Quickening (Highlander) - Development

Development

In Highlander: The Series, the producers were required to make the beheadings less violent, thereby adhering to television standards. Executive Producer, Bill Panzer, explains, "In the movies, you know, we had a lot more license. But this being television in the early 1990s, we couldn't have a lot of body parts flying around. So, we tried to use something that created the idea that somebody got their head cut off, but that it was more like a jolt of light came out of the head, and the lightning flew around them. This, I suppose, was less violent than the movie version." Consequently, the Quickening scene in the pilot episode, "The Gathering", is described in the script as follows:

"We will call this shot for want of a better term, the Quickening Thrust. This will be one of our signature shots of the show. Perhaps it is a strobed, slow-motion shot. Perhaps there is particular glint to the sword as it slashes towards us on a POV shot, representing the coup de grâce which is about to be delivered. In any event what we will NOT see, is a decapitation. No head leaves the body, indeed no sword strikes the neck. Instead, we cut to : The Quickening is a blinding flash of blue light emanating from what was the bad guy and filling the screen and arcing into anything electrical nearby. Thus, street lamps, car headlights, windows, etc. are blown out."

Panzer remarked about the Quickening in "Revenge Is Sweet", "... outside during day is not great for Quickenings. Quickenings like night, Quickenings like the special effects it gives you, Quickenings do not like blowing up flower pots. This is something we've learnt from experience here and we never did it again."

Panzer says about the Quickening in "See No Evil", set inside the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver, "Because it was (...) a real old theater, doing the Quickening in there was a little eerie because any kind of pyrotechnics were kinda to be used outside, were dangerous, fireworks. And we had to use a whole new system of pyro, to cap it safely inside, and everybody was kind of happy that we worked it out in the theater without burning it at all."

Panzer thinks the most elaborate Quickening in the television series appeared in the "Band of Brothers" episode: "When the pyrotechnics went off, it was shot in slow motion, and so the actual take, the wide shot was two and a half minutes long, and I was still, it was probably the most amazing Quickening that we ever had."