OK, I fear I have to start this week's maunderings with no less than *three* personal disclaimers...
Firstly, a repeat of last week's: my family is part Indian (Muslim though, not Hindu), so India is sort of an alternate homeland to me, and when dealing with things Indian I tend to meander around dispersing sundry (and possibly irrelevant information) even more so than is normally the case.
Secondly, I'm afraid I didn't like Between The Lines very much - it seemed to me like a lot of convoluted plotting and technical flash with very little heart to it... so if (as many people seem to have) you thoroughly enjoyed this ep, you may find my views a bit of a downer.
And Thirdly - I've had the flu all week, and am now on some medication that stifles the pain in my sinuses but makes me rather groggy... so I may be less cogent than normal (although I'm not sure how cogent that is anyhow, sometimes...) It's possible that being quite sick whilst watching and thinking about this ep may have coloured my view of it somewhat... but quite honestly I really doubt that I would have felt very positively about this ep, whatever my state of health.
***
So - did I like the ep? Well, I've already said that I didn't. Why not? Well there just wasn't a lot to like, for me. Even with last week's ep, Devi, although I quite liked it, I did complain that I couldn't really see it as approaching being a great Xena ep because nothing in it really moved me. But at least Devi had several positive things in its favour -
* beautiful costumes
* lovely music
* a central idea that was somewhat intriguing and raised some genuinely interesting points about the characters (Gab's desire to make choices, and to achieve and be recognised in her own right vs Xena's suspicion, and her dread of hurting Gab)... albeit it didn't really develop these themes very well, since the demon possession thing confused and ultimately pre-empted the whole issue; but still there was something of genuine character-based interest there, even if it was a bit repetitive of things in earlier eps
* an interesting and well acted secondary character in Eli.
As against this, what did Between The Lines have to offer? Well I'm afraid the answer, for me, is pretty much:
* beautiful costumes
* lovely music
and that's it. The plot struck me as a bunch of convoluted game-playing, basically, with very little connection to anything of any real human significance. I also didn't particularly care for its use of Indian cultural elements, which were either muddied and confused, or treated frankly absurdly. And the main secondary character was Alti, and I'm afraid I thought Claire Stansfield was *awful* in this ep - I thought she was fine as the shamanness in the context of Adventures In The Sin Trade, but here she just seemed to be a stereotypical overacting villain. Actually, there were a couple of other minor points in the ep I felt positively about:
* the actor who played Shakti was good - I wish we'd seen a bit more of him
* the *idea* of Xena and Gab meeting in different incarnations in another life is full of potential, and we did get a little inkling of that when they first met up in the future; unfortunately it went nowhere, since they had to move along rapidly with the silly plot, which offered no scope for character-based development or exploration
* the thing about walking down the same road many times, in the chat at the end, had an interesting resonance to it.
But that really is it, for positive things I can say about Between The Lines. The ep didn't move me at all. It annoyed and confused me a lot. And the odd little bits that started to interest me were all brief flashes that went nowhere.
So... I hope that doesn't put everyone totally off from taking a wander through the ep with me. I'll try to keep my carping under control, and I certainly do have quite a few informational odds and ends to discuss, since many things are brought up in this ep, without an awful lot of light be shed on them. Shall we go...
***
I wondered rather why the promo / preview for this ep included shots of both Callisto and Hope. Callisto did appear (very) briefly in shots used in Alti's 'battle of the clips' fighting technique. Hope didn't appear at all, so far as I could see. I can only suppose that they were both thrown into the preview to try and keep us guessing about who the 'resurrected' enemy that Xena was going to be facing was... but even though I *try* as hard as I can to avoid advance spoilers, I knew darned well it was going to be Alti. In fact I was half expecting the spirit possessing Gab last week to turn out to be Alti in another form...
*
"What we sow in this life we reap in our future lives. This is our karma." From the Xena "Blue Scroll" author unknown... So now we're getting Xena scrolls which *aren't* written by Gab? In any case, this is a *fairly* reasonable statement of the principle of karma, although it already has slight seeds of misunderstanding in it. Karma is not some sort of celestial bank balance that can tinkered with, or stolen. Nor is it a person's soul, or their fate - as the usage of the word at some points in this ep would seem to imply. Karma is basically a *principle* of cause and effect - each thing that you do will effect the future progress of your soul through this life and through other future lives. It's quite an elegant principle, which seeks to find a certain fairness in the universe, and to account for differences in people's stations and success in life without resort to an acceptance of capricious chance. I am not a Hindu myself, and I do not accept the principle of karma as a matter of faith... but I do see a certain grace and profundity in it - and I found the treatment of it in this ep confused, confusing and unconstructive.
*
More nice Indian music in the opening - a chord on the sitar followed by a vocal 'alaap' accompanied only by tanpura (drone lute) and finger chimes. The 'alaap' is an essential part of Indian classical musical performance - it is the normal opening of any exposition of a raag... a free exploration of the tones of the raag, with no rhythmical measure (and hence unaccompanied by drums). An alaap can go on anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes, leading, with the introduction of the drums, into the next, metred section... in most performances there will be a slower metred section, followed by a concluding faster metred section in a different 'taal' (roughly equivalent to a western time signature). In this case, after the fairly brief alaap, we hear the start of a metred section with tabla and sitar.
*
"You know what they say: 'When in Rome...'" "Oh, please!" "OK, different analogy..." Yep, I guess asking Xena to "do as the Romans do" might not be the most tactful thing, eh Gab?
*
"There's a lot to be said for immersing yourself into the culture of a new land." Well given what is introduced immediately afterwards, I imagine a certain degree of irony is intended in these words... and that's fair enough - there's a lot to be said for being open to the culture of a new land, but that doesn't mean to say we should set aside all our own values in order to fit in. But we must be prepared to question our own values - especially if we expect others to question theirs. There's no simple answer to problems of moral cultural relativism (basically, when do we have the right to say that something another culture believes in and practises is 'bad'?) - but equally we can't afford to stop asking the question. We need to be sensitive to and appreciate the background and traditions of others, but sometimes we also need to stand up for what we believe is right, even if it does offend cultural sensibilities - the recent French law case on the issue of female genital mutilation would be a strong case in point of this kind of issue.
*
Hmmm.... wandered a bit OT there again, didn't I? Oh, before I leave that quote - the grammar of it is wrong... it should be "immersing yourself *in* the culture of a new land", not "into"!
*
The music when the procession approaches reintroduces to us the bansuri, the Indian bamboo or cane flute, which we first heard in Paradise Found. The style of playing was a little different here though - two bansuris, one higher pitched, one lower, are heard playing in mournful dialogue. I almost said "counterpoint" there - but in fact Indian music does not use polyphony in the western sense, that is of multiple voices heard simultaneously performing different melodies so that the blended notes of the voices produce changing harmonies. This technique has no part in classical Indian music, which is essentially monophonic, i.e. using only a single melody (albeit often very complex, in both melodic and rhythmic terms). Where two or more voices or instruments *are* heard together in Indian music, as here, they generally follow a 'call and response' method, tossing the melody back and forth between them, and if they are heard for a spell together they usually follow the same melody, separated by a fixed interval.
*
So, what we are seeing here is a Hindu funeral. The body is, as shown here, usually wrapped in a winding sheet and burned on an open wooden pyre. However the body is not usually 'tossed' onto the pyre as was done here... and frankly this 'body' moved more like a log of balsawood than a dead person. The pyre would not be set up, usually, in the centre of a town, as it was here, but rather on the banks of a river, wherever possible, so that the ashes could be scattered into the river afterwards. Availability of sufficient wood for funeral pyres, and pollution of rivers as a result of funerals are both significant problems in modern India. The practice of a widow burning along with her dead husband was called 'suttee' and was widespread in India, probably for many centuries. There is considerable controversy about the history of the practice. Some commentators will insist that there was never any obligation for a widow to burn with her husband, and that it was entirely a case of faithful and devoted wives *voluntarily* throwing themselves onto their husbands funeral pyres (the Hindi word is actually "sati", which means, basically, "faithful"). I'm afraid I tend to take this explanation with large amounts of salt... 'voluntarily' doing what there is enormous social pressure on you to do is not really much of a choice at all, even if actual forceful compulsion was never used. The British, in their time in India, made some fairly strong efforts to stamp out the practice, and in modern India there are laws, I believe, prohibiting it, just as there are laws prohibiting the demanding of dowries upon marriage... the demanding of dowries is, however, still routine, and widows burning upon their husbands funeral pyres, whilst far from routine, is still heard of from time to time. In general to say that widows were not regarded highly in traditional Indian society would be a gross understatement - they were expected to dress for the rest of their lives in white (the colour of bereavement in Hindu tradition), and to live as virtual recluses (with their husband's family - a woman moved permanently from her birth family to her husband's family upon marriage). There are certainly some notable exceptions to this in modern India - Mrs. Indira Ghandi, for example, was a widow (being the daughter of independent India's first Prime Minister, Jawarlal Nehru, and having been married to a Mr. Ghandi, who was I believe some kind of merchant, and who died before his wife's rise to political power). It's curious that Naima is shown here wearing red, which is the colour of a bride in India, rather than white, the colour of a widow.
*
And what was Naima's view of this whole process supposed to be? After all, she was obviously a very powerful woman in her own right, and she seemed quite content to let herself be burned. How did she feel about being "rescued"? It would really have been nice if this had been clarified for us a bit!
*
"Our custom has been passed down, and can only be changed by a darsham, an enlightened one..." Well that was what it sounded to me as if he said. And the word was used in two other scenes in the ep, and every time it sounded like "darsham" to me... which was driving me up the wall, because I couldn't figure out where they got it from. There is no such word as "darsham" in modern Hindi (well I've never heard it, and it's not in any of the four Hindi dictionaries I own). There *does* appear to have been a word "darsham" in Sanskrit, but I'm not clear what it meant, although it appears to have been related to the common modern Hindi word "darshan". Also several Tibetan Buddhist sages appear to have "Darsham" as part of their name, so it might mean something there... In any case, I finally checked the ep on my son's TV, which has CC, and the CC says "darshan". There and again, "darshan" is hardly the most obvious Hindi word to use for "an enlightened one"... it basically means 'experiencing the presence of', so it can refer to anything from having an interview with a person to seeing a vision of a god, or visiting a shrine... it can also be used abstractly to mean, roughly, "vision", or even "philosophy". I've not myself heard it applied as a title to a person though. Nor, for that matter, have I ever heard or read the idea that Hindu traditions are subject to be revised by "enlightened ones". I think this is mostly another example of TPTB making it up as they go along...
*
Now I've heard of using a wet cloth as a weapon (maybe even done it, in my time...) - but forming one into a rigid staff the way Xena did in the fight at the funeral would be quite some trick! Maybe she took a few lessons from Eli before he wandered off...
*
The things that Xena stuck the spear into was a "lingam"... this is basically a giant stone representation of a penis (no, really...) erected as a religious symbol of fertility. It is a sacred representation of the god Shiva, in his aspect of the creator and begetter. What we are supposed to make of Xena sticking a spear into it, I don't know (other than, possibly, a sympathetic "ouch"...)
*
Naima just seems to passively allow anyone to do anything with her, without expressing any feelings at all about any of it. I've a nasty feeling that this is basically because she is a plot device rather than a character, and so doesn't actually have any feelings about anything or any motivations of her own...
*
Where do Xena and Gab leave their luggage when they're up to all these shenanigans - at the hotel? I mean, they do presumably still own things besides what they stand up in - their regular costumes, kites, frying pans, portable showers, etc.... And for that matter, what's happened to Argo - she wasn't present at all, even when they left town at the end... did Xena park her somewhere, rather than bringing her to India? (And didn't she say she'd never do that again after Adventures in The Sin Trade and In Sickness And In Hell?)
*
OK, the six pointed star (the star of David, if you will) *keeps* popping up. It was carved conspicuously into the back of the niche in the wall of the house that Xena and Gab and Naima holed up in, with candles burning around it, like some kind of shrine. I can't imagine anymore that we're supposed to see it as indicating a Jewish connection... but if it has a significance in Hinduism, I'm afraid that I don't know what it is (but then I'm not a Hindu... and Hinduism uses so *many* symbols that it wouldn't surprise me at all if some significance is attached to the six pointed star).
*
So... instead of doing anything a human being might do, Naima generates a light show and beams Xena into the future. "A journey to save your karmic soul..." This whole thing didn't make much sense to me - but then plots that involve time-travel rarely do. And "karmic soul" is redundant - you have a soul, karma is a principle which is (if you believe in it) involved in the progress of your soul... I don't see that you have a "karmic soul" as distinct from some other kind of soul. That is, assuming Naima even said "soul" - it wasn't very clear...
*
And one of Xena's future lives (as they felt the need to tell us on the screen, just in case we were getting confused... and no wonder) is as "Arminestra, the mother of peace". I wondered if the name Arminestra had any significance... it sounds vaguely familiar, but I haven't been able to find anything about it.
*
Wasn't the first shot of an incoming "fireball" borrowed from Past Imperfect - the one where it's sort of coming down a wall directly at the camera?
*
They certainly didn't want us to miss the fact that Arminestra was the "mother of peace" did they? Almost every character refers to her complete with this description at least once!
*
I actually liked the first woman who played Kinden *way* better than Claire Stansfield - who I thought overacted egregiously in the role.
*
When we first return to Gab and Naima in the house, I believe this is the first time we hear a female classical Indian vocalist - all the preceding Indian vocals, back to Paradise Found, were done by males (there *were* female vocals in Devi, but they weren't Indian in style...)
*
Naima offers Gab a piece of paper and says "Make moves, sweet thing..." Huh? I have *no* conception what this was supposed to mean. And does Naima make a habit of addressing women she hasn't been introduced to as "sweet thing"? It reminds me rather of annoying cowboys in bars - but I guess that would be "sweet thang"...
*
I'm sorry.... but whilst I found Naima attractive, and her motions were appealing (they were based on Indian classical dance moves - I'm assuming she was a trained Indian classical dancer), still, on the whole, I found her enigmatic "wise one" routine rather annoying. (It reminded me a bit of the Blackadder routine: "Two things ye must know of the Wise Woman. Firstly, she is a woman...")
*
OK, a free hint for TPTB - if you are going to have a character say "That is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!", then *don't* show the phenomenon in question to the audience in the form of a cheesy CGI light show...
*
More shehnai (double-reed pipe) music when we cut away to Alti. Loduca seems to associate the shehnai with warriors and danger - he first used it to introduce Najara, and then we heard it last week in Devi when Xena woke the sleeping Gab just before she was unmasked in full blown Tataka mode. I can sort of see his point... although the more traditional Indian association is actually with celebrations, and especially with marriages.
*
Why does Alti feel obliged to tell the prisoner she is questioning a little story: "There once was a powerful shamanness named Alti..."? I sort of half expected her to continue "... and she lived in the Dingley Dell, underneath the magic Quango Tree..."
*
And how come all the bits of this captured soldier's "thousand life times" all come from eps of X:WP?
*
I don't know.... I found this whole thing about Alti capturing Xena and taking her timeless power so she could become the Destroyer of Nations... how should I put it? ...altogether too "Superman / Kryptonite" for my taste. I find it very hard to *care* about mad villains trying to rule the world via some cheap (and generally totally implausible) trick. And I still think that Claire Stansfield hammed shamelessly, even for a mad villain!
*
This next conversation between Naima and Gab really started to muddle up the whole concept of karma to the point where it gave me a headache. A "great evil" is hunting Xena in the future - so Naima sends Xena's present essence into the future, to take over from her future essence (but why would the present essence be better?), and to try and stop this "great evil" so that Xena's "karmic cycle" isn't ended and the good of her future live's "lost". (Well apart from anything else, the whole basis of the principle of karma is that nothing is lost...) And then Gab says Naima must send *her* present essence into the future too, because of how much her Xena is part of her karma. I'm sorry, but I find this annoying gobbledegook... and the concept of karma is getting twisted to the point where it becomes next to meaningless. (See discussion of "karma" near the start of these maunderings...)
*
And Xena and Gab are together in "many lives", eh? Sounds a bit like uber fiction, doesn't it? But somehow I have the feeling that Steven Sears' version wouldn't be much like uber fiction at all... for one thing he seems to have a deep seated belief that erotic tension is base and low, and somehow beneath the elevated roles he has in mind for his characters. Interestingly, whilst many modern Hindus might agree with him (assuming I'm correct about his view...), there is a strong current in the history of Hinduism which is directly contrary to this view, and which sees erotic tension as a very important manifestation of divine energy...
*
Naima says that she is going to give Gab the weapon she could not give to Xena. *Why* couldn't she give it to Xena? Xena was going to miss her bus to the future or something? Xena was going to arrive *late* in the future? Why do I just get the feeling that none of this makes any sense at all?
*
The name of Gab's future incarnation is Shakti. I do know what this name means... it basically means "energy", and it is also the name of a Hindu goddess - indeed the goddess Shakti is essentially the ultimate Hindu mother goddess, the consort of Shiva (he of the lingam - which of course corresponds to her yoni), and of whom Kali ('the black one', often interpreted in western material as evil) is one form. I used to know a woman called Shakti (although I've never met a man called Shakti...perhaps not surprisingly). The phrase used in modern Hindi for "atomic energy" is "anu shakti", "anu" meaning tiny particle, or in modern usage, atom.
*
Then we get this whole "The key is the mehndi" thing - which is basically just another "Superman / Kryptonite" element, so far as I can see. Plus what Naima and Gab had on them was definitely *not* mehndi. Mehndi is simply the Hindi word for the henna plant. The leaves of the plant are dried and ground into a fine powder. This powder can be used for various things - for example, Indians often wash it into their hair, which if you have thick black hair (as almost all Indian's do) will just condition the hair and give it reddish highlights (on the other hand, if you have ash blonde hair it will produce a shade anywhere from a sickly pink to a glaring red, depending how well it takes). Skin decoration with mehndi is practised mainly by Indian women for weddings, although it is also used at other festivals, and by dancers. To decorate the skin, the powdered henna is mixed with water, and then the thick green paste which results (looking indeed much like the paste seen in this ep, and smelling rather like a bad drain) is applied in patterns to the skin. However the intended decoration is *not* the thick dark-green paste itself... rather it is the effect the henna has of dyeing the skin itself. The paste is left on for hours, usually overnight, then washed off, and where the paste has dyed the skin a pattern will be seen, varying in colour from pale orangey yellow to a deep yellowish brown, depending on the strength of the henna, how well it has taken, how long it was left on, and the skin of the person in question. I have heard people say "Well you can get black henna and blue henna etc. as well" - strictly speaking, you can't. It's true that powders are marketed calling themselves "black mehndi" etc... but actual mehndi, i.e. henna, only produced shades in the reddish-orange-brown area - so called "mehndi" which produces radically different shades generally contains synthetic dyes. What we saw on the skin of Naima and Gab looked more like some kind of decals, coloured roughly similar to the dark green of the henna paste, and looked nothing like the actual dyed-into-the-skin patterns of true mehndi decoration. And I've definitely never heard any suggestion in India that wearing mehndi conveys magical powers - if this were believed, you can be sure that it wouldn't only be women wearing it!
*
We hear some more bansuri music as Naima gets ready to send Gab into the future.
*
"Mehndi is the path to enlightenment." Oh, come one! And nail polish and incense are the path to everlasting grace...
*
Obviously the mehndi drawing tool Naima has (sort of like a bingo dabber) is very magical... normal mehndi paste has to be used right after it's mixed, before it dries up, but this can sit in a hole in the wall for life times and still be nice and moist and ready to use!
*
Those guys certainly took their time getting "into position" before breaking the door down, didn't they? We should all be chased by such a dilatory mob (if we must be chased by a mob at all...)
*
"Tell Xena the evil can only be destroyed here, where she is still powerful." Hmm... another completely arbitrary and essentially nonsensical rule, which seems to have little to do with what actually happens at the end. I suppose, charitably, you could say that present Xena plus present Gab plus mehndi defeated Alti eventually. But why should we *care* about all these convoluted rules that seem to be being made up as they go along?
*
More light shows and fragments from past and future eps as Gab is "projected". This *constant* use of clips from other eps is another thing that I'm getting tired of, to tell the truth. I had nothing at all against the original "clip show" concept, and indeed I thought Athens City Academy Of The Performing Bards and The Xena Scrolls were exceptionally well done. And I was ok with the use of clips in Adventures In The Sin Trade for Alti's special "mess you up by projecting you" fighting technique. But now it just seems to be getting tired... almost every ep has clip montages, as if they're not confident enough that the current ep will actually hold our attention, and they feel they have to keep throwing in teasers...
*
I quite liked the way that the guy who played Shakti handled the confusion when "present Gab's essence" was supposed to have just arrived and taken over. I thought that this whole thing - Xena and Gab meeting in different roles in a different time - was by far the most promising element of the ep. But essentially it was just thrown away... it didn't really go anywhere, because they had to get on with the "kidnap Alti and get the kryptonite... sorry, mehndi" plot. And the thing about suttee didn't go anywhere either... Naima had no character anyhow, and the issue just wasn't pursued. It was used as a setup and to force our initial involvement and then discarded - a narrative technique which Sears seems to be becoming increasingly fond of, and which I think amounts to wasting time and potential in the ep, and showing disrespect to the audience.
*
So Gab looks in the mirror and says "This is my karma?" No, it isn't Gab! But I suppose she might be forgiven for being completely confused by this point in the ep, since most of the audience probably was too...
*
When Shakti and the others overpower the guards we get a little tabla solo (the Indian drums playing on their own), and then the Shehnai returns for Alti's threatening Xena. Loduca definitely seems set in this warrior / danger association for the shehnai. BTW, rewatching on my son's TV I noticed that the CC called it "middle-eastern style music". The CC also spelled mehndi "mandhi", which is closer to the Hindi word for "market".
*
Alti says "Every person here has generations of power." So are we supposed to take the implication that reincarnation applies only in India? But is Xena and Gab are going to be repeatedly reincarnated in India, how can some other idea of afterlife also apply to them? And does anyone who *goes* to India get reincarnated, or just people born there? (In which case, why Xena and Gab?) Or could it be only people who *die* there?! Does this mean current Xena and Gab are going to die in India? But I thought they were supposed to get crucified under Claw Mountain? And does *any* of this actually make any sense?
*
And we get another variant of Sears' favourite "blood innocence" theme in this ep... in this future it's ok for Gab to kill, but not for Xena. Why? Does it depend what colour square you land on, or something - some lives it's ok to kill, some lives it isn't? Actually this corresponds almost exactly to the Hindu concept of dharma, which is just as important as karma in the Hindu world view, if not more so. Dharma could roughly be translated as "fate", or even "duty". The basic idea is that in each life you're born into a particular role, and it is your duty in that life to follow that role properly. So if you were born to be a warrior, then that is your dharma in this life, and of course it is perfectly correct for you to act according to your dharma and to kill. But, OTOH, if your dharma in this life is to be a peacemaker, then to kill would be a violation of your dharma... and violating your dharma is the one thing you *don't* want to do (it's very bad for your karma...) On the whole, I have to say that I'm not all that keen on the concept of dharma myself... it sounds a bit too much like the sort of thing that the fat cats who are getting all the pie make up to ensure that nobody rocks the boat (if you'll pardon me mixing my metaphors terribly...) But if Steven Sears does believe something of this sort (which would certainly help to make sense of the whole "blood innocence" thing), then I wish he'd be a bit clearer about it.
*
However Xena's comment "You were protecting my soul... otherwise Arminestra's - my karma would have been destroyed." Is fairly nonsensical. One thing you *can't* do to karma is "destroy" it - it's an ongoing process, a sum, an accumulation, and all you can do is add to it, possibly changing the balance and swaying the future effect. So killing Alti might have been bad for Arminestra's karma (presumably because it was a violation of her dharma), but it certainly wouldn't have 'destroyed' it.
*
I really thought Claire Stansfield was pretty dreadful in this ep... but then no doubt her performance must have been encouraged by the director - and it's not as if the character as written really offered an awful lot of possibilities.
*
What Xena and Gab were applying when captured by Alti *did* look like mehndi... but, as discussed above, applying it the way they did, and getting the results they did, makes no sense even on the purely decorative level, quite apart from the magical element.
*
Whilst they were applying the mehndi and Alti's men were setting up the stakes we got to hear a style of Indian music called "jugulbundi", where two or more voices or instruments dialogue and intertwine about a raag... if you listen closely, you'll see what I mentioned above about polyphony - the voices basically answer each other, and if they do overlap, they're generally both singing the same melody with a fixed interval between them.
*
How come when Gab applies the mehndi she seems to be back in women's clothing? Isn't she still supposed to be in Shakti's body?
*
I notice when Xena and Gab do their little dance and then blast Alti with the mehndi the two mehndi symbols on either side look kind of like snowflakes, but the middle one is... the star of David again! They're hitting us so often with this that I assume they *are* actually going to make some point about it eventually.
*
When Naima is cast onto the pyre, why does it make noises like a very bad digestion before Naima and Xena and Gab emerge?
*
And why is Xena still saying "Get Naima to safety!" when apparently Naima is more powerful than Xena is in many respects?
*
So who does Alti use against Xena this time? Milo! Then Calli. Then the arena guys from When In Rome. Then the Deliverer (I think). And Gab's staff gets broken (again...) And of course we *had* to have that d*** crucifixion scene again!
*
I'm sorry, but this "battle of the clips", including the famous haircut, just didn't engage me at all. Alti was merely tedious, as mad, overacting villains tend to be, and ultimately, especially on multiple viewings, I found the whole thing tiresome.
*
When Alti walked towards Naima saying "I'll have Xena's powers..." I flashed on her adding "...and her little dog too!" The Wicked Witch of the Future, indeed...
*
"Gabrielle! Naima's not Alti's enemy! It's the mehndi!" Excuse me - *what* sense is this supposed to make? This henna paste is an animate being? What in Tartarus is Xena talking about?
*
Xena, however, clearly prefers familiar weapons - since given magic goo, what does she do but make magic goo chakrams out of it - two at a time, when one won't do!
*
And the we get another speech from Naima about how Xena has to spend umpteen lifetimes meeting Alti's evil. And how Xena and Gab are like lines of henna paste, separated but forever connected. And how henna paste contains truth. (Yeah, and probably vitamins too!) Am I succeeding in communicating any sense of *why* I just feel like saying "Oh p*** off!" by this point?
*
Then we get another female classical vocalist (plus some sound effects) to accompany Naima's ascension.
*
Gabrielle's 'Indian' costume seems to be getting odder - her 'skirt' is looking more and more like the way washerwomen tie up their saris, but she's wearing the upper piece of cloth more like a Muslim 'duputta' than the top of a sari. And Xena's 'Indian' outfit looks almost entirely Muslim in style (placing it, like the Indian Muslim architecture we saw last week, something like 1,500 years out of its time).
*
I'm not sure what to make of the final chat. I certainly agree with Gab that there are lots of questions I could have asked Naima about what all this meant. As for the rest... well "Maybe it's not the first time we've walked down this road, huh?" "Maybe it won't be the last..." does have a certain resonance, possibly even a genuine profundity. But does the question "How will we recognise each other?" make any sense? - If you can't remember your previous lives, you can't remember to look for some sign you've agreed on, can you? And as for Xena combining the chakram and the cross to make the sigil of Venus as 'their' sign - was this just meant to be cute? And what relevance (if any) should be attached to the fact that we saw the sigil of Venus painted on a wall earlier, in the house, where the mehndi was hidden? Should we take that as a sign left by some earlier Xena or Gab incarnation (it was pretty faded) that this pair missed? Does this train of thought actually go anywhere...
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So who was who in Between The Lines?
Alti was, of course, played by Claire Stansfield, who originated the role in Adventures In The Sin Trade. Claire hasn't played any other roles in the Xenaverse, but she has many other credits to her name. She has appeared on the movies Steel (1997), Sweepers (1997), Darkdrive (1996), Gladiator Cop II: The Swordsman (1995), Wes Craven's The Outpost (1995), Drop Zone (1994), The Favor (1994), Gladiator Cop (1994), Sensation (1994), Best of the Best II (1993), Nervous Ticks (1992), and The Doors (1991). I particularly remember her as the "Warhol Eurosnob" in The Doors, and, IIRC, as a fairly athletic baddy in Drop Zone (although I don't really remember the plot much...) She has also done quite a bit of TV, appearing in episodes of Ned And Stacey, Frasier (in the ep "Can't Buy Me Love"), The X Files (playing the eponymous role in "The Jersey Devil"), The Raven (playing Marta Kelsy in the ep "Checkmate"), Cybill, and Red Shoe Diaries (in the ep "Bounty Hunter").
OK, this next one gave me a bit of a problem. Ajay Vasisht is credited as a guest star in this ep, but as is often the case with guest stars, they don't say who he plays. By process of elimination, I think it's got to be Atlhan, Shakti's lieutenant (although why Atlhan merits a guest star credit and Shakti himself doesn't, I don't quite see). Ajay Vasisht has appeared twice before on X:WP. He played a "vendor" in Blind Faith - this has got to be the guy at the beginning who haggles with Gab about the scarf she buys, and sells Sumac oil mixture as a dye. And Ajay also appears in The Xena Scrolls, as Nikos, whose sole function, pretty much, is to get stabbed in the back. Now I've gone back and looked at all three eps, and I can *just* *about* believe that all three roles, the vendor, Nikos and Atlhan, are played by the same person... but it's a bit of a strain - the vendor appears rather boyish and mischievous, especially when he's haggling with Gab, whereas Atlhan looks older, and fuller in the face, and Nikos is on screen so briefly it's hard to say...
Apart from these two, there's nothing really to say about the cast of Between The Lines - TPTB seem to have scoured New Zealand for actors of Indian descent, and perhaps not surprisingly, none of the others have appeared on the show before, so far as I can tell. Tharini Mudaliar, who played Naima, is, I'm fairly sure, a trained Indian classical dancer... but I couldn't find out anything about her. Shakti was played by Colin Mathura-Jeffree, and I was slightly surprised that I couldn't find anything about him at all, since I thought he was rather good.
The ep was written by Steven Sears, who still comes second, after R. J. Stewart, in number of X:WP writing credits - he is credited as "Writer" for Dreamworker, H&H, ACAOTPB, AFOD, TRCOT, TGG, OOW, IS, The Price, Lost Mariner, TDHD, The Deliverer, The Bitter Suite, WIR, Sac 1, A Good Day, and Past Imperfect, and also credited as "Story Writer" on Remember Nothing and The Quest, and "Teleplay Writer" on Destiny and The Quest.
The ep was directed by Rick Jacobson, who did TDHD, Sac. 2, A Good Day, and LUATD.
***
The disclaimer was:
Xena's chakram got Gabrielle by the short hairs during the production of this motion picture.
***
And what about the Herc ep, Greece Is Burning? *Very* much a reprise of the earlier ep And Fancy Free... but not, unfortunately, as successful - largely, I suspect, because fashion just wasn't a particularly apt vehicle for the kind of story they wanted to make. Dance worked fine... the "got to dance", "can't stop people from dancing" thing is easy to do, and a big dance makes a good finale. OTOH "got to be a fashion designer" just doesn't work so well, and a big fashion show *doesn't* make a very good finale - especially, in this case, given the fact that Althea's designs looked even *more* stupid and bizarre than those of the 'bad guys'. Herc tried bravely to shovel in a moral based on some sort of "be yourself" idea, but it didn't really fly too well...
Still, any ep that contained the line "You have more talent in your little finger than all Wieners in the world!" can't be *all* bad! Actually this ep had a great deal of the smutty double-entendre that is a mainstay of the British pantomime tradition (from which, of course, Widow Twanky is borrowed)... just listen to Widow Twanky's tale about her ex-husband Mr. Longfellow, also known as "Three Legged Willy" or "Dick", and how she "cut off his aspirations"!
But Willa O'Neill didn't seem to manage to bring quite the same bursting ugly-duckling energy to Althea this time, after managing it so well in And Fancy Free... Altogether a sequel that failed to enhance the original, I'm afraid.
***
And who was who in Greece Is Burning?
Althea was played by Willa O'Neill, who originated the role in And Fancy Free. Willa's other role on HTLJ was Phoebe, the fiery daughter of a hero, and a heroine in her own right, who Willa played in the eps Once A Hero and The Wedding of Alcmene. Willa is also, of course, well known to Xena fans as Lila, Gabrielle's sister, a role she has played in Sins of the Past, The Prodigal, The Bitter Suite, and A Family Affair. Willa has also appeared in the films Topless Women Talk About Their Lives (with the other Xenaverse regulars Danielle Cormack [Ephiny] and Joel Tobeck [Strife]), Secrets (a 1992 Australia / New Zealand co-production), and Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table. Willa also appeared on High Tide (playing Trudy Carry in the ep "La Bamba").
Althea's rival was played by Jay Saussey. I was rather confused about this character's name - in And Fancy Free she was called Onea, IIRC, but in this ep she seemed to be referred to as "Weena"...? In any case, besides Onea / Weena, Jay played a "Village Girl" in Hercules and the Lost Kingdom, and she also played the "Young Woman" in the X:WP eps Adventures In The Sin Trade, Parts 1 & 2 - this was the dead Amazon, who nonetheless had quite a few lines. Jay has also had several other roles, playing "Samantha Age 14" in the TV movie Every Woman's Dream in 1996 (my, how quickly they grow up!), Melissa Anderson in Bonjour Timothy (1995), and Griffin's girlfriend in The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey. This latter was made in 1988, so she must have been *really* young in it - but this isn't quite as strange as it sounds... it was a very odd film, about a bunch of children who somehow travel in time and space - quite surreal, as I recall, but I'd recommend you check it out. Jay also played the role of Georgie Wilson on the TV series Deepwater Haven (also known as Port Cook), and appeared on the NZ soap Shortland Street as Dominique Coombes.
Onea / Weena's mentor Count Von Verminhaven was played by Stuart Devenie. This was a teeny bit odd, since in And Fancy Free Stuart played Asterius the Magistrate, who was Onea's *father*! Perhaps Onea / Weena has something of an Electra complex...? Stuart has also been seen as the Irish god of war, Kernunnos in the eps Resurrection and Render Unto Caesar. He appeared in the Michael J. Fox film The Frighteners as the museum curator - Danny Lineham, who played the school teacher in Let There Be Light was also in this movie, which was a US / NZ co-production. Stuart can also been seen in the rather extreme movie Braindead as Father McGruder, and he leant his voice to the bizarre puppet exercise Meet the Feebles (worth checking out, if you like weird stuff, but definitely *not* a children's film).
Althea's young friend Titus was played by Brett Stewart, who has previously been seen as Stichius in Reign of Terror.
The Fashion Police were headed by Geoff Dolan, who was also the chief goon in And Fancy Free, in that case dressed in an approximation to the official Greek "national costume" (which involves a white skirt, amongst other things - sorry, I don't know the proper name for it). Geoff was also seen as Orenth in The Lady and the Dragon. His only movie credit seems to be as a "Machine gunner" in the NZ war drama Chunuk Bair, which also features Norman Forsey (Tiresias, King Lias, and other roles).
The Emcee at the fashion shows (he of the sickly grin and exaggerated enunciation) was played by Simon Gomez, who was most recently seen as the Temple Guard in Just Passing Through, and also appeared as Saltar in The Green-Eyed Monster.
Terry Batchelor gave us his "Burly Man" in this ep. He has previously played Trikonis in Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur, Mudo in The March to Freedom, and Segallus in All That Glitters. He also played a taxi driver in the 1992 NZ film Crush, which also featured Donogh Rees (the melancholy Norse goddess Frigga).
The poor sweat-shop worker who we saw Onea / Weena abusing was played by Andrea Kelland. Andrea hasn't appeared on HTLJ or X:WP before, but she played Miss Sybil in a little film called The End Of The Golden Weather, which also featured Paul Gittins (Kaleipus), Alison Bruce (Melosa), Alistair Browning (the Irish chieftain Bronagh, and more recently King Melos in If The Shoe Fits), and someone called Lucy Lawless...
Phoebe Falconer was credited as "Waifish Aphrodite" - one of the models in the fashion show. She hasn't appeared on the shows before either, but she was in the 1996 Canada / NZ co-production The Whole Of The Moon, which also featured Paul Gittins (Kaleipus), and also in the 1991 NZ movie My Grandfather Is a Vampire.
Peter Mason gave us his "Drunk Slob". He was previously on HTLJ as the "owner" in The Mother of All Monsters, and he has been seen on X:WP as a shopkeeper in The Debt, Billius in The Quill Is Mightier, and a drunk in Key To The Kingdom.
One Billy Wagstaff was credited as playing "Beggar" - I'm guessing this is a spoof credit (similar to crediting "Edith Sidebottom" as playing Widow Twanky), since the only beggar I recall is the legless man (literally, not figuratively) at Widow Twanky's old dance studio - and that was definitely Michael Hurst!
The ep was written by Andrew Landis and Julia Swift... this is their first writing credit for HTLJ or X:WP.
OTOH, the director was Michael Hurst, who, apart from all his other sterling work, has previously directed the HTLJ eps Mercenary, And Fancy Free, One Fowl Day, Faith, and Somewhere Over Rainbow Bridge, and the X:WP eps A Day in the Life and A Tale Of Two Muses.
***
The disclaimer was:
Due to incredibly bad taste and a despicable dress code, the Fashion Police were locked up indefinitely immediately upon completion of filming this motion picture.
