumbersome and took up a lot of room on our shelves, so when Anchor Bay released the 1st season on DVD back in 2002 I was pretty psyched. I couldn’t wait to replace them, not only for the space issue, but also for all the extras that come in these great DVD sets. As we flash forward 3 years, Anchor Bay has now released all 6 seasons on DVD. Where can they go from there, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

Over the course of the “Highlander” series we were introduced to many, many characters from Duncan’s past. The one that seemed to stand out the most was Raven (the gorgeous Elizabeth Gracen). Those of you familiar with the series know her to be quite the troublemaker. She had a centuries old love/hate relationship with Duncan and her predilection for larceny always seemed to get the best of her. When “Highlander” was winding down its final season, there were several immortal characters brought on in the hopes if finding one that might be able to carry on a series of their own. Unfortunately, none of them really caught on with fans, so the producers learned to look to the past, as it were. It was decided that Raven had all the qualities needed to carry on in the ‘Highlander” tradition. Trouble was… the producers did not carry on in the “Highlander” tradition.

“Highlander: The Raven” premiered in 1998 and there was a lot of high hopes that the series would do well in the ratings. Unfortunately it didn’t. What was even worse was that the problem had little to do with the quality of the series, which was quite good. The producers, for reason or another, opted to create is as a cop series first and immortal series second. It teamed Raven up with ex-cop Nick Wolfe (Paul Johansson), and together they pretty much went after the bad guys in their own fashion. There was usually an immortal at work somewhere in the episodes, but the format of the original series wasn’t utilized much at all until about halfway through the season’s run. But it was too late by that point. The series got much better towards the end, but not in time to save it from cancellation. This was a disappointment to those who had become fans as the last episode does end on a cliffhanger and some resolution would be nice.

Anchor Bay is releasing a 9-disc set of the entire series run this week (the 9th disc is a CD-rom with some extra features). Like their releases of “Highlander”, “Hercules” and “Xena”, they have included a plethora of extra features across all of the discs. There are tons of interviews with the cast and crew, many of them being quite candid about why the show didn’t work overall. You’ll also find some eye-opening commentaries on the episodes “Reborn”, “The Devil You Know”, “The Frame” and “Dead on Arrival.” My favorite feature was a short Bloopers Reel which has some good laughs. The aforementioned 9th disc contains scripts, biographies, trivia and storyboards.

The set is also packaged similar to the last few sets of the other series I mentioned before. They use the same style foldout disc holder, where they put two discs on each panel, one overlapping the other. It makes for a better size of the overall package in the shelf, but can be a bit of a pain when you have to take out one disc to get to the other one underneath.

While admittedly “Highlander: The Raven” wasn’t quite up to par with “Highlander”, it had it moments that really worked. The series did show signs of improvement during the last half of the season, so I really have to wonder where it might have gone if given the chance to continue.

Episodes:
Reborn
Full Disclosure
Bloodlines
Immunity
So Shall Ye Reap
Birthright
Crime & Punishment
The Unknown Soldier
Cloak & Dagger
Passion Play
The Devil You Know
A Matter of Time
The French Connection
The Rogue
Inferno
The Frame
Love & Death
Thick as Thieves
The Manipulator
The Ex-Files
War & Peace
Dead on Arrival

Starring: Elizabeth Gracen, Paul Johansson
Extras: Cast and Crew Interviews, Audio Commentaries, Photo Gallery, Blooper Reel, CD-Rom: Scripts, Bios, Trivia, Production Notes and Storyboards
Specifications: Full Screen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Studio: Anchor Bay
Release Date: 6/14/2005
Region 1
MPAA Rating: NR
Website

We'll give Highlander: The Raven a C+.