I wish I could be more enthusiastic, but Takes One To Know One didn't really do much for me. On the plus side, it didn't do anything really horrible either, nothing that deeply upset me, or majorly messed up any of the characters or any of the ongoing premises of the show - no baby killing, no aliens taking over Xena or Gab, no clunkers from the future dropped on our heads. But that's not saying much. Apart from Gab's haircut and costume, and her ducking behind the odd door, you could almost put this ep into season two and not have it stick out (well true it mentions things such as Jett and Cyrene's 'crime' which weren't introduced until later...) - but it would stand out in one way: this was, to my thinking, the weakest script that has ever made it to the screen as an X:WP ep. By about the halfway point I found my interest really flagging. Generally X:WP eps succeed in one or more of three main ways: dramatically engaging us in the plot and its unfolding, engaging our emotions and sympathies in the characters, and making us laugh. Great eps do all three - The Greater Good, for example, or more recently Daughter Of Pomira. Now, I'm not saying that Daughter Of Pomira didn't have script flaws - it did, and I noted them in my commentary on the ep... *but*, and it's a very big 'but', it did engage me dramatically in the plot and its unfolding, it did engage my emotions and sympathies in the characters (very much so), and it did also make me laugh. So, so far as I'm concerned, Daughter Of Pomira was a great X:WP ep. Takes One To Know One, on the other hand... Well the plot was a sort of wandery whodunit parody, full of such glaring and blatant awkward, unbelievable contrivances that it was hard to sustain any engagement with it or to muster any degree of concern about its outcome. Likewise, despite some sterling acting, there were very few moments indeed where any of the characters was given the slightest chance to actually engage our emotions and sympathies - a couple of exchanges between Xena and her 'Mom' being about the only ones that come to mind... for the most part it was fairly emotionally barren. Which leaves the possibility of making us laugh... given its basic premise as a parody of a well worn genre, this was probably its most likely scoring area, but I'm afraid it largely failed there too, for me - certainly it raised a few chuckles, even the odd guffaw, but it was far from a laugh riot... the laughs were too feeble and far between for the ep to be sustained on them alone (and one or two of the jokes, for me, had a raunch to humour ratio high enough to put them into the realm of the downright tacky - notably Cyrene's comment about Ravenica's "liking her pears bruised").
So... largely a disappointment, from my perspective, I'm afraid. And accordingly my maunderings will probably be rather briefer than usual. Still, I did have a few comments on this and that, so let's take a wander through the ep.
***
I quite liked the opening painterly (well ok - mostly CGI) shot of Xena riding towards the inn through the dark and stormy night. But when she got into the courtyard, what was all that stuff blowing around in the air? It didn't really look like snow, and Xena didn't show any signs of being cold, but it didn't really look much like leaves either (and there didn't seem to be any trees about) - so what was it?
*
Nice classic shot of Xena in the doorway. Quite like old times - back to the old costume and (thank goodness) the old hairdo.
*
Was that supposed to be a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" sign or something of the sort hanging at the back of the room, or was is just someone's colourful underwear drying on the line?
*
And just *how* do you jump up and do 'surprise' on someone in a darkened room when you're each holding several lit candles? If you watch, you'll see that actually, as they get up, their 'candles' just glow without shedding much light, and the room is still dark... then the lights really come up separately, *after* the folks with their 'candles' are already in full view. Obviously Xenaverse light, like Xenaverse gravity, partakes in its own special physics.
*
Some *very* strange facial expressions being exchanged between Auto and Xena as he did his "I hear the words cake and ice-cream and I'm there!" bit. Auto's might have been meant to convey the fact that he was lying badly and embarrassed (presumably he really came for some reason connected with Ravenica). But I don't know *what* Xena's expressions were supposed to convey - she looked rather as if she was trying to do Samantha's 'nose-wiggle' from "Bewitched"!
*
And one has to wonder - what were Ravenica and Auto doing sitting in the dark whilst the others were playing their 'surprise' game?
*
I hardly recognised Darien Takle as Cyrene in this ep - I thought at first that they'd got somebody new. I guess she was just wearing more make-up and doing her hair differently. Willa O'Neill as Lila, on the other hand, was looking more like she did in the first season, after appearing rather different when we last saw in A Family Affair.
*
It's hard to get used to Xena calling someone 'Mom' all the time...
*
And *why*, when she found Cyrene was not in her room, did Xena *immediately* go and kick in Ravenica's door? I mean if you're running an inn, a daughter who starts kicking in the guests' doors as soon as she happens to notice you're out of your bed in the night could be a distinct liability!
*
I have to say I thought the whole thing of introducing Discord as 'Goddess of Retribution' was kind of dumb and pointless. It seemed arbitrary, even by the standards of X:WP comedy eps. (What, suddenly Ares gets to randomly rearrange the pantheon now? And didn't Discord already have a gig being... er Discord?) And it also seemed totally unnecessary... it would have been so easy to create much more plausible reasons for Xena to want to or need to 'solve the crime'.
*
Then the whole bit about "Discord doesn't know who did it, and Xena has to find out and give Discord the killer by sunrise, or Discord will take one of Xena's family / pals"... well it just had me shaking my head and muttering "rewrite..."
*
So Ravenica has that sign on the flap of her bag and tattooed on her arm - sort of a sword with a rope wrapped around it. So, what? Is this somehow supposed to be the universally known sign of a bounty hunter? And would a bounty hunter really want to be clearly, visibly and indelibly identified as such?
*
"Well, you know what they say - no matter what your age, you're always a child to your mother." There's a certain amount of truth in that. And I liked the way that Lucy played the line - almost as if Xena *wanted* to be a child to someone...
*
The drawings of Xena on the 'wanted poster' were really quite good, certainly recognisable. On the other hand, what passes for 'writing' in the Xenaverse seems to be getting stranger and stranger - the vague squiggles and scrawls on the poster didn't look anything like any 'writing' we've seen before, to me.
*
I didn't really see the point of the thing about Ravenica's catching people by crippling their horses. I mean, surely, in order to cripple their horses, she had to catch them. So... she caught up with them, crippled their horses, then waited until they rode off on their crippled horses, so she could catch up with them again?? Duh???
*
Somehow I don't think that the rooms in an ancient Greek tavern would have even had doors with keys...
*
"Play your little detective games..." This struck me as well, since 'detective' is such a modern word, and indeed a modern concept. So far as I know, the first usage of the word 'detective' to mean one who investigates crimes was in the 1840's, when the first 'detective police' were employed in England.
*
The way Discord and her toy-boys kept teleporting en masse had a distinctly 'beam us up, Scotty' feel to it, didn't it?
*
I didn't really find Joxer's persistent attempts to play Cluedo particularly hilarious...
*
Xena's account of why Ravenica couldn't possibly have just had an empty 'scroll sheath' in her bag ("a veteran of the road... never carry more than she had to...") was frankly ludicrous. I think Lucy definitely deserves a bonus prize for being able to deliver such utterly senseless lines with a straight face. (Unless of course it was meant to be a joke - in which case the director apparently missed the point, since it wasn't played for laughs.)
*
Gab's line about little known facts and knives and sheaths and grooves was another pretty daft one... but by this point I was becoming resigned... and probably taking less interest in the ongoing course of things than ever before at the mid point of an X:WP ep.
*
Now look, I can believe that Joxer's *gravy* might sometimes, even often, make people ill. But surely he doesn't actually have a specific *recipe* for gravy guaranteed to make people ill? Really, I give up on this script...
*
And if it's actually worth trying to make comments on the characters in all this - is it acceptable within Gab's 'way' of peace and love to assault people with emetic gravy? What next? Anthrax ripple?
*
"Look Xena, I'm tired of being jerked around!" Well now, *this* line I felt a certain sympathy with... I wonder why?
*
And Lila is writing *love* *notes* to Joxer? Without being under the influence of any drugs, spells etc? So is this canon now? The bard's sister is smitten with the mighty one?
*
Given that it was a 'whodunit', I suppose they *had* to throw in some reference to Joxer's twin, Jett... what would a murder mystery be without at least one set of identical twins? Indeed my own initial hypothesis as to 'who did it' was that 'Joxer' was really Jett *pretending* to be Joxer, and that he killed Ravenica, as a job, or because she was after him... based largely on the idea that it was necessary to find a killer who *wasn't* one of the apparent suspects, since they were all 'good guys'. Anyway, at least they didn't introduce any new identical twins...
*
Ravenica's tearing the note in half and muttering about "this won't be the only thing I rip in two" has got to rank as about the *feeblest* piece of threatening behaviour that I've ever seen.
*
And what happened to Minya's running away with Paulina to be a 'thespian'? A terribly thankless role poor Minya had in this episode! I suppose the hand puppet show she did, complete with faked male voices, was fairly thespian...
*
I actually quite liked it when Joxer interrupted, staring at his hands and yelling "Blood! Blood!" Well, at least it made me laugh...
*
And a *very* feeble excuse they used for the mandatory formulaic climactic fight, as well! Even Joxer seemed to be doing quite well against those posing-pouch types.
*
I know that they like to get a certain quota of readily observable pulchritude into each ep (ok, ok, T & A, if you want to be blunt), but they seemed to be relying to an inordinate degree upon the embonpoint of the deceased in this case...
*
Personally I *hate* light fixtures that are mounted so low that you bang your head on them! Of course, you have to light candles... but still, you could light them with a taper, and stand on something when you need to change them - better than braining yourself and your guests all the time!
*
"Fits like a Trojan glove!" LOL! No glove, no love, eh Auto?
*
"I don't do animals!" "That's not what I heard..." Harumph. I think this is arguably broadening 'subtext' and little further than necessary...
*
And Gabs kisses Joxer and leaves lip marks on his cheek - so it's official? She wears lipstick all the time now? (Adopted the crushed bugs, maybe?)
*
And finally, we get to see one of the characters' birthdays. But we still don't know what date it's supposed to be. Indeed I believe they've always managed to avoid any reference to what calendar is used in the Xenaverse (although, of course, the Ides of March is coming up...) And even the days of the week have never been specified - indeed do they even have 'weeks' at all? Anyway, happy birthday, Gab - and many happy returns!
***
So who was who in Takes One To Know One?
* Joxer was, of course, played as usual by Ted Raimi. I won't go over Ted's many roles again, since I went through them at length recently, when he appeared in If The Shoe Fits.
* Meighan Desmond has played the role of Discord previously in the X:WP ep The Deliverer, and in the HTLJ eps Two Men And A Baby, If I Had A Hammer, Porkules, One Fowl Day, and Love On The Rocks, and regularly on Young Hercules. Apart from this, her only other credit that I am aware of is as Lulu Chatfield on the New Zealand soap Shortland Street, which so *many* Xenaverse denizens have frequented.
* Alison Wall who played Minya, of course created this role in A Day In The Life, and reprised it previously in The Quill Is Mightier and The Play's The Thing. I wasn't able to find out much else about her, except that she provided the voices for Tethys and Mnemosyne in Hercules And Xena - The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus.
* Lila, Gabrielle's sister, was played, as always, by Willa O'Neill. She has appeared as Lila previously in Sins of the Past, The Prodigal, The Bitter Suite, and A Family Affair. On HTLJ, Willa has played the ugly-duckling wannabe dancer and fashion designer Althea in And Fancy Free and Greece Is Burning, and Phoebe, the fiery daughter of a hero, and a heroine in her own right, in the eps Once A Hero and The Wedding of Alcmene. 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).
* Darien Takle has played the role of Xena's mother, Cyrene, in Sins Of The Past, Intimate Stranger (in a sort of dream vision), and The Furies.
Darien can be seen in a few movies as well. Most recently, she appeared in the NZ horror movie about a serial killer, The Ugly, which is currently on video store shelves as a new release. This movie also features Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Boadicea in The Deliverer, Zera in The Play's The Thing, Voluptua in The King Of Thieves), Beth Allen (Vanessa/Pilee in DOP), Katrina Browne (Mendala in WIR, Thelassa in LUATD, Siri in Prodigal Sister), Rebecca Hobbs (Woman #1 in Ares, Elora in The Siege At Naxos, Katrina in Doomsday), Paul Glover (Menticles in The Price, Josephus in What's in A Name, Brontus in Let the Games Begin, Roberto Orci in Yes Virginia There is A Hercules, Danaeus in Descent), Christopher Graham (Toxeus in DIC and MB, Slave Boss in RN, Colchis in Porkules), Jon Brazier (Walsim in TDHD, Tarsis in VA, Mercenary #2 in The Vanishing Dead, Jakar in The Outcast, Slave Trader in The Fire Down Below, Trinculos in A Star to Guide Them), and Michael Dwyer (Theodorus in The Warrior Princess, Ruffian #1 in The Quest, Thug #2 in The Festival of Dionysus)... so, another one with a *lot* of familiar faces for Xenites.
Darien was also in Heavenly Creatures, a made in NZ film about a real-life case involving a murder by two teenagers. This film was one of Kate Winslett's first major acting gigs, and personally I would highly recommend it (but with the notation that it is based on a strange and tragic murder case, and may be disturbing for some). It also features Gilbert Goldie, who played the Village Elder in Locked Up And Tied Down, and although they can't be seen, Jennifer Ward-Lealand worked on the film as an acting coach, and George Port (The First Critic in The Play's The Thing) as a digital effects operator.
Somewhat longer ago, Darien appeared in the New Zealand films The Lost Tribe (1985) and Second Time Lucky (1984).
* Bruce Campbell has, of course, played Autolycus in *many* episodes of both X:WP and HTLJ. He also played the man himself, Rob Tapert, in the HTLJ eps Yes Virginia There is A Hercules and For Those of You Just Joining Us.
Besides these roles in front of the camera, Bruce has directed the X:WP eps Key To The Kingdom and The King of Assassins, and the HTLJ eps The Vanishing Dead, What's in A Name?, For Those Of You Just Joining Us, Redemption, and Stranger And Stranger.
Outside the Xenaverse, Bruce has an *enormous* filmography, which it occurs to me I've never attempted to summarise. So here's a list of movies and TV shows Bruce has appeared in, although I expect there are some missing: From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999), Icebreaker (1999), Gold Rush! (1998 TV), The Ice Rink (1998), The Love Bug (1997 TV), McHale's Navy, In the Line of Duty: Blaze of Glory (1997 TV), Missing Links (1997 TV), Running Time (1997), Escape from L.A. (1996), Tornado! (1996 TV), Fargo (1996 uncredited), Assault on Dome 4 (1996), Menno's Mind (1996), Congo (1995), The Quick and the Dead (1995 scenes deleted), The Demolitionist, Ellen (1994 TV Series), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (1993 TV Series), Army of Darkness (1993), The Chiller Theatre Expo Video Vol. 1 (1992), Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992), Lunatics: A Love Story (1991), Darkman (1990), Maniac Cop 2 (1990), Mindwarp (1990), Moontrap (1989), Generations (1989 TV Series), Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989), Maniac Cop (1988), The Dead Next Door (1988 voice), Intruder (1988), Evil Dead II (1987), Crimewave (1985), Stryker's War (1985 uncredited), Going Back (1983), The Evil Dead (1982), Clockwork (1978), Within the Woods (1978), It's Murder! (1977) - back in 1977 Bruce was just turning 19!
Besides the above, which include TV series in which Bruce played featured roles, he has also guested on the following series: The X Files in episode Terms Of Endearment, Timecop in episode The Future, Jack, The Future, Homicide: Life on the Street in episodes Justice: Parts 1 & 2, American Gothic in episode Meet The Beetles, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in episodes We Have A Lot To Talk About, Whine, Whine, Whine and Individual Responsibility, and Weird Science (don't know the episode).
* Ravenica was played by Natalie Duggan... she hasn't appeared in the Xenaverse before (at least not in a credited role), and though she looked rather familiar, I wasn't able to find out anything about her.
* The ep was written by Jeff Vlaming, who has never written for Xena or Herc before. However he does have TV experience, having written for Weird Science and Northern Exposure, and worked as a story editor on The X Files.
* The director of the ep was Christopher Graves, who previously directed The Play's The Thing, and also directed three HTLJ eps, all comedies: Two Men And A Baby, Yes Virginia There Is A Hercules, and Porkules. Given his background directing comedies (and TPTT and YVTIAH were very funny indeed, to me) you'd have expected him to get more laughs out of this ep - but perhaps he thought it wasn't supposed to be a comedy... I'm not sure what it was supposed to be myself.
***
The disclaimer was:
Argo was once again proven innocent during the production of this motion picture.
***
And what about the Herc ep, Once Upon A Future King? I can't say that I was very keen on this, either. In particular, the way Merlin's character was played throughout based on a feeble parody of dumb American stereotypes about Brits seemed, well... weak and stupid, mainly. The English are easy to parody - but on the whole, they do it best themselves (just look at Monty Python)... this sort of badly done, limp stereotype just makes the perpetrator look tasteless and humour-impaired. And King Arthur himself was a pretty bad stage-Englishman as well... but Merlin was so bad, Arthur looked half way decent by comparison. On the other hand, they didn't bother to play any of the other supposedly Brit characters, notably Mab, as distinctly English at all.
Still... it was nice to see Morrigan again, and Tamara Gorski continued to do her justice. And the plot, whilst not a literary classic, was interesting enough to hold the attention, and did feature a fairly major twist that actually worked reasonably well. So overall, despite the really irritating and badly misjudged business with Merlin, the ep had more to offer than it's X:WP companion, Takes One To Know One, for me.
***
And who was who in Once Upon A Future King?
* Tamara Gorski, who returned as 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), Highlander (playing Peggy McCall in episode Vendetta), My Secret Identity (in episode Trading Places), and Dracula: The Series (playing Alexa Singleton in episodes My Girlfriend is Back and Sophie, Queen of the Night). Despite her Irish persona on HTLJ, Tamara is in fact another example of the Canadian conspiracy to take over the entertainment industry, born in sunny Winnipeg, Manitoba. I hear rumours that she's signed up to star in a new series, but I'm afraid I don't have any details of a title at the moment.
* Young Merlin was played by Tim Faville. Perhaps he looked familiar to you? We last saw him staggering up to Xena in a bar and asking her for a kiss in Warrior...Princess...Tramp! This was his only other credited role in the Xenaverse, and I wasn't able to find out anything else about him.
* The sorcerer Mab was played by Sara Wiseman. She previously played Hephates in the ep Heedless Hearts, and on X:WP she was seen as a "Young Woman" in Prometheus.
* And what about Old Merlin? Did that face and voice ring a bell? They certainly should have! Underneath all that makeup was Norman Forsey, known on HTLJ as Tiresias in The Road to Calydon and The Festival of Dionysus, and the magistrate Tersius in Outcast, and very well known to Xena fans as Princess Diana's dad, King Lias! On X:WP Norman also played Casca, the deaf old relative who Xena had to save from a chariot accident in Been There Done That, and Megas the old prisoner in Key To The Kingdom.
At the movies, Norman can be seen in the NZ war drama Chunuk Bair, which also features Geoff Dolan, who headed the Fashion Police in Greece Is Burning and who was also the chief goon in And Fancy Free, and Orenth in The Lady and the Dragon.
Norman is also in 1982's The Scarecrow, and so are Bruce Allpress (Enos in Unchained Heart, an Old Man in The Road to Calydon, Septus in Cast A Giant Shadow, Skouros in Not Fade Away, Phidias in War Wounds, and Stouras in Redemption), Desmond Kelly (Elkton in Dreamworker), Sarah Smuts Kennedy (Kara in Mercenary and Hercules On Trial, Leandra in Love Takes A Holiday), Yvonne Lawley (Gryphia in Key To The Kingdom, Woman in Hercules And The Circle of Fire, Old Woman in Market in Hercules In The Underworld, Alyssa in Beanstalks and Bad Eggs, the Norn in Norse by Norsevest and Somewhere Over Rainbow Bridge) and Mark Hadlow (Zera's unctuous sidekick Milo in The Play's The Thing). It's a thriller, aimed at younger viewers.
Norman can also be seen in the 1987 NZ film, Starlight Hotel (1987), which also features Donogh Rees (Frigga in Norse by Norsevest and Somewhere Over Rainbow Bridge, the voice of Mnemosyne in Let There Be Light), in 1983's Strata, and in the 1989 TV movie Brotherhood of the Rose.
* The very décolleté Lady of the Lake was played by Asa Lindh, who was last seen lap dancing as Alceto the chief of the Furies, in the X:WP ep of that name! Asa also played the Second Maid in the HTLJ ep The Enforcer.
* Wayne England appeared as Soldier #2... he was previously seen giving us his "Wounded Man" in the X:WP ep Death in Chains.
* David Holton took the role of Knight #1. David previously played the Lieutenant in the X:WP ep The Deliverer.
* Did the Baker look familiar to you? He might well have... he was played by Graham Smith, who is one of those stalwart Xenaverse repertory actors, playing various roles without standing out too much. Graham played Leukos in The Mother of All Monsters and Marcius in The Lady and the Dragon, and over on X:WP he was the Senior Zealot in Altared States and the Boat Captain in When in Rome.
* The role of Trevis was credited to Emlyn Williams, which is of course a very well known name in the acting world... but the famous Welsh actor Emlyn Williams died in 1987, and I am not aware of any other credits for this Emlyn Williams (indeed I'm not sure who he was - I think he may well have been the boy who stole the loaf...)
* For the rest of the cast, Neill Rea as King Arthur himself, Michael Garnet-Holt as General Gwain, Wayne Peters as Albion, Andrea Bruce as the Teacher, and Steve Isherwood as Soldier #1, I was not able to find any recorded credits.
* The ep was written by Noreen Tobin & Gene O'Neill, who previously wrote Love Takes A Holiday, When A Man Loves A Woman, Armageddon Now Part 2 (with Paul Robert Coyle), My Fair Cupcake, Twilight (with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci), Render Unto Caesar, Let There Be Light, and Just Passing Through. They also wrote the X:WP ep One Against An Army.
* The ep's director was Mark Beesley, who previously directed Armageddon Now (both parts), and the X:WP eps A Necessary Evil and Maternal Instincts.
***
The disclaimer was:
Many Giant Steps were taken during the production of this motion picture. However, none for mankind.
