Well, if I can finally figure out how to post this, I'll join the conversation. I guess I am a newlander, or whatever - I discovered Highlander only this summer, and have been madly watching and taping the reruns, buying hair ties and T-shirts and a katana, and generally spending entirely too much time thinking about it all. I think I've seen all but two or three of the episodes now (USA skipped one), and I've got two stories under my belt (if anyone could tell me how or where to post them I'd be grateful - they are good enough to have survived my non-HL writing group at least).
Actually, Highlander is the reason I first dipped my toes into the net - I needed a list of episodes to make sure I was getting them all in order. Fortunately, that was pretty easy to find, and now I'm hooked. All this Internet hype about global villages is staring to make some sense.
About AVATAR - OK, I have to say it's going to take a while to get used to the hair, or lack thereof. I kept having to watch his mouth to be sure it was him. But what keeps coming back to me is that LIFE IS CHANGE, and I'd rather the writers show that (especially if it's done *well*) than just slavishly do whatever they think will get the best ratings. I for one found Mac's response to Richie's death singularly appropriate and refreshing.
To explain - after watching Archangel (and spending weeks vacillating on whether it was real), I wondered (like everyone else) how Mac would react. At first I imagined him sitting in a corner for weeks, with Methos reminding him that starving himself wasn't going to do any good, and Joe requesting reassignment, saying - he won't forgive himself in my lifetime. But then I realized that it was more likely he would run, and I was partly right. He did run, ran away, somewhere he could be alone and think it out and deal with it. But he did more. He actually appears to have gotten himself together in a way he never has before. We missed the whole grieving process, but we are seeing the results. Maybe it's time he grew out of his brooding warrior phase. Life is rough - and eventually you have to find a way to handle it or become unbalanced. For a while in the fourth and fifth seasons I felt he was just struggling through, not centered and not really very happy. (To quote Joe - With all the crap you guys go through it's a wonder you're not all nuts.) I'm interested to see if this new Duncan measures up to our first glimpses.
Now, granted, as a writer who has to work hard on plot structure, I agree with all the complaining about not getting much of anywhere with the demon conflict. The whole bit about Sophie was fine as a separate story (beginning, middle, end, climax, etc.), but it did very little to move the larger arch along. We're no closer to defeating the demon at the end of the episode than when Mac first came back from Malaysia, except maybe an inkling about saying NO to temptation. (Which is not a solution in and of itself - the demon is attempting to destroy Mac because he can somehow defeat it, but surviving those attempts doesn't solve the ultimate problem, unless, well, never mind, I suppose I should wait to see what happens.) The real problem with the episode as I see it is that Mac hardly *does* anything proactive the whole time except ask Joe for help. He does a lot more *reacting* - pulling Sophie out of the river, going to her house, the morgue - and as long as the demon controls the plot, it will be the stronger character. I hope Mac can find something to *do* on his own initiative on Saturday.
Well now, I suppose I've marked myself as a beginner just by rambling so long, but the thing is I had to have enough to say to get over the energy of activation to figure out how to get on the forum in the first place. (Uh, I'm a graduate student in chemistry, please forgive the science metaphors.) Hopefully by now everyone's not too sick of talking about AVATAR. I haven't had time to read all of it so forgive any repetition or whatever. Any and all comments welcome:-)