The Series

Adrian Paul - Duncan MacLeod

Alexandra Vandernoot - Tessa Noel

Stan Kirsch - Richard Ryan

Jim Byrnes - Joe Dawson

Philip Akin - Charlie DeSalvo

Lisa Howard - Dr. Anne Lindsey

Elizabeth Gracen - Amanda Darieux

Peter Wingfield - Methos

Duncan's an immortal, who has been alive for four hundred years. The first season follows his attempt to live a normal life with his French girlfriend, Tessa. He took in a young street kid named Richie, whom he confided his secret--that he's an immortal and can only be killed when he is beheaded. And also once beheaded their power goes into the one who beheads them, which means that there's always an immortal who wants to take their head. The second season Duncan discovered there's a secret society, whose duty is to record what immortals do. And the one assigned to "watch" Duncan is Joe Dawson. It seems that some of their members feel that immortals are abominations and must be disposed, which they tried. Also Tessa and Richie were killed but Richie then learned that he is an immortal which is why Duncan took him in and confided in him. Duncan would constantly run into Amanda who ia an immortal and a thief but Duncan tries to reform her and has occasional success. He would also meet Methos who is supposedly the oldest immortal. Now the first half of each season begins in North America while the second half takes place in Europe, mostly France.

"One Minute to Midnight", was originally filmed and aired as episode 4.22 in Europe.

"Double Jeopardy" was originally filmed and aired as Episode 4.19 in Europe.

"Prophecy," was originally aired filmed and aired as episode 5.1 in Europe.

Many of the episodes of the series have French actors with their voices redubbed by Vancouver-based voice actors Gary Chalk and Janyse Jaud.

The series directly follows the feature film Highlander (1986), but with a slight twist: according the series, Connor MacLeod was not the last Immortal and did not win the Prize. In fact, Christopher Lambert guest stars in the pilot episode to pass the baton to series lead Adrian Paul.

Some of the clips used in the title sequence were taken from the movie Highlander II: The Quickening.

The season five finale, "Archangel", was originally shot with a cliffhanger ending set 20 years in the future, when MacLeod is finally prepared to defeat Ahriman. The sixth season was planned to happen in the future, but was deemed too dark early on and was finally scrapped when the budget was sliced.

Jim Byrnes, who plays Joe Dawson, also contributed many songs to the show's soundtrack. Some of these can frequently be heard as background music during scenes in Joe's bar.

Early in the second season, Alexandra Vandernoot told the producers she didn't want to be on the show anymore - which lead the writers to kill her off in "The Darkness".

The pilot episode, "The Gathering", was originally intended as the third "Highlander" sequel, a TV-movie with a two-hour running time. Eventually, the budget was too low and Christopher Lambert didn't agree to star until late on in production, so the idea was scrapped and the episode was edited down to an hour.

The character 'Duncan MacLeod' was ranked #11 in TV Guide's list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" (1 August 2004 issue).

The sixth season episode "Two of Hearts" is the only episode to not feature any regular cast members (including the titular Highlander, MacLeod).

Plans for a spin-off series led to a group of sixth-season episodes focusing on a new female Immortal (a "back-door pilot" in industry-speak). None of these characters caught on, and the established character of Amanda became the lead for Highlander: The Raven.

A late fifth season episode, which partly depicted a fictional inspiration for Frankenstien, used the book's working title of "The Modern Prometheus".

Werner Stocker had already died of cancer before the end of the first season, so that episode (which opened with his character's murder) edited together existing footage from earlier episodes for the first scenes.

Not a Goof: "Avenging Angel", features a swordfight between immortals that appears to be on holy ground; however the site is actually a museum displaying religious artifacts from the crusades. The confusion arises because footage from this fight is seen in the opening credits of later episodes as the narrator speaks of holy ground.

Factual error: The episode "The Modern Prometheus" suggests that Mary Shelly was inspired to write Frankenstien by seeing an immortal Lord Byron "die" in mid-battle and apparently be revived by The Quickening (becoming the lightning that famously animates her novel's creature). However, the method of lightning to reanimate dead tissue was invented for the films, not the novel.

Revealing mistake: During final sword fight with MacCloud & Blaine, in “The Lady & The Tiger”, the power cable used to make the swords spark when they strike each other can briefly be seen under MacCloud's feet.

The European-broadcast versions of all episodes were 4 minutes longer than the original US airings (rebroadcasts on USA network have further cuts).

The short American versions of episodes “The Gathering" and "Revenge is Sweet" were combined (run back-to-back with only one set of opening and closing credits) into an ersatz feature film for direct-to-video release, "Highlander: The Gathering."