From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V9 #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 Friday, May 14 2010 Volume 09 : Number 034 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Dangerous Prey [cr ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 23:27:26 +1300 From: cr Subject: [chakram-refugees] Dangerous Prey They killed Marga! I can't believe they killed Marga! She was the Amazon queen I liked best (well, after Ephiny and Karina). Had more sense than the whole rest of the tribe put together, I think. Certainly more than Varia (oh dear why do I want to keep writing that 'Viagra'? Must be the influence of all the spams I keep getting. Any cracks about the effects of young attractive Amazons on chronologically maximised persons are strictly out of order :) So, the dying Marga asks Xena to teach Varia how to be a true warrior, as Xena was. "The fate of the Amazons is in your hands, Xena". (I recall one previous time when that was so, in Sin Trade. Oh yes, and in Endgame. And I seem to recall one time in Hooves and Harlots, too. And, let me see, in A Necessary Evil Xena (and Callisto!) had to stop Velasca destroying the Amazons. OK, so has there ever been an episode when the fate of the Amazons _wasn't_ in Xena's hands? Oh yep, Saving Private Varia (aka Helicon) - Xena left it to Gabrielle. Kinda didn't work ;) Anyway, Varia is going to be truly enthusiastic about taking lessons from Xena, that's obvious. Even more so when Varia walks into a trap and Xena has to rescue her. Plus, Xena looks absolutely good enough to eat in Varia's Amazon cossie (though possibly Varia hasn't noticed this, not being a pimply male geriatric youth. Or possibly she has. When someone else looks even better than you do in your own cossie - that's tough!). This is one of the best cossies Xena's worn in the entire series, it's tragic she only gets to wear it for a few seconds onscreen. As villains go, this Prince Morlock doesn't really cut it. He's got all the right ingredients, but maybe I've just got jaded with so many villains over the years. Caesar, yep, he had it. Pompey, yep. Crassus, yep, looked really dangerous. Alti, always. And Michael and Zeus and Hades and Athena. But Morlock, no, not really. Besides, the guy's a hypocrite. Goes on about hunting dangerous prey and then loads up his hunting grounds with traps? What sort of challenge is that? Odd, though, that he doesn't seem to have heard of Xena, you'd think she'd be right at the top of his list. Still, he certainly seems to appreciate the sight of Xena in Amazon gear. 'Bravo. Come on in'. (I'd be inviting Xena into the cave too, but not necessarily for the same reasons :) I'm a bit surprised Xena goes in, though, since it's an obvious location for booby traps and ambushes. But it seems Morlock for some reason hasn't trapped the cave. Instead Xena gets to set a trap which singes Morlock and his men, some of them terminally, since he only has four left. This is apparently still too many for his purposes, since he starts the fire while two of his men are still sloshing gas around. Just the sort of character you'd want for a boss. Xena, not to be outdone in the way of mistreating one's allies, catapults Varia over the fire, but Morlock has foreseen this and catapults up a net which immediately causes her to stall and crash. This is just so wrong on so many grounds of elementary dynamics, kinematics and basic mechanics it's hard to find any part of it that's credible. Flying horses, yeah, fine, they're a god thing. But Xena and Varia aren't gods so the laws of physics should have some relevance. For some reason this is a Gabrielle-lite episode, Varia taking her place as hostage of the week. Xena and Morlock duel on a sort of timber tower (reminiscent of the ladder fight in Callisto), before Xena refuses to fight any more and jumps down. Morlock follows and Xena flips up a log and skewers him, very finally and satisfyingly. He shoulda known better than to try to outwit Xena. Oh, and it seems Renee directed it. That'll be why Gabs was hardly in it. Should I blame Renee or the writers for the 'catapult' silliness? Apparently not, according to Joel Metzger (the writer), Rob Tapert came up with all that on the phone. Not one of Rob's more inspired moments, I have to say. Other than that, the direction was okay, and a much more demanding ep than Renee's 'bottle show' at the end of S4. 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. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V9 #34 *************************************