Highlander: The Raven - The Complete Series
by Dennis Berry
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Actor: Elizabeth Gracen, Hannes Jaenicke, Michael Copeman, Patricia Gage, Paul JohanssonDirector: Dennis Berry
Producer: Adam Haight
Producer: Christian Charret
Producer: Denis Leroy
Writer: André Jacquemetton
Writer: James Thorpe
Writer: Karen Harris
Writer: Maria Jacquemetton
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 45 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-06-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
DVD Reviews of Highlander: The Raven - The Complete Series
DVD Review: Less rambling, sometimes gentler than its predecessor.
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all, why did this series end up only lasting around half a season on network TV, even though a full season of episodes was actually filmed? After viewing the entire season, I'd say that considering their overall quality, it's really a shame they didn't reach a wider audience. But the show aired at a really odd time, at least in the Midwest (early Saturday afternoon), so you really had to break up your day to watch it. As such, it was well nigh impossible to catch the drift of where the series was heading.
And gee whiz, the 'stock' trailer at the beginning of each episode was so very, very cheesy sounding.
I should probably mention that Amanda's extremely short, bleached blonde hair made her head look too small for the rest of her body, which is silly, considering all the devoted fans from the former Highlander series were used to seeing her done up in her full glory. In well over 20 episodes of the original series, she wore her hair many different ways, using this particular coiffure one time only.
Also, why is she "the Raven" when her hair is practically white? The idea of the raven is only briefly alluded to in one episode of the entire series, certainly not enough to warrant the quasi-mythic, or should we really say pseudo-mythic significance given to it in the aforementioned cheesy trailer. The writing for that speech ("She is immortal . . .") is atrociously bad, almost nonsensical, and the man who reads it aloud in a flamboyantly pseudo-macho manner is definitely wrong for the part. Was this supposed to be some kind in in-joke? Maybe he thought Amanda was really China (the pro wrestler/personality seen on UPN) whom he was introducing. Whatever the rationale, it certainly didn't work very well.
But know that if you watch the Raven series from beginning to end, it's really quite remarkable. I think that sometimes the stories themselves tend toward more subtlety than the 6 seasons with Duncan McLeod, though the original series to its credit seemed somehow, what, more spacious and cosmopolitan? Here, though, there are less sword-fights per episode, and of course less 'quickenings'. (Amanda's quickenings have a feminine flavor to them whereas Duncan's often seemed rather wooden, maybe trying to flirt with the aforementioned pro wrestling audience.)
Possibly the biggest problem with the original series was a technical one: when scenes occurred in relatively darker surroundings, you had to jack up the brightness and tint of your monitor screen - though then everything looked too blue, and even then often you couldn't see what was going on. Thankfully, this technical oversight was corrected for the 'Raven' episodes.
Series star Elizabeth Gracen as Amanda was a frequent guest on episodes in Highlander: the Series' first 5 seasons, and a full-fledged co-star during its final season. She is a former Miss America who put her prize money to excellent use by going to acting school. Here she gets to show her own ample ability rather than merely playing the part of comedic and romantic foil to Adrian Paul's character Duncan McLeod (even there she was a very popular personage, gaining numerous loyal and devoted fans - check out her own website). In the earlier series, she often came off rather quirky, almost a mere appendage - of course not so here. During the Raven series, the gradual moral and emotional development of her own character works in tandem with the slowly developing/deepening friendship with her co-star (the former policeman, turned private detective, turned hi-grade security operative Nick Wolfe). It's really a tour de force in terms of believable acting and directing. Maybe even more so than for the original series, I was never tempted, once I got a few episodes into it, to want to turn the TV off, other than to eat, sleep, and go to work.
Though you could see where the series could have continued after the last episode (a second season, anyone?!) it also was emotionally a good place for it to end or at least go into hiatus. Although, maybe if you'd not already seen the 6 seasons of the original series, this wouldn't be the case.
Duncan's prolific and beautiful ramblings into far eastern religions and martial arts forms, as well as the little proverbs that emerge here and there from the mouths of different immortals (and mortals), both friends and foes, aren't present here as much, at least not in such a dressed-up form. Amanda's wisdom displays itself more in fits and starts (sometimes very passionate), but that makes this all the more believable, as viewers see that she's not just a clone of McLeod. The wonderfully diverse nature of the many different characters in the original series was a major factor as to why it was so stellar. To their credit, the writers, directors and producers did their best to preserve that tradition of excellence.
The only character (besides of course Amanda) who here reprises his role from the original series is the 'Watcher' Joe Dawson, though only for one episode. Valentine Pelka (the evil immortal Kronos in several episodes of the original series) and Philip Akin (who co-starred as Duncan's friend and employee Charlie throughout season #3) guest in a couple or so of the Raven episodes, portraying different characters than they played originally.
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