Dahak and Hope - Manicheism in the Xenaverse? (part one)
Xena herself has said "If you do good now, you are good" (approximately - I'm afraid I can't remember the exact reference). And the reverse principle should apply - a person or a god should only be called evil in as much as they are shown to be perpetrating evil. But this principle is not followed with Dahak and Hope. And this, I feel, represents the crossing of a very basic philosophical line by the writers and creators of the show.
In general X:WP has taken considerable care to present an essentially humanist view... it's so basic to the very essence of the show: people can be bad, but bad people can be redeemed - "You are what you do. You can recreate yourself every second of your life." And gods too, may be petty and cruel, but they are not *essentially* evil - and that's a very big difference.
The idea that there are gods (or super-human principals) who are *essentially* evil, constituted of evil by their very nature, creates a very different view of the world. Of course it's a 'respectable' view - heck, it's been the dominant world view in much of the world for going on a couple of millennia now. But it's important to understand that seeing the world as fundamentally a battle between 'good' and 'evil', as pure, super-human principles, is only one way of seeing things amongst many possible, and it's a way that tends to have certain consequences.
If you see the world as basically a battle-ground between an evil god-principle and a good god-principle, then one unfortunate consequence is that it's all too easy to slip into seeing other human beings as 'tools' or extensions of the evil one... hence, I would suggest, the extensive history of religious wars and persecutions that cultures founded on this view have been subject to.
I would go far as to suggest a basic connection between xenophobic and racist reactions ("my tribe is good, those not of my tribe are bad"), and the good-god / evil-god view of the world ("god is good, the devil / other gods are bad").
Now obviously my biases are coming through here more than a little... I'm fundamentally opposed to the whole Judeo / Christian / Islamic tradition - I think it's a religious-philsophical dead-end, and a massive mistake for the human race. And in general I think there is much more hope (<g>) to be found in paganism, polytheism, Buddhism (although I have some issues with Buddhism too) and Taoism, for example.
Now I think these issues I'm talking about have been very much live issues on X:WP, and in general I think the show has dealt with them very well indeed. However, I strongly suspect that the introduction of Dahak and Hope is a major falling off... Really the issue still remains to be resolved. There are a number of possibilities. Everything we have seen so far tends to indicate, to my perception at least, that Dahak is being presented to us by the show's creators as a principle of pure evil... if that is so, then the world-view of the show is committed to a fundamental change. It's true that if this is so, the show is only following one of the major movements in human history, but even so, I for one would be very sad to see it if this is confirmed, since I feel that the implied world-view of the show prior to this was inherently superior. I'm still really hoping that Dahak will be shown to be something other than a pure principle of evil - although of course, this will mean that Xena is shown to have been wrong... but why *was* Xena so ready to jump to conclusions about Dahak / Hope? The only real reason I can see is that centuries of unfortunate cultural baggage were suddenly being dropped on her by the writers.
And if Dahak can't be redeemed / made small (as I still hope perhaps he can), then at least Hope might show some humanity. But I'm not holding my breath. The worst possible reality, from my point of view, would be if the creators were deliberately importing this cultural shift into the show - that they were deliberately proposing to show a shift from a humanist / polytheist world-view to a theo-centric good vs evil world view. This would certainly be a serious purpose, but I'd really rather they didn't do it, on the whole. The next choice on my list, going from worst to best, would be that they just introduced all this baggage fairly casually as a plot device, and they'll just drop it all again, fairly casually, without really resolving anything (i.e. somehow 'drive' Dahak and Hope out of the world without resolving anything about their fundamental nature). This would be considerably wimpier and more trivial than the previous possibility, but would have the advantage of getting rid of Dahak and Hope and opening up better possibilities for the rest of the show's run. The best possibility of all of course, as already noted, would be to have the nature of Dahak and Hope resolved in a way consistent with the earlier implicit world-view of the show.
However, I'm not optimistic - I've read in a couple of places that Rob Tapert's vision for the show involves the reduction of the role of the ancient gods and an increasing focus on monotheistic or Manichean principles... I can only fervently hope that these rumours are mistaken or distorted!
********
Dahak and Hope - Manicheism in the Xenaverse? (part two)
Manicheism is the idea that the essence of the universe is a perpetual battle between absolute principles of evil and good. Strictly speaking, pure Manicheism would hold that the two principles were of equal nature and evenly balanced, and so Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam generally claim *not* to be Manichean religions, inasmuch as they hold that their principle belief is in a single, absolute, good god, and that Ahriman, Satan, the Devil etc. are not really 'gods' at all, and certainly not equal to the one, good god. In practice these religions have all tended to have a strongly Manichean slant (just listen to Southern Baptist preachers, for example, or the rhetoric of the inquisition). Judaism is certainly the least Manichean of the four, probably because it is the oldest... actually if you read the old testament it seems to wander back and forth between a Manichean and a non-Manichean view pretty randomly (which is perhaps not surprising, since it was written by many different people over a period spanning hundreds of years). BTW Manicheism is name for an ancient Iranian prophet/philosopher called Mani.
Some people have suggested to me that Dahak and Hope are not really a departure, since we have always seen 'evil' gods on the show, such as Hera, Discord and Strife. But none of these examples is simply an abstract personification of the principle of evil. For example I do not think it is at all correct to say that Hera is "purely evil". Hera is a character, acting according to motivations. She may be "petty and cruel" - but there's a very big gap between being "petty and cruel" and being a pure manifestation of evil. None of the gods portrayed on HTLJ and X:WP has been "purely evil" (with the possible, perhaps even likely, exception of Dahak). They all have personalities, motivations - they act and react, they have relationships. The essence of Manicheism is that it doesn't view 'gods' this way - no personalities, no motivations - just two absolute principles, one of evil, one of good. And the limitation to just two is very important to the whole world view implied: if the gods are nothing at all but the embodiment of absolute evil and absolute good, then there's no room for any more than two of them - there's no room in this view for multiplicity, for variety... there's just The Good and The Bad. (Anyone want to make a joke about The Ugly?)
Ares told Xena directly that Dahak was the ultimate evil, while she was on her way to Brittania. And in one of the few serious mistakes she's made, she ignored him. But she seems to accept it readily enough after the incident in the temple, and it's never really been questioned seriously since - which makes me suppose it must be "the party line". Well, of course, Gab has questioned it in respect of Hope... but even she hasn't tried to see anything but a uniform flat blackness in the nature of Dahak.
Another comparison that has been raised is that of Hercules versus the Soveriegn. But again Herc vs the Sovereign is a conflict on a different level, and one I have no problem with... precisely because there's really nothing "ultimate" about it: they're simply alter egos - two sides of a personality.
I think Dahak is being presented as breaking through from some alternate reality or something, and being completely unrelated to the Greek gods.
And Dahak, as a principle of absolute evil, pretty much implies the introduction of a principle of absolute good... and personally I have no more sympathy with the one than with the other: the whole tendency has a purely pernicious effect on humanity so far as I can see. Seeing the universe as basically about who's on which side, who's to blame and who's not, who's ok and who's not, reducing everything to a binary battle, is just a rotten way of looking at the world that eats away at people who succumb to it. A lot of the charm of X:WP for me has been precisely that it stood up against such a view of the world, and I shall be very sad if it goes that way.
But let's look on the bright side. We aren't much more than half way there yet. Dahak hasn't really been much but a boring great bully yet (although the whole Gabrielle's Hope thing had a pretty rotten stench to it). Maybe big D. and Hope will get humanised somewhat. And even though the Greek gods are declining, presumably they're not going to vanish completely, since we've seen Ares busting out in 1942 already (although my comment on that would tend to be that if he'd been locked away from the decline of ancient Greece until 1942, then I would have been inclined to let him out myself, since clearly he should be preferable to whoever had been doing the job in the meantime...)
*********
Dahak and Hope - Manicheism in the Xenaverse? (part three)
Is the distinction between gods such a Hera who do 'evil' things and Dahak as a 'principle of evil' a semantic one? No, I don't really think so... although certainly there is a semantic element. I actually don't think it's really appropriate to say that any of the Greek gods we've seen portrayed "is evil". But then I have severe doubts about whether it's *ever* appropriate to say that any character "is evil". People do bad things. People have kinks in their personalities which make them very hard to deal with, very destructive. You can't, as Xena says, always save everyone. But still... I don't think *anyone* "is evil". To say someone "is evil" is to give up on acknowledging their humanity, and whenever you do that, I feel you renounce a piece of your own humanity. Although Xena is prepared to fight and to kill, it seems to me that she has always managed to stay aware of this. And I feel that this view applies to the Xenaverse gods too, because even if they are not exactly "human" in some senses, functionally they are indeed "characters" and so to all intents and purposes "human".
But in a Manichean view this is not true of the principles of good and evil, of "god" and "the devil" if you will... they are pure principles of good and evil, defined by their nature as such. I personally think this seems a silly idea - but then I suppose you might say it's a little arrogant of me to call an idea which has been accepted by many of the great thinkers in the history of our civilisation "silly" (<g>).
Is there room for more than two gods in a Manichean world view? Well I think the Manichean idea is that the principles of good and evil define in a binary way the whole nature of the universe, so there isn't really room for another - everything in the universe partakes of the nature of good and evil and is part of the struggle between them, but nothing else exists on an equal level to them...
By the by, since we seem to be straying in that direction, I'd like to say that the Manchean duality is very different to, for example, the Tao. The Tao is also, in a way, a binary principle - but for one thing it's essential to the nature of the Tao to understand that the two are one... so the Tao is not about a battle between good and evil, but about the two-fold nature of reality, the way everything is formed from that which gives force and that which shapes (very simply...) I have always found Taoism beautiful and inspiring (if a little perplexing at times), whereas on the whole I find Manicheism sad and depressing.
Really I'm just not very fond of the terms "good" and "evil". A struggle between the constructive and the destructive elements within a personality can indeed be fascinating. Xena herself is an ideal case in point. In her case the co-existance of these elements within the same personality is made very clear. In the case of Herc, they seem to have some trouble handling his character, and in a way I don't think it's much of a stretch to see the Sovereign as Herc's repressed "dark" self - so in seeing the two together, we are in a way seeing Herc's internal struggle (perhaps?)
I don't see (as I've said above) any of the gods we've seen on the Xenaverse as "spawn of evil" - they're just characters, with desires, motivations, history, strengths, limitations... in other words, basically "human".
It's true that some of the Greek gods have been associated with 'the devil' - goat's feet, the 'horned man', etc... but historically this reflects the way the church (or sometimes the populace) attached the attributes of various gods to Satan... however this happened during the Christian period, so it was an after-the-fact attachment. The idea of Satan goes back way before that. Although it may be true that the Israelites attached the attributes of rival local gods to "the evil one" (well to some degree it certainly is true, eg. the whole "lord of the flies" thing - but these gods weren't horned nature gods or much like any of the Greek gods). Also, as I was saying before, the degree to which the "principle of evil" is given significance as that which struggles against "god" varies from section to section of the old testament.
Zoroastrianism, OTOH, seems to have taken something of the reverse course, starting out more Manichean, and then moving more toward emphasising a monotheistic view.
If they *do* introduce a principle of good as an obverse to Dahak, I don't really see how they could avoid at least allowing the interpretation that what they were referring to was the Judeo-Christian god. I really hope they don't do it, not even tangentially. I strongly suspect that if they do do it, it will be in the form of an oblique reference at most. I don't think they'd bring in the Judeo-Christian god as a major functioning element in the plot simply because of all the problems it would cause them and all the people they'd be almost bound to offend, no matter how they tried to play it. What I *could* see them doing is throwing in some idea, after Dahak has been somehow reigned in, of the "one true principle of good" coming forth into the world, without really getting into much detail about it... sort of a bit like the way they threw the "voice of god" into Altared States - a definite nod to the Judeo-Christian belief system, without much in the way of specifics. Of course that's not the way I'd play it - but then I truly don't believe in the whole Judeo-Christian edifice, I think it's plumb wrong, and bad at that. But since Rob and Lucy are both (sort of) Catholics (they did get married in a Catholic church), quite probably they truly do believe in that world view, and hence they might well want to acknowledge it on the show. (Mind you, I find it darned hard to see anything on the show so far that reflects anything remotely like an orthodox Catholic view of the world.)
**********
Dahak and Hope - Manicheism in the Xenaverse? (part four)
Ascriptive vs. descriptive evil.
Is it true to say that "Dahak is no more evil than the Olympian gods". It may well be true to say that Dahak has not been *shown* to be any more evil, in his actions, than some of the Greek gods. But it seems that the shown is making the case that Dahak's "evil" is an assigned attribute, rather than a consequence of actions... which is typical of a Manichean view: the principle of evil in Manicheism simply *is* evil - that is to say the "devil" (if we may call it that, for simplicity) in a Manichean view is not an intelligent, autonomous being who is judged to be evil because of actions performed, but rather an *embodiment* of evil, evil by it's essence, not evil because of its actions.
Now people have cited various examples, such as Nazis and serial killers, as examples of those who could only be portrayed as 'being evil'. I don't agree with this at all. If you are portraying Nazis, serial killers, whoever, in a way which is to any degree responsible, you need to portray them as human. If you portray them as inhuman manifestations of the principle of evil, you are falsely distancing the rest of humanity from their actions, and dooming yourself to failure in terms of achieving a realistic representation of events which may lead to understanding and growth.
I don't see (as I've said above) any of the gods we've seen on the Xenaverse as "purely evil" - they're just characters, with desires, motivations, history, strengths, limitations... in other words, basically "human". And yes, I do feel that moving away from this towards a view where evil is a personified abstract rather than just the result of the failed judgement, failed self control, failed responsibility, failed self realisation of fallible creatures is a morally retrograde step.
However, I fully accept that your mileage may vary, and that you may see it quite differently (especially if you're not predisposed to a sort of Taoist / Humanist world view...)
***********
Dahak and Hope - Manicheism in the Xenaverse? (part five)
Does Najara represent a Manichean element in the Xenaverse?
Najara, indeed, certainly had Manichean tendencies. Whether or not she actually believed in ascriptive guilt is questionable, since she did apparently believe that the "sinners" she dealt with could "reform" through the action of their own will.
However, I had no problem with way Manichean ideas were presented in Crusader, since the script *itself* did not validate the Manichean view - unlike The Deliverer / Gabreille's Hope / Maternal Intincts arc, which essentially tried to write a Manichean principle of evil and the concept of ascriptive guilt into the canon of the Xenaverse... as I viewed them, anyhow.
I'm not at all convinced that in this arc we were offered any sort of well-structured provocation to discuss the issues. And even if we were - why did they have to ruin a good portion of a perfectly good TV show to do it!!! And ruin it they did, so far as I'm concerned. As far as possible I simply exclude all reference to The Deliverer / Gabreille's Hope / Maternal Intincts myself, since I don't think you can make any case for the moral integrity of the show, or for the integrity of Xena as a character, if you include those eps. So effectively, I just put them into parentheses as "the BIG mistake", and carry on enjoying and discussing the rest of the show as if those eps had actually been what I wish they had been - just bad ideas that flitted across the minds of some people involved in the show, but never actually got put into execution and broadcast.
I actually thought The Deliverer was a thoroughly unsatisfactory episode, even if it hadn't been the vehicle for introducing the regrettable Dahak. To me this process of *completely* jumping narrative horses in midstream, and then blaming Xena, and implicitly the audience, because she / they failed to predict that the writer, instead of providing a conclusion to the ep they started, as is the more usual procedure, was going to arbitrarily graft on an ending from an entirely different narrative universe... well "ludicrous" is one of the politer words that occurs to me for this procedure!
And whilst Gabrielle's Hope had considerably more cohesion narratively and dramatically, it was so totally tainted, from shortly after the start right through to the finish, with the most distasteful treatment of ascriptive evil (the idea that it's ok to kill a baby because of its parenatge), that in general I would never want to watch again a show which featured such an episode... Fortunately, the show had already established itself deep in my affections long before I saw GH, so I was able to write it off as an exceptional mistake, albeit a very unpleasant one.
Maternal Instincts, I have to say, provokes more ambivalent responses from me. It upsets me a lot, and I would hardly watch it for pleasure. And it does also still feature troubling assertions of the validity of ascriptive evil. However it also features some great character acting and drama, so that, although it hurts and upsets me, I am somewhat hesitant about discarding it entirely.
Would it improve matters if a principle of "good" were introduced to balance Dahak as the principle of "evil"? Actually I believe if they *did* introduce an absolute principle of good to balance against Dahak, it would bring the mistake of this trend into even starker clarity. To be blunt, I can't see how it could be done without completely ruining the whole show and making it totally unwatchable, for me, at least.
Najara, OTOH, I have no problem with at all. I have no problem with the introduction of *characters* who have Manichean views, or who espouse the principle of ascriptive evil. What I have a problem with is scripts which essentially *preach* these principles themselves, scripts which can only be made sense of if the audience is prepared to accept Manicheism and ascriptive evil as absolute truths. To me, TD/GH/MI fall into this category, and *that* is why I feel they were such a *terrible* mistake! Crusader, OTOH, raises the issues, but does not force acceptance of any one answer onto the audience in order for the script to make sense. To me, this is a *massive* difference! I simply cannot and *will* not accept the basic principle of ascriptive evil - that an individual can "be evil" inherently, from their birth, not because of anything they do, or because of any choice they make, but simply because of what they *are*. This to me is an abhorrent and deeply immoral idea, and I cannot view any television show which attempts to promote such ideas as anything other than a *bad* thing.
And of course, whatever some others may have said, I never cited the fact that Najara hears voices as evidence against her. I do not believe that hearing the voices of the Djinn per se makes Najara either better or worse. It is Najara's own actions with which I have a problem... her mode of acting and relating to people is *deeply* flawed and extremely dangerous, so far as I'm concerned - I would truly *much* rather run the risks associated with people like Xena than those associated with people like Najara. But note that I am not calling Najara "evil", nor am I condemning her because of factors in her circumstances which are beyond her control. I am simply saying that what she is doing is more destructive and dangerous than it is good.
Dualism has, as a concept, entered the Xenaverse. I suppose this cannot be denied. But entering, as a factor which influences some characters, and which has to be dealt with, as in Crusader, I have no problem with at all. Entering, in such a way that acceptance and belief are forced upon the audience in order for the world presented in the scripts to make sense, as in The Deliver / Gabrielle's Hope / Maternal Instincts, I have very profound problems with.
**********
Dahak and Hope - Manicheism in the Xenaverse? (part six)
Were The Deliverer, Gabrielle's Hope and Maternal Instincts a valid part of X:WP?
For sure I claim no kind of "authority" myself. I speak simply from what I feel. And I try to explore and explain my feelings as best I can. Personally I feel that dualism and absolutism are unhappy and unproductive ways of trying to shape a view of the world... I have rarely, if ever, felt really good about anything they have produced. Well... perhaps I should qualify that a bit - I have certainly felt good about and been very impressed by many things that have grown out of the great religions founded on absolutism and dualism... I just feel that the followers of those religions tend to be moving away from the dualist and absolutist roots when they do their best work, and that their behaviour and their personalities generally change for the worse as they adhere more closely to those absolutist doctrines.
I have no problem with people saying that there are things which cannot be understood. I do have a problem if these people then turn around and claim absolute certainty about all sorts of rules and restrictions and corresponding punishments that they want to impose on everybody else, and justify this certainty by referring to the impossibility of understanding...
Personally I flatly refuse to acknowledge the portrayal enacted by Lucy Lawless in Gabrielle's Hope as being Xena - as I've already said, I simply can't accept that episode... to me it is quite indefensible, and has to be excised from the show if the show is to survive for me. However, if we must discuss these eps - it wasn't Xena's method of dealing with Hope that left Solan dead... Xena's method of dealing with Hope would have saved Solan - it was Xena's allowing Gab to overrule her method which led to Solan's death. But this whole discussion is most distateful, since the only context in which it is meaningful is an abhorrent one.
Was Xena, in Gabrielle's Hope and Maternal Insitincst, acting in a way that can only be understood in the context of *her* being the same kind of zealot as Najara? To me, the question is meaningless, since 1) we were given not the slightest indication how or why "Xena" might have arrived at her conclusions, and 2) these conclusions seemed totally at variance with almost everything else that Xena has ever expressed. Killing babies because you don't like their parentage is completely unacceptable. And I don't care how you cut the cake and how many times you cut it, you're not going to change my feelings about that one.
Did The Deliverer / Gabrielle's Hope / Maternal Instincts tend to mandate genocidal zealotry? They may or may not validate zealotry. To me they certainly seem to require acceptance of the ideas that 1) a person, an acting and thinking entity, can be "evil" simply as an arbirtary attribute, rather than as a descriptor of actions, and 2) that killing a baby because of its association with such "evil" is an acceptable and reasonable thing to contemplate. I flatly refuse to accept either of these propositions... and simply do not find these eps tolerable.
I think there is no doubt that in later eps the treatment of Hope has stepped away from absolutist and ascriptive. I'm not so sure about Dahak. I'm glad that they have treated Hope in this way, since in avoids perpetuating the problem. But I still do not see any way in which the original TD/GH/MI sequence can be seen as acceptable.
Since the writers have been crashingly inconsistent, it is hardly surprising that endless confusion and irresolvable debate have resulted. Personally I don't mind at all (well not much, anyhow) when the writers are inconsistent about things like timelines or the sex of horses. But when the writers are inconsistent about major moral issues, I can only salvage my regard for the series by stepping in and doing some major surgery (mentally, of course).
Can we see the portrayals created by the different writers (Sears, Mannheim, Stewart) as somehow combining to form a rounded view of these issues? No. They are inconsistent. That's the way I feel anyway. I cannot find *any* possible interpretation of the story, the characters, and the world-view implied that does not leave me absolutely *disgusted* with The Deliverer / Gabrielle's Hope / Maternal Instincts.
Is Xena a 'symbolic heroine' who can be used for whatever purpose a particular episode demands? Not for me. If you're happy with a series which portrays a new philosophical question each week, and uses "Xena" just as some sort of arbitrary allegorical counter to play with possible positions... well then maybe I can see why you'd accept Gabrielle's Hope.
I'm not.
For me Xena is a character. A protagonist. I see Xena, I admit, as essentially a projection of myself, and this certainly colours whatever I say about the show. I don't think this is quite as odd as it might sound. To some degree the very essence of the narrative tradition of the novel, and the dramatic conventions that grow out of it, is that the "protagonist" serves as an extension of the reader / viewer. Xena just happens to be a "protagonist" of particular suitability for me. On the odd occasions when I simply *can't* relate to what the show does with Xena, I can get quite upset about it....
Probably the main reason I became so involved with the show was the degree to which Xena as a protagonist fascinated me... I don't believe I've ever come across a character who embodied to such a degree so many things I feel about myself and believe about the human condition. This remains true, for the most part... the exceptions being The Deliver Gabrielle's Hope / Maternal Intincts and In Sickness And In Hell. Since these eps tend to completely destroy my reason for watching the show, and in the case of TD/GH/MI, are also completely repugnant to me, I prefer to discard the offending eps as mistaken, and to continue to deal with the positive experience I get from the rest of the show.
To me, in these eps, there is no way you can get away from the fact that [Xena didn't act as Xena] and/or [moral propositions which can only ever be abhorrent became the "truth"].
It's *not* a question of logic and philosophy. I don't refrain from killing babies because of "logic and philosophy"... I refrain from killing babies because I *feel* it's sick and horrible. And I *feel* these eps were sick and horrible!
It has been suggested that my own objections validate the very principle of "evil" that I am arguing against. I'm afraid I see this as nonsense! To say that an episode of a TV show depicts things in a way which I find disgusting, or to say that the way a TV character is portrayed in a particular ep is such that I cannot relate to the character as a protagonist... these things in *no* *way* equate to my making a statement about pure evil. And it is silly at best, and mischievous or malicious at worse, to suggest that they do. Personally I feel that "pure evil" is a stupid and unproductive concept. This *certainly* does *not* mean that I believe that people who adhere to or pursue this concept are "evil" (and likewise for TV shows).
Effectively this argument would suggest that if I want to make any negative comment about anything in the world, then I have to accept belief in pure evil. This is surely silly?! Certainly I believe that people (and TV shows) do bad things. But I believe that "bad" is a descriptive quality, not an assigned or inherited attribute - i.e. we make ourselves bad or good through our actions...
And I don't see any benefit in watching or encouraging anybody to watch these eps.
Well ok.... I guess I can go this far to meet the defenders of these eps - if we disregard the rest of the X:WP show entirely, and just consider these three eps, The Deliverer / Gabrielle's Hope / Maternal Instincts in isolation... then possibly to watch them *might* be preferable to, for example, watching the Jerry Springer show. I still feel that there is a real danger that these eps could actually have a truly morally bad effect on an unwary person - that is I think a person could well be pushed towards the likelihood of making bad decisions and committing bad acts by watching these eps. But a person of sufficient awareness and moral strength *might* actually draw more benefit from watching these eps than from watching certain other things.
Viewed *within* the context of the X:WP show, I can only see the eps as having a *terrible* effect on the perception of the show as whole.
