From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V4 #34 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Sunday, February 8 2004 Volume 04 : Number 034 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Laura Irvine - Xena + HK Connection website ["Kym Tabo] [chakram-refugees] "Doctor" Horse Call [IfeRae@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] Burbank con report, Part 3... [Sarah Anne Packard Subject: [chakram-refugees] Laura Irvine - Xena + HK Connection website I am trying to get in contact with Laura Irvine ASAP. If she is on this list OR someone knows on this list, please contact her ASAP and tell her to drop everything and contact Kym Taborn at ktaborn@lightspeed.net. Kym ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 14:52:14 EST From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] "Doctor" Horse Call Okay, we know you can resurrect virtually anything in the Xenaverse, including dead horses. I'm going to try delicately prodding the characteristic/ uncharacteristic debate about Xena's behavior in "Doctor," but hopefully from a different angle. You can blame Sharon for her excellent interview with the ep's writer, Patricia Manney, in the Chakram #24 newsletter, which directly addresses that issue. First off, let me say I'm not using the interview to "prove" anything. Yes, Manney obviously agrees with those of us who believe that Xena's "losing it" was perfectly appropriate in terms of personality, experiences and the situation. She wrote the thing, after all, so of course it's logical to her. I won't go into all of her explanations now, because that's not my focus here. I think the following exchange will suffice for my purposes: "Sharon: Xena, throughout this episode, is the calm authority figure. Then Gabrielle is wounded and we see a Xena we have never seen before. We see the facade start to crack. One fan, Cheryl Andre [sic], wrote: 'When Gabrielle dies, Xena crumbles. The stoic warrior becomes almost hysterical with panic and fear. Her fight to save Gabrielle is not based on logic or even healing skills. It is an all-out assault on death by a very frightened woman.' "Patricia (laughs): Thank you! Tell her thank you for me!" Without getting into semantics about "characteristic vs. uncharacteristic," I *think* we can all agree that "we see a Xena we have never seen before." The debate was about whether that Xena was believable in terms of her reaction when Gabs "dies." Now, even though it was believable (if surprising) to me, I admittedly had a lingering question about the intentionality and knowledge of the ep's writer. Was her "take" generic, in terms of how she thought someone would react in that situation? How familiar was she with Xena and the show? To what extent did she "tweak" Xena's behavior in this season ender -- e.g., for dramatic/shock purposes, to advance the relationship between X&G, to show how much Gabs had come to mean to Xena? I didn't recall seeing the name "Patricia Manney" on other eps. (Yes, cr, I might have, if I'd watched Herc. ) Turns out she's married to executive producer Eric Gruendemann and was thoroughly knowledgeable about the show. She says Tapert gave her a formidable challenge for the production -- "4-1/2 days, one location, ER and kill Gabrielle." Oh, and make it "exciting" enough for the audience to come back for the next season. She says Tapert based his request on the fact that ER was the "hottest show on television" at the time. Sharon tells Manney that ROC didn't know whether Gabrielle would "last past the first season." Manney responds: "That could have been a possibility. Rob didn't tell me to kill her off permanently. He just wanted her to die and then he wanted to see what I would come up with. Hence, 'Is There A Doctor In The House?'" Of course, she previously acknowledges, "Don't forget, as my husband loves to say, death is just a beginning in these shows." From the interview, I get the sense of a very bright person with a wonderful sense of humor and love for XWP. She talks about drawing on her personal experiences with soldiers in terms of how Xena "compartmentalizes" and depersonalizes her job as a warrior. She says the resuscitation scene came from a real-life inspiration. Her father's father had lapsed into a coma following heart surgery. Her mother didn't particularly like the man, but "couldn't bear to see the agony on my father and his brother's faces." Manney says her mother "always believed that people in comas are not oblivious to the outside world. It's like you're at the bottom of the ocean and you're looking up through the water and you can't get through." Her mother started shaking and yelling at the man in his ICU bed. When the doctors and nurses tried to pull her mother away, her mother yelled at them, "If you want him to live, leave me the hell alone!" The mother kept at it and "he woke up!" What impressed me most was how thoroughly Manney had studied Xena, the show up to that point and mythical archetypes to come up with ADITH. She talks about why Gabrielle has become important to Xena, about how Xena "is not used to losing loved ones ... not used to losing *at all*. This is personal." Manney goes on to say, "Xena is not someone who would ever give up. But when you have that kind of personality, what would happen? You would fall apart because this is not something you've known before. You've seen lots of death. You've caused lots of death. But this is something you never wanted to happen and you blame yourself." Manney seemed indeed very intentional about all aspects of ADITH, from having Marmax chide Xena about bringing Gabs into a war zone, to using cobwebs as gauze, to appreciating Gabrielle -- as an archetypal "young pup nipping at the heels ... of the old gunslinger," as the "light" counterpart to Xena's (and the show's) potentially relentless cynicism and darkness, as a "fun" character in her own right who "takes life in a more spiritually-centered manner." Manney notes the changes that have occurred by the end of the ep. "There's a gentleness in Xena ... a tentativeness. And I think Lucy played that beautifully. She's going to be more careful." Gabs, on the other hand, has had what Xena hasn't yet -- "a real crossing-over experience," but "deals with it in her delightfully light, Gabrielle way." Again, all this is from Manney's perspective, which I'm certainly not saying is "right" just because she's the writer. But for me personally, her comments lay to rest any doubts I had about where the writer of ADITH was coming from and why. I'm always open to exploring "universal" questions, but when it comes to Xena, I like having confidence that there's an *attempt* to explore those questions in a way that's "true" to the character. Whether or not you believe Manney succeeded in this case, I think you'd be impressed by all the thought and respect that went into her efforts. My thanks to Sharon for continuing to ask the questions she knows we continue to have. - -- Ife ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 19:12:09 -0500 (EST) From: Sarah Anne Packard Subject: [chakram-refugees] Burbank con report, Part 3... Just finished typing up the next part of my con report for the Burbank con (covering Saturday, the day of Lucy & Renee!)...here it is. :) http://abbagirl.zoiks.org/burbank3.html -Sarah, aka the abbagirl- ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 23:42:19 -0500 (EST) From: cjlnh@webtv.net (Cheryl LaScola) Subject: [chakram-refugees] Xena Newsletter #24 Has anyone else NOT received this newsletter>? I have not but I have #25 that came with Kit 7. If lost in the mail would you forward another Sharon? Thanks, Cheryl ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V4 #34 *************************************