August 30, 2000
Hello, at long last...
Yes, I'm finally updating the page, after over two years! I even have a new synopsis done, but I'm afraid that I can't promise if or when I'll be able to do more. I'm very sorry for having let these pages slide for so long, and most of all I'm sorry for not explaining myself a little sooner.
What happened? Well, a couple of things. First and foremost, I had a series of long and frustrating computer problems. I ended up getting a new hard drive, and eventually ended up getting a completely new computer. For several months, I had no reliable internet access, and dealing with the computer became so frustrating and difficult that nothing about it was fun anymore, including writing synopses. Once I got a new computer, I found that while I was having my problems, this server was having difficulties of its own, and for several more months I couldn't access the pages to change them.
As for why I haven't picked up where I left off, well, that's a little harder to explain. I love Highlander, and I still love Highlander, but once the show was over I simply found myself moving on to other things, and other fandoms. I won't say that I'll never write another synopsis, but chances are that updates to this page will be infrequent.
To everyone who's written asking about synopses, or Highlander, or any number of things, I send my most humble apologies. I really have no excuse for not updating in the last year to tell all of you what's been going on, and for that I'm sorry. I'll try to be a little more prompt in future.
Introduction
These synopses of episodes of Highlander: The Series are written for your pleasure and enjoyment, so here's a few little things to keep in mind to optimize your reading experience.
First of all, these things are written using the aid of a highly sophisticated device known as Jinjifore's Rewind Button, and as such are only as accurate as said Jinjifore's own 'lil eyes and ears. I try my best for accuracy and detail (especially on the quoted dialogue), but as we all know even the things which seem to us most obvious can be interpreted in a completely different manner by someone else. Although the new episodes are now closed-captioned (Yea!), I generallly only use the CC to double-check what I think I hear, and more than once we've disagreed. So, just keep in mind these synopses represent what I think I've seen or heard, and may or may not be helpful in resolving certain hotly debated fan issues. (In other words, there ain't no substitute for checking the tape yourself.)
This, of course, brings us the reason why I'm going to the trouble of typing these little critters up and having my good buddee Ian expend the sweat of his brow in converting and maintaining the pages, and why the later seasons are the primary focus and not the earlier ones. I started writing these specifically for those unlucky souls who were, for whatever reason, unable to see some or all of the fifth season episodes, and have just carried on ever since. My goal is to provide a summary that will at least convey the sense of what happened in the episode, including visual details and dialogue, whatever I feel is needed for ambience, atmosphere, mood, or just information (which, as it turns out, seems to be most of the dialogue, actually). This also means that they tend to be longish and will often go into what will no doubt seem like unnecessary detail for anyone who has been lucky enough to see the episode for themselves.
Eurominutes and other info
Many of the episodes now have Eurominutes, courtesy of Paul. These extra scenes (not seen in the US version) are set off by indentation in the text and (for those of you using whizmo browsers that see this sort of thing) italics. These were written up by another sophisticated process known as Comparing the Written Synopsis to the Tape, and any omissions are due to the incompleteness of my own summaries, and are not Paul's fault. Thanks, Paul!
Also, thanks to Paul's Eurominutes, Kat has started a Eurosounds site. There are .wav and .ra files of selected pieces from the fifth season Eurominutes there. She's also added some great pages on Peter Wingfield's (Methos) show "Noah's Ark," which include pictures, sounds, and summaries of the episodes.
Ann Dodge has also written summaries of many of the fifth season episodes, so check out her page. She types up spoilers from the satellite feeds (which air the Thursday before the "week of" date, i.e. about ten days before I see the episode here in the Music City), which means that they are available well in advance of mine. Thanks, Ann!
I've now added information about the actors, writers and directors courtesy of the ever-wonderful Internet Movie Database. This site is chock-full of useful and cool information, highly recommended for finding out those niggling facts. For listings of the full credits of darn every Highlander episode in existence, go here.
Disclaimers and whatnot
Needless to say, these synopses aren't official or sanctioned or anything, it's just me doin' some folks a favor. A lot of talented and creative people affiliated with Panzer/Davis, Rysher Entertainment and Gaumont Productions wrote, directed, and acted out this stuff, and all I'm doing is writing it down in my own inimitable style (translation: every now and then you might have to put up with the occasional pointless aside . . . ) I try to be as blatant as possible when inserting my own comments, and although bias is inevitable, I honestly try to keep my summaries as objective as possible.
One more little thing about the disclaimers. All the pages have them now, and not just this one. That was my oversight, and it's been corrected. No one mentioned it or anything, it just hit me out of the blue (after all this time . . .) So, if you pass these around, please keep said happy disclaimers intact. Thanks!
I've also added a format sheet to the pages. Not that anyone's seemed to have problems understanding them or anything (at least not that they've told me . . . ), but when I started doing these things I never imagined in a jillion squillion years that they'd get posted on the web, and I had, therefore, a different philosophy about a lot of the things I did. But now that I've done a few, I've come up with some basic guidelines, and since I wanted to write them out for myself I figured what the heck, why not share? So, if you're wondering about any of the piddly format stuff, read the style sheet and see if it helps. I suspect it doesn't matter to anyone but me, but hey, you never know . . .
Just for the record, I like everybody who's currently appearing in the show regularly, but I feel compelled to mention that I am especially fond of a certain Really Old Guy, and of that rather younger red-headed lad
Also, while I'm here, I'd like to give a big thanks to all of you (the hundreds of you, even!) who've written me with comments, suggestions, and those much-welcomed bits of miscellaneous information. You've all helped make this a better resource for Highlander fans, and I could never have done it without your help and encouragement. As always, if you see a bit of dialogue gone wrong, a misspelled word, a city misheard . . . Please let me know. Hey, there's always hope for those picky nits. After all, someone finally told me "Fido's" real name . . .
These were all written in the spirit of fun, and for the love of the show. I only hope that you enjoy reading them as much as I had fun writing them!
One last thing
This page is best viewed with any old browser you happen to be using.
Seriously, I try to make this page accessible to everyone, even those using (as I still often do) Lynx or other text-only browsers. If you can't use these pages easily with your primitive browser, please let me know. I'm thinking of adding a text only option one day, and I'd like to get some idea of the demand for it before (ulp) doubling the size of the site.
Lest I forget, I'd like to send a big, wet, moose-kiss of love to my dear friend Ian for setting up and maintaining this page for me. Everything you see is his doing: I just typed the words. And I'm sure that he won't neglect to add a link back to his own homepage, which doesn't have Highlander stuff but which does have the lyrics to "Schoolhouse Rock"!
These pages have been composed on a never-ending succession of Macintosh PowerBooks, using the inestimable freeware BBEdit Lite, available from Bare Bones Software.
These pages are written by Jinjifore and are translated into HTML and maintained by Ian.
Also, check out Ian's home page.
Celtic clip art courtesy of the Celtic Art Web Page.
Table of Contents
Selected Episodes
Methos
Finale, Part one [Euro]
Finale, Part two [Euro]
Fourth Season
Fifth Season
[with Eurominutes]
Sixth Season
Jinjifore
©Copyright 1996 by Jinjifore
Feel free to copy and distribute as long as this copyright notice is included, except where local bandwidth laws apply.Last Rev: 72I [ 30 Aug 00 ]