In Sickness and In Hell

The logic of this episode escapes me. We all watch Xena: Warrior Princess. Therefore, we probably like the stars. Why would we want to spend an hour watching those stars bumble, heave, wail, and generally gross-out their way through an episode? I don't mind self-deprecating humor (Gabrielle seasick, Xena going nuts trying to figure out why a day is repeating), but this was way over what I enjoy. Xena spent the episode in denial, self-conscious and vain, and looking like a fool in front of an entire village. Gabrielle was barfing, drooling, spitting, and getting as disgusting as possible. (Although Renee O'Connor does manage to look cute and sexy even when she's scratching. How does she DO that?)

But for all my complaining, I gotta say: I loved the sound effects for the lice. It starts with a couple of teeny voices and giggles, and the next time you see Xena's head, there's a party going on. Listen for the mass death when Xena slams her mug down in the tavern.

I liked the idea of an Argo rift. It's about time that poor horse got sick of being left behind all the time. She let herself be bought off with apples? What a tramp. I didn't mind Xena falling apart a little over Argo snubbing her, but in the middle of a public tavern? Xena, who knows SO well how to inspire and lead, loses it in the middle of a tavern? But she did throw a pretty awesome snarl at Joxer.

I had the same problems with Xena's stumbling introduction to the village. The woman who led a town from her poisoning deathbed in Greater Good, who just led an amazon tribe to defeat an evil sorceress despite her grief in Adventures in the Sin Trade, babbles like a madwoman because of an itchy head and upset stomach? At least they let her put aside her personal issues enough to kick six warrior butts in the enemy camp - I was starting to worry that they had completely forgotten who this character is.

The killer bunny was straight out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I kept expecting it to get explained somehow, but it never did - was the killer bunny because it ate the berries, or maybe Gabrielle handled them too much and tripped out? Whatever, I kinda liked the sight gag of Gabrielle punching the rabbit. And slamming it against the tree with her chest! Imagine the story that bunny's going to be telling in the Bunny Afterlife: "How'd you die?" "Well, Fiver, you won't believe it! What a way to go!"

I sure hope Gabrielle switched the chakram to the "knock 'em out" setting instead of "embed in their throats" before she started scratching with it. Otherwise she's going to have some hard-to-explain scars on... well, wherever that was that she was scratching. I kind of liked her showdown with Xena, afraid to touch her for fear of catching the fungus.

I was confused to hear that the villagers were getting sick, too, since the only thing we saw was a villager scratching his head when we first see the town. Do they have lice or the stomach virus? Or do they have both? In which case, what are they looking at Xena and Gab so strangely for?

Commercial cut blooper: when Argo arrives in town with the Scythians, we see Xena's reaction before fading to commercial. Before the commercial, Xena is to the right, Gabrielle is to the left. When we get back from the commercial, Xena is center, Gabrielle is now on the right, and Joxer is to the left.

I realize nitpicking this episode is kinda like fiddling while Rome burns, but why on earth didn't Joxer dress up like a cook to give the Scythian army food? Nobody questioned a guy in silly armor showing up with a bucket of soup?

Some of the best banter lines of the episode:

"Did one of your bug friends whisper that in your ear?"
"No skin off my back!" "Har de har har."
"I don't ask for much, I just want my pony back!"
"What is it? ... The fact that I talk about [Argo] like she's a real person?"

Xena praises Joxer for defending the town against the Scythians "without spilling a single drop of blood." Did she not notice the pile of corpses around her after the jailbreak? We see her sword go through a guy - that usually spills blood. It looks like Joxer managed to accidentally do some serious damage, too - I was wondering whether Joxer's blood innocence was about to go by the wayside in this episode.

In the final scene, is Gabrielle standing in a hole? She's six inches shorter than normal against Xena and Joxer (and that's saying a lot!). What was going on there? And why the paper-thin platitudes from Xena?

My apologies for what's probably the most bichin'-and-moanin' wool-gathering I've ever done, but this episode really took me aback. The whole thing was aimed at sixth-grade-level humor. XWP has had crass humor mixed in with the subtle stuff before, but I've never seen it so unadulterated and at the cost of the characterizations. I can't believe that very many of the people who would love this would also love stories about the death of children, the nature of good and evil, redemption, and the emptiness of vengeance. There's a difference between going for a broad audience range and going for a lot of little audiences. Going for a broad audience range, which XWP usually pulls off successfully, gets you a lot of fans. Going for a lot of little audiences, like the little audience this will appeal to, will end up confusing everybody about whether this is a show they like or not.

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