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THE PRICE
ZULU was the film that influenced THE PRICE.
RUDNICK:
[127] By the time we get to near the end of that season and we come across The Horde in THE PRICE (44/220), I was very much reminded of Stanley Baker's Zulu when I saw that episode. Did you have anything like that similarly in mind?SEARS:
[128] No, that's *exactly* what I had in mind. I read a lot of military history. One of the most neglected Colonial histories is the colonization and British domination of southern Africa. I've got several books on it, but one book in particular is called LIKE LIONS THEY FOUGHT. It is the story of Isandhlwana and Roarke's Drift. Now I had seen both movies, ZULU and ZULU DAWN. ZULU was very well done because it was historically accurate. You don't need to elaborate what happened there. All the characterizations were correct.RUDNICK:
[129] Plus you had people in it like Stanley Baker, Michael Caine in his motion picture debut-SEARS:
[130] Exactly. ZULU DAWN wasn't done as well. First of all, they had to deal with the actual massacre. But even with that context, it was "Hollywoody". When I was going to do THE PRICE, that was the image I used. I wanted to do Roarke's Drift. In the original story versions, I had even modeled some of the events that directly happened at Roarke's Drift. For example, at one point I had the hospital where Gabrielle was in catch fire. She was forced into defending the patients as they were being dragged out. That of course happened at Roarke's Drift. I borrowed very heavily on that.[131] The other part I borrowed on was the attitude that a lot of the colonials had towards the Zulus. The Zulus were a known entity, however. Even then they were thought of as a savage nation that can't stand up to the Queen Mother. I wanted to take that a step further. I wanted The Horde to be totally unknown to us so we could allow our hatred to go anywhere we wanted. I got voted down on this, I'll admit, I had Xena referring to the Horde as animals.
[132] Interestingly enough in Robert Weisbrot's book there's a commentary from Lucy about her having a problem with that. She and I never spoke directly about it, and she quotes a line that was never in the script, but it illustrates how people interpreted the attitude of Xena in it. So I took the animal reference out because some were afraid it would make Xena look too racist. However, I will admit up front that is exactly what I wanted.
[133] Racism exists and I've noticed it comes back to phrases such as "Do you like... insert ethnic minority here". And they say "Oh, no, those people are thieves" or they're this or they're that. Then you say "Well what about this guy, you hang around with this guy." And they say "Oh, he's one of the good ones." Well he's a "good one" because you know him. That's all it is. So the unknown makes us ignorant and afraid. And that's what I wanted to show in THE PRICE.
[134] Several people have commented about how we dehumanize the Horde, but that's exactly what I wanted to do. Many times I've found in our series that some people in our audience tend to reflect the position that I want to expose. It happened in THE DELIVERER and it happened in THE PRICE. It's kinda hard to turn to those people and say "Yeah... but that's the point!" [both laugh]
LOST MARINER
Cecrops paid the price when Poseidon was a sore loser.
RUDNICK:
[135] In LOST MARINER (45/221), was it the Flying Dutchman that was the inspiration for that?SEARS:
[136] At the beginning, it wasn't the Flying Dutchman, although obviously the elements were there. What really was the inspiration to that was two things: "Rob's Folly", what we call the boat --RUDNICK:
[137] Which reminds me, you have two boats. Rob's Folly is one, but what's the other one called?SEARS:
[138] We have one functioning boat that will go out to sea. Then we have a landlocked boat that we built as a set, so that's the one you're thinking about. Anyway...RUDNICK:
[139] So you wanted to use Rob's Folly.SEARS:
[140] Yes, we wanted to use Rob's Folly, amortize that. Besides, it's cool to shoot out there on the water. And I had been doing some more reading of mythology and I found some references to Cecrops and the choosing of Athena as the patron god of Athens. It talks about Cecrops and there are a variety of different legends about Cecrops, one was that he was the mayor or First Speaker of Athens. Others say he was just a citizen. Others say he was half serpent and half man, all this stuff. I kind of disregarded the half serpent thing. But what all the legends have in common is that both Poseidon and Athena wanted to be the patron god.[141] Cecrops became the arbiter of this contest. He said "What can you do Poseidon?" and Poseidon caused this spring to burst forth from the Acropolis, which apparently is still there. Everybody thought "Oh, that's cool, that's cool!" Then Athena made olive trees grow, and olive trees are highly regarded in ancient Greece. The arbiter said Athena was the winner. It never said what happened to Cecrops after that, he kind of disappears. So that's where I started. I wondered what happened. And then I thought "Wait a minute, he pissed off Poseidon. Water, boats, this is perfect."
[142] So from that I came up with the story of Cecrops and his dilemma, that originally Poseidon had captured him and wouldn't allow him to go. After I had that background then I explored a little of the background of the Flying Dutchman. The hinge on the entire thing, of course, was the interpretation of the curse, what is love and how is it supposed to be directed? But I didn't want Cecrops to become a totally pathetic person or a person who became a pirate. I had to straddle that line, and of course with Tony Todd, bingo. He brought off all those emotions, he was majestic, incredible. You saw the pain he was going through. The same thing with his crew. His crew was just tired. They wanted to die. That was their whole point. With all of those elements in place, and placing our characters on there, it gave Xena the ultimate challenge of solving this mystery.
[143] Then at the end, of course, it was "What do I do with Cecrops?" I didn't want to kill him. I figured "You know something, the gift that Athena gave him is still in place." Immortality. This is one of those episodes that ultimately had a really happy ending. Normally on those really happy endings I want to say "Let's give it a little bit of darkness so there's some sort of reality here." But in this one I truly wanted it to be a happy ending, because he was such a good person.
RUDNICK:
[144] You could say the dark element came about because the people who were pursuing Xena and Cecrops took his place.SEARS:
[145] Yes, but that's not dark because they were definitely bad guys.RUDNICK:
[146] That is true, but it does end with that "ship in the mist" scene, which is pretty cool.SEARS:
[147] Right, and that's my whole idea of a broader view of all mythological history, that it's all connected. So if you wanted to buy into that you could assume that the Flying Dutchman which still exists today is another progression from the mythological one. [pause] If you buy into that. [both laugh]
THE DIRTY HALF DOZEN
RUDNICK:
[148] Then we get to THE DIRTY HALF DOZEN (49/303). When I saw that episode, I thought "Whoa, A-Team! Cool!"SEARS:
[149] [laughs] But...RUDNICK:
[150] The interesting thing about that, to me, was I was surprised to hear a lot of fan reaction to a couple of scenes in that episode. Specifically there is the infamous "fruit scene", and I have to admit I thought that was somewhat cool because the woman character triumphs over the guy using his base nature against him.SEARS:
[151] That was a battle of the sexes, and the woman was the victor. THE DIRTY HALF-DOZEN was OK. I didn't think it was a great episode, it won't go down in history as a great episode. There were some things from the beginning that had to be dealt with. I think that probably added to why it wasn't a great episode. The main item being we were exploring ways to give Lucy a break.[152] Think about it, she's the star of the series. As you know we have to do "Lucy-Lite" episodes every now and again because Lucy has just gotten so much work. We thought we could introduce some new characters that *maybe* we could call back in future episodes to give a break to Lucy, or at least give her a few scenes off. This was our experimenting in this area and it didn't work as well as we wanted it to for a variety of reasons. One, you want to see Xena do a lot of this stuff. If there was going to be that scene you were just talking about it would be more interesting, it was more interesting, to see Xena and Autolycus do it.
[153] I think the portrayals were fine, but it just didn't quite live up to what was on the page. I think some people missed the point when they look at these battle of the sexes scenes. They think "This is just another example of men being dominate over women and men's suppression of women." But they totally seem to miss the fact that she manipulated the entire scene. If anything I'd expect the comment to be "See, look, all women manipulate things." That wasn't the complaint I got. [both laugh]
[154] The complaint I got was "You sexist pig!" When actually it was just the opposite. Men allow themselves to walk into these traps. We do it willingly. We want to believe that illusion. That's why men can be very easily manipulated. I sometimes sit back and say "Why is it that the gender that has the less percentage of the population actually owns everything? I don't get this. We're not that smart."
Can of Worms: THE DELIVERER
Khrafstar plays Xena and Gabrielle like a fiddle in THE DELIVERER.
RUDNICK:
[155] Now I am looking at my notes for THE DELIVERER (50/304).SEARS:
[156] Ah, yes.RUDNICK:
[157] My first line of notes is, "Hoo boy, what a can of worms!"SEARS:
[158] [laughs]RUDNICK:
[159] I mean, if there is trouble in the Xenaverse up to this point, it is spelled "Deliverer". Here is the rift, problems between Xena and Gabrielle.SEARS:
[160] This is where it all starts to hit the fan. Or fans, so to speak.RUDNICK:
[161] You have Dahak showing up on the scene. Caesar is around. I have so many questions on this maybe I should just let you talk about it in general and untangle everything.SEARS:
[162] [laughs]RUDNICK:
[163] But one of the things I wanted to ask about specifically before I let it get away, I see that Dahak is historically a Persian deity, but I didn't know if that was specifically meant or if you wanted to bring in something that was just a non-Greek divinity or what you had in mind there.SEARS:
[164] Originally it was to bring in an "Uber-god", a god that even "our" gods are worried about. The easiest thing to do would be to bring in Satan or the Christian God. Well, we don't want to trample on that just yet. But if you look back in history, Zoroastrianism is a complete mirror and precursor to Christianity. Zoroastrianism has their Messiah figures, it has the good, the evil, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Dahak is representative of the evil.[165] There is actually a much more complicated name for Dahak or Dahak's Purity which I didn't put in because it would be unpronounceable. Also you find that the word for all evils spreading across the face of the earth just before Armageddon or the apocalypse in the Zoroastrian religion, all the scourges, every form of pestilence, plague, or famine, are all referred to as Khraftstar.
[166] So obviously I drew from references to that. I also put in some pseudo-biblical references just so people could identify with it. Later on we'll probably talk about this, but there's a reference by Hope to the Bringer of the Six Destroyers. Well biblically, the six heads of the beast. So there are certain references there that I deliberately put in. But anyway, I had to find a particular god where even the other gods would say "This is a problem and it's got to be taken care of before it gets out of hand." Because in this particular one I really wanted to give Ares a "win". Ares had a victory in this one, he was right. Where he was wrong was that he had done this so many times he wasn't believed.
RUDNICK:
[167] He cried "Wolf!" once too often.SEARS:
[168] So in doing THE DELIVERER there were a few things that had to be accepted. One, this was going to launch us into an extremely dark area. One of the things about the rift is that the rift is best viewed all in one evening. Because it aired over several nights and sometimes the studio interrupted it with comedy episodes, the rift didn't have the continuity that you needed. We wrote it and produced it with the continuity. But because it was broken up there was just no way to do it.[169] Until the last few minutes of THE DELIVERER it just looks like a regular XENA episode. It's really the last few minutes that launch you into what's happening with the rift. As most of us know, THE DELIVERER had a lot of pressure on it because a gossip columnist came out and used a word which I don't like to use in regard to this, for a very important reason.
[170] She referred to it as a rape. As a sidebar here, and you can use this if you want, there's a very important reason why I refuse to call this a rape. It has nothing to do with protecting myself. It has nothing to do with being afraid of the word. I've had a lot of debates with people about the definition of rape. For example, not myself, but someone came up with the idea that if this was rape, then Mary was raped. Even then I wouldn't use that word.
[171] I got a lot of nasty mail. I got a lot of hate mail. Very, very angry mail. One person said that any time a woman carries a child without her consent, when she was impregnated, that is rape. My response is "If I force a woman to have sex with me then as long as I wear a condom it's not rape?" There are just too many ways to debate that word. But this is what I believe, and I firmly stand by this. I know rape victims. I have been involved with rape victims, in relationships with women who have been raped. Being supported on a pillar of fire while some mystical god impregnates a seed of a demon child inside of you is not rape. Talk to a rape victim and find out what real rape is. To me, it's disgusting to try to apply their torment to that act on television. That was a fictional fantasy. Sorry to be graphic, but having a man on top of you, forcing himself on you while you're screaming and perhaps even beating you to keep you quiet, that's rape. I refuse to use that word because it diminishes what the reality of the word is.
[172] If you want to say "Gabrielle was violated" then hey, go for it. Use that word. She was definitely violated. But I won't use the word rape because of what it conjures up and what it diminishes. But we had to deal with that. As soon as I saw that word in print, I was angry. And if the episode had aired without that, there probably would have been a ripple effect, but people would not have been fired up as much. At the end of the episode, you would not have known she was pregnant. There was nothing there to really indicate that. Anyway, end of rant. We had to deal with that before and after it aired.
[173] The other thing I did was I tried to put the audience in the place of what Xena was doing. To a certain extent I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I also got some slams about that. What I tried to show was that Xena was so obsessed with Caesar that she was ignoring what was going on with Gabrielle. Gabrielle was being played. Gabrielle was being given everything Gabrielle wanted to believe to set her up. Xena should have seen that, but she was obsessed, she was so much after Caesar she ignored what was going on with Gabrielle.
[174] Now the question has come up that we just basically changed stories midway through. We got to a certain point and what happened with Caesar? "Xena just walked away! What happened to the battle?" My answer to this was that the story was never about Caesar, it was always about Gabrielle. But those who asked "What happened to Caesar" were just as obsessed with him as Xena was. But the moment Xena realized Gabrielle was in grave danger she dropped Caesar and left. She didn't care what happened to Caesar at that point. Boadicea had her army in place and everything was ready to go. But she left, and for me, that was the story.
RUDNICK:
[175] Speaking of Caesar and Boadicea, I know that that Xena kind of plays fast and loose with the timeline sometimes...SEARS:
[176] [laughs] Sometimes? [evil grin] Oh, wait.RUDNICK:
[177] [laughs] But that's cutting it pretty fine when Boadicea rose in A.D. 60 or so and Caesar was assassinated in BCE 43.SEARS:
[178] Right. No, believe me, there are compromises all over the place. Once again I'll say we're not a history series, we're an entertainment series. We certainly didn't go to the ultimate conclusion that Boadicea lost her war. She and her daughters committed suicide. But I have no comment about that either way because the timeline is screwed up but as I said we're not a documentary.
THE BITTER SUITE
Gabrielle is much the worse for wear after the Gabdrag.
RUDNICK:
[179] A couple of episodes after THE DELIVERER (50/304), we get to THE BITTER SUITE (58/312). Many people regard this as a masterpiece. Yet we also get a lot of criticism, perhaps from the same people who were in the "rape" camp in THE DELIVERER, about the so-called "Gab-Drag" in THE BITTER SUITE. I was wondering what your take on all that was.SEARS:
[180] I thought the Gab-Drag went on too long, to be honest with you. We had a lot of discussion about that. Here was the point to it, and maybe we tried too hard to make this point at the beginning -- for Gabrielle and Xena to reach a point where they could start to redeem each other, they had to reach the absolute darkest part.[181] This gets into psychology and gets very hard to explain. If there was any question as to whether they hated each other, that question would have rippled through the rest of their relationship. In other words, we wanted to clear the grounds completely. We wanted to start right from the bottom, scrape every bit of love away from them and rebuild, as opposed to scrape most of it away and leave a little bit of expectation somewhere. The healing couldn't be true if it had to rebuild around that. So obviously the way to get to that is where they both want to kill each other.
[182] That's what we had to do, that's where we had to get them. That Xena would attack Gabrielle and try to kill her obviously shows her hatred. But the moment Gabrielle says "I hate you!" and charges at Xena, Gabrielle's slate is wiped clean. She is completely down to a base level. In doing the episode later on, yeah, I think the Gab-Drag did go on a little long. In fact I think most people here feel that.
[183] But at the time, we put it together so we could make that point. We didn't realize people would get the point three quarters of the way through it. You have two characters starting it off whose worlds have been so destroyed that they're questioning everything. And they realize the only thing they have left in all their questioning is hatred. Now they're directing it toward each other.
[184] Xena is crying for her son. Ares wasn't there to manipulate her, Ares was just there to talk to her. He was her therapist in that scene and she realized where her hatred lay. Gabrielle, in the sweat hut, having visions of Callisto, was the same thing. She was focusing in. You'll notice in the sweat hut she's focusing in on herself. She begins to blame herself. But that changes before they go into Illusia. She focuses it back on Xena. So that was the whole point of the Gab-Drag, to demonstrate, very brutally, obviously, the fact that these two people would kill each other. We had to wipe the slate clean.
RUDNICK:
[185] Apart from the fact that it was a monumental task by its nature, did you find it hard to write this episode? The reason I ask this is because there is an awful lot of deep emotion and difficult issues that I imagine would bring someone to a new level of clarity about themselves or others, or drive them nuts.SEARS:
[186] [laughs] I think it was a little of both for us. This movie -- movie, I refer to it because it came out that way -- this episode was a tremendous amount of work on everybody's part. Chris [Manheim] and I wrote it together. Toward the end of it, just before production, Chris was doing all the production rewrites. I was off working on something else. I can't remember what it was, I'm sure *you* remember what it was, but I had to get off onto that.[187] We had to decide what our format was going to be very early on. Chris and I, along with Rob, R.J., Liz, and everyone else, sat down and tried to chart through the progression of their healing, realizing, as everyone should realize this, by the end of the episode they are not healed. But they're to a point where they want to help each other heal. Which is the most important thing. That's an altruistic thing, that shows caring. So we wanted to get them to that point, to the forgiveness point. When we charted through it, we originally came up with -- I think five points -- of psychology that they had to deal with.
[188] The first one was "wipe the slate clean", which was the Gab-Drag. The second one was "fulfillment" which is fulfillment of your hatred. Since the series is called XENA it was Xena's hatred, she kills Gabrielle. That was the fulfillment of the hatred. That's why Callisto had the line "Did that work? Did that help to kill your little friend?" Because Xena is sitting there thinking "No."
RUDNICK:
[189] How very poignant when we see SACRIFICE II later on.SEARS:
[190] Right. Then we had to have "cooperation" which in this case wasn't as highlighted because of how little time we have to tell a story, to accommodate a song. But cooperation was basically then working together to get to the next step. Not that they loved each other, it was expediency.[191] I believe in one version of the script there was a door that they approached and the door was very wide. I'm paraphrasing what we had in there because we had so many different images. But it was like one side had a handprint and the other side had a handprint and they were different sizes. What you realize is that to open the door, you had to both put your hands in there at the same time, symbolic of cooperation.
[192] Then we had another thing that happened during it, a wall of fire which prevented Gabrielle from doing what she had to do and Xena had to do something to help Gabrielle but the rationalization was she just wanted to get through. Anyway, there was a whole complex thing there. As it was, it went away. [laughs] It was too time-consuming to shoot it.
RUDNICK:
[193] As it happens, judging from everyone's comments, it worked out very well in the end.SEARS:
[194] Yeah, my favorite scene from the psychological points was the echo chamber. This was something that I came up with very early and kept it in every draft because it's an extremely important thing. The idea is very simple. If you're angry with someone, anyone who's been in a relationship and had an argument with somebody, at a certain point, you aren't hearing what they're saying. You're only taking the words they're saying so they can make you angrier. So you can turn the words back on them. You're in a total defense/attack mode. You're not trying to understand. So you can't hear each other. All you have is the argument. You don't say what you really, really feel. You just say enough to attack.[195] We tried to symbolize that in the "Hall of Echoes". The moment you start rehashing and blaming, the echoes become impossible, you can't hear. But the moment Xena says to Gabrielle "Tell me what you're feeling right now," and Gabrielle says "I hurt." That is the totally honest moment. And there's no echo. So these are all psychological points we were trying to achieve so that they could get to the point where they could forgive each other, and more importantly, where Xena could forgive herself.
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