HLS4: 'The Blitz'

[ithildin]

Highlander Season Four

The Blitz, Air Date: February 1996

ER trauma surgeon Anne Lindsey responds to the call for help after an explosion devastates a subway station, but when a subsequent explosion rocks the station, Anne is trapped. MacLeod remembers WWII London where he and the woman he loved, reporter Diane Terrin, were trapped in a bombed air-raid shelter during the Blitz, running out of time and air. MacLeod is desperate to rescue Anne before he loses her like he lost Diane.

Next week: Something Wicked

Comments

[macgeorge1.livejournal.com]

My original episode description and complete commentary is at:
http://www.wordsmiths.net/MacGeorge/episodes/Season4/Blitz.htm

But I thought I'd include a summary of comment David Abramowitz and Adrian made with the DVD collection:

David Abramowitz says that this episode disappointed him the most. The concept was great, that Duncan would survive, but with guilt and with pathos and pain was what they wanted to show. But the story just didn’t play with the spirit and poignancy that Abramowitz wanted. He had great hopes for it, though, to have a story with a moment in it where the mortal believed that they weren’t dying alone, that they’re facing it with you (meaning Duncan), “but that you know in your heart you’re going to wake up again and they’re not.” It was a great opportunity for drama.

Adrian says this episode presented a no-win situation. Duncan knew she was going to die, but that he would survive, was heart-rending for him, but the only way Duncan could make sense of it was to make her passing “as gentle as possible.” He thought the flashback story was great, and if they could have just stayed in the flashback it would have been a better episode. The present story was necessary, but it was confined in a tunnel and there “was nothing you could really do”, where the flashback had a lot more depth and breadth to it. The problem with the flashback, AP says, is that it was intercut with the present day story, and when you have a constrained amount of time to tell the story, you don’t get to see the development between the characters, therefore you don’t care as much about them.

My own summary was: Well, I liked the flashback. I liked Diane and her outrageousness. I liked the look of them, and of Dashing!SecretAgent!Duncan. And that sex scene on the roof, even without showing any real skin, generated a *lot* of heat. The final scene as Diane dies in Duncan’s arms is really nicely played - sad and poignant and lovely, especially knowing Duncan will eventually wake up alone.

I was surprised that Abramowitz never acknowledged the fact that the whole present-day plot premise was mega-dumb, and made an already shaky character look terminally stupid and thoughtless. Adrian got a lot closer to a correct analysis in his commentary when he said the two stories didn’t work particularly well together because they didn’t allow time to develop the relationships between the characters, so you had less invested in them and it made the whole thing less effective. Like Adrian, I would have preferred to see an entire episode concentrated on the characters in the flashback.

The nicest moment in the present day plot is Duncan’s hesitant explanation of why he wanted Anne to have the house. Clearly, what he wanted to say, but couldn’t was that he wanted them to have “a part of me.”

[pat-t.livejournal.com]

I so agree with all of this. I said Anne was a moron. But I liked the flashback alot. And I liked the woman in the flashback. She would have been a great love for Duncan if she had lived. And the end when Duncan gave them the house was very nicely done.