Highlander: Black Tower

Marek: "Look around you, MacLeod. I told you I'd accomplish great things."
Duncan: "You make toys, Marek. Get over it."

Watching Adrian Paul do anything is rarely a waste of time, and this episode had its moments. But you know what? We've seen this episode already in season one -- it was called "Bad Day in Building A." And wasn't there a movie with Bruce Willis?

No Methos, Amanda, or Joe, yadda yadda yadda. Why? The producers said they only had Adrian Paul for a limited number of hours in season six. Then why not use the rest of the cast, you idiots? That's what any other intelligent producer would do. You know, I have now written reviews for nearly every episode of this series as well as for each of the horrifically bad movies, and I honestly think the producers of Highlander succeeded by accident. They never knew what their strengths were. If they had had any idea what worked on their own show, season six would have been about the rest of the cast, a move in a new direction, and set-up for a spinoff that would have worked.

Okay, I guess I should stop bitching and talk about the episode.

The game thing and the princess in the tower was okay. I did like the way that the idiotic Dice thought the whole situation was a set-up for a video game, although he should have realized the truth a lot more quickly than he did. And I liked the way they incorporated that video theme into the flashbacks and the quickening.

Duncan ended his no-kill streak and took out Marek. Had to happen. I think they should have come up with a more important reason or a more important villain for Duncan to give up his new obsession with peace and zen thing, though. It was like, I gave it awhile after Richie died, but so much for that.

Flashbacks:

-- 1634 Scotland. Post-Connor Duncan witnessed Marek's first death and didn't realize at first that Marek was a potential immortal, so he helpfully buried him. If Duncan had been more experienced, he might have saved himself some trouble several hundred years later.

-- Another portion of the same flashback showed that Marek was doing that hunting humans crap when he died. And a third showed Duncan and Marek coming to blows.

Bits and pieces:

-- Throughout the episode, I kept thinking, who is that woman, and why should we care? Of course, she was a plant by the bad guy. It couldn't have been Amanda, because she probably would have gotten out of that situation without Duncan.

-- Along with Die Hard and "Bad Day in Building A," this episode also strongly reminded me of Slayerfest '98 in the Buffy episode, "Homecoming." There were even brothers.

-- According to the Watcher's Chronicles, the idiotic Dice became a Watcher after this little incident. Fun little detail.

-- Marek's company was Keram, which is Marek backward. That makes him number 47. And maybe I'm fudging it a bit because I'm hoping we hit 50 by the end of the series.

If this episode had aired in the first couple of seasons, I probably would have given it three stars. But now? Forget it,

Billie

All of my Highlander reviews are archived here.