Xena Warrior Princess: Is There a Doctor in the House?

My review of this episode is slightly hampered by the fact I haven't seen 'Hooves and Harlots', in which Gabrielle is apparently 'inducted' as an Amazon, but I maintain episodic television shows ought to be comprehensible no matter where you start! I feel the same way about book series, much to several friends' frustration.

The episode takes places in a healing temple (which looks distinctly Eastern of some description to me - whatever it is, it sure as heck ain't Greek!), in the middle of a civil war, and most of it revolves around arguments between Xena, who's practicing her battlefield medicine and teaching it to a young healer called Hippocrates, and Galen, the old physician who insists only Asclepius, the (correctly identified) god of healing, can decide who lives or dies.

The war was caused, according to the other side's leader, by the Thessalians (from an actual part of Greece) trying to force the 'Mitoans' (not from an actual part of Greece) to adopt their religion. This is spectacularly unlikely in an ancient context. The only religion that demanded that everybody worship their god and no other was Christianity, and they didn't start the more violent kind of evangelism until the medieval period. The only religion persecuted to that extent by polytheistic ancient pagans was, again, Christianity (because the Christians refused to worship the major gods, and therefore might endanger others) but the pagans were quite happy for Christians to worship their god, as long as they worshipped Jupiter etc. as well. Occasionally an emperor might take against a particular cult - the cult of Isis suffered this way once or twice - but always because of a specific grudge against that specific cult, not because they were against other religions in general.

Galen and Hippocrates are both named after famous ancient physicians, though Hippocrates is the better known - he is clearly the Hippocrates, he of the oath (we see him starting to write his famous works, all attributed here to Xena, at the end), whereas Galen is more of a fictional character designed to demonstrate how much superior Xena's practical healing is to his religious ritual. The real Galen was a Greco-Roman physician who lived in the second century AD and whose writing on medicine was still being used as a practical guide throughout the medieval period and even beyond.

Healing temples are something I happen to know rather a lot about, but instead of typing out a lecture, I'll just link to my paper on the subject, which is currently available here. As far as the argument between Xena's practical healing and Galen's more overtly religious methods goes, I personally suspect that all these places practiced practical healing as well as religious rituals, but proving it either way is pretty much impossible. Civil war aside, chances are these temples were usually filled with people whose problems couldn't be cured by local healers or practical healers anyway, and pilgrimage to the temple was their last resort - I suspect there were healers there who did their best, but there was often little they could do anyway.
 
If you were going to have a baby, on the other hand, as Gabrielle's friend Ephiny is, you wouldn't want to go anywhere near a male healer of any kind, they wouldn't have a clue. You'd need a midwife, and they would definitely favour practical healing, though I'm sure they'd have some religious rituals as well.

Ephiny is apparently an Amazon, who was on her way to Athens because her recently deceased other half wanted their baby born there. At first, she doesn't specify why - better medical care? You'd want Cos or even Epidauros for that. Citizenship? You can't get that from geographical proximity, you have to have two Athenian parents. In the end, it turns out the Athenians are 'more tolerant' - presumably of mixed race marriages between centaurs and women. There's no historical evidence for that, oddly enough!

The other main storyline of the episode follows the Mitoan leader who is eventually persuaded that war is, generally speaking, not a good idea. It takes a story, a baby centaur, lots of preaching and several deaths (including, briefly, Gabrielle's) to convince him, but he gets there. I love that Gabrielle self-identifies as a bard. The nice little story she tells about finding peace in yourself is not, you'll be unsurprised to hear, an actual Greek myth, though Artemis turning people into hunted animals features in actual myths.

Not a bad episode, but a woman giving birth to a centaur? Really??!! At least when Doctor Who featured human/kitten hybrids, we didn't have to actually see the birth. And if Xena did an ancient Caesarian section that left the mother alive, she really does have magic powers. We do get another great disclaimer though: Being that war is hell, lots of people were harmed during the production of this motion picture (but since television is a dramatic medium of make believe, all casualties removed their prosthetic make-up and went home unscathed).

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.

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.

Xena Warrior Princess: Ties that Bind

Owing to an unfortunate DVD mix-up, I've had to abandon my plan to review Xena entirely in order, but I will try to go back and catch up on the missing episodes whenever I can. This episode appears somewhat later in Season 1, and I'm very happy to see that Gabrielle has finally got herself some more attractive and more practical clothing, even if it is still orange.

This episode revolves around the return of Ares, previously seen being slimy and evil and trying to win Xena back for the forces of darkness. Here, he is slimy and evil and tries to win Xena back for the forces of darkness. He goes about it in a rather more interesting way, though.

Ares is a more warlike god of war here, but also even more totally nasty, as his unfortunate underling discovers to his cost. It's interesting that the god of war is presented as an evil so-and-so (I haven't seen any of the Hades episodes yet, so I don't know whether this is in addition to the usual pop cultural identification of Hades as The Bad Guy or instead of it). I really like this idea, that identifies war and battle of any kind with evil, which is totally different from how the ancients viewed this god (I suspect that, a few years on, this idea would never have got anywhere). Most depictions of Ares follow the ancients more closely, portraying him as perhaps a little trigger-happy, but more powerful than bad, a god you want on your side rather than a god to fight against (not that having him actually did the Trojans any good, but still). He's certainly a much more interesting and unusual choice than Hades for the position of 'evil god of the pantheon', something that didn't exist in ancient mythology but that modern interpretations seem to feel is necessary to give them a strong bad guy. The choice of Ares for this role fits very well with the series' overall theme of redemption and striving for peace (albeit through the medium of vast amounts of fighting while wearing skimpy armour).

Ares is also much more cunning than last time and shows how close Xena still is to her former, evil self by presenting a scenario that might drive anyone to a desire for violence and revenge. As Xena screams 'kill them all!' it becomes clear how much she needs Gabrielle around to hold her back, and Gabrielle hitting her over the head is both an important step in the development of their relationship and totally awesome.

We learn some more about Xena's personal history when she talks about her father, which is nice - there's nothing particularly strange or startling to be learned, just the sad but frequently-heard story of how she worshipped him and then he left (see also: Buffy, B'Elanna Torres) but it's nice to know a little more about her anyway. And Xena taking over an army is naughty but rather cool, though I was thoroughly amused by how much 'Hail Xena!' sounds like 'Hail Caesar!' (well, it does to me anyway!).

The B plot involves Gabrielle's interactions with a group of girls she and Xena have rescued from slavery, but who did not all want to be rescued. At first I thought this might be a really interesting exploration of why someone might sell themselves into slavery and how desperate you would have to be to do so, something that did happen in the ancient world, but it turns out this particular young woman offered herself in place of her sister - which is a good story and very noble, but not quite such an interesting sociological concept.

I enjoyed this episode a lot more than I thought I would. Ares didn't really appeal to me much as a character last time around, but here he plays a more interesting role with cleverer plan and allows us a glimpse into another side of Xena's personality. And he has a rather nice line in funky earrings.

Xena Warrior Princess: Prometheus

This was a rather good episode of Xena, which was about equal parts really nice ideas and utter silliness.

This is one those episodes that is largely based on genuine Greek mythology, in this case, the story of the Titan Prometheus, who was chained to a rock and had his magically regenerating liver torn out and eaten by an eagle every day, until Heracles set him free. Here, we get to see Prometheus, suitably Titan-sized, and very appropriately, this is the first episode to feature the heroes of Xena's parent show, Hercules and Iolaus. A lot of the character interaction would mean a whole lot more to me if I'd ever watched Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, but the script neatly fills us in on most of the basics and it helps that Gabrielle is meeting Hercules and Iolaus for the first time as well, so the introductions feel natural. The only thing I thought might make more sense if I knew Hercules was the ending. The four of them seem to be getting on rather well in a cute double-dating kinda way, so why exactly don't they just hang around, travelling and killing bad guys, together?

The episode adds to the mythology by suggesting that, as long as Prometheus was bound, mankind would lose the gifts he gave them, which in this case includes both fire and the ability for bodies to heal. In Greek myth, Apollo was the god of healing and his son Asclepius the god of medicine, but this alteration works rather well for the show, considerably upping the stakes. Of course, in Greek myth the idea of losing Prometheus' gifts could never have worked, as Prometheus was chained for goodness knows how long before Hercules rescued him and civilization wouldn't have got very far without fire, but it works well for an episode in which he only has to be chained up for 45 minutes. Hercules seemed to mention Hera at one point - it was Zeus who bound Prometheus, but Hera was the one who liked to make life difficult for Hercules, so presumably she's supposed to be responsible for making the liberation of Prometheus a suicide mission for him (except it isn't of course), which makes sense.

So far, so good - but there are some other, more 'interesting' choices. Most egregriously, Prometheus is specifically stated to have given mankind fire, as in the usual form of the myth, and Gabrielle's torch bursts dramatically into flames when Prometheus is freed. But how come the torch was alight at all in the first place?! They should have been stuck in the dark, or had to find magic glowy things, or maybe just not had to go into a cave, or something. At another point, Xena realises something's up when her emergency tracheotomy, performed with no antispetic or anasthetic with a knife she'd just killed some people with, doesn't work. Apparently it's always worked before. Seriously? Never mind Asclepius, she must be a deity of healing and medicine if that's true! Which would also explain how she can survive being battered against rocks as if she were Homer Simpson. Then there's the bizarre dinosaur-looking thing, which has replaced the giant eagle of the myth, and which lays giant green eggs containing humanoid, violent offspring. Why? No one knows... There's also a very strange oracle involving potentially hand-chopping tests and dancing girls, which is best left alone I think; a sword in the stone bit that looks like it wandered out of an Arthurian legend and got lost, and a reference to Athens as the best place to learn to be a bard, which I guess is sort of logical though, as far as I remember, hardly any of the surviving epic poets (whose preferred literary form is closest to what a bard might sing) come from Athens.

The nicest and most thoughtful part of the episode, however, wasn't related to the myth of Prometheus, but to one of Plato's philosophical 'myths'. I'm putting that in inverted commas because I'm not sure that these stories of Plato's really count as myths - they seem more likely to be parables or fables of a sort, stories invented by a specific author to get across a specific philosophical point (depending of course, on whether or not Plato invented the story, which is rather hard to tell). This one, told by Gabrielle to an injured Iolaus, is from the Symposium, the dialogue on Love. Plato has Aristophanes tell a story about how men used to have four legs and two heads and Zeus cut them in half, and they always long to be reunited with their other half. Plato's Aristophanes is using this story to explain why the best type of love is love between two males - Xena alters it a bit by adding that the soul was also split in half, and that each person is looking for the other part of their soul (implied, in this episode, to be in a member of the opposite gender, but not necessarily so). This is rather sweet, and Rennee O'Connor delivers it well. The emphasis on the link with another's soul makes the whole thing rather sweetly romantic - which Plato's example is supposed to be as well, but it takes Aristophanes rather longer to explain it. The single word 'soul' gets the concept across much more efficiently.

Overall an enjoyable episode, if slightly hampered by moments of the sort of silliness that appears to be unintentional, and therefore comes across as rather annoyingly daft. I did spot a wonderful bit of deliberate silliness right at the end though. Way down at the bottom of the credits, in the spot where we are normally assured that no animals were harmed making the show, was this notice:

'Iolaus was harmed during the production of this motion picture. However, the Green Egg Men went on to live long and prosperous lives.'

Genius!

Xena Warrior Princess: The Titans

In this episode, Gabrielle awakens three Titans by reading a chant in a language that sounds mostly vaguely Greek, except for ‘noces’, which sounds Spanish to me, and hi-jinks ensue.

I spent the whole of this episode mishearing the murderous thief’s name ‘Hesiot’ as ‘Hesiod’. I’m rather disappointed I was wrong, as I thought it was hilarious. Hesiod is the archaic Greek poet I always think of as ‘the boring one’ – there’s Homer, who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, and then there’s Hesiod who wrote the Works and Days (summary: Life sucks and then you die) and the Theogony (divine family trees). To be fair, both Hesiod’s poems are actually very good and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading them, but they just don’t have the wow factor of the Homeric poems (and they’re much shorter – but that’s probably a point in their favour). Anyway, the image of Hesiod as a murderous, double-crossing ruffian was really funny, so I think I’ll continue to assume that that’s his name (that’s what it sounds like, anyway).

The use of the Titans is quite nice. They’re proper giants for starters, which is an improvement on Charmed. Giants are not my favourite thing in fantasy – apart from Narnia’s Giant Rumblebuffin and the BFG, I don’t really like them, not even Hagrid – but the Titans I suspect should be giants, so it’s all good. Many more bonus points for using the names of actual Titans – Theia, Titan goddess of light, heaven and prophecy, Hyperion, Titan god of light and time and Crius, Titan god of the constellations and the year, sometimes a Titan leader – as he is here. Their characterisation is perhaps less Titan-ic though. Hyperion wants to crush the puny mortals – so far, so good – but Crius actually likes them and Theia is well, completely useless until the last few minutes. Hyperion kills Crius about halfway through, which is also typical Titan behaviour (both were involved in holding their father Uranus down while Cronus castrated him) but Crius himself is a bit too good-cop to be properly Titan-like. Gabrielle really is a bit of an idiot though, for not realising that Titans were not going to take well to being employed as mud-movers. In Greek myth, Hyperion and Crius were thrown into the pit of Tartarus rather than turned to stone, but petrification in a cave works quite well in this context.

There were some other fun touches in this episode as well – Gabrielle asking the Titans please to not spread the world around the whole town that she’s a virgin was a highlight. Xena’s reassurance to Gabrielle that she would never leave her because her heart is in the right place was nice to see as well – only episode 7 and we’ve had some decent forward momentum on the character development front (as long as this doesn’t mean they fall into the trap of completing their characters’ arcs within the first two seasons and then wondering what to do with them). All in all, not a contender for a favourite as giants really aren’t my cup of tea, but a nice little episode and the most faithful reinterpretation of Greek mythology so far. Clearly, giant Titans running amok is not something the writers felt the need to mess around with too much – what that says about 1990s TV writers, I leave up to you.

My inner feminist mildly disapproves of the bare midriff, but it's nice to know that Gabrielle will finally, at some point in a later season, get out of the horrible peasant clothes.

Xena Warrior Princess: The Path not Taken and The Reckoning

Not all episodes of Xena have enough directly Classical references in them to fill a whole blog post, so I thought I'd look at them two-at-a-time unless they have really substantial Classical content or do something really unusual and particularly interesting with the material.

'The Path not Taken' contains little, if any, Classical material. There's the usual scattering of Classical names - Marcus, and I think I heard a 'Dionysus' somewhere - but most of the episode has little to do with Classics specifically. The episode ends with what I thought was a funeral pyre after it's burned down, which is an unusual sight as TV usually shows the body being set alight at the start of the burning - but Brother thought it was a brazier. It's a method of burial that was used at various times and places in the ancient world, though not universally.

As for the episode itself, I like the idea of ‘the path not taken’ being about the way Xena’s life could have gone, if she hadn’t changed, but I’m also a teeny bit disappointed that it’s not a parallel universe/alternate timeline story, which is what I was expecting from the title (though episode 5 season 1 would be a bit early for that, as really that sort of episode needs to use the audience's knowledge of the characters to throw them in new directions). There was some funny stuff and the bit with Gabrielle wandering around pontificating while Xena casually knocks people out was hilarious. The young couple were rather irritatingly soppy, though, and Brother pointed out that the seedy bar looked bizarrely Hawaiian. There was also a throat cut! It wasn't quite as gory as Spartacus, but still, I was surprised, Xena is usually more family-friendly than that.

'The Reckoning' has a stronger Classical bent to it, as it features Ares, the (Greek) god of War, but most of the episode is actually taken up with Xena being put on trial for the murder of several men (killed by Ares).

As I understand it, Ares had a history with Xena on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Unfortuantely, this episode assumed that the viewer knew about this and had seen the relevant episodes, and did little to explain their relationship or what had happened between them before. This may have been a deliberate choice, to leave an air of mystery around him, but it means I'm reliant solely on this episode in my judgement of how they've interpreted Ares on the show and may be missing something viewers of Hercules would have picked up on.

In this episode, Ares doesn't really come across as warlike so much as he seems slimy and unpleasant. He has an evil little goatee and wears a distinctly impractical velvet robe with black leather underneath it. All the 'war' element in his character comes out in his dirty talk to Xena and his attempts to get her to join him and become a Warrior Queen, but he himself just seems sleazy. He kills three men at the beignning, of course, but I'd hardly consider ambushing an unarmed cart to be a 'warlike' act, that's more like banditry. Hector, Agamemnon and Achilles get name-checked and it is established that they're 'long gone', but really, this episode is little concerned with war. Ares' presence is an excuse to go through how Xena's changed from the cold, violent warrior she used to be and how she fights for good now - it's a worthy theme, but we've seen the same essential ground trodden in episode after episode now and it's getting rather tired. We need to find out more about her past, or move on for a bit - or both.

As for the rest of the episode, it does little beyond cover this same ground. It does, however, include several scenes of Xena wearing a corset. Chained and suspended in a jail cell. Being whipped. No prizes for guessing which part of the audience that's supposed to appeal to.

Ares leaves with a 50s-bad-guy style voiceover cry of 'Until next time!'. Here's hoping that he will actually do something god-of-war-like in his next appearance, rather than wasting time unsuccessfully trying to tempt Xena back to the Dark Side, as so many others have done before him.

Xena Warrior Princess: Cradle of Hope

Whew, I've posted a lot this month! There are a few reasons for it. I've been trying out different posting patterns to see what works - not anything I'd stick to rigidly, but a vague plan. This month, I was playing with posting Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, but I think that's going to be a bit too much in the end, partly because every now and again, something interesting - Doctor Who, at the moment - comes on on Saturday and I want to blog it while it's fresh. So next month I think I'll try posting Tuesdays, Thursdays and other days when something interesting comes up - we'll see how it goes. This month has also been my first full month of unemployment. I've got loads of non-paid work I need to be getting on with and a massive pile of job applications to do, but not so many tight deadlines, hence the increased blogging. Finally, I am horribly superstitious and don't like having 13 posts in a month! Crazy, isn't it?! I think in future I should stick to my more usual 9-12. I have got a bit of paid work now, so I won't have so much time anyway.

In this episode, Xena and Gabrielle rescue Pandora’s granddaughter, also Pandora, from an angry mob while simultaneously rescuing a baby who, it is prophesied, will one day be a king. Unfortunately they end up being attacked on all side with only a few hours left to save the word from losing Hope forever (or not, as it turns out).

This is also the episode that features Xena posing as a veiled dancer, looking like a harem girl, which may be more memorable to some. The bit where they start throwing a baby around like a football, might, on the other hand, be the most memorable bit.

There are more dreams at the beginning of this episode, and a female soothsayer who seems to be mixing up half a dozen methods of divination at once – prayer to a god (Zeus), stones, dreams and some kind of vision (stones really could not give that much information). She prophesies that an infant orphan will one day rule instead of the king and the child is put in a Moses basket (very appropriate) and sent down river, only to be discovered by Xena and Gabrielle.

The idea of the prophecy that a baby will rule, followed by an attempt to kill or capture the baby, is very Classical, and Near Eastern, and Biblical. There are lots of stories of that nature, the most historical ones being those connected with the Persian monarchy that appear in Herodotus (Astyages dreamed that his infant grandson Cyrus would overthrow him and tried to have him killed, but as usual the general who was supposed to kill the child didn't want to, in this case because it meant killing a royal. Cyrus eventually overthrew Astyages). Gregor proves to be wiser than any of them by simply adopting the child as his heir, thus saving the kid the bother of usurping him at a later date.

The version of the Pandora story used here features a wooden box, rather than a jar, and includes the detail that Hope was trapped inside the box. However, here, the fact that Hope was trapped apparently means that we all still have hope, as opposed to all other desires, which are fleeting, rather than that everything is hopeless. My copy of Hesiod, in which this detail first appears, has an explanatory note saying that Hope remaining in the jar means men still have Hope, and Hesiod is just being inconsistent in his symbolic use of the jar, which would fit the interpretation here (though I have to confess, the tone of Works and Days being what it is, I wouldn't be surprised if Hesiod had had the more negative interpretation in mind). I have to admit as well that I was rather relieved when the box turned out to be empty. I know the whole point of Xena is to dramatise mythological stories, but this particular story really works better on a metaphorical level than a literal one.

Unfortunately, presumably in order to fill time, the episode gets more and more ridiculous as time goes one, with some bizarre and inexplicable use of slow motion (the director must have been getting bored) and Xena and Gabrielle literally throwing a baby around as if they were Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth.

Jareth, in the middle of throwing the baby around.

One final, random observation – the currency is apparently dinars. Interesting choice. I would have expected drachmas, sestercii or denarii, but I guess dinars is as good as anything else!

Xena Warrior Princess: Dreamworker

First of all, I haven't managed see Clash of the Titans, which I'm actually quite sad about, coz it looks like big, silly fun, but big silly fun best enjoyed on a cinema screen. Perhaps I will make up for this by eventually seeing on TV with friends and alcohol. However, Cleolinda has done a short parody of it, so here's a link to that in lieu of an actual review!

Anyway, on with Xena. Only the third episode in and it’s an entire episode about dreams, yay! In this episode, Gabrielle is kidnapped by ‘mystics’ who want to sacrifice her to be the bride of Morpheus, god of dreams. Xena must go through a series of challenges in a dreamscape in order to rescue Gabrielle.

The use of dreams in this episode generally has little to do with ancient dream beliefs beyond the use of the name ‘Morpheus’. The dream vision the blind former mystic tells Xena he has seen is most like an ancient dream. It’s a direct vision-prophecy, showing him exactly what would happen, which is unusual but not unknown in ancient texts, and they way he reports and acts on it is reasonably ancient.

The ‘dreamscape’ and the other uses of dreams, however, come not from classical myth or history, but from modern science fiction and fantasy, where the dreamscape is an ideal way of exploring your main characters’ worries, preoccupations and desires. I’m stumped to think of any pre-Xena examples right now, though I’m sure the older Star Trek series (Classic and TNG) can provide some. Post-Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Restless), Star Trek: Voyager (Waking Moments), Farscape and Stargate: SG-1 have all used dreams in this way. The idea of the ‘dreamscape’ or dreamworld, where living characters can meet and interact even when separated by great distances (used to great effect, for example, in Robin Hobb’s Liveship Trilogy, an excellent series of fantasy books I would thoroughly recommend, but best to start with the Assassin trilogy first) in rarely attested in reality if at all. Various cultures see dreams as a way to meet and communicate with the dead or the divine, but not with other living mortals.

In this case, although Xena is able to meet with Gabrielle to give her advice, for the most part we’re strictly in character study territory, with some of Xena’s dark past, alluded to in the first episode, being filled in, though so far it’s mostly your basic village attacked, forced to kill lots of nasty men story. Scary black-contact-lens Xena, meanwhile, seems to be a projection of Xena’s Jungian Shadow, her dark side which, like all good warrior heroes, she is constantly battling.
Gabrielle is still the ‘innocent’ comic relief and still hasn’t got out of her blue blouse/red skirt combo, at least until she is put into a bridal dress for ‘marriage’ with Morpheus. Xena wears an intriguing purple outfit in the dreamscape, which looks almost Japanese-ish in design – whether this is a clue to her origins or a random decision on the part of a bored costume designer is, at this point, impossible to say.

This episode uses the dreamscape pretty effectively, especially in Xena’s final acceptance of her darker side, and Gabrielle’s enforced use of brain over brawn is nice too, though, presumably, she will indeed have to kill someone at some point during the series – I hope they remember to make something of that when it happens. And she’s still stuck in that peasant costume! Overall, though, I liked it - I'm always a sucker for dream-y episodes and although this one was a bit obvious, it was nicely done.

Xena Warrior Princess: Chariots of War

This is the one where Xena befriends a Trojan refugee called Darius while recovering from an arrow wound, while Gabrielle falls for the guy who shot her.

I get the impression there's a fair bit of backstory from Hercules in this one - the 'bad guys' are keepers of the horses of Ares and Gabrielle's friend's older brother was killed at a peace meeting where Xena was present. It's a pretty good episode, not too predictable and some nice character stuff. I liked the scene showing Xena's combined discomfort and pleasure at putting on a pretty dress a lot, though, as is often the case in these shows, the dress wasn't actually quite pretty enough to create such a reaction (or maybe I was just spoiled because I'd just got back from seeing Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which is a bit like gorgeous-dress-porn).

Intriguingly, the warlords who are the 'bad guys' for most of the episode are wearing very Eastern-looking costumes, which look to me a bit like the pop-cultural view of Genghis Khan (though I know nothing at all about Genghis Khan so maybe that's just me). Except for the dreads the younger man wears, that is. I wasn't sure if they were supposed to come from a different place or area, geographically speaking, or if the different style was supposed to reflect that they were from a particular tribe, or if the costume designer just thought that look said 'bad guy'. The only real drawback, for me anyway, was that one of the victims of the attack was called Darius. Now, I am aware that Genghis Khan was not a Persian and has nothing to do with King Darius of Persia - but the vaguely eastern look given to these costumes gave me a distinct feeling that 'Darius' should be on their side. I'll be interested to see whether we see this look again, and which characters are wearing it.

It's a nice dress, just not that nice

The actual chariot sequence was quite fun too, though it was shot in one of those locations where I can't quite shake the expectation that a bunch of Orcs are about to come round the corner carrying Merry and Pippin, or possibly the White Witch with a broken wand, in a very bad mood...*

*Yes, I am aware that Xena predates both of these movies. But I saw the movies first.

Xena: Warrior Princess: Sins of the Past

This is my first ever exposure to Xena, which I've never actually watched before, I've just heard about it through references in shows like Buffy and Farscape.

I'm not going to go through Xena in quite as much detail as some of the other TV series I usually look at. There are several reasons, the main one being that there's just too much of it! There are so many episodes, recapping them all in detail would be a huge time commitment and I'd never get any work done!

Sometimes I get comments from people who don't like the way I pick up on inaccuracies in historical programmes or explain the actual classical origin of mythical themes. Normally, my response is, I don't say these things to criticise the programmes/films/books - I don't think there's anything wrong with taking some artistic licence with classical material, especially mythical material. The reason I list the various inaccuracies/new interpretations is because I think it's genuinely interesting to discover the 'real' history (or rather, the current academic thinking on the subject!) behind the stories, that's what got me interested in history in the first place. Anyone who's not interested can just skim those bits.

Anyway, the point is, in Xena's case I think explaining the 'real' classical origin of everything that appears on Xena would be a bit too much like me re-telling the whole of Greek history and mythology on the blog. For example, in this episode, there are characters called 'Hecuba', 'Herodotus' and 'Draco', but they bear almost no relation to Herodotus, Hecuba or Draco and it would be pointless for me to go on about Herodotus for ages in relation to this episode. So I'll only go into detail on the original history or mythology if it seems particularly relevant (or if the change is so extreme it takes me out of the story, which can sometimes happen).

So anyway, this is the pilot episode - the one where Xena and Gabrielle meet, where they both run into a Cyclops who has been blinded by Xena and they defeat a punk-looking bad guy called Draco, while Xena makes up with her mother. Xena seems to have comitted some mysterious and terrible atrocities in her past and is now a social outcast (remember, I haven't seen these before, so please forgive my ignorance of the show's basic mythology and please don't spoil it too much for me in the comments!).

Obviously, this episode sets up the basic structure of the series. Xena isn't actually a re-telling of Greek mythology - for starters, there's no Greek character called Xena that I'm aware of, though presumably she's supposed to be an Amazon. The show is actually a fairy tale, which uses Greek myth as the spark for adventures set in a generalised magical world. It isn't even set in Greece, it's set, basically, once upon a time, in a land far, far away. The set up has a lot in common with Narnia, or Middle Earth - a fantasy land with recognisible elements taken from various mythologies, including Greek, but which is really a creation in its own right.

The general look of the show is mainly Robin-Hood-medieval; lots of brightly coloured, vaguely historical-looking costumes and dirty peasants living in small wooden villages. The look of the show reminds me of the various planets of Stargate: SG-1 more than anything else. Although it's filmed in New Zealand rather than Canada (I'm sure I spotted the site of the Battle of Beruna at one point) it has that general look that says the producers were going for something vaguely pseudo-medieval on a limited budget. All of this emphasises and reinforces the fairy tale feel of the show.

The use of the Cyclops was quite fun, played mainly for laughs which suits a giant, one-eyed, blind character (subject of the only surviving satyr play we have). There wasn't much Greek myth in this episode aside from the Cyclops, but I did enjoy Xena's battle with a big stick, which reminded me very much of Robin Hood and Little John.

As for the main characters, Xena is pretty bland so far, though I'm genuinely interested in her dark past and she did a rather cool move that The Matrix would use a lot more technology to produce some years later. Gabrielle, so far, seems kinda hyper - she's all about big, wide-eyed acting and throwing her arms around a lot. We wondered if she was slightly high. I did, however, notice that the first thing we see Xena do (after some ritual burying of armour and some general rejection) is rescue Gabrielle and some other girls from slavery, immediately setting out the show's relatively feminist (in some ways) outlook (and presumably coming across as more radical in the pre-Buffy era). Hopefully Gabrielle will have calmed down a bit in the next episode!