Tracker

When I found this show, I thought it would be pretty good, since Adrian Paul had been The Highlander for many years, and his nemesis was Zin, played by Geraint Win Davis. Davis had been Detective Knight on one of my favorite shows, Forever Knight, about a vampire who is a police detective.

Highlander and Forever Knight were both good action, science fiction (and horror) shows. These were two good actors, what could go wrong? Unfortunately, Zin the evil alien (played by Davis) is not on very often. Usually he is shown making a phone call to one of his alien lackeys, and then the show centers around The Tracker (Adrian Paul) capturing the alien henchmen.

Adrian Paul is a tracker from another planet, sent to capture 218 escaped alien criminals. Paul's soul takes over a poster on the side of the road, and so he spends most of the first season acting like someone without a brain, because he is basically a piece of cardboard. Adrian Paul always has a dumb look on his face and his mouth open. He also walks around very awkwardly, because he does not know how to walk. All this stuff was funny in the first episode, but it needed to go away quickly, and it did not.

Paul has a couple of powers. One of them allows him to walk fast. That is a really dumb power, but it is only used occasionally, even though he is always chasing people. The other power allows him to freeze everyone and walk around them. That is useful for catching villains, but it is not used most of the time when he needs to catch a villain. What is the point of having any powers if you only use them occasionally?

The dynamics between Paul and the supporting characters are not explored very far. There is not much character development between Paul and the rest of the cast. His main supporting character is Mel, played by Amy Price Francis. For some reason, the writers kept them from having any meaningful relationship, so why was she supporting Cole/Daggon (Paul), giving him a place to live, and paying all his bills? Apparently they wanted Paul to stay in the man-child mode, and so Mel was attracted to him, but she treated him like a child or little brother who needed guidance. That was all kind of lame.

The alien-of-the week stories were sometimes pretty good. A lot of times way too much time was spent with Adrian Paul learning how to play a radio or do some other easy task. The writers that thought it was interesting to watch a forty year old man learning how to brush his teeth, really killed any momentum this show could get.

One minute it was interesting, then the next ten the pace stopped while Adrian Paul had a dumb conversation with someone (how do I eat corn? what is soccer?). We get that he is an alien soul who took over a cardboard underwear poster. It did not have to get hammered into every story.

This show had potential, but the focus on how dumb and innocent Adrian Paul was, really killed it. The dork walking, the silly facial expressions, the goofy remarks, it all got old very fast.

I was a fan of the Highlander series and definitely a fan of Adrian Paul. When it was announced that he was going to be in new series, I thought it was about time, he had been off the radar long enough. I anxiously awaited the premiere of this show. To say I was disappointed is an understatement.

Unless just being able to look at Adrian Paul is enough to placate you as a viewer for an hour, this show was not worth the time it took to watch it. He didn't act, he just hung out in front of the camera. The other "actors" in the series need to hone their skills a little more. The premise, writing, sets, direction...all subpar. Skip this.

Once there was a time - in the nineties of the last century - when a supernatural fighter, armed with a sword and long hair and played by Adrian Paul - took the heritage of "Highlander" Christopher Lambert and fought supernatural enemies on earth in a TV Series of the same name.

Ten years later on, the same actor, this time with short hair and without the sword, has to track down more supernatural enemies again on TV. This time, he's the "Tracker", comes from another time and space again, and has a super brain, super weapons and super power and tracks down several gangsters and killers with the same attributes all over the country... again, he's accompanied by some good-looking earthy Blondes and has to face the weirdest enemies in hard-fought fights after 45 minutes.

While the "Highlander" TV series was a big hit in Germany and was broadcast on RTL Television at prime time, "Tracker" runs on a smaller station early in the morning at 5am. It looks like a sci-fi remix of "Highlander" with some elements of "The X-Files", "Profiler", "Quantum Leap" and also with some "Star Trek" and cyberspace utopia. But all in all, it's a nice and entertaining series with some good ideas and a relaxed and cool Adrian Paul, whose biggest success will always be the long-haired man with the sword from the hills...

Rather blah if otherwise well-made sci-fi vehicle for "Highlander" star Adrian Paul. He's in control here, and this series was seemingly constructed around his personal charm, but to this point he's evidently shooting for subtlety. The performances aren't really bad, but bland; if the cast is holding back some "oomph" to be revealed later, one can only hope the show isn't cancelled before they get the chance. The action and suspense are low-key as well. And leaving aside the set-up and a couple of gadgets, there's very little in the way of science fiction present. I can't really say I dislike the show, but the producers had better hope it's not scheduled against very strong competition (it comes on at 2AM Sunday here).

I love to look at Adrian Paul, but I truly think his talents are wasted here. It does not look as though this series will make use of his better athletic abilities, and we will have to wait at least several episodes before his sex appeal will be truly employed. This prime asset is severely underutilized in a character who is terribly naive and clearly a fish out of water. If we are to believe that he possesses the intelligence to do what he is supposed to do, he will have to learn a lot of things awfully fast. It's as though he is trying too hard NOT to be Duncan MacLeod.

The premise of the series is a little too much like "Brimstone" but without the darkness and without the appropriately menacing adversary. The villains will be cartoonish and the stories will be formulaic. Diehard fans of Adrian Paul and Geraint Wyn-Davies will tune in, but this program needs a lot of work before it comes up to the level of these two actors, who certainly deserve better material.