During the mid-90s, I was borderline obsessed with a television show called Highlander: The Series. Don’t feel bad if you’re not familiar with it. It was a low-budget syndicated spin-off from a relatively obscure movie, and it aired in the wee hours of the morning in many markets, so about the only regular viewers it ever had were insomniacs, night watchmen, and hardcore fanboys. (Actually there seem to be many more fangirls of this series, fairly unusual in sci-fi and fantasy fandom circles.)

One of these days, I’d like to do a detailed entry in which I attempt to explore why the 1986 Highlander film and the subsequent TV version appealed so strongly to me at that point in my life, but that’s not really important right now. For the purposes of this entry, let me simply lay out a few important facts about the show:

• The protagonist, Duncan MacLeod, is a 400-year-old immortal man who can only be killed by decapitation. He can recover from any other “fatal” injury.
• Each episode of the series features a number of historical flashbacks which both flesh out Duncan’s long backstory and have some bearing on the episode’s present-day plotline.
• A significant portion of Duncan’s backstory involves American Indians. (He lived among them for a time when he was trying to find peace and solace from his troubles.)
• Above all else, Duncan yearns to have a “normal” life, to have children and grow old with a woman he loves. This may be possible if he wins “The Prize.” (It’d take too long to explain right now; just trust me on this one.)
• Duncan has a friend and confidante who knows about his secret immortality. This friend is an older man who owns a bar and plays blues guitar.
• Duncan is not a cop, but he often finds himself in law enforcement-type situations, solving mysteries, helping the helpless, defending the innocent, looking for killers, etc.

Okay, have you got all that? Now let’s consider a few things about a new series I caught for the first time tonight called New Amsterdam:

• The protagonist, John Amsterdam, is a 400-year-old immortal man who recovers from any “fatal” injury. When another character asks if he can survive decapitation, he says, “I don’t know… that hasn’t happened yet.”
• Each episode of the series features a number of historical flashbacks which both flesh out John’s long backstory and have some bearing on the episode’s present-day plotline.
• A significant portion of John’s backstory involves American Indians. (He became immortal due to Indian magic after he was fatally wounded defending them.)
• John needs to find his one true love in order to lift the gift/curse of immortality. Then he will be able to have a “normal” life and grow old with a woman he loves.
• John has a friend and confidante who knows about his secret immortality. This friend is an older man who owns a cafe and plays jazz piano.
• John is a cop, and is all about solving mysteries, helping the helpless, defending the innocent, looking for killers, etc.

Holy crap. I mean… holy… crap. I knew going into New Amsterdam that I would probably find a lot of similarities between it and Highlander — both series are about immortality, after all, so they’re bound to address some similar issues — but could it be any more obviously a rip-off? How is this not a lawsuit begging to be filed? Thirty years ago, George Lucas sued Glen Larson, and I can guarantee you Amsterdam has a lot more in common with Highlander than Battlestar Galactica ever did with Star Wars. The producers even seemed to be acknowledging the similarity with that crack about decapitation. About the only differences I can see is that John doesn’t have to fight other immortals to win The Prize like Duncan, and John is apparently capable of fathering children, which Duncan and his fellow immortals could not do.

I didn’t dislike the episode of New Amsterdam I watched tonight — on the contrary, it seems to be a well-made show with some halfway decent writing, an appealing lead, and some nice camera work — but the audacity of the show’s creators simply stuns me. And to be honest, I’m annoyed by the damn injustice of it all.

You see, Highlander, the series I loved so well, was and still is something of a bastard stepchild in fandom circles, something that I often feel like I have to defend and justify my affection for. The series — indeed, the entire Highlander franchise — has always been crippled by a lack of money and the stink of its B-movie origins, as well as some really bone-headed creative decisions on the part of its producers and story editors that include the ham-fisted killing of a fan-favorite character and a really bad big-screen spin-off (yes, Highlander: The Series spun off from a movie and in turn ended up spinning off yet another movie; it’s all rather confusing). These factors ensured that the series never escaped from the ghetto of cheesy syndicated action shows, never became truly popular, never lived up to its full potential. I love the show for what it could have been as much as for what it was. I always hoped and wished it would rise above itself, but it only rarely did.

And now along comes New Amsterdam, which has a budget and appears in primetime on a legitimate TV network. The show looks good, and, so far anyway, it appears to have the potential to be all the things that Highlander never quite managed to achieve. And yes, as a loyal fanboy, that annoys me. Call it jealousy, I guess.

Of course, I’m probably getting worked up over nothing. After all, New Amsterdam is on FOX, which means it’ll probably last all of four episodes…