The IDes of Xena
It's hard to believe that after six years and hundreds of adventures,
Xena: Warrior Princess is finally hanging up her chakram and heading off to the Elysian Fields with her companion Gabrielle. Not in the literal sense, of course, but barring a last-minute change, the sixth season of
Xena will be the show's last.
Of course, that doesn't mean there's any lack of good stories still to be told. Among the highlights of season six are adventures in North Africa, Scandinavia and Japan; encounters with Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Beowulf and an unseen warlord named Gurkhan. Throw in memorable appearances by Odin, the Valkyries and a former God of War named Ares and you've got one ass-kicking season of excitement!
Once again, the architects of these adventures are series co-creators/executive producers Rob Tapert and R.J. Stewart, who took a just-rehabilitated Warrior Princess from a three-episode arc of
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and turned her into a fully-fledged cult icon. For Stewart, the reality of finally ending his long association with the character is only just beginning to sink in. "I have such mixed emotions about
Xena," admits the writer/producer, speaking from his office in Studio City, California. "On the one hand, six years is a great run, and being a show runner for six years is quite a load, so I wouldn't mind lightening that load a bit. But on the other hand I love the series. It's been such a great run and it's sure going to be tough to wake up one morning and know that it's not around anymore."
At the time of this conversation, in early December 2000, season six is about halfway through production of its 22 episodes, although the development of the year's scripts is obviously a good deal further ahead than that. "Let's see," says Stewart, reaching for a nearby schedule, "right now, we're finishing up episode 14 and starting 15. The scripts through to episode 16 have already been written; I just have to do a polish on those last two.
"As far as the last six episodes are concerned, I have no scripts, but two of them are about to be delivered, and I will write the last two," Stewart says of the final instalments, which may make up a two-part finale. "So there are only two scripts that remain to be developed. We're in pretty good shape right now, and the workload is beginning to lift."
It seems almost churlish to enquire about the final episodes of
Xena considering those scripts have yet to be written, so let's side-step that issue in favour of a more generalised question: are the producers planning to conclude the series in a very final manner, or will it be more like the end of Hercules, with a somewhat open-ended storyline?
"It will certainly be more like
Hercules," Stewart says, "but exactly what form it will take is still being debated." As in previous years, Stewart sat down with Tapert to map out some of the major story points for the year. Although season six doesn't necessarily following long-term arc, there are still a number of sign-posts that were created during pre-production. "Certainly the thing we both knew, and that we each came up with coincidentally, was that we were going to do the Ring saga, featuring the Valkyries. Rob said, 'I want to do a whole Norse thing with Sleeping Beauty and all that stuff.' So it was a mar- riage of the two concepts, and that's how we worked out that trilogy"Rob also had a scene he wanted to work out about Gabrielle's warriorhood - that is, her ques- tioning herself and wanting revenge, which we did in one episode. So we had a good idea where we were going with that.
"It's not always that way," Stewart admits. "One day, Rob and I were on the phone and we realised, 'Hey, we're not coming up with any ideas!' So I sat down and wrote eight ideas and kept working on them for a couple of days and then faxed them off to him, and from that we were able to piece together a couple of other ideas. But when you're in the sixth season of a show, the ideas aren't popping out quite as easily as they were earlier on."
Adding to Stewart's initial difficulties was the fact that he had to start virtually from scratch in developing a new writing department for season six. He had already lost one of his mainstays early in season five when Steven Sears went off to create the new Sheena series, and Sears was eventually followed by Chris Manheim, George Strayton and Tom O'Neill at the end of the fifth year. That meant putting together an entirely new writing staff, which the producer recalls was both scary and challenging at the same time. "I think anybody who does this job has to enjoy challenges," he comments, "because it's an almost impossible job. Even when you have a terrific staff as I did with Steve and Chris, it can be pretty scary. But I think we pulled it off, and the season is going along pretty well."
Joining Stewart for season six were Emily Skopov, who had worked on a number of dramatic shows, including
Crisis Center,
Pacific Blue and The
Client; and Joel Metzger, a veteran of such drama series as
The Outer Limits and
Sliders. "We read a script of Emily's and liked it, and I had her do a script for us. We needed to get somebody on staff quickly, so she wrote a first draft that had some good dialogue: and we hired her. And then Joel had done a nice
Cleopatra 2525 episode for us, so based on that we hired him as a staff writer and went from there."
Another addition to the writing team was Melissa (Missy) Good, a veteran of
Xena fan fiction, who was initially commissioned to write two freelance scripts, including the season opener, "Coming Home", and "Legacy", and has since been approached to do a I third later this season. "Rob wanted to try a fan fiction" person. I actually thought it was kind of a strange idea at the beginning, but he asked Steve Sears, who's very Internet-connected, and he recommended Melissa Good. And I think it turned out great.
"She did a very good job on the first script she did for us and we really appreciated the work that she did. She had a nice feel for the emotional qualities of the characters, and then we gave her Legacy to do, which had a stronger story, and she responded much better to that. "Coming Home" was a much weaker stoy; which was our fault. I think she had a lot more problems with it, and I had problems trying to rewrite it. So it was a troublesome one, but the episode turned out okay, and that's all you really want."
As usual, Stewart also wrote several season six episodes himself, including "Whos Ghurkan?", in which Gabrielle and Xena's search for Gabrielle's niece leads them to the door of the mysterious and powerful Ghurkan, and The Rheingold, the opener of this season's Norse trilogy. "I'm very pleased with it," he notes of the trilogy, which consists of the episodes "The Rheingold", "The Ring" and "Return of the Valkyrie." "In some cases, we backed ourselves into an expositional comer, so I would wish there was less exposition, but I think some of that was neces- sary. Other than that one criticism, I think they turned out to be terrific episodes. I think they're really good showcases for Xena and Gabrielle. They're good stories, they look great and they're really good entertaining television."
Stewart is happy to preview some of the other episodes coming up this season. "Dangerous Prey is about a guy who loves to fight the greatest warriors in the world and defeat them," he reveals. "He kills one of the prime Amazons and then hears about Xena and comes for her. It's kind of thematically similar to the old movie
The Naked Prey, and I think Renee did a great job directing it.
"'The Last Centaur' is Joel Metzger's," Stewart continues. "Xena comes face to face with the children of two people she knew back in the old days, before she went to sleep in the ice caves. One of them is the centaur child of Ephiny, and the other is the child of Borias. Xena owes a debt to both Ephiny and Borias, but they're in this horrible blood feud and she has to figure out how to resolve it - kind of like our presidential election!
"'When Fates Collide' is by Katherine Fugate, who came to us and requested to do a
Xena because she loves the series so much. That's one episode that I won't tell you much about because it would give the surprise away. This was actually an idea I had that Rob gave a really cool twist to, and we gave it to Katherine to do.
"'To Helicon and Back' is written by Liz Friedman, who was one of our producers before she went off to be a writer," says Stewart. "She actually went off to work in the trenches and built up a body of work that we could read to prove she'd come a really long way, so we brought her in to do an episode and she and her partner Vanessa Place have done a really good job.
"'Path of Vengeance' is another one that Joel is doing, in which Eve finally gets her comeuppance. The joke I used to make with
Xena when I came on was that she was a villian on Hercules and then she got an order for 22 episodes and became a good girl. One of the main reasons I designed the character of Callisto was actually to force Xena to deal with the repercussions of her past. Calisto is somebody whose life she ruins, so she comes back to haunt her.
"With Eve, it bothered Rob and I that Eve had basically turned Christian, or rather, our make-believe, loving version of Christian, and she really doesn't have to pay any price, although some people yell mean words at her. So this is where the Amaons, who she's had some problems with in the past, try and get retribution."
Stewart is quick to point out that comedic episodes are still very much a part of Xena, and there are few in the works for the current season. "We've got 'Old Ares Had a Farm', which is about Ares and what does when he doesn't have his godhood. How does he cope with that? Bearing in mind that Xena feels somewhat indebted to him because of what he did for her daughter and for Gabrielle, that's a fun episode, with them trying to rahabilitate Ares.
"There's also one that Chris Black wrote for us," Stewart remarks, "which was pitch of mine and we'll see how well it turns out. I'll take all the blame for it if it doesn't work and Chris'll get all the credit for it if it does! It basically has reporters reporting on Xena. That was my pitch, and Chris took it and made something really nice out of the script. I think it's coming together well, but ti's a really bizarre one, and, like I said, I'll take the fall for it if it sucks. It does have the convention of having what appears to be a modern newsman tracking Xena around."
Stewart reveals that Xena nad Gabrielle may go to Japan in a two-part episode for later on in the season. "We haven't decided why yet," he notes. "Rob and I are working on it together and we have a couple of ideas, but we haven't decided which ones to use."
If this indeed is the final season of
Xena, Stewart has no shortage of other work to keep him busy for the time being. He's still writing and executive producing
Cleopatra 2525, and there's also the pilot script for a series called
South Camelot, which he's been working on when time permits.
"I did a bit of reworking back in October, and we're sort of waiting to hear what's going to happen with it," he explains. "Right now I relish the inactivity, because it finally gives me a chance to get ahead on
Xena.
Cleo and
South Camelot are sort of on hold at the moment, and that's not a problem because it means I can almost see the end of the tunnel as far as the
Xena workload is concerned."
There's also the possibility of Stewart collaborating with Tapert on a future series, having worked together in creatin
Xena and
Cleopatra 2525 for Renaissance. "We haven't talked about it a lot, although we're certainly on great terms and could go that way. I'm sort of backing off a little bit, because I wouldn't mind some down time. But I would also really like to be more successful, so if there more two-hour movies, that's great, but if there's some downtime, I wouldn't mind that either."
When
Xena wraps production, there's one aspect of the series that R.J. Stewart will miss more than any other: "The fun of thinking in this world, living the lives of these characters, Xena and Gabrielle. It's like they've been my friends and I've been riding with them for six years, so I'll miss that," he admits, "thinking like they think, saying what they're saying...
"Those two characters - that's the thing I'll the most."
Related Pictures
The Ides of Xena Official Xena Magazine April 2001, Joe Nazarro, p46-50.
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