Highlander: The Series (season 2) - Production

Production

The first season aired earlier in the United States than elsewhere, thus in early 1993, Rysher TPE, the distributor that had sold the series to the American market, had to make a decision about financing a new season. At this point, the European partners still had not aired the first season, so the decision fell to Rysher. Willing to take the risk, Rysher announced that it would produce a second season. The France/Canada co-production agreement of the previous season was reconstituted, albeit with some different partners. Gaumont Television (France), Rysher TPE (United States) and Reteitalia (Italy) agreed to renew their participation to a new season. French leading channel TF1 was forced to cancel its participation because it was no longer legally allowed to qualify a show filmed in English as French content, and was replaced by French smaller channel M6, which was still allowed to do so. RTL Plus (Germany) and Amuse Video (Japan) were also no longer part of the co-production, but Gaumont Television president Christian Charret signed Filmline International (Canada) as a new partner. As a result of this new co-production agreement, with less wealthy partners, the budget of the season decreased from US$26.1 million the previous year to $22 million. Half of the funding came from French and other European sources; income per episode from international sales, which had reached $800,000 in the previous season, decreased as well. According to The Hollywood Reporter, pre-production started in April 1993, and filming in June the same year. Like the first season, the second season was divided into two segments; the first segment was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (as the fictional city of Seacouver, Washington, United States), and the second in Paris, France, to secure an acceptable share of European content as part of the co-production agreement. Creatively, the second season was intended to be more action-oriented than the first, but lead actor Adrian Paul refused to do "another kung fu series," insisting that more romance and history be brought in the scripts.

The production staff underwent a number of changes following the reshaping of the co-production partnership. Bill Panzer, Peter S. Davis, Christian Charret and Gaumont co-production executive Marla Ginsburg were executive producers. Filmline president Nicolas Clermont became the only co-executive producer. Ken Gord replaced Barry Rosen and Gary Goodman as the new producer. Former executives in charge of production, Marc du Pontavice and Denis Leroy, returned as associate producer and coordinating producer respectively. David Abramowitz served as head writer, but he could not be credited as such because Highlander was a Canadian-based show, and only Canadian writers could author scripts; Abramowitz was American, and thus was credited as creative consultant instead. The executive script editor was David Tynan, who also contributed scripts along staff and freelance writers, Brad Wright among the latter. Brent Karl Clackson was the line producer in Vancouver, but was succeeded by Patrick Millet (with the title of production manager) on the Paris segment. Regular directors throughout the season were Clay Borris and Dennis Berry. Fencing coach Bob Anderson, who coined for himself the title of Master of Swords, resumed his work from the third episode onwards, after David Boushey choreographed the fights of episode two. The opening theme was "Princes of the Universe" from the 1986 album A Kind of Magic by Queen; incidental music was composed by Roger Bellon.