1.14: Spin Doctor

[Highlander II]

(info from tvtome.com)


A journalist covering the mayoral election is electrocuted in his hotel room. Later his girlfriend is found dead too. It appears one of the candidates may be involved in a sex scandal. Can Nick find out who committed these murders without engaging in a witchhunt? Dirty politics and mudslinging gets Nick thinking about when he was Professor Nicholas Girard (Chicago, 1954) -- and on trial before the HUAC on charges of being a Communist.




Note to Highlander fans: Lisa Howard (Dr. Anne) appears in this episode

 

[Highlander II]

Watched this one last week -

it was interesting - but, I'm not sure the flashbacks fit as well as the writers would have liked ---

Just a question -- do the flashback sequences improve in relevance as the show progresses?? (really - Highlander had the same problem - flashbacks that didn't mean much of anything - just 'exposition' type info) --

The flashbacks just didn't really work for me - almost like they needed to 'fill space' so they said - 'hey, what if ppl thought Nick was a communist!' -- a little more work would have made the flashbacks fit better ---

but the political debate stuff was good --

and we hear in this ep that they are in Toronto ----

 

[EmilyH]

There are some flashbacks that are completely necessary to get to know the characters. For example, in Be My Valentine, the flashbacks finally show us what's between LC & Nick...although a little of it was implied in Only the Lonely. In some second & third season eps, we learn more about the other characters through flashbacks. They're also there to remind us that things aren't rosy between LC & Nick.

I particularly liked how Close Call (later in the second season) uses flashbacks to tell the story and show Schanke's suspicions about his partner. Also, the series finale uses flashbacks in a very meaningful way to make you think about the ep and show that it's more than it appears to be at first glance.
There was also a wonderful ep, Queen of Harps, which uses flashbacks to show more of Nick's background and exactly how he got sent to the Crusades.

Personally, I thought the Communist era flashbacks weren't just fillers and were necessary to get more of Nick's back story. At this point in the series, we still don't know much about him beyond the fact that he was a crusader and is now a vampire in Toronto working as a cop. It's interesting, IMHO, to find out where he has been in those in-between years.