TV GUIDE PROMO
Xena, Gabrielle and Autolycus find themselves
aboard a ship capsized by a tidal wave. They do find an
air pocket, but so does a cutthroat, who thwarts them
at every turn.
The eruption of Mount Aetna produces a tidal wave that submerges Xena, Gabrielle and Autolycus inside a sinking mining vessel.
A monstrous tidal waves engulfs a ship with Xena, Gabrielle and
Autolycus aboard.
AIRING AND RATING
INFORMATION
1st RELEASE: 04/20/98
An AA average of 4.8
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 7th with 6.3
(2) XENA 11th with 4.8
(3) HERCULES 14th with 4.5
(4) STAR TREK DS9 17th with 4.3
(5) WALKER 19th with 4.2
2nd RELEASE: 08/31/98
An AA average of 4.0
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 10th with 4.7
(2) XENA 13th with 4.0
(3) HERCULES 19th with 3.6
SYNOPSIS:
This synopsis is by Bluesong.
Xena and Gabrielle visit a
village, and Gabrielle decides to have her palm
read. The woman tells Gabrielle she is in great
danger. Gabrielle says that
describes every day of her life with Xena! The duo
splits off in search of
lunch, and Gabrielle see Autolycus in chains on the end
of the line of men
boarding a ship. She tries to speak to him, and when
she boards the ship to
do so, the men jump her. She fights them off with her
staff, but the boat
sails. Xena hears Gabrielle's screams for her, and
runs to the shore. She
does a Xena flip (as only Xena can) and lands in the
ship, sword drawn and
ready to rumble. You don't take Gabrielle from Xena!
Thadeus, a wealthy man who
owns the slaves now, is also on board the ship.
He isn't very happy with Xena and Gabrielle's presence,
but Xena goes to speak
to Autolycus. He is just after some diamonds in the
mine. There are two
other prisoners; Macon and Petrodes. Macon is a jerk
and Petrodes is scared
to death. Gabrielle learns that Thadeus' wife is
pregnant, but she hasn't
told her husband yet because he doesn't want a baby.
Everyone keeps feeling a
slight bump in the ship, and Xena tries to persuade
Thadeus and the captain to
turn around. She sees ash in the distance -- a volcano
has erupted. The
captain turns about. Xena tells everyone to go below
deck, but there is no
time! She barely is able to drag Gabrielle and few
others below when it hits!
The mother of all waves flips the ship, leaving them
upside and trapped in a
pocket of air.
Xena begins a frantic search for Gabrielle. She finds
Autolycus, safe and
unharmed. The pregnant wife is fine, too, but her
husband has a broken leg.
Macon survived also; the Captain is badly wounded. But
where is Gabrielle?
Petrodes begins screaming: get her away, she's dead!
Xena rushes over and
pulls her semi-conscious friend away from the
hysterical young man. She's
okay. They patch everybody up, and then Xena doesn't
quite know what to do.
Macon, who is a real idiot as well as a jerk, opens a
door, letting the
equilibrium out of the boat, and it begins to sink
after tumbling everyone
around some more. Xena determines that they need to
turn the rudder on the
ship, and after much maneuvering they finally manage to
do that. The boat
comes to rest on a reef, no longer sinking, but they
are too deep to try to
swim up. The atmosphere is ominous; everyone thinks
they are going to die.
Macon doesn't help any by trying to kill anyone who is
injured because they
are breathing his air. Petrodes finally nearly shoots
Macon with a crossbow,
and Xena whips out her chakram to stop him.
Unfortunately it messes up the
ballast of the boat and it slips again.
Autolycus tries to drink from a leather wine bag, and
finds it empty. Xena
realizes they can fill the bags with air and use them
on the way up to the
surface. They are near some warm water geysers; she
thinks they can use them
to propel themselves to the surface. They do this;
Macon loses his bag and
fights Xena for hers. She saves him, though. Everyone
makes land and lives.
COMMENTARY:
This commentary is by Beth Gaynor.
Tsunami is a take on The
Poseidon
Adventure; in the great
tradition of Lifeboat and countless other stories, a
mixed
bag of people get trapped together and have to figure a
way
out of their problem - in this case, the little matter
of a
tidal-wave-capsized ship. Neat idea, and good character
concepts for it, but the episode lacked punch for me.
Maybe
I'm just not water-phobic enough.
The cast and crew must have
squished when
they walked for a
week after filming this episode. Almost the entire show
was
shot hip-deep in water, plus the occasional scene
totally
submerged. That kind of work merits hazard pay all the
way
around - and free barnacle scrapings when it's all
over.
Gab already knows that
getting on ships =
nothing but
trouble. She now has the right to kick Xena in the butt
if
she suggests even getting near a coastal town. Our duo
should stay land-locked.
What was the reason for the
pregnancy
storyline? It wasn't
mentioned except when Soraya and Gabrielle were
suddenly
chummy and at the end as Soraya and Thadeus have a
heart-to-heart while water is crawling up their necks.
Classic Xena "I'm too tough
for my leathers" moment (to
coin a Melissa Good phrase) when she emerges from the
surf: she staggers as if not a single muscle is working
like it should, but she still braces up and walks mean.
Image is everything, Xena, work it!
Watch Gabrielle lay vicious
waste to those
sailors when they
start roughing up Autolycus! And Xena didn't get a
fight
scene - except underwater grappling - this episode. You
go,
bard!
The couple, Thadeus and
Soraya, didn't work
for me. He buys
prisoners to use as slave labor and totes around a
trophy
wife half his age, but there's supposed to be deep
affection
between them. I'm not sure whether it was the situation
or
the actors that put me off, but I wasn't buying it.
What happened, did XenaStaff
run out of
money to pay the
captain? He starts out as a really interesting
character; he
and Xena work in good tandem as they realize the danger
headed their way. He tries to save his panicking crew.
Then
he spends the rest of the episode as a body. What a
bummer
of a gig.
Salty, wet leathers - yuck!
Gabrielle and
Soraya have
permission to be smug during the entire walk back to
civilization and lord their relative comfort over Xena,
Autolycus, and Macon.
Who else thinks that they
missed all kinds of
easy
opportunities for jokes in the fortune tellers' hut?
"I see great danger in in your future! And
someone
tall, dark, and..."
"Oh, that's Xena."
Wait a minute: there's a
column of ash
shooting to the
clouds and every sailor, who lives and breathes
weather, is
ignoring it? Did Xena and Gabrielle stumble onto the
ship
with the most unobservant sailors in Greece?
Special effects report card:
The ship getting hit
by the
tidal wave was pretty cool. Most of the underwater
shots
were so-so. And the ship swooping horizontal after its
dive
as if it were a child's bath toy was horrid.
Xena's fairly single-minded
in her hunt for
Gabrielle after
the wave hit. Injured people get left in her wake
(pardon
the pun) as she rabbits after every sign of survivors.
When
she and Autolycus spot Gab's hand across Petrodes,
watch
Xena yank aside a crate as big as her.
Xena's leap to the ship was
almost verbatim
from Lost
Mariner. Seen it, done it.
Turning the rudder is the one
time that
everyone worked
together, and it made good sense. I could have done
with a
couple more of those moments of sanity for all aboard.
The Xena Reality Editor who
sits on my
shoulder has no
explanation for how an unconscious man is supposed to
hold
his breath and breathe from a wineskin.
"Trapped in here until we run
out of air... or
luck,"
Gabrielle grouses. This from the eternal optimist?
NICE show of fang from Soraya
when she
clocks Macon back
three feet away from Thadeus. She didn't contribute
much
during the episode, but don' MESS with her man!
Why was Xena and Autolycus
scraping the
ceiling with a
harpoon? "Okay, Autolycus, if we lurch suddenly, the
great
white whale has us, and I want you to heave to right
through the floorboards!"
I couldn't understand Macon's
problem with
Xena's plan. He
would still get out and could swim directly for the
surface
if he wanted. Nobody was making him take a wineskin or
head
for a geyser. "Let's vote: knock a hole in the hull, or
knock a hole in the hull. Who's with ME?"
When the styrofoam-hem, I
mean vicious
rocks - punch through
the floor, Autolycus mutters darkly, "Aaah, I've seen
more
leaks in a sieve!" Was that an attempt to make people
feel
better? Or was Autolycus starting to get
oxygen-deprived?
I have no problem with
Petrodes the non-
swimmer making it to
the surface; following the updraft isn't tough. But how
on
earth did he make it to shore?
Autolycus, make a note:
self-pitying angst
doesn't work well
on you, my friend. Keep the brash self-confidence.
"From you, nothing. From me,
nothing less." I
liked that
line quite a bit. It's pompous and cheesy, and it IS
awfully
cool.
Petrodes wins the award as
the Wussy
Character of the
Season, also known as the "Hudson from Aliens 'Game
Over,
Man!'" merit badge. (This award was claimed last year
by the
villager in The Execution who threw himself off Xena's
horse
to avoid having to face the corrupt judge.) If
Pre-Mycenean
Greece didn't have its share of scardey-cats, how would
the
heroes look heroic?
EDITS/CUTS ON THE USA/SCI-FI CHANNELS
03-08-00. From KSZoneW.
The sailor at the dock refers to the criminals as b*st*rds was
edited.
WHIMPERS,
MURMURS, AND A LOVE GONE TOO
FAR
01-31-99. Chris Manheim was interviewed by WHOOSH in the February 1999 issue. Here's what she said about HERE SHE COMES...
RUDNICK:
[128] Then there's TSUNAMI (65/319), the homage to The Poseidon Adventure (Ronald Neame, 1972).
MANHEIM:
[129] [laughs] Although some people are too young to remember that film. I couldn't believe it, I thought everyone was going to get that. People in their 20's didn't remember it. But yes, that's definitely what it was.
RUDNICK:
[130] I thought this was a very good episode, and I especially liked the performance of Todd Rippon as Macon.
MANHEIM:
[131] He was fun to write. It was a fun show to write. I don't think it was anyone's favorite episode to work on because of the conditions. Here I was thinking I was doing everyone a big favor because it was the height of their summer and I thought "It'll be hot, they'll like getting in water." Yeah, right. [laughs] It was cold and nasty, so it wasn't hot. And being wet all day is no fun.
RUDNICK:
[132] I heard there was an accident involving one of those water tanks. It collapsed or burst.
MANHEIM:
[133] Fortunately they weren't shooting on that stage, they were shooting next door. There was one carpenter or plumber working there, and he ended up getting pushed into a bathroom by the force of the water. I think he was banged up but otherwise unhurt.
01-13-99. From Gabrielle Anderson. Okay, have you seen the episode "Tsunami?" Well, if you did, you know they were on boats and in water through, like, the whole episode. Well, my inside source says "all the water scenes in Tsunami were filmed on a 5 million gallon watertank. During the dry-land sequences of the episode (which were being filmed directly NEXT DOOR to the tank), the tank kinda split open and a huge, real-life Tsunami, swept everyone away. Nobody was hurt, but lotsa stuff got destroyed and apparently the director ended up hanging from a ten meter tree in the carpark. Lucy and Renee ended up mashed against a chain link fence (at least this is all what the crew told me). They made a huge joke about it and now everyone wear's 'I SURVIVED THE XENA STUDIO TSUNAMI OF 98' T-shirts on set." *laugh* I also noticed...check out the disclaimer at the end of Tsunami: "No Cast or Crew were singing "Tanks For The Memories" during the production of this motion picture. However, the phrase "Strike the Set" was given new meaning." HINT HINT!!
02-23-97. From the Bruce
Campbell website: "Auto, Xena, and Gabby are
trapped on a ship that's trapped in a storm - think
'Poseidon Adventure'."
HIGHLIGHTS:
Highlights by Beth
Gaynor.
In the scene when Macon
threatens
Gabrielle, we get a slight
variant on the knife-to-throat theme as he threatens to
garrote her instead. I liked that scene: I'm not sure
what
Macon was hoping to accomplish, but Gab shows her
"smart
cookie" quotient by grabbing the dagger after she's
gut-punched him (don't leave a weapon behind!), and
Xena
levels a nicely-done threat to let Macon know that he
can
spend the rest of the episode endangering anybody else
in
the cabin he wants, but the blonde is off limits.
Line of the episode goes to
bad-guy Macon
for "I think I
speak for everyone when I say TBPBTBTBTBTPT!" Sure, he
was
acting like a moron, but he'll get a sound file on my
computer for that.
THINGS TO
LOOK OUT
FOR
05-04-98. From Briareus. After
reading the 'things to look out for' for this ep, I
must say I was a little surprised - someone even
mentioned the nitrogen absorption that was surely to be
a problem, and yet no one seems to mind the reason for
that - the incredible pressure. They did mention
something about that, but I doubt that swimming close
to a geyser makes any difference, once they got out of
the ship(which probably wouldn't have survived that
long anyway) the water would still do to them what
Gareth so much wanted to do in ADITL - "Squash them
like insects"
05-04-98. From Briareus. And
turning the rudder? give me a break, with a lever of
that length ten people couldn't do it, I don't care if
the *all* were Xenas.
05-04-98. From Briareus. Another
interesting thing is - the ship was upside down, they
were breaking through what was under their feet - the
deck, so why was the hole in the hull?
From PenandSwrd@aol.com. How did they see in the dark
down there?
From PenandSwrd@aol.com. Although the air in the wineskins isn't a bad idea
(the body still exhales a good amount of oxygen so
there'd be breathable air in those skins that Gabby
filled by blowing into them) how did the unconscious
Captain make it? Did he come to long enough to breathe
himself, did someone breathe for him, or did he just
hold his breath the whole time?
From PenandSwrd@aol.com.The effects of the "bends" were completely ignored --
at
such a depth, being down there as long as they were,
they
would have absorbed enough nitrogen in their blood for
that to be a problem. In short, DON'T TRY THIS AT
HOME!
From Beth
Gaynor. Xena and Gabrielle's weapons continue to
have problems with
surviving episodes. Gab's staff now belongs to
Poseidon. My
money says it'll show up in the next episode with no
problems, though.
From Beth
Gaynor. Minor continuity flub: Gab starts the final
beach scene with
one side of her face coated in sand, but loses it all
halfway through.
From Beth
Gaynor. Watch the stopper on the wineskin as Xena
and Macon fight:
it comes open almost from the moment the two start
battling.
It's possible that Xena managed to hold the skin
upside-down
through the whole battle and keep most of the air from
escaping, but I was amazed when she managed to grab a
breath
from it.
TRANSCRIPT
Click here to read a transcript of TSUNAMI.
DISCLAIMER:
No Cast or Crew were singing
"Tanks For The Memories" during the production of this
motion picture. However, the phrase "Strike the Set"
was given new meaning.
WHOOSH!
ARTICLES:
The following WHOOSH! articles discuss this episode:
Coming soon
LINKS:
Miscellaneous
Gabrielle Anderson's Site
