Truly, this episode was crafted with love, affection, and more than a few all-in-good-fun-wicked-barbs. Piers Anthony, the prolific sci-fi and fantasy writer, often responds to fan questions in the Afterwords to his books, and is alternately annoyed by and challenged by intricate questions like "if Bink is impervious to magic, how come the forget-spell worked on him too?" relating to books from 20 years before. So much so that he wrote a scene into one of his novels where a demon challenges a couple of characters to solve riddles based on the history of the magic land, which are actually some of the toughest fan-questions he's ever been faced with. To his credit, the characters manage to come up with credible, if far-fetched, answers to each one.
And since the previous five years' worth of episodes of XWP have never delved into the nuances of Xena's attraction to Ares (they've depicted it, but never discussed it in-depth) and apart from a few winks to the audience and some chaste "I love you" 's, they've never analyzed the specifics of Xena's physical relationship with Gabrielle, there's just no way one can say that the modern-day Nigel represents anything other than modern day fans. Xena and Gab have no question about their relationship, only Nigel does. Eve seems to have no problem with her mother's relationship with Ares, only Nigel does.
And so, while Nigel asks questions about nuances and inconsistencies that evidently posed no questions for the characters, they deftly explain their credible rationales.
Likes:
- the opening montage of every stereotyped image we've ever seen on the show
- the off-camera butt-kicking of the Valkyries
- Michael Hurst's entire characterization
- Gab's doubletake on Nigel's phrase "Battling Bard" as well as her line to the set assistant "Hey watch where you put your hands!"
- the file photo of Grinhilda
- Xena's annoyed "Is there a question in this somewhere?"
- Nigel's netforum-like obsession with Xena as a "butcher" and his line "uncomfortable with the truth?," along with Xena's comeback "I got the power to kill much lower forms of life than that."
- Gab bathing with a lufa! who knew?
- Odin being busted with the Python-like "Cloak of Invisibility"
- Nigel's even more netforum-like obsession with Xena being Ares' love-slave and their "twisted co-dependant relationship"
- the beer mustache on Ares
- the Shakespearian Hurst's reference to souls who "lose their mortal coils"
- Hurst as Nigel interviewing Hurst as Charon
- Charon's memory of the "super cheapskate" and his WWF-like line "Yeah, I'm talkin' about you, Hercules."
- Alexis Arquette's hilarious cameo, with lines like "Hey - sometime this eternity" and "Yeah, like we all don't know what's going on there!" His "I'm in the middle of an interview" line was reminiscent of Jimmy's line from "The Commitments" - "Piss off, I'm bein' interviewed," as he interviews himself! Also a scream was the line from the extra, reminding him that Caligula was the one who had killed him!
- Michael's angel/archangel bit, and his line "My tailfeathers are on the line."
- the surprise cameo from Joel Tobeck as Lucifer, with his great "I'm really bad!" line.
- Adrienne Wilkinson getting the biggest laugh of the episode as Eve, cursing and beating the crap out of Nigel when he brought up the menage a trois. Go EVE!
- more of Nigel's lines, about the "love shack," and Xena's "sidekick" as well as Xena's response "ya got some pair on ya"
- the Amazonian Norse hooker and Nigel's embarrassed "thank you" when she gropes him
- #27 - a Thor's Hammer! or.... a Ride of the Valkyries. Sooooo funny!
- "I'm just trying to get laid - I'm not a criminal!" Even funnier!
- "where the Vikings come to dock their longboats"
- the graphic arrow pointing to a ------> cave.
- Aphrodite preening for the camera, and her fairly sincere and deep reflections on the meaning of love.
- Gabrielle's observation about the gleam in Beowulf's eye. And notice - she then touched his arm; she did not brush him off or tell him no!!!
- Eve's demand to be flagellated - yeaaaah, bay-bee!
- Ares' mocking summation of it all: "Oh I've killed so many people - the pain, the pain..." - a cute nod both to Dr. Zachary Smith and to the complaints about the dark tone of the show.
Dislikes:
Hardly any. Except:
- Since when is Frika Odin's sister-in-law? I seem to recall her HTLJ incarnation stoically freezing to death next to her husband Odin as Ragnarok fell.
- and just how did Xena defeat Odin anyway?
- and I gotta say - it was a tad of a cop-out to have such a major plot element - Ares and Aphrodite get their powers back - explained in a broadly comic and satiric episode. There's no way around it - the mortal Aphrodite got to Valhalla only with the help of a 21st century film crew. Hmmmmm.
But who cares? What a funny funny episode!!!!
Just thought about Eve swearing!