THE GAUNTLET

GUEST STARS, CAST & CREDITS
PROMO TRANSCRIPTION
TV GUIDE PROMO
AIRING AND RATING INFORMATION
SYNOPSIS 1 by Kym
SYNOPSIS 2 by Kym
COMMENTARY
TALES OF THE HERCAVERSE
TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER
WHOOSH! ARTICLES
LINKS

PROMO TRANSCRIPTION
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TV GUIDE PROMO
After Darphus mutinies, warrior princess Xena joins Hercules to take back her troops.

Hercules' enemy, Xena, wreaks havoc across the land until her troops force her to succumb to the gauntlet -- a deadly warrior ritual.

Xena has lost control of her army and refuses any help from her enemy, Hercules.

Herc finds an unlikely ally when he goes after the marauding army of a "demon from Hades" named Xena.

Warrior princess Xena joins forces with Hercules when her troops turn on her under the command of the cruel and ruth- less Darphus.

AIRING AND RATING INFORMATION
1st RELEASE: 05-01-95
An AA average of 5.5
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) STAR TREK: DS9 5th with 7.0
(2) BAYWATCH 6th with 6.0
(3) HERCULES 14th with 5.1

2nd RELEASE: 07-03-95
An AA average of 4.6
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) STAR TREK: DS9 7th with 5.3
(2) BAYWATCH 13th with 4.9
(3) HERCULES 17th with 4.6

3rd RELEASE: 10-23-95
An AA average of 5.8
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) STAR TREK: DS9 ranked 9th with 7.2
(2) HERCULES ranked 14th with 5.2
(3) XENA [showing UNCHAINED HEART] ranked 18th with 5.2
(4) BAYWATCH ranked 17th with 5.0

SYNOPSIS 1:

Synopsis by Kym.

Evil Xena still wants Hercules dead but first she must deal with her mutinous second in command, Darphus (hey Xena, you got to read those job applications more closely). After meeting Salmoneous, Xena is slowly persuaded into joining Hercules against the rampaging Darphus. Good triumphs over evil, Xena skewers Darphus, and Xena thinks,"Gee, I could get to like this." However, Ares, the little pest, returns Darphus to life and gives him a nasty big pet called Gragus and a reason to have a second part to this great tale of honor lost and regained.

SYNOPSIS 2:

Synopsis by Kym.

Xena gets booted out by her co-warlord-in-chief, Darphus, because he's become impatient with Xena's rules about not killing women, children and babies and also allowing villagers who agree to supply them to go unplundered. He forces Xena to walk the gauntlet, which is a Klingonesque, piratey, painstick- like thang. The gauntletee must walk through the gauntlet, where the gauntleters use deadly force to keep the gauntletee from walking the whole distance (when pin the tail on the donkey gets too dull). Suffice it to say, Darphus thinks he's killed Xena, but she survives and gets really miffed at Darphus.

Meanwhile, Herc decides he wants to eradicate Xena's army. Salmoneous gets involved and is the first to see Xena's "change". When he finds out that Xena is on a vengeance kick against Darphus, and that Herc wants to destroy the army, Salmoneous suggests that they pair up. Xena refuses and goes off to her own.

Xena kills Darphus, but Darphus is a "special friend" of Ares, so he comes back to life.

COMMENTARY:

This commentary is by Kym.

Salmoneous was the critical player in allowing Hercules to see Xena in a different light. Also, Xena's obsession with the survival of the baby along with her tolerance and bemusement of Salmoneous triggered her great moral dilemma which resulted in her ability to see past her self-constructed warrior code and to understand what Hercules was attempting to show her. It was Salmoneous' vision who created the loop-hole where the old Xena could meld into the new Xena without completely giving up her pride and self-determination. Those vanities would later be slowly removed as Xena and Gabrielle's friendship matured in the XENA series.

TALES OF THE HERCAVERSE

12-30-00.

12-26-00. Robert Tapert, in an interview with WHOOSH to be released January 1, 2001 (#52):

RUDNICK:
I noticed in both HERCULES and in the early episodes of XENA, there were writing credits for John Schulian, who has always been something of a mysterious guy to me. I haven't seen much information about him, yet he wrote some really good episodes, especially on HERCULES.
TAPERT:
He did indeed. Here's really what happened. John said, "I want to do the story of the woman who comes between Hercules and Iolaus." I said, "Great, John, I want to do the story of this evil Warrior Princess and do this three episode arc." I wasn't thinking spin-off at this point. I had a very definite vision of what I wanted that Xena character to be. John wrote the script WARRIOR PRINCESS (H09/109) on HERCULES. If you ever would ask Kevin, he hated that script. Always hated it. Eric Gruendemann and a bunch of other people down here didn't like it. They never believed that a girl could get Herc and Iolaus to fight each other.

After we went to [the HERCULES] series, I gave Bob Bielak the story for THE GAUNTLET (H12/112). Never found the transition in the third act where Xena had her turnaround. The only change we made was originally at the end of UNCHAINED HEART (H13/113) we were going to have Xena killed. We kept her alive so she could go on.

12-24-98. On the USA Thanksgiving Day XENA/HERK marathon (Thursday, 11-26-98), Lucy Lawless did pre-recorded bits between the shows. For the first GAUNTLET break (2:00pm), she said, "The Gauntlet, from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. This is where we get to see Bob Trebor wearing drag. This was the second time I ever played Xena. It's a very very dark episode, very moody, and very stylish. Take a look." For the second break (2:30pm), she said, "In The Gauntlet, Xena really takes a pummeling. It was my first introduction to the physicality of the role, to stunt fighting, and I got licked. Take a look at this." At the end (3:00pm) she said, "Terrifying! I'm sure it's all going to come alright, though.They're going to be friends one day."

11-20-98. Robert Trebor at the Burbank II Con (01/98) told the story about how he created a Salmoneus-composed theme song for XENA. At literally the last few minutes of shooting, he improvised "Xe-e-na, coming to your town, Xe-e-na don't you wear a frown." He performed this, with walnut accompaniment.

11-20-98. From Rebecca Hall: "I remember reading in some interview with Rob Tapert that one of his inspirations in creating XENA was The Hong Kong movie "Bride with the White Hair." Well, I finally found it and rented it. It was very wierd...I'm not sure I could recommend it, but one thing that was interesting was that the main character goes through a "Gauntlet" just like Xena did in the Gauntlet...it was wild...it was almost identical. The main character is supermortal in her fighting abilities and she survives the gauntlet.

11-20-98. From KSZoneW. In HTLJ's "Armaggedon Now" we see background footage from HTLJ's "Gauntlet" episode. That is when Iolaus arrives in Corinth and looks out the door, only to see millions of guys hung on crosses.

11-20-98. From KSZoneW. The countryside used in HTLJ's "Armageddon Now" was also used for many scenes in the Hercules/Xena trilogy episodes during season 1 of Hercules, which included THE GAUNTLET.

This is a very violent episode. The scene where Xena walks the gauntlet is very difficult to watch. She really gets the stuffing beaten out of her. Don't let the young ones watch this one alone.

TRANSCRIPT

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DISCLAIMER

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