User Reviews

The Highlander series was a spin-off from the Highlander movies. Starring a different MacLeod, Duncan. There's something about Adrian Paul that gives off an old worldly persona that made it believable that he really was a guy that was 400 years old. Duncan was humble, charming, romantic, and principled. The flashbacks over the seasons told his story. He was a phenomenal character. Adrian Paul was made for this role. He played the part to perfection. In many ways, since this is in series form, it gives it many advantages over the movie, such as character development, relationship longevity & development, and the development of the mythology about the immortals.

The action and sword fights were top notched. Season one had him with Tessa, his girlfriend, and Richie. Tessa was classy, cultured, sophisticated, and complimented Duncan well. I love that he had an established relationship and the viewers didn't have to put up with a parade of love interest pairings. Later Joe, Amanda, and Methos are recurring characters in the show. They were excellent additions.

The show is set in America and France. Usually half in each country per season. Unfortunately, the dubbing for the French actors was awful. It sounded like they were reading rather than performing a part.

Seasons 2-4 were the best. Season 5 is a mixture. Season 6 is garbage. I also loved season one because of the group of three with Duncan, Tessa, & Richie. There are some lemons, Adrian Paul's acting starts out a little weak but gradually improves. Keep watching the series, it gets better. There's a warmth to the show. You care about the characters. There are actually many touching episodes. Homeland is my favorite.

The stories are really good. But something starts happening later on. In one or two episodes in season 4, then in many in season 5, Duncan starts becoming more "zen." Zen isn't necessarily a bad thing but for an action show, it didn't play out well for the lead character. It leads to him becoming self-righteous, judgmental, and hypocritical. I mean you understand where he's coming from, but then he does things that are contrary to his own judgments. Let me put it this way, it's not okay for other immortals to seek revenge, but it's okay for him to seek revenge.

Season 6 is garbage. I'd advise not to watch it. You'd have to also skip the last episode of season 5 because it was a cliffhanger. From what I understand season 5 was supposed to be the last season, but at the last minute, they renewed it for a 6th season. Unfortunately, many of the actors weren't available since they thought the series was over and moved on to other projects. Adrian couldn't always be there due to shooting the Highlander Endgame movie. In fact, he's not in two episodes out of the 13 they had. The cliffhanger ending from season 5 is continued in the first 2 episodes of season 6. They were boring and stinky. Many of the other episodes barely had Duncan in it, as they were trying to spin this off, so they brought in female immortals and told their stories, to see which would be a good spin-off. They should have done the spin-off thing earlier in the series. Look at Xena. She appeared in three episodes in season one of Hercules and they realized they she would make a great spin-off show. Though, I think it would have been a mistake to do all those test episodes, especially with next to nothing of Duncan.

Warning: there's a lot of sexism and misogynistic things in the series. Pretty much no female immortal can fight. Mac has to fight for them. This was a major turn-off such as with the character of Amanda. There is also a huge amount of abuse towards women. Tessa is constantly victimized. A lazy writing set-up so Mac can come rescue her all the time. The character of Anne, one of Duncan's love interest later on is written as a busy body and frankly dumb as she put herself in harms way also endangering other people. The love scenes at times seem very exploitive of women, over-long and the cameras angling at certain areas of women. There are rapey situations that are brushed over and not talked about. The series is still great despite all this, but one definitely notices and it may turn-off some people. I managed to get through, but I also commented on these things on my episode reviews.

If you are a huge fan of the Highlander movie and a purist, then you may not like this. However, if you are more open-minded, loved the Highlander movie, and want something in that same universe, then you may love this series. I'd also recommend for people that liked Hercules and Xena, love action, fantasy, and the historical genre. I gave it a 7/10

Note: Most of my reviews contain some spoilers, but I always try that none of these "spoilers actually spoil" any important surprises of the narrative arc.

These series present us a new "Highlander", it's a spin off of the "Highlander family" of films and gives us a story where the immortals can ,seemingly, actually be born on our planet.

One of the most important things about "Highlander, the series" is that its length helps to understand the relationships between the characters very deeply. Many characters are hundreds or even thousands of years old and show us how the same person performs in different places and times. Many of the most interesting dialogues in these series (like the ones between Duncan (Adrian Paul) and Methos (Peter Wingfield) occur between characters that were born with hundreds of years of difference or in opposite cultural environments. As many long series, it presents us dozens of characters during its seasons and most of them only appear in one episode or two, but it has also many of them that appear very regularly and can be observed during very different aspects of their personalities. It is also very rich in characters that fall in the categories of anti-heroes or anti-villains which makes the plots very interesting.

One of my favorite aspects in "Highlander, the series" is its bravery to base some of its plots on biblical references, which emphasizes the idea that if the heroes can't win, the onslaught to come could literally reach "biblical proportions."

Last but not least, it is very rich in its martial arts scenes and styles, it even had the participation of Master Swordsman Bob Anderson, the same man who did the "Darth Vader" sword fights for the 4-6 Star Wars trilogy.

How does this title compare to another similar series? Its clearly above the average action series and shows a bigger variety of scenarios that many historical series.

How does "Highlander the series" compare to "Highlander, the Raven" and "Highlander, the animated series" ? I think it is the best of the three, but "Highlander the Raven" has some good episodes too.

Thanks for reading

This is miles better than the movies. The story was always good but Christopher Lamberts was miscast badly. Adrian Paul plays Duncan, the cousin of Connor McLeod in the TV series and his Highlander portrayal is far superior to Lambert's.

This show is very well shot. The stories are good and the action scenes are excellent, very well shot. There are alot of appearances throughout the series from a range of famous faces which was cool, notably Roland Gift and Roger Daltrey.

Out of the 6 seasons, the first 5 are the strongest but overall, this is a solid series and very enjoyable. I recommend this.