James Horton is a fictional character from Highlander: The Series, portrayed by actor Peter Hudson.

James Horton is first introduced in the first season finale episode, "The Hunters" (1993), as the leader of the men who enter Darius's (Werner Stocker) chapel and behead him.

Those men, called the Hunters,[2] then kidnap MacLeod's friend, fellow Immortal Hugh Fitzcairn (Roger Daltrey).

Horton later sets up a plan to meet MacLeod's lover Tessa Noël (Alexandra Vandernoot) and check a wound she has on her hand to see if she is immortal.

The script says that Horton and his accomplices "study Fitzcairn as one would a large, interesting insect,"[4] then shoot him with a crossbow to see if he will revive, proving that he is an Immortal.

When Fitzcairn awakes, Horton tells him, "I've often wondered how much pain an Immortal could bear before he went mad.

"[5] MacLeod searches for the Hunters' hiding while Horton is addressing his men: "We have won a great victory.

"[6] When Robert expresses the wish to leave the Hunters because MacLeod spared his life, Horton kills him, but is able to comfort Lynn afterwards when she learns of her fiancé's death.

"[6] MacLeod enters and Horton admits to having killed Robert, saying, "Sometimes in war innocents get harmed.

Cloud (Roland Gift), in which Horton provides mercenaries that shoot Immortals dead so that Xavier can safely behead them.

MacLeod revives and breaks open Horton's grave in the Dawson family crypt.

In "Unholy Alliance Part Two" (1994), Horton and Xavier are still plotting MacLeod's death together.

Later in Paris, when MacLeod finds their hiding, Horton tries to flee again on a boat, but Dawson stops him.

He uses Pete Wilder (Martin Cummins) to befriend Richie and make MacLeod suspicious, which spreads discord between the two.

At the same time, he has murderer Lisa Halle (Meilani Paul) kidnapped and her appearance altered by plastic surgery so that she looks like MacLeod's deceased lover Tessa.

"[8] In "Counterfeit Part Two" (1994), Dawson mentions that he and Horton designed the Watcher's computer security system together "to be bullet-proof" and that it uses thumb print to get in.

"[10] Executive Script Consultant David Tynan thinks, "Other characters we've killed off, but they weren't dead.

"[13] The script of "The Hunters" describes Horton as "an imposing man, muscular and intelligent in appearance".

Hudson believed that "partly, it was geography because I spend a lot of time in France, anyway," so he was available for filming when production moved to Paris.

He never had a preconception of how a scene should be (...) I think that he never liked to play [Horton] because [Hudson] didn't get over it, of being the bad guy, he was just very available.

[16] Lettow remembered that there was "not a dry eye in the room" when the producers watched the dailies of the "Armageddon" scene in which Ahriman-Horton offers Dawson his legs back.

Paonessa had the idea of adding a series of segments from previous episodes to the transition and Editor Stein Myhrstad spend two hours doing it.

[18] Reviewer Kathie Huddleston of SciFi.com wrote that "Horton's silly plots to get Duncan, first joining with St.

Cloud and later using plastic surgery to turn a criminal into a Tessa look-alike, make little sense, but they're fun to watch.

Cloud's gas bombs could do the trick to immobilize Mac long enough for Horton to take a sword to him.

"[19] Reviewer Abbie Bernstein of Audio Video Revolution thought that "Avatar" "makes excellent use of guest actor Peter Hudson as Ahriman, who’s impersonating MacLeod’s dead foe, the fanatically anti-Immortal Horton.

"[20] Reviewer Rick Sanchez of IGN wrote that "Horton, one of the Watchers, decides to go rogue and eliminate the immortals so they can't rule over the more fragile folks like you and me.

Since this is a television series after all, it turns out that Duncan is the only one who can stop Horton's mad plans and Highlander gets an ongoing villain.