Xena to the Sickbed

Bad flu, sore body, snotty head. Dusty apartment. Cold weather.

"Aei-yi-yi-yi-yi!" It's Xena, come to rescue me! Or rather to bumble through the rest of the first season, which Jason & Craig loaned to me so long ago. Xena to keep my eyes and my head busy while the rest of my body moans. Something to think about that doesn't require any effort. A rousing theme-song you can sing along with. Tom Atkins playing the same character he always plays, but on horseback. Bruce Campbell's funny eyes.

I like Xena when she's funny. I like Gabrielle too. I wonder if any women have ever felt empowered by this show. I wonder how blatant the lesbian overtones were meant to be. "Is There a Doctor in the House?" was a crazy hodge-podge of medical drama, social commentary, and breech-birthed centaur, plus an old guy yelling "MY TEMPLE!" How can you make a gripping program about emergency medical procedures when all you have are some hollow reeds, a sword, a hypnotizing candle, and "Gabrielle, make compresses out of those cobwebs"?

Callisto was a good villain. More Charon as vaudeville comedian, please. Two episodes in a row, Xena disguised herself as a bride in order to capture a bad guy. In about six episodes in a row she said "I have stopped the blood to your brain. You will die in sixty seconds." Whenever the show gets boring you can play "guess the accent that the actor is hiding." Whenever it starts to hurt, take a Tylenol.

Ooooo, back to sleep, I think.

Xenariffic!

"Hooves and Harlots" was the episode that finally did it for me. It strikes a wonderful balance between campy humour and kid-friendly drama: no attempts to make me cry, lots of wit and silliness, but the actors still played it for keeps without just goofing off.

Except Renee O'Connor, of course, who is unapologetically the comic relief. I don't find her annoying in the least, partly because of her superb comic timing and her chemistry with Lucy Lawless, but mostly because of the REAL strength of the show: the writing.

I didn't want to start enjoying Xena because I couldn't see how the writers could keep it up. How long before the jokes become stale, the plots grow repetative, and the fight scenes start repeating themselves? That's still a danger (and I'm sure after six years it got a little old), but thanks to their incredible creative freedom -- drawing willy-nilly from a wealth of classical mythology, license to tweak each episode's tone as they see fit -- it's still surprising me. One minute Xena is a fearsome warrior, and the next she's the "straight man" for some silly merchant or bard.

The strength of the show -- for me -- is its variety. Otherwise each episode would consist of the following elements (sadly enough of them DO follow this formula):

1. Xena and Gabrielle arrive in the middle of a conflict which consists of either "powerful evil character versus powerless peasants" or "two powerful characters fight each other without regard for the damage done to the powerless peasants."
2. Xena and Gabrielle get separated for whatever reason.
3. Xena must prove that she is really trying to help. She usually does this by fighting the "good character" and then refusing to kill him when she wins.
4. Gabrielle falls in with a hunky guy/soulmate.
5. When Xena and Gabrielle are finally reunited, there's a huge fight based around some new gimmick.
6. After the fight, everybody apologizes to Xena for doubting her, and Gabrielle looks sad as her guy either dies or is forced to leave.
7. The Moral Is Announced. A joke is made at the moral's expense.

Be that as it may, the episodes deviate enough from this (and some of them REALLY deviate) to keep it fresh and interesting.

I still don't really CARE what happens next -- it's mainly a good thing to watch while I'm eating dinner -- but I'm genuinely liking the show, and hopefully I'll continue to like it as it goes on.

Xena?

I've long suspected that I'd enjoy the "Xena" TV series, but I've never actually seen any episodes. The ever generous Team Toronto Daily Muffy (Jason & Craig) loaned me the first two seasons so I can give them a taste and...well, I'm not sure what to think yet.

First off, it's not meant to be significant or monumental, and I'm still getting over that. It's a flippant, ironic, action-adventure series made for...who?

Disregarding the people who use their DVD's zoom and Step features to find out if Lucy Lawless has a meticulous wax job (she appears to), I'm trying to figure out who this show is aimed at. I've watched the first two episodes and they veer between sly adult jokes and little-kid moralizing. The best I can gather is that it's meant to be a "family show" with something for everybody, and it certainly excels at that.

I'm not hooked yet, but I'm going to watch a few more episodes to see how much it grabs me. It certainly is fun, and every episode has its exciting moments, but I tend to get easily bored by chariot races. I'm hoping they give Lawless some more substantial material, because she is a superb actress, and she waxes meticulously.

Incidentally my trip to Toronto reaped other rewards as well. On my way back to the bus station I decided on a whim to check out a used bookstore (because I'm looking for textbooks on object-oriented design, but more on that later). Since the aisles were small and I was lugging a huge suitcase I quickly realized my search was doomed, but I was too embarassed to just turn around and walk out. The only section accessible to me was the VHS tape collection, containing -- wonder of wonders! -- every videotape for the first six seasons of Doctor Who...for $2.99 each!

So now I've rounded out my Hartnell/Troughton collection, though I really don't know if I can sit through "The Gunslingers" a second time.