Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two (dir. David Yates, 2011)

There isn't really very much that's Classical in Harry Pottter 7b - aside from the usual Latin names and spells - but I'm nothing if not a completist so I'm covering it anyway! Spoilers follow.

Harry Potter 7b (thanks to Kermode and Mayo for that nickname) does contain a dragon, so perhaps this is a good time to discuss ancient dragons. Dragons as we imagine them are generally either Eastern (the long ones, especially if they're friendly, like that one that looks like a dog in The Neverending Story) or Norse (the fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding ones). However, the word 'dragon' comes from the Greek drakōn, Latin draco, both of which essentially mean 'large serpent'. In Classical myth, a dragon is long and toothy, more like an Eastern dragon or perhaps a wyrm-type of dragon, but it doesn't really have any special qualities other than size. A dragon guarded the Golden Fleece, but that was more because it had been placed there as a suitably scary monster rather than because dragons had any particular connection with treasure hoarding. Whereas modern pop culture dragons, aside from usually having a heavier shape, tend to have certain qualities - cleverness, a weak spot in a thick hide, a fondness for treasure - ancient dragons really are just big snakes. The dragon in the film is definitely a modern-by-way-of-Norse dragon.

The dragons that pull Medea's chariot as she makes her escape, and the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece swallowing Jason - as you can see, they're basically just big snakes.

Draco Malfoy's first name, of course, means dragon, but it is also the name of a legendary ruler of Athens who brought in a set of incredibly harsh laws in which the death penalty was laid down for just about everything. These laws were repealed by Solon, except for the murder laws, and it's Draco of Athens that gives us the word 'draconian' for a particularly harsh set of rules. Draco Malfoy is named for the mythological creature - in fact, for the mythological creature in its Classical, big-snake form, given that he's a Slytherin through and through. But I can't help feeling that the most harsh of the ancient law-makers is a pretty suitable connection for him as well!

I really enjoyed the film, and almost everything I wanted to see in it was there. (The exception was the wonderful scene where Professor McGonagall enchants a bunch of school desks to go after the bad guys, which I loved, but I understand why it wasn't included). I was a bit sad to see Draco still refusing to stand up for, well, anything, but I'm very glad the scene with Narcissa and supposedly-dead Harry was kept, which was one of my favourite parts of the book. Mrs Weasley kicked bottom, though I expected her to shout louder! Poor old Fred's death scene got a bit curtailed, which was a shame, and I wanted Neville to kill the snake in front of the whole school, not just Ron and Hermione. And the entire film felt a bit like one big climax with no build-up - since all the build-up was in 7a - which I guess is justified after ten years and eight movies, but does make it feel a bit incomplete. Though we did get to spend almost all the movie in Hogwarts again, which was great.

There were some parts I absolutely loved. Neville and Luna make a great couple. Perhaps my favourite moment of all was Professor McGonagall telling Mrs Weasley that she'd always wanted to do the spell that makes the statues turn into an army. Helena Bonham Carter as Hermione on Polyjuice Potion was completely wonderful and, bizarrely, had better chemistry with Ron, though the kiss in the Chamber of Secrets was nice. Ron yelling 'that's my girlfriend!' like he's secretly been wanting to do for eight movies was good too. Snape's death and the revelation of his memories were great and I cried - I especially loved that they got the shorter wig back for some of the sequences set in the past - though I did wonder how Voldemort thought he could win the wand from Snape if he got a snake to kill him (because he disarmed him I suppose).

The epilogue worked better on the film than it did in the book for me. I think it's because the railway station is such a symbol of the world of Potter, because Harry's offspring is trundling along an identical cart to Harry's and most importantly, because the original John Williams score comes back. The use of the first movie's music all over the end section - with it's more magical, enchanting and especially more upbeat sound! - really brought the story full circle and was the perfect way to demonstrate that all is well in the wizarding world once again. It was like that moment at the end of Revenge of the Sith where the two suns appear on Tattooine and the original score plays and you just want to watch the whole set of movies all over again from the beginning (in Star Wars' case, from No. 4, of course). It's actually the perfect ending for the film and for the series, and I foresee many circular viewings of the films that both start and end with the flawed but magical first film in the future!

Living Dead in Dallas (by Charlaine Harris)

We return to vampires and maenads, the original version (if there’s another story featuring vampires and maenads out there, I need to see it, but somehow I doubt such a thing exists). Spoilers follow.

Unlike TV!maenad Maryann, Book!maenad actually has a Greek name, though it doesn’t seem especially related to her character. Callisto was a nymph/princess who used to hang out with Artemis, but she was raped by Zeus (or sometimes Apollo), became pregnant, and when Artemis discovered she was pregnant Bad Things happened (specifics varying according to which version you read) and she got turned into a bear. Greek mythology; not a friend to feminists.

Anyway, this Callisto doesn’t seem especially closely related to her namesake, other than having a genuinely Greek name (a few other Classical bits and pieces are scattered through the book as well – I definitely remember hubris getting a mention at some point. Godric has tattoos from the Roman period, but I don’t think he’s meant to be Roman; the name sounds like he could come perhaps from somewhere in the Empire, but wouldn’t be a Roman citizen. And while we're on the subject of Godric, his supposedly more 'modern' name, Godfrey, did not conjure up the right mental image for me).

The existence or otherwise of the god Dionysus is an interesting point in a supernatural story like this, in which all manner of mythical or folkloric creatures can be assumed to be real, but usually the line is drawn at actual gods, even – or perhaps especially – in a story with a broadly Christian base like this one (Sookie is a churchgoer and she’s the narrator, so there are basic Christian assumptions underlying the supernatural stuff). The gods can be included if they’re revealed really to be something else, like supernatural humans, aliens and so on, but gods as gods are more unusual (though they do appear – Buffy Season 5 being the best known example). The implication here seems to be that Dionysus/Bacchus was at some point real in some god-type form – maenads were ‘driven made by the god’. On the other hand, there’s a reference to the fact that maenads have ‘lost’ the god, and whether this means he used to exist in some form and doesn’t any more, or is just a reference to the lack of belief in Dionysus these days, is unclear, though the lack of current belief is brought up as a specific problem. As in the TV series, the exact process by which a human woman would become an immortal psycho is left deliberately vague, but Bacchus/Dionysus definitely seems to be involved somehow, while whatever existence he once had now seems to be lost.

As someone whose initial exposure to ancient history, pre-university, was through I, Claudius, my favourite bit of the whole explanation scene was Sookie admitting to the reader that she knew about maenads because they featured in a mystery novel she’d read, but deciding to let Eric think she ‘reads ancient Greek literature in the original language’ if he wanted to. Hehe. That would’ve been me ten years ago.

There are various minor differences between book and TV series in the plot and particularly the resolution, but the most interesting difference by far between Callisto and Maryann is that, as far as I can tell, Callisto is not actually the cause of any of the sex and murder going on until she takes her tribute at the very end. She’s attracted to drunkenness and sex and violence, but whereas Maryann brings out behavior that the people around her would usually repress, Callisto merely feeds off behavior that is already happening. Lafayette’s murder, it turns out, was a human act carried out from lust and fear, and the orgy that Sookie finds so repulsive is a simple human activity that Callisto is drawn to, but certainly hasn’t instigated. It’s hard to say which is the more cynical view of human nature – the TV version, which implies that such desires (the violent as well as the sexual) are in all of us, but we keep them buried, or the book version, that leaves the rest of the characters alone but clearly shows some of them actively engaging in such behavior without supernatural prompting. It also explains why poor Lafayette had to die – in his very little ‘screentime’ (page-time?) Lafayette came across as easily likeable, and you can believe that Sookie would go to such extreme lengths to avenge him, which she certainly would not do for Miss Jeanette.

I have to say, in places this was a strange book! Not because of the orgy per se – I am a Roman historian, after all – but because Sookie thought it was a good idea to ask someone who’s been trying to get into her pants since the moment they met to accompany her to one. As a bodyguard. While her boyfriend’s away. He actually has to tell her how crazy this is and it still doesn’t stop her. Even weirder than that, which can at least be explained away as the result of suppressed warm and fuzzy feelings she’s in denial about, is Sam’s affair with Callisto. He doesn’t seem remotely bothered that his fling is a psychotic several thousand year old Thing which Sookie describes as actively evil. Perhaps he’s in denial too.

I did like the book’s depiction of Andy Bellefleur though, one of the most complex characters in both the book and the TV series, albeit in slightly different ways. Andy is a good person trying to do the right thing who sometimes gets it horribly wrong by, for example, pointing a gun at our heroine. He’ll never be a fan favourite, but something about this character keeps Bon Temps and its inhabitants grounded while madness (literally) goes on around them.

I enjoyed this one, strangeness aside, though like anything you’ve seen in another form of media first, it probably needs a second look to be appreciated on its own merits (even if this version is the 'original'). You’ve got to have some admiration for anything that includes a full-on, named-as-such orgy outside of ancient Rome, though I have to say, that scene left me with some mental pictures that can never be erased…

Actual maenads, with Dionysus

 

The Little Mermaid (dir. Ron Clements and John Musker, 1989)

I have Guest Posted over at Three Pipe Problem on Muses and Memory, and I've got a new article on portrayals of Nazis in film at Sound on Sight, do go and take a look!

Today's post is part of the Oceanic Blog-a-Thon Crazy Cris hosts every year for World Oceans Day. Every year I have lots of ideas and never quite find the time to research them properly (i.e. re-read the books!) but hopefully a few nostalgic thoughts on one of my favourite films will fit the bill and provide an 'Oceans' post that's a bit different.

I absolutely adored The Little Mermaid as a child. I had a picture book of the original Hans Christian Anderson story and I knew how Disneyfied the film was, with its sugury sweetness and happy ending, but I didn't care - I loved both. I actually wanted to be a mermaid, which is probably a bit weird, but there you go (I used to make an underwater cave out of my duvet, and I used to lie flat on a swing and pretend to be swimming. You can just have me committed now). Mermaids themselves aren't that common in Classical mythology, though they do appear, and I talked about them in my post on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But there is one indisputably Classical element in the film, which is Ariel's father Triton the Sea King.

When I was little, I knew that Triton was vaguely Greek or Roman and assumed that he was the Sea God. Of course, as I later discovered, he isn't. The God of the Sea is Poseidon, in Greek, or Neptune, in Latin, the brother of Zeus/Jupiter and Hades/Pluto. Triton, or the tritons, is/are the son or sons of Poseidon/Neptune, a more minor sea divinity or sea creature(s). I suspect there were two main reasons for naming Ariel's father Triton rather than Neptune; the name is more closely related to the three-pronged trident that he wields as a weapon, and more importantly, unlike Neptune, the tritons were sometimes depicted in art as fish-tailed.

 

Heracles fights Triton, Greek, 6th century BC

All the underwater creatures in The Little Mermaid are either based on real sea-creatures or are in the traditional mermaid-form of half-human, half-fish (in Ursula's case, half-octopus) so it made more sense for the filmmakers to use Triton, rather than the humanoid god Neptune, as Ariel the mermaid's father. Triton is also thematically linked to the story of The Little Mermaid through music; one story has him drowning a human who challenged him in conch-playing.

The Little Mermaid is one of those stories usually referred to as 'fairy tales' even though technically, they should be called short stories, as they are neither traditional tales with no author, nor stories about fairies (or Faerie, or Fair Folk, or whatever). Hans Christian Anderson's tales and some of Oscar Wilde's, like The Selfish Giant, often get this attribution. I wonder if it's because many of us were read these stories when we were very small, alongside actual fairy tales, and did not know or care about the difference. The Little Mermaid certainly plays with fairy-tale-type creatures and characters, and the use of the Classical, mythological Triton as her father in the film cements her place as a mythy, folky character, accurate or not.

As his father Neptune does in Classical mythology, Triton holds supreme power over the sea, and so does the sea-witch Ursula when she takes his trident and reduces him to a worm-thing. Being the Bad Guy, Ursula is a bit more keen on using this awesome power than Triton himself. She can call up storms and whirlpools at will and is lethal to human beings (unless you manage to drive your boat into her and kill her, a death that seemed a lot more gruesome than I remembered when I watched it back as an adult). This metaphorical representation of the power of the sea, together with the storm from which Ariel rescues Eric early on, introduces child viewers to a very real danger through mythological means. As gorwn-ups and especially the sea-faring ancient Greeks know, the sea is enormously powerful, far more so than any ship. In ancient mythology, Poseidon/Neptune is frequently a metaphor for the simple power and unpredictability of the sea itself, and Triton and Ursula play the same role here. Luckily, this is Disney, and the happy couple are, in the end, confident enough that Triton has given them his blessing to sail off for their honeymoon in a boat...

King Arthur: Stories of the Knights of the Round Table (by Vladimir Hulpach)

When I was little, I had a couple of big compendium books I really loved. One was A Treasury of Literature for Children, which was a collection of excerpts from longer novels and poems (the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi from The Jungle Book, an extract from What Katy Did, 'A Smuggler's Song' and so on). King Arthur: Stories of the Knights of the Round Table, a collection of various stories relating to Arthur and his knights, was the other.

When I read it, though, I always skipped the first chapter. The second chapter told the story of Merlin's childhood and the third finally got to the birth of Arthur (and therefore, to me, the interesting bit) but the first explained how the kingdom of Britain was, in fact, founded by Trojans. This chapter, I'm afraid to say, did not interest me at all!

The story given in the book (which I presume became attached to Arthurian legend somewhere in the medieval or early modern period, though I don't know when) is that Ascanius' grandson Brutus was exiled after accidentally killing his father and was led to Britain by Artemis through a dream. However it got attached to Arthurian legend, the intention is clear - to make Arthur a great Classical hero as well as a British one and to tie the Britons, like the Romans before them, to Homeric legend. Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain is reimagined as a meeting of ancient kinfolk and Arthurian legend is made part of a larger Classical story.

This only means anything, though, if you are already familiar with Classical mythology and can enjoy drawing links between the two systems. I didn't know anything about Classical mythology as a child, so, being an obstinate child, I wasn't interested in it. This problem is compounded by the fact that the story is taken right from the Trojan War to the founding of Britain, through Aeneas, Ascanias, Silvus and Brutus, and the story whizzes through the whole of the Aeneid and more in a few hundred words, leaving no time to get to care about any of the story. Plus, the only thing I did know about Classics at the time was that Brutus killed Julius Caesar, so I was also really confused.

Going back to it as an adult, the chapter still feels a bit rushed, but works much better. Artemis, orders given in dreams, people accidentally shooting relatives and going off to found new kingdoms all seems much more familiar to me now and the tying together of the two mythologies is quite fun. I've no idea if this book is still in print, but I'm glad I still have it - it's beautifully illustrated by Jan Cerny and I always enjoyed its retellings of the Arthurian legends as a child. I'm glad it includes the Classical sections as well, as I can really appreciate them now - no more skipping Chapter One!

Xena Warrior Princess: Death Mask

'So he's the one that made you so... aggressive?' Understatement of the week goes to Gabrielle. After a steady diet of Spartacus: Blood and Sand and True Blood, both of which feature blood-drenched revenge stories in which normally Stoic characters snap in postumous defence of dead loved ones, it's quite strange watching the more family-friendly Xena version. Xena's on an arc of redemption, and unlike Spartacus, Eric Northman or her own alter ego Lucretia, she must fight the case for bringing the bad guy to formal justice (even though she later knocks out a bunch of guards just because she can't be bothered talking her way in to court). Her brother Toris, to her chagrin, is after the more traditional sort of revenge.

This episode is set firmly in Medieval Fantasyland. Bad guy King Cortese's crown looks sort of Viking-Anglo-Saxon-y, only slightly more geometric (it kind looks like something from Stargate) while his robes are brightly-coloured pseudo-Oriental style. His guards do look a bit more ancient.

There's nothing overtly Classical in this episode, but of course, revenge stories go back pretty far in human history. In Greek myth, vengeance was an obligation in certain cases - the most famous stories explore the ramifications if that obligation conflicts with another, equal one. So for example, Orestes is pursued by the Erinyes (Furies) because he was obliged to avenge the murder of his father, but this required him to commit an equally horrific crime, and murder his own mother. In the end, Athenian justice unsurprsingly comes down on the side of the father, but still, it was a dilemma.

Xena's story does share some qualities with Orestes'; like Orestes, Xena's brother unexpectedly discovers his long-lost sister while hunting his family's murderer and needs her help to succeed. Xena herself is, of course, much more physically proactive than Orestes' sister Electra, a character who first appears in Aeschylus' play Libation Bearers in a fairly passive, information-delivering role, takes a bigger role in Sophocles' Electra and actually jumps in and gets her hands dirty in Euripides' Electra. Xena is closest to Euripides' Electra, who holds the sword as Orestes kills Clytemnestra, but Euripides' Electra is actually more bloodthirsty than the redemption-seeking Xena. All the same, there's a definite Orestes-and-Electra vibe to the two siblings working together, and in Gabrielle, they've even got a third wheel wandering around in the background, as with Orestes' friend Pylades.

Gabrielle spends much of the episode hanging out with Cute Village girl, leading to amusing scenes like this.

The episode is somewhat marred by Cortese's mad over-acting and Xena's weird springing jumping move partway in but on the upside it does have lines like:
King Cortese: 'I want them for execution by the morning!'
Guard: 'What time?'
I also like the climax, in which Xena offers Toris the death of Cortese, but tells him that it won't make him happy, and he will cross a line he can't go back over (though this would be more effective if the same character hadn't been working as an assassin at the beginning of the episode). For someone whose village was wiped out, Xena has a surprisingly large number of living relatives, but it's always nice to see them every now and again. I hope future episodes will explore Gabrielle the Trainee Warrior's relationships with her family as well, since she's changed so much since they last saw her.

Doctor Who: The Curse of the Black Spot

There's Classics and Archaeology all over this series of Doctor Who - I don't think I've ever seen so many bloggable episodes in one series! (Bearing in mind River is certain to return by the autumn if not before, and we might be seeing Rory the Roman again as well).

This episode had a lot of very promising ingredients for a Doctor Who story - Pirates! Treasure! A Curse! Hugh Bonneville! Rory! Matt Smith continues to grow on me and much of the episode featured a nice, traditional adventure story with a bit of danger, and the TARDIS going missing, which always ratchets up the tension nicely. A few flaws at the end - Rory dying holds no dramatic power whatsoever any more because he's done it more often than Harry Kim and we didn't need the reminders of the Doctor's apparent (and equally drama-free) impending doom and Amy's maybe-pregnancy, because this was a stand-alone story and should, therefore, have stood alone. On the other hand, I'm sure we'll see Captain Avery and his crew again in the future, and I look forward to that, pirates are always good fun. And the Doctor's characteristic dislike of firearms is back to normal after last week's unusual fondess for bottom-kicking, so all's well with the world again.
I blogged about Sirens in general a good while back, when reviewing the Red Dwarf episode 'Psirens'. To sum up; ancient depictions of Sirens often included wings, which never get into modern depictions, and I don't think they became sexy until after their most famous appearance in Homer, though this was a point of some debate. The main difference between this Siren and your classic Sirens was that she functions best in becalmed water, rather than dashing people to their deaths against the rocks, for which I presume rough seas would be more effective; plus, of course, she's entirely well intentioned and not a psychopathic killer at all. This episode does rather make you wonder what other forms Voyager's holographic Doctor could have taken (wonderful as Robert Picardo is in the role). The Doctor kept calling her a mermaid, which was mildly irritating - although Sirens are sometimes depicted as mermaids in later (non-Classical) works, this one definitely had legs.

I rather like the reinvention of the Siren as an essentially benevolent (sort of) force, though the inversion is less dramatic for being a bit too reminiscent of other relatively recent Who episodes (Moffat's own 'The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances', chiefly, and people going poof! but turning out to have been transported, not killed, appeared in 'Bad Wolf'). Her music was nicely ethereal and is one of those things that's really hard to do, like casting Helen of Troy - how do you decide what the most beautiful song in the world sounds like? (I like Ariel's little ditty from The Little Mermaid, myself). The idea that she appeared beautiful and sounded beautiful if you'd been injured, almost like a drug, solved this problem rather nicely, as we could imagine she looked and sounded even more beautiful to those under her influence.

I was less keen on the Doctor's reference to 'folklore' that says the Sirens go after treasure ships. Perhaps there's some post-Classical folklore that has them do so, but Greek Sirens just like to crash ships for the lolz, usually - which in some ways can be more frightening and more interesting, though of course it wouldn't fit this story. Talking of interesting, why did Avery become a pirate? We never did find out. Perhaps he's going to show up again later and explain then, though I would have preferred an explanation here - again, this is supposed to be a stand-alone episode. Russell T Davis had a knack for making episodes feel complete and surprising you by picking up on them again later (the watch from 'Human Nature/The Family of Blood' that reappeared in 'Utopia', for example) but there are so many hanging threads this series nothing really feels complete.

Some major plotholes here (why aren't the Doctor, Amy and Avery put straight in the sickbay? why does CPR have a 100% success rate on TV, when it has a 20% success rate in real life?!) but this was a fun run-around with lovely production values and I'll be quite happy to see Avery and his crew again, as we undoubtedly will. If they bring more Classical creatures with them, so much the better!

Neverwhere (by Neil Gaiman, TV series co-written by Lenny Henry)

Neverwhere is both a book and a TV series - that is to say, both were written at more or less the same time, neither is an adaptation of the other. I read the book a couple of years ago, so my memory of it is a little bit fuzzy now, but I visited an old friend last weekend and we watched the whole TV show from beginning to end.

The first thing we quickly realised was that it was much newer than we thought - both of us were convinced the show must have been from the late 80s, but it turned out to have been made in 1996. The special effects, style of direction and cinematography (telematography?!) and even the style of the acting, however, could have come from any point from the 70s to the 90s, I think - my friend wondered aloud how spectacular it could be if made now. The first of two standouts, acting wise, was clearly Patterson Joseph as the Marquis de Carabas (that's why he always looks irritatingly familiar to me!) who was shorter and less skinny than the Marquis was in my head, but absolutely brilliant. We both finished the series desperate for a twenty-years-on follow-up showing us where the Marquis is now, and what he's doing - killing alligators in New York, possibly. (Joseph ought to have been the Doctor, I think - him or Adrian Lester - but I digress).

As in much of Gaiman's work, there are Classical references scattered liberally around the place. My friend is not, I think, 100% convinced of the value of Latin in the school curriculum, so I couldn't resist suggesting that if Classics was better taught in schools, our hero would have known that whenever a woman introduces herself as 'Lamia', it is time to run away very fast. The name of the ancient bogeywoman who ate children is perfect for a sultry heat-vampire (played by Tamsin Grieg, the first time I've seen her play sexy or dramatic as she's much better known now as a comedienne, though she did play mildly sinister in Doctor Who once) and Gaiman obviously likes it a lot, since he used it for the witch in Stardust as well. Oddly enough, my friend felt that this was not a situation her students were likely to come across in life, though I think there's no harm in being prepared.

Various other Classical references crop up every now and again, chiefly attributing just about every major disaster you can think of, including the mythological destructions of Atlantis and Troy, to the hired thugs, Croup and Vandemar or to the ultimate villain, Islington. The main Classical reference, though, is the Labyrinth containing the Beast, clearly modelled after the famous Cretan Labyrinth which contained the Minotaur. This being 1996, the peculiar fashion for minotaurs that I noticed last year didn't seem to have come in yet, so the beast was not half-man, half-bull, but a simple bull. To be honest, it wasn't even an especially large or menacing bull - it was quite clearly just a Highland cow, shot in shadow. This was one sequence where the book definitely had the edge over the TV series. The battle between Hunter, Richard and the Beast was exciting, scary and tragic in the book, whereas I'm afraid, on TV, it was mildly comical and far too short. I can't help thinking they should have gone for a Minotaur and used a man in costume, so they could have choreographed a proper fight, but I suppose that wouldn't fit the Beast's backstory, nor Hunter's African-beast-hunter identity. For her to pursue it, it had to be a proper beast.

A Highland cow, or coo if you're trying to do a bad Scottish accent. They're gorgeous creatures and I love them because they remind me of holidays in Scotland when I was little.

The thing that had stuck in my mind for 15 years after I first saw the TV series was Peter Capaldi's performance as the Angel Islington. I loved the idea that there was actually an Angel called Islington (being familiar with the name from Monopoly), I loved that he turned out be evil and I loved Capaldi's fabulously creepy, yet strangely serene, performance (complete with mid-90s big hair which looked a bit like a halo). The whole evil-angel thing didn't bother me because it's quite sensibly pointed out that Lucifer was an angel, so it doesn't come across as a dig at Christianity (I realise that would be an improvement for some, but not for me), but a perfectly logical idea, given the mythology.

Watching Neverwhere again, at first I was struck by how old school Doctor Who it all felt, but soon became swept up in the story, just as I was the first time (albeit occasionally jerked out of it by trying to place the various familiar faces in the cast). I think the reason I love Neverwhere it that, like Narnia but in a different tone, it blends a whole bunch of different stuff together very successfully - Christian mythology, Greek mythology, urban mythology (I love the use of old, abandoned tube stations) and a fabulous assortment of styles, chiefly what looks gothic to me and aspects of the medieval. And it's all held together by a genuine concern about the homeless and the way people 'fall through the cracks' in our society - it's no coincidence that the TV version was co-written by Lenny Henry, the founder of Comic Relief. If you haven't come across Neverwhere, it's well worth seeking out in either book or TV form, though if you find slightly ropey special effects off-putting, you might be better off with the book!

I'm away for the weekend and will be back next week with another Spartacus review.

Xena Warrior Princess: The Greater Good and Callisto

Two episodes for the price of one today, as these episodes together mark the introduction of Xena's arch-nemesis Callisto, though this does not become clear until the second of the pair.

In 'The Greater Good', Gabrielle has to pretend to be Xena following the real Xena's poisoning (by Callisto), a ruse that starts out comically and then, following Xena's apparent death, turns serious and gives Gabrielle her first real opportunity to shine physically and dramatically (and Xena's armour quite suits her).

Xena's life is saved at one point by her horse, Argo. I'm not much of a horse person, but this is a lovely animal - a beautiful colour and he (or possibly she) somehow manages to produce a rather comical expression of exasperation when required. I like the idea of a horse named 'Argo', after Jason's legendary ship - somehow there's something apporpriate about imagining one's horse as a well-built vessel ploughing through stormy seas. I'm not sure if the horse would find that flattering, but still.

This was ultimately a likeable episode. I rather liked Seltzer's Oriental-looking costume, and I warmed to the character quickly as well - he seemed to be just the right amount comic/serious. The episode does spend an awful lot of time on Xena's apparent death though; given that we haven't yet reached the end of the first series and it's therefore spectacularly unlikely that she's really dead, they spend perhaps a little too much time on it. Gabrielle's grief and panic is, however, both touching and well played.

'Callisto' takes another turn for the darker, introducing the enemy Xena 'made' by slaughtering her family years before, while Xena was still a bad guy. Callisto is the perfect antagonist for Xena, a constant reminder of her past guilt not to mention a physical match for her, and she's a bad guy with a strong motivation (vengeance) behind her actions, which is more interesting than the standard 'I want to rule the world/make a lot of money' type. Her costume, almost identical to Xena's (except even more revealing), and hair colour on the opposite end of spectrum suggests she's essentially Xena's dark side in human form, created by Xena's past sins.

Callisto is named after the nymph or princess (depending on the re-telling) who was a companion of the virgin huntress goddess Artemis, but was raped by Zeus. She tried to hide the resulting pregnancy but was discovered when undressing for the bath and transformed into a bear, and later (to protect her from being shot by her own son) into a constellation.

This is an interesting choice of name for this particular character. In some ways, the two have very little in common. The mythological Callisto suffered due to a specifically male crime (rape resulting in the victim's pregnancy) and her overriding characteristic is vulnerability - her 'loss of virginity' (as the ancient Greeks saw it) is revealed when she is naked and vulnerable in the bath and her life is endangered when she is speechless and a vulnerable target in the form of a bear. This makes her name a somewhat surprising choice for Xena's hard-as-nails enemy, whose suffering has been brought about by a woman, albeit a woman playing a usually masculine role. On the other hand, there are similarities. The mythological Callisto's suffering was compounded by the anger of Artemis, who certainly has some traits in common with Xena (a woman taking on a more commonly masculine role, roaming the woodlands with weapons in hand) and, like Xena's Callisto, her life is adversely affected by a traumatic event not of her own making.

The episode itself is a functional enough introduction to Callisto and her agenda. She has a rather irritating 'comedy' minion who I was hoping was going to bite it by the end of the episode but who, annoyingly, lived to tell the tale (though he came in handy), and Callisto's attempts to kick Argo when captured by Xena unfortunately come off as more funny than desperate. However, there's a nice theme concerning the futility of vengeance and corrosive effect of clinging to hatred running through the episode. Also: cool tall-bone-ladder-killing-frame thing. Callisto herself is certainly an intriguing character whom I look forward to seeing again.

Argo. The eight-year-old girl in me wants one.

Stargate SG-1: The Curse

Quick plug: I have a new article out at Sound on Sight, on Five Films that Blur the Line Between Fantasy and Reality (I must try to come up with a snappier title next time!).

This episode of SG-1 is one of those mid-season episodes that serve to re-direct the main Goa'uld plot a bit and set up the season finale. In this case, we are introduced to a new Goa'uld, Osiris, another Egyptian deity, in the form of Daniel's ex-girlfriend Sarah (because his wife/another Goa'uld was killed off the previous year, so of course, we need to pile some more emotional trauma/sexual tension on top of Daniel). The audience ought to realise immediately that the unfortunate Sarah will end up Goa'ulded by the end of the episode as, like so many American bad guys, she has an English accent. We also see Osiris' consort Isis, in a way - her dead worm-y body is dissected by Doc Frasier.

This is also the episode that introduced us to Colonel O'Neill's cabin by the lake with no fish in it. When Daniel calls Teal'c for some translation assistance, Teal'c delivery of the phrase 'banished to oblivion' is priceless, as are his repeated offers to return to the SGC.

Events in the episode are kicked off by the mysterious death of Daniel's old archaeology professor in an lab explosion. I can't help wondering what an archaeology professor is doing is a laboratory with explosive potential. Archaeologists do work in labs sometimes, but they don't usually have to share them with the chemistry department. (Please note: this is a joke. I am aware that chemistry labs do not spontaneously conbust on a regular basis). The episode makes several references to a 'curse' of Osiris that does not, as far as I know, have any basis in any belief, ancient or modern - I presume the writers were inspired by the supposed curse of Tutankhamun. In this case, presumably, the 'curse' is down to the fact that Osiris is a Goa'uld in hibernation.

Osiris was worshipped both in ancient Egypt and later, together with his sister-wife Isis, in Greece and Rome as the object of a mystery cult. Judging by the artefacts Daniel's old professor is working with, he's focussing on Osiris' Egyptian incarnation, which, of course, fits with Stargate's general focus on ancient Egyptian mythology. I suppose, in the Stargate universe, the quite different Greco-Roman cult of Isis and Osiris developed independently as a relic of the Egyptian cult after the Goa-uld left... but I digress.

As usual, Daniel's descriptions of Osiris' mythology and attributes (chiefly the crook and flail) are fairly accurate, up to the point where the myth needs to be changed to fit Stargate's plot, and the wall painting that Steven finds looks like it properly depicts Isis and Osiris. Daniel's description of the Osiris myth conforms fairly well to Plutarch's version, which is the most coherent version we have of Isis and Osiris' mythology (evidence for the narrative from ancient Egypt itself is very scanty; Plutarch was a Greek who lived and wrote in the second century AD). For some reason Daniel insists on referring to a 'magic box' rather than a coffin or casket, which would be more accurate. Is this a dumbing-down thing on the part of the writers? Surely their viewers know what a coffin is! Perhaps they're just using a different translation of Plutarch. The punishment/banishment bit is an alteration to make the myth fit Stargate's plotline and does not appear in ancient mythology.

Daniel describes a canopic jar that he finds as belonging to Isis (he calls it an 'Egyptian burial jar' - perhaps he's just simplifying things for Carter?). In real life, a canopic jar would 'belong' to the dead person whose organs are stored in it, but the purpose of the jar has been altered for this episode - rather than storing the organs of a human being buried in the tomb, this one stores the worm-form body of a Goa'uld symbiote. It belongs to Isis because it's Isis' symbiote that is stored in it, complete with alien technology to keep it alive (except it's broken).

One of the nice things about this episode is that is presents archaeology in a reasonably accurate way, and in a much less sensationalist way than usual. One of the handy things about archaeology for TV scriptwriters is that archaeologists often have to work against genuine deadlines, and the (1990s) Egyptian government's request for the artefacts seems a perfectly plausible one. Daniel's ex-colleague Steven's book is apparently on the bestseller list, which seems unlikely - though ancient Egypt is always popular so I suppose, if it was a general introduction rather than an academic tome, that might be possible. Daniel and Sarah's envy is certainly realistic!

Given that they obviously wanted a new female Goa'uld to play with, one can't help wondering why the writers went for the male Osiris over his female consort Isis. Presumably this was because Osiris, who was killed by Seth (a god/Goa'uld the team have already encountered), dismembered, then brought back from the dead and associated with death and resurrection seemed like a more interesting choice than Isis, who is among other things healer, mother and life-giver.

This episode is a bit functional, moving the plot to where it needs to be later in the season. On its own, it works reasonably well as a murder mystery, but the simplest kind. There are two suspects (i.e. people who may have been taken over by Osiris - Daniel's colleagues are probably not natural murderers!). One looks very obviously like the guilty party so, of course, it turns out to be other one. It is lovely to see Daniel actually being an archaeologist though, and we get a trip to Egypt thrown in too! (Well, some sand that looks like it could be Egypt. It makes a change from Canadian forests anyway). Not an all-time classic, but a fun enough way to pass forty-five minutes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I Was Made to Love You

Somewhat unusually, today I actually want to argue that, in the case of this particular example, rather than using or working with classical culture, the modern retelling actually has very little to do with its classical predecessor at all. Several scholars (especially Paula James of the Open University) working on classical reception have discussed 'I Was Made to Love You' as a re-telling of the myth of Pygmalion which, on one level, it is. It is the story of a 'perfect' woman built by a man who wants to be with her sexually and romantically - which is the story of Pygmalion. However, I think that the themes explored in the episode are really very different to the themes of the myth, and that the classical story has little to do with the modern re-telling.

This story has been re-told many times, especially in the twentieth century, either in the literal form of robots or mannequins coming to life, or, following George Bernard Shaw, in the metaphorical form of a man trying to model a real woman into a more ideal version. The level of interest in the statue/robot/woman herself varies, though it is worth pointing out that whereas Ovid, the main classical source for the story, focuses on the process of production, obsession with the lifeless statue and prayer to Aphrodite to have the statue brought to life, few modern 're-tellings' do the same. Bernard Shaw was clearly interested in working with the myth, titling his play Pygmalion, and both his play and My Fair Lady, the musical based on it, focus on the process of transforming a young woman physically (through accent) and socially. However, most of the other examples that spring to mind, like Weird Science, focus on the activities of the woman once brought to life and on the implications of creating a fully grown woman, and probably owe more to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein than to the myth of Pygmalion. Even The Stepford Wives, which brings the focus back onto creating the perfect woman, is told in reverse, from the point of view of a woman trying to escape being 'turned into' a robot, the focus on the existence of the women, rather than on the process of transformation.

'I Was Made to Love You' also focuses on the created woman, rather than the creator (who would get more attention in the following season) but I think this episode is much more concerned with its place within season five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer than with ancient myth. IWMTLY is, perhaps surprisingly given its largely light tone, the crucial, turning-point episode of season five. It sits directly between the two biggest game-changing episodes of the season - the revelation of Spike's love for Buffy in the preceeding episode 'Crush' and the death of Buffy's mother, discovered at the end of this episode and dealt with in the following episode, 'The Body'. (An argument could also be made for the importance of 'No Place Like Home', in which Buffy discovers Dawn's true nature, 'Blood Ties', in which Dawn discovers the same, and 'Checkpoint', in which Glory's nature and intentions are revealed, but these are plot points, episodes which move the mechanics of the plot along. Even 'Into the Woods', I would argue, exists simply to get rid of Riley. 'Crush' and 'The Body' are the real emotional turning-points of the season, where the themes of this season - what love is and whether it is dependent on a physical state or relationship, and death - are brought home). Essentially, all the content of IWMTLY reflects the changing state of Buffy's relationships brought about by these two episodes.

IWMTLY opens with Buffy in a state of distress over Spike's affection for her, worrying that there is something wrong with her that attracts crazy vampires. April is a clear rebuttal to this idea. April was created for the sole purpose of being Warren's perfect girlfriend, but Warren has abandoned her for an imperfect, real woman. There is nothing about the way Buffy behaves or lives her life, the episode insists, that can attract or repel men and trying to remodel herself to be a better girlfriend will do her no good.

April's empty 'perfection' and her sole purpose in life of being Warren's girlfriend is also a recurring motif in the episode, emphasised by one of very, very few conversations between Anya and Tara, without any of the 'core Scoobies' (Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles) present. Anya and Tara are 'the girlfriends', the people who exist on the edge of the group and who drop off when their relationship ends (when this does happen, Anya eventually comes back and Tara maintains contact, but the fact remains that their position within the group is dependent on Willow and Xander, emphasised by the fact that their previous conversation alone with each other took place in Giles' bathroom while the others were arguing and they were waiting for them to finish). By repesenting them having a conversation about their own lives with each other, the episode tries to avoid the very plausible accusation that these two, especially Tara, are depicted on the show almost entirely in relation to their sexual partners and their own lives and interests tend to be sidelined.

The real importance of April's lack of purpose beyond Warren, however, is to highlight another of the main themes of season 5, that of Buffy's nature as The Slayer. Buffy herself is, to a great degree, a created woman, made into a Slayer by a prehistoric group of men, and she questions what this means for her throughout this season. If there is a conscious parallel with the myth of Pygmalion, it is here, in the exploration of what it means for a woman to be a literal creation of men. April asks Buffy what her purpose is if it is not to love Warren and Buffy has no answer - just as Buffy herself finds it difficult to determine a purpose for herself beyond slaying, as her nature as the Slayer drives away all her romantic paramours and threatens her relationship with her sister. Whedon has frequently discussed how this was a crucial theme for series 5 and it is treated overtly in 'Fool for Love', 'Intervention' (in which a robot version of Buffy herself is created, just to really push the metaphor) and 'The Gift', among others.

The most important overall theme in this episode, though, is death. The whole season is driven by the lead-up to Buffy's death and her mother's death, which partially precipitates Buffy's own sacrifice by removing the strongest tie she has to the world. The robot girl's name is 'April', which may be a reference to the rhyme put to music by Simon and Garfunkel, 'April Come She Will', which ends with 'August, die she must'. April has a limited battery life, which she has already outlived, and her demise is inevitable. The swing set she and Buffy sit on reflects April's literal youth and her childlike innocence, but it is also significant that, unbeknownst to Buffy, at the exact moment she sits and comforts the dying April, her own mother is dying, alone, in their house. April's death quite literally marks the end of Buffy's childhood - it is a death of innocence and of childhood comforts like 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.' It is impossible to understand the significance of the episode without acknowledging that the whole story is created and informed by that moment at the very end when Buffy walks into her home to find her mother's dead body in the living room. Whedon had been planning this character death since the end of season 3, and this moment comes before anything else in this episode and shapes the entire story.

I don't know whether Joss Whedon and Jane Espenson, the writer of this episode, have read Ovid's Metamorphoses, though I'm sure they are familiar with the story of Pygmalion. I have no idea whether they had the Pygmalion myth in mind in creating this story (Joss or Jane, if you're reading, please let us know!). But I don't know that I really consider this to be an example of classical reception, of a use of the classical past in modern popular culture. I can't help thinking that the resemblences between this story and the myth of Pygmalion are largely coincidental - that this episode is concerned with exploring particular themes in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ('perfect' romantic love, the historical manipulation of women by men which is given metaphorical form in the creation of the Slayer, death and innocence) and that, while the myth may have provided initial inspiration, it has little to do with the development of this story.

Of course, on the other hand, postmodern literary theory tells us that we should be considering the response of the reader rather than trying to discover authorial intent, so in that respect, this is very much an example of classical reception. If it makes viewers think of Pygmalion in its treatement of the attempt to create the perfect woman (though Pygmalion was rather more successful), then it counts as reception of that myth, and we can never really discover the author's intention anyway. I do think, though, that there is something different about this sort of use of classical myth to the more overt uses of Greek and Roman culture and history that I usually look at, and that this example really has very little to do with using the classical past, and more to do with using a useful recurring motif that happens to be classical (the manufactured woman) to work within its own mythology.

Clueless (dir. Amy Heckerling, 1995)

I've mentioned a couple of times, I think, that for some years when I was a teenager, I thought Spartacus' name was Sparatacus, thanks to this movie. This being a rather egregious mistake that continued far longer than it should have done, I thought perhaps it was worth a blog post to itself (also, Clueless is awesome).

For those unfamiliar with the film, Clueless is a mid-ninties teen flick based loosely on Jane Austen's Emma. Me being a teen in the mid-nineties, you can imagine how much I love this movie, though there's more to Clueless than just teen fun. Taking it's central plot from Austen, I actually prefer this movie to the original novel - I find Austen's Emma too overbearing and irritating, whereas Alicia Silverstone somehow manages to make Cher a sympathetic and endearing character. Even more importantly, Cher's initial objection to her friend Thai's crush is not to do with money, but rather the fact that he's high all day every day, which comes across as a lot more reasonable (and he's cleaned up by the end of the film). The film is also hilarious ('My plastic surgeon doesn't want me doing any activity where balls fly at my nose'; 'There goes your social life').

This is a tightly structured film and Cher's mistake concerning the title of Spartacus is not just there for a cheap laugh. Cher is pursuing the new guy at school, Christian, but is unfortuantely completely oblivious to certain facts that mean this will never happen. Christian's declaration that he has a 'thing' for Tony Curtis doesn't clue her in, and nor does his choice of movies for a videofest - Some Like It Hot (about half of which Curtis spends in drag) and Spartacus. We join them during the early part of Spartacus, watching the scene in which Laurence Olivier's Crassus interrogates Curtis' Antoninus, whom he has recently purchased.

Crassus and Antoninus were the participants in another scene that takes place shortly after this one, which was cut from the film's original release but restored in 1991. The scene features Crassus trying to seduce Antoninus while discussing how sexuality is a matter of taste rather than morality via some appropriately sexy metaphors involving shellfish. Just as this scene is coming up, Cher tries to seduce Christian by playing footsie, but he brushes her off saying he wants to watch 'this part - this is good'. To be fair, as a 13-year-old watching the movie, I probably wouldn't have worked out the problem for myself if my best friend hadn't pointed it out to me, but poor Cher really is being very clueless here (especially given Christian's fondness for designer shoes). Her mistake with the name is really a symbol of her total lack of comprehension of the situation in which she's found herself, while the Roman-set film is representative of sexuality, and of Christian's sexuality in particular, which is particularly appropriate given ancient Rome's reputation for orgies and pornography.

It's also worth noting that much of Cher's determination to completely 'make-over' Thai in every respect from clothes to hair to accent to leisure activities has a very Pygmalion-like feel to it. Cher does not fall for Thai and the dialogue compares her efforts to Dr Frankenstein rather than either Pygmalion or his well-known modern counterpart, Professor Higgins, but her obsession with completely re-modelling the girl echoes the Pygmalion story more than the horror - something that's unlikely to be entirely conincidental in a film so full of classical allusions of the non-Greco-Roman variety (including Cher's observation that a book she read noted that 'it is a far, far better thing doing things for other people' and her pretty good knowledge of Hamlet, gained via the Mel Gibson-starring movie version). The clip from Spartacus that we see even refers to Curtis' character teaching children 'the classics'.

Being as clueless a teen as Cher, if not more so, this represented my entire impression of ancient Rome in popular culture for some years, until UK Gold started to repeat I, Claudius! I know better now, but I will forever love this movie for inducing a lifelong fondess for Paul Rudd, introducing the world to a very young (braces-wearing) Turk from Scrubs and for reminding me of a time when taking photos to help yourself choose a dress or phoning someone in the same building on a mobile seemed like such ridiculous things to do that only the super-rich would even contemplate anything of the sort.

Star Trek: Who Mourns for Adonais?

A few links of interest before I begin: Penelope Goodman has a new post about Clash of the Titans here, in which she links to a paper by Gideon Nisbet on gaming and Clash here, which I found very interesting, since I know almost nothing about video games. Meanwhile, this episode of Star Trek is mentioned briefly by Caroline Lawrence in a post on Adonis, which I recommend, especially since I don't discuss him at all here!

In a way, this episode embodies several of the most common features of classic Star Trek. You remember it for a somewhat silly but visually impressive feature of the episode, a lot of it is unintentionally hilarious but it takes a more serious turn towards the end, and it's not actually about what you thought it was about. In this case, having seen the episode a long time ago and not really remembering it, I thought it was going to be another run of gods vs science, in the way modern Trek occasionally decides to approach the issue. In fact, it isn't really about gods or religion at all, except peripherally - what it is really about is men and women in the workplace. As to how well it tackles that issue - well, a full summary is probably the best place to start there.

We open with some delightfully patronising ogling of this week's Guest Female Crewmember and a complaint from Bones about how every female crewmember will eventually find a man and leave the service. Luckily the most memorable part of this episode then makes an early appearance - it's a Giant Green Hand in Space! A 'field of energy', it seems, which quite literally grabs the ship, currently flying through a region with a curious lack of intelligent life (that's what Guest Female Crewmember was trying to tell Kirk, Scotty and Bones while they were admiring the way she filled her tiny dress).

Post credits, the Giant Green Hand reorganises itself into a humanoid man's head, with curly black hair and a gold laurel wreath (well, some leaves, in gold, I presume it's meant to be a laurel wreath). The head (the Big Giant Head, even) intones some portentous-sounding statements about how their journey has ended and they're all going to have a lovely time on his planet. This includes the most extraordinary mix-up of religious bits and pieces. At one point, he says, 'there shall be the music of the pipes' which, as will soon be made clear, is entirely appropriate, but this follows hard on the heels of 'we shall drink the sacramental wine', which very much isn't. I suspect if one tried really hard, one could defend this line - something along the lines of how the word sacrament relates to the Greek mysterion and the Greek mystery religions featured secret rituals that may or may not have involved wine (not that the god in question was the subject of a mystery religion). Greeks certainly poured libations - liquid offerings - frequently and many libations were composed of wine. But really, to any modern Western viewer, 'sacramental wine' quite clearly refers to the Roman Catholic communion wine, and hearing it in this context is just plain off. (And yes, Greek libations may be one of several ultimate sources of the communion ritual - but I don't think that's why the line was included).

The Big Giant Head, amusingly, still seems convinced they're in a sailing vessel. Agamemnon, Hector and Odysseus are referred to as 'history', but given that this episode features an actual Greek god as a space alien I can probably let that one go. He's certainly powerful - he makes Uhura squeal! (Uhura squealing is the first sign something is seriously wrong, the second being a redshirt dying. In the newer series, which are marginally more enlightened gender-wise, the inertial dampners going offline are the first sign, followed by the death of an expendable ensign). The god turns out to be quite the racist, disliking Spock because he looks like Pan, who 'always bored me.' Interesting opinion, given how muc they have in common - perhaps he didn't like having a rival. Anyway, Spock must stay in his room while a landing party goes down to play on the planet.

Bones quickly justifies the presence of this week's Guest Female Crewmember, who is apparently an expert in archaeology and anthropology. I've discussed the portrayal of archaeologists in the media several times, but this one is probably alone in using its archaeologist character chiefly as The Girl (River Song is a bit more complex than that).

The still unnamed Greek god is slightly smaller now, lounging around in pseudo-Greek architecture with his lyre. He finally identifies himself as Apollo - hence the lyre and pipe music, as he is a god of music, among other things (Chekov, new to the show and looking like he fell off the set of The Monkees, immediately responds 'And I'm the Tsar of all the Russias!). Apollo eyes up Guest Female Crewmember - well, that's about par for the course for a Greek god, so for once it's justified! He declares that they will all stay and worship him, and proves how powerful he is by growing to giant size (which looks pretty funny in that tiny gold skirt he's wearing. It's tiny skirts all around in this episode).

A bit of a fuzzy image, but you can see Apollo's tiny skirt, and the back of Carolyn (Guest Woman)'s revealing dress

Kirk quite sensibly maintains that the dude, whatever he is, is not a god of any kind, though he does work out that the guy might actually be Apollo, as in, he may have come to Earth and hung around calling himself Apollo (I wonder if this is the first instance of this now-common plot?). Guest Woman explains, in Vaseline-O-Vision, who Apollo is, including 'he was the god of light and purity, skilled in the bow and the lyre.' It's all more or less accurate, though 'light and purity' is a rather too Christianizing way of putting 'god of the sun' - purity didn't come into it that much (as will become clear).

Guest Woman reminds Apollo of Aphrodite or Athena - both of them? They're not exactly similar! He fancies her, of course, because that is the purpose of the Guest Female Crewmember of the week (see also 'Space Seed'). 'You are beautiful,' he tells her - well yes, she's in Vaseline-O-Vision. Scotty attempts to fight for his woman, all manly-like, and gets a sore hand and broken phaser for his trouble. Apollo puts Guest Woman into a ridiculously revealing sparkly pink outfit - though it's long this time - which is the other purpose of the Guest Female Crewmember of the week, to get put into totally silly clothing (see also 'The Squire of Gothos').

Kirk further explains his Apollo-is-actually-Apollo theory to Bones while Uhura actually does something on the ship, something quite technical sounding. Kirk also defends Guest Woman's attempt to do her job, albeit via the medium of flirting.

Apollo explains to Guest Woman that the other gods floated off into the cosmos due to lack of worship - so, like Discworld gods, these fade without adoration. I can't help feeling that the episode veers into fantasy here - Crazy Powerful Space Alien is Apollo I can just about file as science fiction, but we're on a thin line when they start spontaneously gaining or losing power according to words and thoughts. He pulls it back towards some kind of 'science' by further explaining that disappearing off into the cosmos is a choice made by a god who has become disillusioned through lack of attention, which makes a bit more sense. Hera went first, apparently - clearly being portrayed as an annoying nag in all the epic poems got to her.

Then Apollo snogs Guest Woman, naturally.

Apollo is actually a big bunch of energy, the others work out. He comes back without Guest Woman, at which point Scotty, very amusingly, tries to attack him with a statuette and gets blasted with lightening (his real mistake was being the only member of the landing party in a red shirt). Kirk starts yelling and Apollo takes his voice - but the god keeps fading in and out and is obviously in trouble. Kirk and Chekov discuss this development while Chekov, because this is only his second episode, reminds us all that he's Russian several more times. (He also stands with his hands on his hips, rather like Captain Janeway, and pops one hip out like he's disco dancing all the while, which is quite possibly the funniest thing yet).

Scotty and Kirk recover and Kirk declares that 'most mythology has its basis in fact.' Um, this is quite a long post already, should I really start getting into this now? Let's just say he's wrong and leave it at that - though with the proviso that, given the concept behind the episode, that the Greek myths were true and the gods were space aliens, it makes sense in context, and in Star Trek's own particular mythology. As a generalising statement, though - no, they're not. Kirk observes that even gods require rest after activity, and forms a plan based on provoking Apollo till he loses his energy.

Back on the Enterprise, Uhura's in a mechanic's overalls, fiddling with the electronics - awesome! (Still wearing massive green hoop earrings though). Spock even specifically states that he can think of no one better equipped to handle it when she points out she hasn't done this in years.

Back on the planet, Kirk yells at Apollo, and we see once again the enormous difference between TOS and the later Star Trek series. 'We have no need for gods,' says Kirk - so far, so Star Trek - 'we find the one quite adequate.' Later Trek series did occasionally look at religion from multiple points of view - in Voyager's 'Sacred Ground', for example, and I believe Deep Space Nine went into this more (I haven't seen much DS9) but usually, the standard position for a modern Trek crewmember is atheism (even Tuvok doesn't believe in the katra, though you'd think the events of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock had proved that one fairly conclusively!). Kirk's standard view, however, is monotheism. This episode is not about humankind not needing gods, it's just about them no needing this particular type of god.

All four then go for Apollo, attacking him with words so he can't blast them all at once. They also grab Guest Woman who, like so many Star Trek women, appears to be inflicted with Stockholm Syndrome. However, and again like the others, she just can't let anyone hurt Kirk, so she jumps in front of him and yells at Apollo herself before he can be blasted. She protests that Apollo told her he was gentle and kind and that a father doesn't destroy his children. Here, we've gone back to identifying Apollo with qualities of the Christian god, not the pagan gods - there's nothing gentle or kind about any of the Greek gods (though Apollo was a god of healing, that's about as gentle as they got) and fathers were quite keen to destroy their children in some cases, usually to stop said children destroying them. She insists he mustn't hurt them and he gives in to her big, well mascared, puppy dog eyes.

Apollo insists everyone from the ship come down, while Kirk replies that in that case he expects Apollo to provide the sheep and pipes (teehee). Kirk then formulates a new plan which depends entirely on Guest Woman remaining loyal and getting over her Stockholm Syndrome (don't worry Kirk, given the choice between you and another man, they always choose you).

Guest Woman is left with a choice between being the mother of a new race of gods or going back to being ogled by Scotty. Apollo gives her goddess-powers and she drops in ow her crewmates. Kirk declares that Chekov is too young to talk to her and win her loyalty back - apparently her decision will be based on how manly the guy who talks to her is. Kirk orders her to reject Apollo, which doesn't impress her much as apparently Giant Space Hands turn her on and she's fallen in love with him. She doesn't want to break her love's heart, but it seems one grasp of Kirk's manly grip is enough to turn her around. That, plus an actual order, as Kirk reminds her of her duty as a Starfleet officer.

Uhura's got the communicators working and Spock's worked out a way to kill or disable Apollo, but they don't want to try it while Guest Woman is with him in case it kills her too. So she, unaware of this, has to get on with rejecting him by telling him she's only been studying him as a scientist. Typically of Apollo, he resorts to ordering her to stay, which doesn't impress her at all. Then there's a really disturbing scene where he produces a raging storm (did he get Zeus's powers as well when Zeus faded?) and Guest Woman is attacked by the wind of the storm, which blows up her skirt, at which point the camera moves up to her face... it's all very accurate to Greek mythology and actually very effective (at least she doesn't turn into a laurel tree). The show doesn't get more specific than that, of course, and while Apollo's distracted Spock and the others save the day but still... nasty.

Apollo is still alive, but less powerful. Weeping, he tells them he would have cherished and loved them, but Kirk tells him they've 'outgrown' him (which is a very nineteenth-century-anthropologist viewpoint). He gives up and 'fades', or goes into space, or whatever, and Kirk and Bones discuss how they wish they hadn't had to destroy him and how fabulous the Greeks were while Guest Woman falls, weeping, into Scotty's arms.

As with so much of the depiction of women in classic Trek, this episode is full of mixed messages. Overall, Guest Woman appears to prove Bones wrong by choosing her duty over her love and Uhura is, as ever, made of awesome, but we haven't quite reached full enlightenment. Uhura still squeals when things get scary, which none of the male characters do, and Guest Woman's reassertion of her job, her independence and her duty results in (sexual) assault, from which she must be pulled away by Scotty, who spends the rest of the episode with his arms around her. However, it's an interesting dramatisation of what must have been a hot issue at the time.

So why are the Greek gods involved? Well, this is about men and women and on one level, the myths of gods like Apollo symbolise the most basic ancient concept of the relationship between men and women; men pursue and women are conquered and have babies. We've grown beyond that, Kirk insists (all evidence from his own behaviour to the contrary!). On the other hand, it's not quite as simple as all that. The title refers to mourning for the loss of beauty, and all the stranded landing party end the episode mourning for Apollo and for the idyllic dream he promised them of a life herding sheep and playing pan-pipes. (Of course, in reality, no such trouble-free idyll ever existed, but that's not really the point). Apollo represents an older way of life that had its good points as well as its bad, but that is no longer appropriate to the way we want to live our lives. It makes a rather nice metaphor, though it falls down a bit because none of the main characters really explain what, exactly, the gods did to inspire Agamemnon and co. or why they needed them.

The best thing about this episode is that it uses the now-familiar trope of the god who's really a space alien to do something other than pit 'scientific' heroes against religious fanatics (I love Stargate, but that is not my favourite plot!). This does something much more interesting, comparing ancient Greek values to those of the viewer and reminding viewers of the importance of acknowledging the acheivement of the past, but moving on, beyond ideas that are no longer considered valid.

From: http://www.trekp.com/gallery02.htm