So... A Tale Of Two Muses....
Ultimately, I liked this ep. I had my doubts the first time I saw it. It didn't help that I was afflicted this week with back-pain and over-work... and a head cold (at this rate, I'll be getting my own comedy ep soon!), so the first time I saw ATOTM I didn't bring, perhaps, the most relaxed and receptive of attitudes to it. But when I did make time to watch it again, I enjoyed it more - which is always a good sign: I set a lot of store, with Xena eps, on whether, when I begin to rewatch them, their stock goes up or down - and, at least initially, ATOTM is looking bullish (as opposed, for example, to BGBG, which has proved one of the all time bears, and now languishes in the first season basement, despite seeming unobjectionable on first viewing...)
My problems with ATOTM lie (once again, cf ISAIH) in inconsistencies in treating Xena's character, and also in some weaknesses in managing the central conflict of the "plot"... but I feel these drawbacks are sufficiently overbalanced by the good humour and dancing fun of the ep, and I'm prepared to get out there and get down with it (albeit somewhat stiffly and awkwardly, with my bad back and all... and still muttering a bit about my quibbles as I go).
Might as well get those main quibbles addressed, now I've raised them...
Xena's character: Well it definitely looks as if we're going to have to accept progressively more goofy behaviour from the dark and dangerous one, even when she's not got spells, drugs or being-somebody-else to excuse her. Xena shaking her booty I can just about go for... after all, the woman *does* like to fight, so it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable that she'd like to dance (at some events I've been to, she could have combined the two, and hardly stood out at all...) I had more problems with her hamming at other points. For example when she broached Telamon in his shop about his leaving the revival meeting, she seemed rather Meg-like at times... still I guess she was supposed to be "acting" - taking a false position deliberately, in order to provoke him into reacting... And then the one that probably seemed most out of character to me was the broadly telegraphed and hammed (carrier pig-eon?) reaction to doing the splits - this *definitely* seemed more Diana or Meg than Xena... Xena doesn't normally mess up her physical moves (indeed I think this is about the first time we've ever seen her make an "unforced error" - i.e. hurt herself doing a move without bad-guys or multiple arrows making it harder for her...), and if she does get hurt, she always bears it stoically. It seemed a bit unreasonable seeing a woman who can do all sorts of flying acrobatics, head-butt people wearing helmets without blinking, and perform surgery on herself, making such a public pantomime about the pain from a misjudged dance-move. But overall, although somewhat niggled (obviously - else I wouldn't be going on about it), I didn't have anywhere near as hard a time living with Xena's behaviour in this ep as I did with ISAIH.
The "Plot": OK, it wasn't really much of a plot. But such as it was, I thought they missed a couple of opportunities with it. The first point, which I've already seen a couple of people mention, is that the "bad guys", the ones causing all of the trouble, weren't really much of a threat. They didn't seem all that nasty or dangerous, and gave in almost immediately whenever challenged. They were also instantly and completely taken in by even the most obvious of tricks (see detailed maunderings below, if you've got the time...) This weakened the tension of the story, by failing to wind up its mainspring. An even more serious problem, to me, since it's more of a moral than a technical lapse, was the fact that the opponents of dance were never really given their due... in general only the flimsiest and silliest reasons for the prohibition were ever suggested (Tara suggested superstition arising from the fire which had taken place after a big dance 60 years before...) To my mind the ep would have been *vastly* improved if the opponents of dance had been allowed some serious spiritual concern. There *are* people who quite genuinely and sincerely oppose dance, amongst many other things, for what they consider to be the most serious and benevolent of reasons. I don't agree with them. But I think they deserve serious argument. I may be somewhat influenced by the fact that I was raised by strict Methodists who believed that knitting or playing in the park on Sunday was a sin, and were to say the least, very suspicious of dancing... I think they were wrong, but I don't think they were stupid or malicious themselves, nor that they were under the influence of stupid or malicious people. In an action show, I know it helps to have a bit of stupidity and malice to fight against. But I still think the ep would have been improved immeasurably if some dignity and seriousness of purpose had been allowed to the other side, making a meaningful spiritual question of the plot's central point, rather than just knocking down a ridiculous straw-man. (And I don't think this is an outrageous demand - X:WP has, on the whole, a very good history of treating even its villains with some dignity, and allowing both sides of a question to play on the feelings of the viewers...)
OK, enough of the serious discussion, already! As I said, for all that, I enjoyed the ep...
A bit of a wander through some high-points, low-points, significant moments, and nit-picks, etc, etc:
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So Gab's writing *poetry* now, not just stories, and her writing is what gives her an outlet and enables her to cope? And Xena has.... her chakram? How seriously were we meant to take that? Xena's skill at the arts of battle is what provides her self-expression and confirms her identity for her? Hmm...
*
The bit about "the desert's hard on shoes", "got to get Argo to a blacksmith", "actually I was talking about *my* shoes", was very reminiscent of season one, especially Xena's telling Argo that sometimes you just have to put up with people you don't get along with...
*
And did anybody else question what that initial attack was all about? I mean Xena and Gab walk into a village, about which presumably they know nothing, and they see an anonymous malefactor about to be given ten lashes for some unknown crime. So what do they do? They immediately beat up the entire village to prevent the punishment from proceeding!!! Why??? Are they completely opposed to *all* corporal punishment to the point where they're prepared to do considerable violence at the drop of a hat to prevent it? That would seem the only possible explanation (and a pretty silly one at that), since the punishment wasn't incredibly harsh (believe me, there are *many* parts of the world even today where ten lashes is considered a *very* light sentence...) and they had *no* idea of the reason for the punishment...
And once Xena starts the fight, Gab leaps in and says "Save some for me!" What? Our bard is regarding head-bashing as a shared pleasure now?
*
I thought Tara was sweet in this ep. Of course, unlike many people, I was quite sympathetic to her even in Forgiven. So I thought it was nice to see her again, and I actually found the evolution of her character quite believable, and rather endearing...
*
For a town that has banned dancing for sixty years, Paleos sure has an awful lot of very accomplished musicians with a fine repertoire of dance music...
*
Did the name Istafan ring a bell by any chance? It's a Muslim name, and it's also very close to "Isfahan" which is a city in Iran, and also a centre of Muslim pilgrimage. I don't believe that this was entirely a coincidence... either it was a deliberate dig by the writer at the repressive Islamic authorities in Iran, or it was unconsciously suggested by association. Albeit that most of the rest of the script seems to evoke the Christian right in America rather than Islam...
*
Why did the villagers worship Calliope? Calliope was one of the muses (who, by the way, were the daughters of Mnemosyne, who we all know so well - I suppose you could take that as just a poetic way of saying that art is the daughter of memory...) Specifically, Calliope was the muse of epic poetry. Terpsichore was the muse of dance and song. I don't believe any opposition between the two was ever recorded (well Xena did say "Since when was Calliope the muse of *not* dancing?" - but that sounded to me almost as if she thought Calliope was the muse of dancing...) I suppose we'd have to assume that the "two muses" of the title were Calliope and Terpsichore - but then it seems strange that they never actually mentioned Terpsichore in the ep...
*
OK, there were several hints in this ep that our girls are already started on their trip to the East... no? I mean we've not been given any indication *why* - but they did mutter about being "so far from home", and they *were* crossing what appeared to be a desert, and Xena *did* complain about "foreign food", and they *did* send for Autolycus from Oman (which, in modern geography at least, is in the Persian Gulf - although in the Xenaverse, who knows?) But if they *are* leaving Greece and heading East, why??? I wonder if this is another case of them showing the eps out of the order they were made in (as in Gab's Amazon outfit, which she acquired in H&H, appearing in DIC, which was shown first)? That's my guess, actually - that ATOTM was made with the expectation that it would be shown following some other ep which accounts for the start of the Eastward journey...
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Paleos seems to be a very democratic place for its time, especially given that's it's supposed to be repressive... free elections for town magistrate, with anyone allowed to nominate themselves and stand... Hmmm...
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When Tara said she was "on a mission" did anyone else think we were going to get rather more Blues Brothers echoes than we did?
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I wondered idly when Tara made money street dancing in Thebes... I guess it must have been after she left her own village, and before she washed up in Paleos. Also, how come she never mentioned her enthusiasm for the arts in Forgiven?
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If Istafan is trying to get himself popularly re-elected as town magistrate, how come he wears such an obvious "I'm a bad-guy" outfit, with all the black leather lacings, and that leather helmet, which must have been *awfully* uncomfortable in the hot weather??
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I think the flush-toilet and the zipper *have* to be the most egregious cartoon sound effects ever perpetuated on X:WP to date! Any other candidates, anyone? And if Xena's costume has a zipper, where is it? Does she have zipper knickers?!
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Gab's sudden affinity for dance was remarkable, especially given that she appeared completely averse in H&H, and even said that they wouldn't let her participate in Poteidaia for fear of her bringing on bad crops...
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I don't know whether anyone noticed, but the guy who mended Gab's boots was King Saul (Dennis Hally) - apparently he's come down in the world...
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Talking (as I was at one point) of Istafan's gullibility - aside from how easily he was fooled... why would he want to welcome another preacher into town? How could he expect to benefit from some foreign, unknown quantity stirring up his flock? I would have expected suspicion and caution, rather than the open-armed welcome that we saw...
*
And then we have a new explanation of how messages are sent in the Xenaverse. Pigeons. But that's nonsensical. Pigeons *home*. They go back to a specific place. If you want to send someone a message by pigeon, you have to be carrying a pigeon that is theirs, i.e. that is going to "home" to the home of the person to whom you want to send the message (and the person has to be at home at the time too - the pigeon isn't going to home on the person, just on the place). So the idea of Xena sending Auto a message by pigeon is ludicrous!
1) Does Xena carry around a stock of pigeons belonging to each of the people she might want to send a message to? Where does she keep them? (And don't say in Argo's saddle-bags!)
2) Auto wasn't at home anyway, he was at some court of Oman. (Does Auto even *have* a home?)
3) I suppose if Xena just *happened* to have a couple of pigeons from Oman, she could have used them to send the messages - but then how did she even know that Auto was at the court of Oman in the first place, especially given that he was presumably under-cover and working a scam??
4) How could Xena send separate messages by two pigeons, one to Auto and one to the king? Unless Auto was staying in a tavern, and Xena *happened* to have a pigeon belonging to that particular tavern, as well as one from the king's personal dovecot... but at this rate, if Xena keeps pigeons from every tavern and personal dovecot in the Eastern Mediterranean area, her pigeon-feeding bill must get enormous!
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The first time I watched the ep, I thought Xena said that Philemon had once even got the King of Thebes to perform a selfless act, and that then Istafan went on to malign the King of Thebes.. so I was wondering "what's this whole deal with the King of Thebes, is this some reference to Oedipus?" It was only when I rewatched the ep, that I realised they were talking about the King of *Thieves*, i.e. Auto himself... Was anyone else this dense, or was I the only one?
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Licinus was played by Campbell Cooley who we first saw as one of Tarsis' guards in VA. Then he reappeared as Euraylus in ISAIH. He seems to be showing a certain consistency, always playing the villain's lieutenant in comedies...
*
I enjoyed the blend of Indian and Irish music in this ep. I continue to be impressed with what Joseph LoDuca does. The music for the song Tara danced to was very Indian, and even her dancing itself seemed to follow Indian influences. I enjoyed that whole scene, and it very much brought to mind a poem I wrote about a dancer in old Indian films:
Yes
that delicate
music of the fingers,
curve of
the wrist, the neck
Smile that
never quite arrives
never quite vanishes
from the lips
and who is she,
caught in
the mind's eye, the camera's,
pinned in the flickering,
translucent screen of time?
What do her
bones dream
as this glass grace
cuts through her?
We reach for her
and do not reach her.
And this is
why it is music,
because it is not reached,
this moment
she is in.
It is something about reaching,
this beauty,
the line of loss
and the plane of now
which approach
but never quite
intersect
at the point of the image
so she
recedes from her beauty
and we recede from our
envy, our
need of it
and still
the delicate brown hands
dance there on the screen
after we all have gone.
*
Although a lot of people have said they think that song was performed by Lucy, I still don't think so. I listened carefully when I rewatched the ep, and it seemed to me the singer had a distinctive American "twang" in her voice, which I've never heard in Lucy's and which I don't see why Lucy would introduce... (although given her accents as Mel and Ezra, who knows?)
*
I have to add to the downside on this ep another "serious speech" of Xena's that I just didn't buy... this was the "once you run away, you never stop" speech to Tara and Andros in the ruin. I'm sorry, but this speech was nonsense! OK, I'm taking it personally. I "ran away". I left England because I didn't like English society - I didn't like the way it was so powerfully ruled by forces of tradition and social class. Yes, I could have stopped and tried to change things. But why should I expect a whole society to adapt to my view of things, which was totally out of tune with the majority culture? And it's certainly not true that I kept running for the rest of my life and never had a home again. I came to Canada, where I feel *vastly* more at home than I ever did in England, and I've never regretted it for a moment. So yes, I reacted with suspicion and hostility to this idea of Xena's that you should never leave a place where you feel that you don't fit in. Or, more to the point - I wish the writers would be a bit more careful before they have Xena start preaching. I don't expect the warrior to be a philosopher, but if she's going to make a habit of spouting spurious platitudes, it's not going to improve my respect for her character...
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There's been quite a bit of discussion by fans over time about the prevalence of steel in the Xenaverse, considering that it shouldn't really have been commonly known then at all. And it's often been suggested that the metal of Hephaestus was steel. But in ATOTM we heard steel explicitly mentioned for (I believe) the first time... after Gab got her boots patched, and started tapping them, she said "I like steel!" Hmm... I guess that shoots down the metal of Hephaestus theory...
*
OK, now what about that dialogue between Auto and Gab? "I sense that there's some pent up energy, some frustration eating at you, some unresolved desire. Ha! I can tell that you need to get..." "Dancing!" "Well actually, I was on a different track..." Hmmm... is it just me, or is Auto getting *awfully* familiar with the bard here?
*
Several people were asking if Reneé did her own dancing. I believe she *can* actually dance a bit, but I'm also *quite* sure most of the footwork was done by a "foot double" - as witnessed by the fact that whenever we saw Gab dancing and we could see her face, her feet were cut off, whereas the close-ups of the feet never included or panned to a face. The only time we saw Reneé do a couple of steps herself was right at the start of the big final dance, when she did a couple of basic tap moves, but then we rapidly cut to the "pro feet" for the fancy stuff. And yes, Lucy had a double to do the splits as well.
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Hemi Rudolph has really moved up. He had a big role in this ep, as Telamon, the "nice guy" butcher, and I thought he did it very well. The only time he's been on X:WP before, I believe, was as the "First Guard" in ASC, replying to Silvas' assertion "I'm the king" with the line "And I'm the Queen of the Amazons. Seize them."
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At least they all looked as if they had fun making this ep. I liked Xena and Gab's little rivalry at the end: Gab circles Xena executing her fancy footwork whilst Xena mugs and rolls her eyes, until finally she grabs Gab and pulls her to one side, and then does an incredible aerial somersault. And then they both just crack up (and it certainly looked as if that was more a genuine moment between Lucy and Reneé than a question of acting...)
*****
And what about "Norse by Norsevest"? Well, despite the title, we didn't have any giant carvings of rulers being climbed over. Lots of new characters, lots of plot. But I'm afraid the plot mostly just irritated me. I like plots that surprise me, or intrigue me. I don't like plots that forcibly telegraph everything repeatedly before it happens: "Hey look!!! This guy is going to get tricked!! This guy is fooling the other guy!!! Who is the mysterious villain, whose face we never see??" So, I'm sorry, but my overall reaction to this ep tended towards boredom and annoyance. I'm *really* missing Michael Hurst - balancing out these two eps, I think I'd rather have him acting on Herc than directing Xena. At least we left the druid munchkin behind... he was starting to get on my nerves - he was better in his first ep, but increasingly he sounded as if he was just reading his lines off cue-cards. OTOH Morrigan was a loss...
Actually the society of the Vikings was portrayed kind of interestingly... I quite liked the violence and stupidity, with still a core of human sympathy offered. It's a pity they didn't combine it with a better plot.
