I'm afraid I may have rather a lot to say about Daughter Of Pomira. I really liked it. I think it ranks as a classic Xena ep.... it made me laugh, it made me cry, and I must have spent at least 5 hours watching it since I first taped it two days ago. This doesn't mean I don't have anything negative to say about it (heck, I could find quite a few negative things to say about pretty much any one of Shakespeare's plays... and the Mona Lisa has a few points that could probably have been improved upon, when you come right down to it ) I guess the negative things I felt about Daughter Of Pomira could pretty much be summed up as follows:
1) At times the script seems a bit forced, a bit to anxious to get where it's going, and to make entirely sure we get the point and come along for the ride (details noted below) - sometimes the acting (which on the whole was outstanding in this ep) manages to overcome this, sometimes perhaps not quite.
2) Oddly enough I had problems with the big fight between Xena and Milo - either the editor was a bit sloppy, or he didn't really have the footage he needed to work with.
3) Perhaps most significantly, in the sense that it represents the broadest issues, and is something of a recurrent complaint, the character of Gab was again, I felt, somewhat sacrificed to the exigencies of the immediate plot (again, details below). I'm not a fanatical devotee of the bard, and I don't have as many problems with the handling of her character as some, but I did feel there was definitely ammunition in this ep for the case that she isn't always treated with proper respect and consistency.
On the other hand, I'm not even going to try and summarise here all the things I liked about this ep... I loved the sum of the parts, and many of the individual parts themselves, in so many different ways. Even if it still had me picking nits (but then, that's part of the fun, isn't it?), and carping at the odd thing here and there, this ep really reminded me of why I first fell in love with this show: characters that I can connect with, real human and moral issues, humour, pathos, adrenalin... and all packaged together so that when it works, it really works, and seemingly contradictory elements flow together without negating each other to form a vibrant whole!
But enough generalities. Let's take a wander through the ep...
***
Heck of a fight there at the start. But since this was a flashback, taking place before Xena met Herc, how come she was wearing her current costume? It seems odd, after all the different costumes they've done for her in the various flashback appearances, that they'd go with her regular outfit here - although I suppose you could argue that she had it in her wardrobe (war chest? whatever...) for quite some time, and just selected it as the one to go with when she set off on her journey of redemption... she certainly seemed to have plenty of outfits in the original Herc eps, including that *ridiculous* gold thing with the canvas shoulder pads, which made her look like some sort of reject from super-hero school!
*
Interesting how even in the middle of the fiercest mêlée people seem to be able to find time to stop and argue! "They'll kill us all!" "Not you, they won't" I thought that was a bit harsh, really - definitely the "evil Xena"... especially given that she changed her mind herself about 30 seconds later: "Your wrong!" ... "but then again, perhaps you have a point..." This is not a management style you want to encounter first hand...
*
Was it just me, or did anyone else find it a bit strange to hear the Horde's attack accompanied by what appeared to be the skirl of Scottish bagpipes? I mean, the Bulgarian pipes (gaida, I believe) I've come to associate more with Xena than with anything else... but here I started to get the feeling that the show was being possessed by the wandering spirit of Braveheart!
*
"Xena, you're not the same person that you were then - you know more about yourself now, you know about the Horde..." Err, perhaps it's just me again, but this *really* didn't seem like much of an argument for going wandering through Horde territory...
*
"Have you ever seen a blonde Horde girl?" I beg your pardon.. what? Excuse me? For all I could tell *all* of the Horde could have been blonde - with all that paint, the headdresses etc, who knows? To say nothing of the fact that I don't believe we saw *any* Horde women before, of any colouring or complexion...
*
Were my ears totally playing tricks on me? When Xena and Gab first encountered the four Horde folks by the river, I thought we distinctly heard one of the Horde say "Who are these two now?" - presumably with reference to Xena and Gab. If this is so, then I assume this was a booboo by the post-dubbing people, since a major point of the ep is that the Horde speak a language which is incomprehensible to us and to all the non-Horde characters. Maybe it was supposed to be just "Horde language" and I'm hearing it wrong...
*
"She looks familiar..." Come on! This is a fifteen year old, completely covered in multi-coloured paint, with a strange costume, and hair done up like a fright wig, and Xena last saw this girl when she was eight or nine - and she looks familiar??
*
I liked the effect with the two axes flying across from behind - they reminded me of birds or insects swooping across the surface of water... and the juxtaposition of this image of natural beauty with the deadly steel it immediately became apparent they were, was oddly effective.
*
"Stop, they'll kill you!" Err... he just axed one of them in the back, and appears heavily armed - doesn't this seem like a rather strange response? She soon changed her mind though - using her chakram to stop him killing with another axe throw... and then: "It's a lovely day for scalping!"
*
And what's with all this scalping stuff? Is this a deliberate attempt to create an association between the Horde and North American natives - some of whom, sometimes, were known for collecting scalps, and who are certainly often associated in movies with the practice... and in that respect at least, Milo's proposed scalping of the Horde is accurate enough - scalping became common practice on both sides during the "Indian Wars" on the American plains.
*
"They're just kids, out hunting for food!" Err... how does she know they were looking for food? And they didn't particularly look like kids to me. I mean, a moment ago she was warning him that they'd kill him! There do seem to be some slight sense and consistency problems in this script. Possibly the need for tight editing made it difficult to preserve transitions...
*
Nice to see the Horde still using the same type of boats as before (and boats that look believable for their circumstances, at that!) Indeed the general "look" of the Horde was very well preserved, and consistently expanded on, in this ep.
*
"Xena. *The* Xena, Destroyer of Nations?" "Ancient history, pal!" "The name's Milo. And I'm a history buff too... enough to know that it tends to repeat itself - you ever notice?" I like this dialogue. And I have *got* to get a sound clip of Xena saying "Ancient history, pal!"
*
"Look at this, it's a Roman design." A Roman designed what? A belt? A very small hat? A monobra?
*
"They never got this in battle - they got it from me!" So taking this statement to its logical conclusion, Xena has already figured out that Pilee is Vanessa - quick work! (But then she did "look familiar"...)
*
"You said it yourself years ago - the only good Horde is a dead Horde. Words to live by!" "Words to die by!" So I guess they definitely are going for the Horde / North American aboriginal association... or at least the association with the long tradition of the demonisation of "Indians" in North American culture. Well it makes sense - it's an example of precisely the ill that the script is dealing with that would be most familiar to the majority of the viewing audience.
*
Strange editing when they arrive at Rahl and Adiah's - shot of big fort, with towers and spikes, shot of Xena and Gab and Argo on the road, "This is the place", shot of Xena's fist pounding on a door, Rahl answers... on first viewing, this gave me the impression that Rahl lived in some sort of enormous castle - whereas actually I believe those are supposed to be the town walls, and Rahl and Adiah just have a small house within the town. Again a case of overly tight editing producing confusing end results...
*
"It was Vanessa's - the one you gave her before you left!" Are they *deliberately* teasing us about that this thing is??
*
And note that this gives us a pretty good time fix on Xena's first encounter with the Horde - Vanessa was taken 6 years ago, she's about 15 now, so she would have been about 9 then... it hardly seems likely that Xena would have given the leather thing to a child very much younger than 9 - making Xena's last stay in these parts around 7 years ago, or about 3-4 years before Sins Of The Past if we assume show time proceeds roughly as real time since the series started. So the first battle with the Horde was quite late in Xena's career as a warlord - before she met Hercules, but well after all the other flashback events we've seen (unless I'm missing something). The burning of Cirra is one of the trickier things to place - but just to get Callisto's age, you'd have to push it further back (close to 10 years before the ep Callisto, I'd think...)
*
So she already had her current costume 3-4 years before she met Herc...?
*
"There was a blonde, blue-eyed girl with the Horde. I knew there was something familiar about her, but... with the sling..." Oh, so it's a *sling*! Meaning what? Like a sling-shot, a weapon? Or to support your arm? Or to carry something?
*
Rahl: "She's my daughter! Do you expect me to just leave her with them?" Gab: "No, no, of course not! We can bring her home." !! I nearly choked the first time I watched when Gab said that. She's certainly enthusiastic about volunteering solutions in this ep! - And Gab continues this dialogue, with Xena, silent, not looking too sure about the whole thing... Adiah: "Will you bring her back to us, please?" (Addressed very directly to Xena) Gab: "Yes! Of course! Look, don't worry. I know that a child needs her mother. And her father. Right Xena?" That flick down of Gab's eyes between "Right" and "Xena" is a killer when you really notice it - it makes me shiver! It's as if Gab's carried away by her enthusiasm for reuniting families... and then suddenly, all the trauma and pain that they've been through, that could so readily be associated with her words, hits her (I could just *see* the memory of Xena's rejecting her at Solan's Funeral pyre - "Don't you even speak his name!"), and she checks with Xena, almost fearfully... and Xena just says "Right" - like "I know you mean well Gabrielle... I know you don't mean to hurt me, and I know you really want to help these people... and I'll play along... but really, I ain't too sure about this, you know..." (This has been another of my "draw an entire soliloquy out of a single word or glance of Xena's" exercises... sorry if I'm overdoing it!)
*
BTW, at this point I thought the script had entirely telegraphed where it was going - that Gab's simple "reunite the family" plan was just that: simple - too simple... and that we were heading for some serious re-examination of what "family" means, and of the nature of the Horde. Not that I have any problem with that. Indeed perhaps precisely the reason I was always ahead of this script in where it was going is that my own feelings and convictions are so much in sympathy with those the writer was heading for in this tale. - I believe strongly that family is much more about love & caring & support than it is about blood (or DNA), more a question of getting through good times and bad together, and realising our value to each other, for all our faults, than it is a question of who you share genes with... And as for the humanity of the Horde - was that ever really in doubt? No it wasn't (praise the gods!), I'd say - X:WP has always been grounded in sound humanist values, and has only strayed from them once notably (the big mistake - The Deliverer / Gabrielle's Hope / Maternal Instincts). Although certainly Daughter Of Pomira, with respect to the Horde, took things a big and very worthwhile step beyond where they got to in The Price. (And a step that the end of The Price left very obviously waiting to be made - so in a sense this was a sequel waiting to happen, a shoe we've waited two years for dropping...)
*
"Can you believe him?" "Gabrielle, I *was* him - if it wasn't for you and *one* word, I'd be there now!" Actually I find this kind of hard to believe - it seems to me that even if the events of The Price had never happened, Xena would have reacted differently now to the way she did then... she's developed to the point where the blindness she had about the Horde in The Price would no longer be credible - although, of course, it *is* true that Gabrielle has been a big part of that development.
*
"You trust your heart, and I respect that, but... taking Vanessa could stir up a whole lot of trouble." Didn't you just *know* Xena was itching to say this? And didn't you just know she was basically right... to the point where Gab's naive and rather one-sided enthusiasm for the project seemed a bit forced...
*
Gab *still* hasn't learned to creep through woods without stepping on large and obviously placed twigs?! Shouldn't she be given credit for acquiring *some* basic skills in three and half years? Of course, stout boots are hardly ideal footwear for silent forest tracking...
*
And the Horde haven't figured out that sometimes people can be found in trees, rather than on the ground? - Seems a bit feeble for a forest-dwelling tribe!
*
X: "Underground! *Terrific!*" G: "Problem?" X: "No, piece of cake." I have to admit I laughed at this. It seems almost as if Gab has rather reverted to her old, naive self, at times in this ep...
*
And if we ever had any doubts about the Horde's humanity (which, hopefully, we didn't...) surely they'd be utterly dispelled by this cozy scene of Horde family life? Although some of the men do seem to be a bit surly, scowling and muttering "Kaltaka" at the women all the time...
*
Kinda lucky, eh, that the one word Xena knows is the only thing anyone says to he on her visit?! When she finally said "kaltaka" herself I must admit I dissolved in giggles!
*
And lordy, that girl could scream, eh? I could see a future for her in horror movies - although judging from her acting in the rest of the ep, she should be able to do better than that.
*
Xena was pretty slow with the pinch too - she normally reacts faster than that, even to the unexpected. Have we seen the "pinch of silence" before, BTW?
*
And the pinch of silence "wears off"? - I thought pinches generally had to be released by a counter pinch.
*
What is this thing they have about tunnels and pipes? At least there were no rats in this one!
*
Xena's chakram throw to collapse the tunnel gets my vote for the most magical (if not ludicrous) chakram throw yet - the chakram just does a 90 degree turn in mid-air, without even hitting anything, to collapse the ceiling, and then returns to Xena's hand by a process they don't really show us, but which clearly owed nothing to the laws of physics. Imagine what this woman could do as a spin bowler!
*
When we saw Xena hacking through the roof of the tunnel, and then we cut to Gab's expectant face, I had this horrible feeling they were going to pop out of the ground right in front of her - I was relieved to find that instead Gab was still sensibly watching the way Xena went in.
*
I liked Xena's way of laying a false trail - walking backwards, and then suddenly flying up into a tree... an impressive leap, even by Xena's somewhat elevated standards!
*
I must say, I thought the "Cirvik wailing / Xena looking impressed" bit was a little over done - I think we could have been trusted to get the point that he really cared for Pilee, and that Xena realised this, without *quite* so much demonstrative pantomime. Although I do realise that they took a risk in the first place by telling a story that hinged so much upon people who never said a word that the audience understood.
*
"Pilee" "Pilee? I don't know that word. I know, err... kaltaka." How many laughs can you get out of "kaltaka"? (You *did* laugh at that - didn't you?)
*
Actually I rather liked this initial dialogue between Pilee and Gab - indeed I was generally very impressed by Beth Allen's playing of Pilee / Vanessa... she took a tricky role, which could easily have come across as absurd or grotesque, and which would have been *so* easy to overact in, and played it straight down the line, sensitively and movingly - in fact she's now my nominee for "Best Guest Star" of Season 4...
*
But why did Gab say "You can talk! You can speak our language!" so incredulously? - The girl was raised by people who spoke "our language" (whatever the heck it's supposed to be) until she was about 9... why wouldn't she still know it? Although, naturally, she *would* be very hesitant and rusty...
*
Why do TPTB feel obliged to throw in a meteorite whenever they show us a shot of a starry sky?
*
The girl really was *very* good! Her lecture about tribal values was actually a bit overwritten, but she did a marvellous job of taking the pomposity out of it, and making it seem hesitant and sincere.
*
"Why run? Soon Cirvik come - then *you* run!" I gotta say (as you probably gathered), I *liked* this girl!
*
The little heart to heart between Xena and Gab was rather confusing - I thought Gab was getting more of a sense of where Pilee was at, whereas Xena was feeling more anti-Horde, remembering old battles... so when Gab drew Xena aside, I expected Gab to be telling Xena "Perhaps we made a mistake" - which certainly seemed to be where the previous scene was going. But instead they reversed their positions, with Xena suggesting the possible mistake, and Gab still defending the "reunite the family" line - but then why did *Gab* initiate this chat, since it seemed, in fact, to be Xena who had an issue to raise? It was almost as if they taken some of one character's lines and given them to the other...
*
Gab really does seem *very* hung up on this "people should be in their mother's arms" thing in this ep, to a degree that stretched comfortable belief at times (yes, I *know* she has issues after Hope and Solan - but, OTOH, she left her own blood family entirely voluntarily to go with Xena when she wasn't much older than Pilee...)
*
A lot of whip action from Xena in this ep - she's hardly used it this season, otherwise (indeed the last time I clearly remember was in Vanishing Act)... She even says about it, at one point: "You know, this thing has really come in handy lately!"
*
And by the point where she yanks him from the tree with her whip, Xena has already decided that Milo is "much worse" than the Horde...?
*
Pilee's response to Milo's "Welcome back to civilisation!" seemed entirely appropriate.
"I am Pilee, daughter of Cirvik. And he come here. And take me. And kill you all!" *Loved* her delivery again! Lines that could have been hokey as hell came out as a very natural, heartfelt, human response - somewhere between fear and bewilderment and defiance and a childish cry for help.
*
I notice that Vanessa's mother stands up for her & protects her, even when the father turns away from her - this is a bit stereotypical... although entirely likely. And all the characters are perfectly believable the way they're played. Indeed the only person in this whole ep who I found at times a bit unbelievable was Gab, who did seem rather locked into taking certain positions for the convenience of the plot. Although I found Pilee's tendency to trust and turn to Gab, rather than anyone else, entirely believable - Gab certainly does invite confidence and exude goodwill.
*
Now, no one actually believed that Xena had really gone over to the idea of all out war against the Horde, did they? Even if you were inclined to (which you weren't, were you?), that "If this works, you'll never fear the Horde again!" was a dead giveaway (albeit with chilling, genocidal echoes...)
*
"This girl, she's a stranger, a savage named Pilee. My Vanessa's gone!" I must say, having raised teenagers, I could feel a certain sympathy here - and believe me, the Horde are the very model of a positive, character-building influence compared to some of the people a teenage girl can fall in with in a big city! And yes, sometimes they say they hate you, and you feel you just don't know who they are... (Does *every* parent go through this? Most, at least, I suspect...) But hey, we got through it, and we're still a family... and now my daughter's coping with the first stirrings of the long rebellion of *her* daughter against her! And you get older, you feel a little wiser, sometimes, but still often sad, and often afraid, for all of them... Hmmm... wandered a bit off-topic there, I'm afraid - but watching Pilee and all made me think of all of this..
*
I think it was a *very* wise move to hold off letting us see Pilee in "conventional" clothes until the character was well established - it had an excellent effect when she *was* finally introduced in the blue dress... and we already had a firm sense of her by this point.
*
Now, I'm sorry to be bathetic again here, but I *howled* with laughter when Gab said "She's honouring the lamb"! I mean, come on! Didn't anyone tell her, it's rude to talk to your food? And an interesting loop here - since The Price opened with Gab "Talking to her breakfast" - which is now tied in with the whole Pomira weltanschauung!
*
BTW, I guess I haven't said this yet - I *liked* Vanessa's mum - she came across as very natural and sincere, eager to stand up for her family and for what she believed was right (even if it meant confronting a warlord or a mob), and flexible enough to listen and to respond lovingly, even in a difficult situation - liked the character, liked the way the actress played her.
*
Just a silly point - after expanding in Past Imperfect, the BGSB seems to have contracted sharply again in this ep. And besides shrinking, isn't the BGSB fading? Maybe it's becoming the BYSB!
*
"She's back!" "I'm back!" Loved the way Xena said that. They really are good at playing their own conventions for a chuckle, and mostly without messing up the dramatic tension and flow of the ep - indeed this ep was a textbook return to the form of classic Xena eps, where you can pick nits and laugh at many of the lines whilst still staying so involved in the characters and the story that they can make you gasp or cry - aw heck, yes! This ep really reminded me why I love this show!
*
However... when Xena explained the plot on the battlements, she didn't reveal a single thing to me - I thought it was all already perfectly obvious. Which slightly begs the question - why did Gab need it all explaining to her? I mean, she's not stupid, and she knows Xena - if I can figure it out, why can't she? Ah well, I suppose we have to cut them a little expository slack. But I can see Gab's devotees complaining, not without some justification, that this was another ep where the consistency and development of Gab's character somewhat played second fiddle to the mechanics of getting the plot executed and understood.
*
G: "You know you'd think I'd learn not to meddle with families..." X: "You were right to want to give her a choice Gabrielle. But now we have to stand by the one she makes." Well I guess that's putting as good a construction on it as you can, and fair enough, up to a point... (although I don't actually remember "choice" featuring anywhere in Gab's original statement of intentions...)
*
Was Vanessa seriously thinking of killing her parents? I suppose it's natural that the thought should cross her mind - but she didn't really seem at all worked up to it. She should have stuck with the sword rather than the doll though - *much* more practical for a midnight walk in a strange and hostile town (as I thought even on first viewing...)
*
"He hates Pomira..." (Gods that girl's good! Another line she could so easily have messed up, but she delivered it beautifully.) "Pomira hate him. And the rest of us. It's a bad situation all around." Lucy was good in this scene too - reaching out and connecting, but very much in Xena's somewhat terse way.
*
Incidentally, I think they did a little sleight of hand between here and The Price, in order to be able to deal with the Horde in the way they wanted to. In The Price the Horde appeared to be an invading army - the battle was not taking place on *their* territory, but rather *they* were descending on their enemies, a mysterious army from who knew where. But suddenly in Daughter Of Pomira, the Horde are indigenous people - this is their land, and others are trespassing on it, desecrating it, and pushing them out. This serves, on the one hand to put the Horde in a better light, since they are no longer portrayed as conquerors and aggressors, and on the other hand they're no longer really a "Horde" - they're not an army on the move, but a tribe, a people, complete with families, homes and traditions...
*
"Open the gates!" "No!" - Somehow this struck me as a Monty Python moment...
*
I have an unusual complaint about the climactic fight between Xena and Milo - the editing seemed off... either that or the right shots just weren't available. Not just once, but multiple times, things felt wrong - Xena jumped down from the walls and appeared to land well behind Cirvik, but in the next shot, she was between him and Milo, and then other shots failed to match, the positions in one shot all wrong relative to the shot before, and the stuntee shots didn't match the main player shots at all well. There are often little mistakes in the editing of fight scenes which you can see if you look carefully, but this is virtually the first time I can remember feeling that a fight on X:WP looked obviously wrong on first viewing, to the point where the illusion wasn't really sustained.
*
They did kind of have me going at the end though - not that I thought they'd really kill Xena (again...) at this point... but they certainly telegraphed it that way. So what was Xena's sad and trembling look for? Surely she wasn't *that* upset at having to kill Milo?
*
And what about the "Both. Both my father." scene? What can I say? At that point, they really got me - I cried the first three times I watched it... See ultimately, for all my nit-picking, this ep *really* drew me in.
*
And what did Cirvik say? "Lakota toti. Bonai. Soli Bonai." (It was written under the disclaimer in the end credits.) What does it mean? Well from context and linguistic background, I'd say: "People all. Good. Only good." ("Lakota" is what many of the plains Sioux call themselves, and could probably be roughly translated "the people"... and the rest of it sounds like slightly distorted Latin.) Pilee renders it as "No fight. No War. Family." - But then that would seem quite a reasonable way of rendering it...
*
I quite liked the wrap up too. Gab's doubts seemed entirely reasonable, and Xena's affirming of the positive consequences rang true too.
*
"Ya wanna switch? Fine. You kick butt, I'll take notes!" Well ok, it's just a joke basically... but it's a classic X:WP joke - and we haven't seen our heroines looking comfortable enough to make this kind of joke with each other for a *long* time... so altogether, it sealed the feeling that we'd just watched another Xena classic in the making, for all it's little flaws.
***
So who was who in Daughter Of Pomira?
If Rahl, Vanessa / Pilee's father looked familiar, this would seem entirely reasonable... he was played by Bruce Hopkins, who we first saw in Dreamworker as Termin, the first person Xena ever killed. He also appeared in Ten Little Warlords as Tegason. And over on HTLJ, he has played Pylon (no doubt he was electric in the role ) in Cast A Giant Shadow, Jordis in Heedless Hearts, and Nehemiah in Regrets I've Had A Few. But even so... this leaves me feeling I've missed something - none of these roles really seems to account for how familiar he seemed as Rahl... so can anyone tell me if there's some other reason I would recognise him, or is this just my mind playing tricks on me?
The eponymous role of Vanessa / Pilee was taken by Beth Allen. Beth has never appeared in the Xenaverse before, but she does have a couple of movie credits to her name.... She played Ericka in the 1996 movie Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore, about which I can really tell you nothing, except that Beth got second billing, and Jello Biafra got third (first was Lisa Gerstein, as Jane). Beth also appeared in 1997's The Ugly (as Julie, aged 13)... I haven't seen this either, but apparently it was a horror / thriller, and it seems to have been a real "old home week" for Xena regulars - included amongst the cast were Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Boadicea in The Deliverer), Paul Glover (Menticles from The Price), Christopher Graham (Toxeus in Death in Chains, and the Slave Boss in Remember Nothing), Jon Brazier (Walsim in The Dirty Half Dozen, Tarsis in Vanishing Act), Katrina Browne (Mendala in When in Rome, Thelassa in Locked Up And Tied Down) and Darien Takle (Cyrene, Xena's mother, in various eps). By an odd (well ok, pointless) coincidence, Beth's character Julie, as an adult, was played by Vanessa Byrnes.
I thought that Pilee's adoptive father, Cirvik, looked familiar... but he was played by Watchman Rivers, who seems never to have been credited before in the Xenaverse, and about whom I can find nothing.
Milo, the aggressive, was played by Craig Ancell... he's never been in a Xena ep before, but he played the aggressively nervous and ill-fated Paxxon in the HTLJ ep Web of Desire, which introduced Gina Torres as Nebula.
Andrew Kovacevich was credited as Garth. Andrew has previously appeared as Tor in Hooves and Harlots, and as the Inn Keeper in In Sickness And In Hell. He was also in Hercules In The Underworld, as "Berserk Man in Inn", and the HTLJ eps The Road to Calydon (as Odeon), The Outcast (as Sepsus) and The Enforcer (as "Proprietor"). Don't feel bad if you have no idea which character I'm talking about - even knowing Andrew from before, I had trouble spotting him on a second viewing... he was the guy who said "Nothing stops the Horde" at the meeting in the tavern.
The rest of the cast were new to the Xenaverse, although you might have caught Bob Johnson, who played the "Lieutenant" ("Not you, they won't!") as O'Reilly in the 1997 action movie Maximum Revenge.
The ep was written by Linda McGibney and directed by Patrick Norris, both of whom are new to the Xenaverse in these roles - which is quite a novelty in itself... I can't remember when we last had an ep for which both the writer and the director were new! Well, there was One Against and Army, directed by Paul Lynch and written by Gene O'Neill & Noreen Tobin - but even though O'Neill and Tobin were new to Xena, they'd written several HTLJ eps...
***
The disclaimer was:
No blonde-haired, blue-eyed Horde girls or their extended families were harmed during the production of this motion picture.
Lakota toti. Bonai. Soli bonai.
(Which, according to my theory, means: "People all. Good. Only good.")
***
And what about the Herc ep, Redemption?
Well at least they *finally* got rid of Dahak. And let's really hope he's gone for good!
Perhaps inevitably, his final defeat seemed a little cheesy... I mean come on! All we've been through with this nonsense, and it comes down to Mark Newnham in a budget monster suit being flipped off a ledge? I don't really have any sympathy with TPTB though - they should never have started the whole Dahak thread at all.
In general I found the demon / exorcist trappings odious. I don't think it was a good idea dragging the Manichean principles of Zoroastrianism into the show in the first place, and I thought what they actually did with Zarathustra as a character was in rather doubtful taste.
OTOH, to give credit where it's due, they did push the exorcism business rather to one side, and concentrated instead on the conflict more in terms of the relationship between Hercules and Iolaus, which was much more true to the show's own roots and better traditions... it's humanism that this show draws its strength from, not hocus-pocus about ultimate forces of evil and demonic possession.
And it was nice to see Ares again... in many ways I preferred the scenes from his strand of the plot. The business with Herc contacting Iolaus, and Iolaus' decision was ok, but the exorcism parts up until Zarathustra died had little to be said in their favour, and I'm afraid I found Michael Hurst's rendering of Dahak fairly tedious... demons are *boring*!
Anyway, it's gone now. So what's next for the big guy?
***
And who was who in Redemption?
As mentioned last week, when he appeared in Let There Be Light, George Henare, who played Zarathustra, has previously been seen on X:WP as Hidsim in Lost Mariner. He was also in Rapa Nui, the (rather dreadful) epic about young lovers on ancient Easter Island, and in the (vastly better) Once Were Warriors, a NZ film focussing on the Maori people - both these are available on video... but if you rent Rapa Nui, don't say I didn't warn you! George also did an episode of the Ray Bradbury Theatre (like many Xenaverse actors, including Lucy), appearing in Here There Be Tygers.
Bruce Allpress, who played Stouras (well, I *think* that was the spelling...) has appeared in The Road to Calydon (as "Old Man"), Unchained Heart (as Enos), Cast A Giant Shadow (as Septus), Not Fade Away (as Skouros) and War Wounds (as Phidias)... sort of one of the omnipresent "character" actors of the Hercverse!
Stephanie Liebert, who played Antibius, appeared as a Young Woman in Reunions.
Mark Newnham was credited as Dahak - I'm assuming this means that it was him inside the monster suit, which would seem to fit with his previous roles, as Ares, in the ep of that name (when Ares was a hideous monster, rather than the suave Kevin Smith...) and the Mummy, in Mummy Dearest; Mark also played Antaeus in Hercules And The Circle of Fire. He has never appeared on Xena - but then X:WP has its own regular monster (Anthony Ray Parker - Bacchus, The Deliverer).
Just a couple of words about the familiar figures...
We're very used to seeing Jeffrey Thomas as Jason now - but he first appeared on HTLJ as Bellicus in the ep Gladiator.
Gina Torres, who plays Nebula, of course also appeared in the X:WP ep The King Of Assassins, as Cleopatra. She also appeared in the 1996 movie The Substance of Fire, and in the 1994 TV movie M.A.N.T.I.S. (an SF thing... pilot for a series, I believe). She has also appeared on eps of La Femme Nikita (playing "Jenna Vogler" in episode: "Open Heart"), NYPD Blue (playing "Dominican Woman" in episode: "E.R."), and Law & Order (playing "Charlene" in episode: "Purple Heart" and "Laura Elkin" in episode: "Skin Deep").
Tamara Gorski, who plays Morrigan, was in the 1997 movie Murder at 1600 (but just as a woman in a bar). She also played a woman in a bar in the 1995 movie To Die For. On a different note, she appeared as Jenny Nielson in the movies The Lost World and Return To The Lost World (not the Jurassic park sequel...) She was featured in the TV series Psi Factor: Chronicles Of The Paranormal as Dr. Alexandra Corliss, and she appeared in the TV movie of Danielle Steel's A Perfect Stranger as Sarah. She has also appeared on eps of Forever Knight (playing "Claire Gibson" in episode: "Black Buddha") and Highlander (playing "Peggy McCall" in episode: "Vendetta").
Kevin Smith, known to us all as Ares, can be seen in the TV movie Flatmates (also featuring various other Xenaverse faces), the NZ movie Desperate Remedies (ditto), and the TV series "McLeod's Daughters". He's also, apparently, signed up to do a couple of new shows in NZ, in one of which he is featured as a detective of some sort... and the name of the show is "Lawless"!
Redemption was directed by Bruce Campbell (most familiar, of course, in the role of Autolycus)... quite a change from his last HTLJ directorial outing, the knockabout spoof, For Those Of You Just Joining Us, and from last week's X:WP, Key To The Kingdom, which he also directed. On X:WP, Bruce previously directed The King of Assassins, and on HTLJ he also directed The Vanishing Dead and What's in A Name?
The ep was written by Lisa Klink... she hasn't written for HTLJ before this season, but she penned Descent and Darkness Rising as well as Redemption - so she's responsible for a fair chunk of this year's Dahak nonsense. I shall valiantly try to hold off forming any firm prejudice against her until she has a chance at an ep that isn't cursed.
And a couple of additions to the Who was Who for this ep...
Danielle Walther pointed out to me that McLeod's Daughters (which I noted Kevin Smith had appeared in) was actually a two hour telemovie, rather than a TV series. She also pointed out that Kevin has also appeared in the NZ soap Shortland Street (is there a single Kiwi actor who *hasn't* been on Shortland Street?), and two other series, Gloss and Marlin Bay.
Most interestingly of all to me, Danielle pointed out that Jeffrey Thomas, who plays Jason regularly on HTLJ, first appeared in the Xenaverse in the X:WP ep Chariots Of War... She's absolutely right, and I'd never recognised him or realised it! He's credited as Jeff Thomas, and he plays Cycnus, the evil warlord... just shows what a few fake scars, a wig, and some character acting can do!
***
The disclaimer was:
Finally the demon Dahak was destroyed during the production of this motion picture.
(And here's three cheers, I'll lead the way - Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!)
