From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V8 #42 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 Friday, October 9 2009 Volume 08 : Number 042 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Armageddon Now and Sacrifice [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome [cr ] [chakram-refugees] When in Rome ["Cheryl Ande" ] RE: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome ["mirrordrum" ] RE: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome ["mirrordrum" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 23:40:11 +1300 From: cr Subject: [chakram-refugees] Armageddon Now and Sacrifice Armageddon Now was probably the best Hercules (double) episode. It's of interest to Xenafans because it fits into the Callisto and Hope saga right in between Maternal Instincts and Sacrifice. And it has appearances by Xena and Gabs in it. Plus Ares, who is always fun to watch. Callisto and Ares were a joy to behold, especially when they fell out. This is where their intense hatred of each other was born (and we saw more of it in Sacrifice). And, unlike Callisto's appearance in Surprise, this time the Herc writers did full justice to Callisto, in character and dialogue. The main writer of Armageddon Now was Paul Coyle, who also wrote Sacrifice 2, so maybe that's not surprising. (And he also wrote Ten Little Warlords and A Necessary Evil, so his credentials for writing Hudson/Callisto are pretty good). I felt that the irony, that it was (adult) Callisto who accidentally killed her parents while trying to protect them, was magnificent and tragic. It was regrettable that Iolaus had to use the Reset Button at the end of the episode and most of the past events just ceased to exist. Over to Sacrifice... and by the way, the Season 3 box set has an excellent collection of extras for this episode. The Xena-kills-Hope, Xena-must-die I thought was a little contrived. It goes back to Ares getting Gabs to Chin before Xena, which I thought was a retcon anyway. So, Gabs still owed Ares, and he collected the debt by getting the Fates to commit to killing Xena if she killed Hope. What is wrong with this? Well, first, in The Debts, getting Gabs to Chin was definitely against Xena's interests, if anything Ares owed Xena reparations for that, not the other way around. And second, if it was a debt from Gabs to Ares, why can he use that against Xena? Great dramatic device, but a bit strained. Joxer did something right for the first time ever - an undercover mission of getting the Hinds Blood dagger. Seraphin - altogether the most annoying character ever. She has the distinction of going straight to the bottom of the popularity list on Rate-a-Character and staying there with a huge lead over the second most unpopular (who, IIRC, was Ming Tien). I cheered when Xena had occasion to punch her in the face. Callisto (who was always safely top of Rate-a-Character, IIRC) was delightful to watch as usual. One thing I wish they hadn't cut was Callisto's campfire scene with Xena (Hudson commented on that, fortunately we still have a copy courtesy of Rick Jacobson's rough print, it's just a pity the rough prints are so different in quality, it defeats my idea of doing some fancy editing and splicing the campfire scene into my own version of Sacrifice 2). But anyway, it was almost a reconciliation between Xena and Callisto, which was kind of nice. I did so like Callisto's final appearance in the temple when she materialised and instantly scored a direct fireball hit on Ares. As to whether Callisto's delight on seeing Gabrielle go down the hole was genuine, Hudson thought it was faked in order to make Xena kill her. I tend to think so too. Steve Sears thought it could be read either way. Rob Tapert thought Callisto was surprised when Xena knifed her (i.e. her amusement at the Gabdive was genuine). Paul Coyle wrote it the same way, to give a last-minute twist. But I still agree with Hudson :) Now, seeing as Gabs could kill Hope at any time without repercussions, why didn't she just whack Hope with her staff and shove her down the hole? She's good enough with it. Or grab the dagger off Xena and do what she did to Meridian? Okay, I realise Gabs had to go down the hole for dramatic purposes. So why didn't Callisto give Hope a dose of what she gave Ares - umm, OK, maybe in Callisto's case she didn't care about Hope one way or the other, so she was watching to see what happened. Whereas in the case of Ares, Callisto needed no prompting to open fire. One thing that caused much confusion when screened - Hope's voice saying 'A temple to a lesser god. Changes are in order' - then a shot of a bust getting zapped - then a shot of Callisto saying 'I always wanted to do that'. So why did Hope say the first sentence rather than Callisto? Well, in Rick Jacobson's rough print, it is indeed Callisto who says all that - which makes much more sense. Why Hope would say it makes no sense. And another error - the Hind's blood dagger is not the same one as in Armageddon Now. But all this is just nit-picking a great episode. In fact, with Calllisto and Ares in it, I think it's the most fun of any - maybe not with quite the same impact as The Debts and Sin Trade, but just a delight to watch. cr ========================================================= 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: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 23:47:14 +1300 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome What you gave us about Romans of the ruling classes was a generality. Do you know that that would specifically apply to Crassus? IIRC, Steve Sears made the point that Crassus had spent most of his time 'in the field' and therefore most Romans wouldn't recognise him. And if there were no television or newspapers, would you recognise, umm, Dick Cheney, say, from 50 yards away? Especially given that the mob only got a long-distance view of him (Crassus I mean) and they were expecting to see a rebel leader. (Now I know, historically, Vercinix was a captive in Rome for several years. I never said TPTB were *absolutely* true to history, after all Xena never existed just for starters. But I did love the neat psychological point that those who knew, had a very good reason not to tell). Just Googling, Crassus spent his last two years away from Rome in Syria and Mesopotamia, where he managed with considerable effort to achieve a memorable and disastrous defeat at the hands of the Parthians (I seem to recall Terry Jones describing this in his series 'The Barbarians'). Much earlier, he had defeated Spartacus' army of slaves and crucified 6000 of them along the Appian Way - sound familiar? cr On Thursday 08 October 2009 12:50:29 KLOSSNER9@aol.com wrote: > I think the story point that no one would recognize Crassus > except his fellow politicians was bogus. Romans of the > ruling classes were always giving speeches, in the Senate > and in public, trying to get support, offering bribes, pepping > up troops before a battle, etc. They should have come > up with another way to get rid of Crassus. > > Boeotian > > In a message dated 10/3/2009 7:47:55 A.M. Central Daylight Time, > cr@orcon.net.nz writes: > > I did greatly like the way the plot was fitted into history without doing > much > damage to it. In particular, I loved the point that the only people who > knew that Crassus was being executed were Caesar, Pompey and possibly > Brutus - and they had good reasons for not telling anybody, ever. ========================================================= 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: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:14:53 -0400 From: "Cheryl Ande" Subject: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome I wonder how easy it would be to recognize anyone in the Coliseum. After all I would say everyone probably looked tiny to the people in the audience. Perhaps that's why the populace didn't mind the bloodshed, they were very removed from it. Any I do agree that Crassus would have been known to the upper classes but I don't know if he would have been all that well known to the general population. He certainly wasn't as famous as Caesar or Pompey in his time. CherylA ========================================================= 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: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 23:13:33 -0400 From: "mirrordrum" Subject: RE: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome oooh, this is like old times. i just looked it up and based on roman census, the population of rome during the time the ep takes place would have been about 1 million people. 500,000 of these are estimated to have been slaves and there were 600 senators. http://www.unrv.com/empire/roman-population.php according to wikipedia, the coliseum held 50,000 spectators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum and here's a nifty bit on the seating with a picher and everything: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum#Interior_seating based on seating arrangements, those w/ ront row seats would've been the senators and i'll bet you an aureus to a sestertius that they'd have recognized one of the 10 richest men in the empire at that distance. whether they'd have done anything about it, i dunno. i thought it a very silly and irritating ep. i didn't like it and said so at the time. a lot of piffle. ;) md - -----Original Message----- From: owner-chakram-refugees@smoe.org [mailto:owner-chakram-refugees@smoe.org]On Behalf Of Cheryl Ande Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 9:15 PM To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Subject: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome I wonder how easy it would be to recognize anyone in the Coliseum. After all I would say everyone probably looked tiny to the people in the audience. Perhaps that's why the populace didn't mind the bloodshed, they were very removed from it. Any I do agree that Crassus would have been known to the upper classes but I don't know if he would have been all that well known to the general population. He certainly wasn't as famous as Caesar or Pompey in his time. CherylA ========================================================= 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. ========================================================= ========================================================= 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: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 00:06:07 -0400 From: "mirrordrum" Subject: RE: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome i tell you, those "ront row seats" get you up close and personal but they cost a pretty drachma! ;) - -----Original Message----- From: owner-chakram-refugees@smoe.org [mailto:owner-chakram-refugees@smoe.org]On Behalf Of mirrordrum Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 11:14 PM To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Subject: RE: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome i wrote: those w/ ront row seats would've been the senators and i'll bet you an aureus to a sestertius that they'd have recognized one of the 10 richest men in the empire at that distance. whether they'd have done anything about it, i dunno. - -----Original Message----- From: owner-chakram-refugees@smoe.org [mailto:owner-chakram-refugees@smoe.org]On Behalf Of Cheryl Ande Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 9:15 PM To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Subject: [chakram-refugees] When in Rome I wonder how easy it would be to recognize anyone in the Coliseum. After all I would say everyone probably looked tiny to the people in the audience. Perhaps that's why the populace didn't mind the bloodshed, they were very removed from it. Any I do agree that Crassus would have been known to the upper classes but I don't know if he would have been all that well known to the general population. He certainly wasn't as famous as Caesar or Pompey in his time. CherylA ========================================================= 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. ========================================================= ========================================================= 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. ========================================================= ========================================================= 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 V8 #42 *************************************