Hercules and Xena...thoughts?

[Unicron]

I tended to lean more towards Xena myself, but I think Christopher and others have done a nice job summing things up. I will admit, though, that I always thought Callisto was one of the weaker aspects of the show. Don't get me wrong, Hudson is a good actress and there are some eps where the character works great. But she spent a lot of the series being fairly one-dimensional (IMO) and existing solely to rival Xena. And while Hudson is attractive, I don't find her as sexy personally as Renee or Lucy. She seems a little too surfer girl appearance wise to me.

* shrugs *

 

[Christopher]

I tended to lean more towards Xena myself, but I think Christopher and others have done a nice job summing things up. I will admit, though, that I always thought Callisto was one of the weaker aspects of the show. Don't get me wrong, Hudson is a good actress and there are some eps where the character works great. But she spent a lot of the series being fairly one-dimensional (IMO) and existing solely to rival Xena. And while Hudson is attractive, I don't find her as sexy personally as Renee or Lucy. She seems a little too surfer girl appearance wise to me.

I thought Callisto was a very rich and compelling character, though maybe more so in her early appearances; when they kept bringing her back over and over in more gimmicky ways, that may have led to a certain sameness setting in.

And I find Hudson Leick absolutely stunning, though I always thought she was wayyy too skinny to be credible as a fighter as strong as Xena. I mean, sure, strong people in real life are often quite wiry, not bulked up like weightlifters, and there's no denying Ms. Leick was fit, but she just seemed too Hollywood-skinny.

 

[Unicron]

I agree, I think her character was handled a bit better early in the show. I think part of it for me was that she was sometimes portrayed as ultimately being little more than what Xena had been before Hercules prompted her to reform, and while the reason for that is understandable, I felt there could have been a bit more driving Callisto than hatred. But it's been ages since I watched the show, so my memory is far from perfect naturally.

 

[Corwwyn]

Am I the only one who thinks Hudson Leick looks like she could be Michael Ironside's daughter?

 

[Jimmy Bob]

There is also a story where either Herc or Xena are present at Christ's birth. Either they are the Three Wise Men or they guide the wise men or something.

I could be wrong, but I think that was actually an Iolaus-centric episode of HERC.

Correct. Iolaus was suggested to be one of the Three Wise Men in the episode "A Star to Guide Them".

This is what I mean by looney continuity. Three Wise Men were also present at the birth of Xena's daughter who was the St.Paul of Xenaverse.

And Mary and Joseph did a cameo in one Xena christmas episode.

In many ways, the episodic events in the first seasons are irrelevant. The later seasons form their own continuity... they are more contionous within their established norm... but a lot a lot of episodes in first three Herc seasons and the first Xena season are rendered meaningless by later season continuity.

 

[Greg Cox]

I could be wrong, but I think that was actually an Iolaus-centric episode of HERC.

Correct. Iolaus was suggested to be one of the Three Wise Men in the episode "A Star to Guide Them".

This is what I mean by looney continuity. Three Wise Men were also present at the birth of Xena's daughter who was the St.Paul of Xenaverse.

.

And let's not forget David and Goliath, Abraham, and Beowulf!

 

[Christopher]

In many ways, the episodic events in the first seasons are irrelevant. The later seasons form their own continuity... they are more contionous within their established norm... but a lot a lot of episodes in first three Herc seasons and the first Xena season are rendered meaningless by later season continuity.

Yes, there are definitely some continuity shifts. In the early seasons of HERC, Jason is portrayed as a contemporary of Herc's (mortal) parents, and the voyage of the Argo is described in a certain way as something that happened a generation ago and had certain participants and events. Then there was a Young Hercules pilot that reinterpreted Jason as a slightly older friend of teenage Herc and Iolaus, in his early 20s while they were in their teens, and that actually depicted the voyage of the Argo with a completely different set of participants and events. And subsequent seasons of HERC conformed to this backstory (even though the same older actor was still playing the adult Jason).

But then, there was an episode where Hercules went back in time and changed history to save the life of his second wife or some such thing. I always figured that could be an explanation for why the continuity shifted; he must have changed other stuff as well.

Although as I said, the shows' loose continuity is in the spirit of the ancient mythology they're based on, so I don't have a problem with it. All in all, they never really denied that they were just making up imaginary stories. The fourth wall was always fairly thin and sometimes they tore it to tatters.

 

[Forbin]

One of my ideal DVD sets that somebody should put together would be all the Callisto episodes from both series, in chronological order. Or even better, since Callisto's arc intersects with Hope's arc, the whole Callisto/Hope saga in one set. 'Twould be awesome.

 

[Forbin]

Oh - and speaking stricktly from an MCP point of view, one of the more fascinating things to see as you watch the whole of Xena in a marathon, is how Gabby develops from cute and mousey sidekick to awesomely sexy and beautiful partner. Renee clearly is a pro and took her job seriously, developing her martial arts skill and one hell of a nice body along the way. [/MCP mode off]

 

[Christopher]

Oh - and speaking stricktly from an MCP point of view, one of the more fascinating things to see as you watch the whole of Xena in a marathon, is how Gabby develops from cute and mousey sidekick to awesomely sexy and beautiful partner. Renee clearly is a pro and took her job seriously, developing her martial arts skill and one hell of a nice body along the way. [/MCP mode off]

I don't know what MCP stands for in this context, but you're right. If anything, Gabrielle is arguably the more impressive member of the pair, in terms of how much she grows and evolves over the course of the series. Xena stays relatively the same, and if anything even regresses somewhat, starting as a reformed warlord trying to do good but eventually becoming more hardened and resigned to her path as a warrior. But Gabrielle is constantly growing, changing from a nice but slightly annoying girl into an ever more extraordinary and commanding woman.

And yes, she ends up hotter than Xena, with a more impressive -- and much less concealed -- physique. Gabrielle's costumes got progressively scantier as the series went on. Another season or two and she would've ended up topless.

 

[Unicron]

Too true, though admittedly I wouldn't have complained. I do think they did a really nice job with Gabrielle's evolution over the show though, and it was nice to see Xena acknowledge in one of the later seasons (I remember the plot, but not the ep title) that finding someone like Gabrielle helped her to see past her sins and continue the fight to atone for them.

 

[Jimmy Bob]

So RoJoHen, how's it going with the show?

I'm kinda hoping you'll go through the Xena arc before making any drastic decisions. Then we all can say what episode's to skip until you get to the defining stuff we all like.

 

[Daneel]

And yes, she ends up hotter than Xena, with a more impressive -- and much less concealed -- physique. Gabrielle's costumes got progressively scantier as the series went on. Another season or two and she would've ended up topless.

Indeed... the writers themselves even poked some gentle fun at this aspect. There was a third season episode in which Gabrielle lost her memory, so Joxer tells her about her life and her history with Xena. At one point she says, "In every story you tell me, this outfit I'm wearing gets smaller. Is it enchanted?"

 

[RoJoHen]

So RoJoHen, how's it going with the show?

I'm kinda hoping you'll go through the Xena arc before making any drastic decisions. Then we all can say what episode's to skip until you get to the defining stuff we all like.

I've watched up through "Ares." I'm definitely gonna continue with it (it's crappy, but in a typical "It's Season 1, but it gets better later" kind of way).

I ended up buying "Arkham Asylum" for my PS3 yesterday, so that has been distracting me from watching any more.

 

[Daneel]

^ That's another one of those things that is changed after Herc's first season: Ares. He becomes a recurring character in both shows eventually, but he's rather different from the Ares presented in the episode you just watched -- for one thing, he's given a human appearance.

 

[Gatekeeper]

I watched both H:TLJ and X:WP, and preferred the latter over the former.

That said, I always got a hoot out of how the Amazon Nation was portrayed in both shows. Danielle Cormack (Ephiny) and Jodie Dorday (Solari) were among the actresses who did a fine job of representing the female-centric Amazons.

In fact, some of the most powerful X:WP episodes were the ones where the Amazon Nation was central to the plot.

Gatekeeper

 

[Jimmy Bob]

^ That's another one of those things that is changed after Herc's first season: Ares. He becomes a recurring character in both shows eventually, but he's rather different from the Ares presented in the episode you just watched -- for one thing, he's given a human appearance.

For another thing, he's incredibly cool and funny. I'm just now thinking of Old Ares Had A Farm.

Also, I don't know if it is in season 1 yet, but Herc/Xena episodes usually have a funny disclaimer in the style "no animal was harmed" but taken to one step further.

 

[Christopher]

^ That's another one of those things that is changed after Herc's first season: Ares. He becomes a recurring character in both shows eventually, but he's rather different from the Ares presented in the episode you just watched -- for one thing, he's given a human appearance.

Yeah, that was started in Xena's first season, when the decision was made to play his relationship with Xena as potentially romantic. I suppose the idea was that a god could take any form and this was the form Ares chose to try to seduce Xena. But then Kevin Smith's portrayal caught on and he became the default Ares on both shows (not to mention the Young Hercules spinoff).

And here's another instance of continuity being very loose on this show. In the first Ares episode of Xena, we're told that Ares has been an admirer of Xena's work for a long time but this is the first time he's ever presented himself to her in the "flesh." However, in later seasons, there are flashbacks establishing that Xena in her warrior days was Ares' personal protege, lieutenant, and lover.

 

[Corwwyn]

^ That's another one of those things that is changed after Herc's first season: Ares. He becomes a recurring character in both shows eventually, but he's rather different from the Ares presented in the episode you just watched -- for one thing, he's given a human appearance.

Ares, as played by the late Kevin Smith becomes an excellent and entertaining recurring foil for both Herc and Xena. (He also plays Iphicles in the Herc series.)

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, that's freaky -- the same actor plays both Hercules' divine half-brother on his father's side and his mortal half-brother on his mother's side. The vagaries of New Zealand's finite casting pool.

Not to mention Karl Urban playing both Julius Caesar and Cupid. Talk about incongruity. And Lucy Lawless playing two different characters before she appeared as Xena -- one of them, I think, just one week before. (They originally cast Vanessa Angel as Xena, but she had an injury or illness and had to drop out at the last minute, so they thought, "Hey, we liked Lucy Lawless as Lyla recently, why don't we ask her to fill in?")