TV GUIDE PROMO
Gabrielle forsakes a new homeric odyssey with Xena in order
to audition for the Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards
at their annual storytelling competition.
Gabrielle cons her way into a prestigious storytelling competition and ends up helping a fellow bard who is under pressure from his father to win.
Gabrielle travels to Athens to compete in a scholarly competition.
Gabrielle helps a storyteller regain his confidence.
AIRING AND RATING INFORMATION
1st RELEASE: 01/22/96
An AA average of 5.5
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) HERCULES 10th with 7.0
(2) BAYWATCH 14th with 6.1
(3) STAR TREK DS9 15th with 5.7
(4) XENA 16th with 5.5
2nd RELEASE: 04/15/96
An AA average of 4.1
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) STAR TREK DS9 9th with 5.7
(2) HERCULES 13th with 5.2
(3) BAYWATCH 14th with 4.8
(4) XENA with 4.1 (not even in top 25 folks! Ouch!)
SYNOPSIS:
Suddenly we are in "The Reckoning"
where Ares as the mysterious masked assailant goes mano-a-mano
with Xena. But wait! It's not a re-run, it's Gabrielle telling
the story to a bunch of guys. A young guy tells Gabrielle that
the Bard Academy in Athens has some openings and that there's a
competition going on to fill the positions. Gabrielle ditches
Xena to go (she must have learned how to do it after watching how
Xena handled Hercules). Gabrielle meets up with the young guy
again, just in time to tell him about Xena's fight with Draco in
"Sins of the Past". Instead of showing any interest in the real
name of the guy, she dubs him Orion.
Gabrielle artfully bluffs her way
into the competition. During a lecture, she is horrified by a
staged event. She then tells the story of Xena and Death in
"Death in Chains" in order to show them what a REAL story is
about. Later she hangs out at the dorm with her new pals:
Stallonus, who tells the story of Hercules in a Steve Reeves
Hercules movie; and Euripides, who tells the story of Iolaus'
seduction in "The Warrior Princess" from HTLJ. Instead of then
telling Euripides about her and Xena's double date with Hercules
and Iolaus in "Prometheus" (which would have wowed him more, I
believe), she tells the tale of Xena's redemption in "The
Gauntlet" from HTLJ.
Meanwhile, Orion is suffering from severe
father angst. His father is a stage father who wants Orion to be
best darn bard ever. Orion feels great pressure to perform.
Gabrielle tries to shape up the father but it doesn't
work. She then tells Orion to let the story take control, ignore
the audience, and just let go. Presumably, that's what she does.
After being kicked out of the
competition for many reasons (late registration, lied to get in,
insulted the instructor, too perky), Gabrielle then tells her new
friends that although she dumped Xena, she would not dump them.
She does this by finally telling them about the friendship
between Hercules, Xena, her, and Iolaus in "Prometheus". After
such a fine story, the wannabe bards have no choice but to refuse
to perform until Gabrielle is reinstated into the competition. To
strut her stuff, Gabrielle tells the story of her and Xena
finding the baby in "Cradle of Hope".
Stallonus starts the competition with
more Steve Reeves' Hercules. Gabrielle tells about various Xena
adventures from "Sins of the Past" and "Chariots of War". Orion
then decides to blot out the audience by closing his eyes and
giving the story all he's got, Father be d*mned! He tells the
story of Spartacus from the Stanley Kubrik movie "Spartacus".
Neither Stallonus or Gabrielle made
the cut (even though it is ambiguous; Gabrielle may have refused
it), but Orion did. He tells Gabrielle his real name: Homer.
Gabrielle then goes back to Xena as if she never ditched her to
begin with.
COMMENTARY:
No doubt the show was made to give
Ms. Lawless a break and to save
the production company money (it was all clips and Gabrielle).
This episode, along with "The Prodigal", comprised the "Where is
Xena?" episodes for the first season. In both episodes Gabrielle awkwardly dumped Xena
in the beginning only in the end to return, a little bit older
and a little bit wiser.
In "Athens" Gabrielle left Xena mid-
trip to see if she was made of the right stuff and could get
accepted into a prestigious, if not snooty, bard school (one that
she dreamt of attending in "Prometheus"). In "Prodigal" she left
Xena mid-trip in a sudden and poorly motivated need to return to
her home village.
By the time these episodes had aired,
the relationship of Xena and Gabrielle had already taken on a
life of it's own. Their separation was very clumsy and the
writers did not try hard to hide it. It was
clearly a device, albeit it awkward, to allow Gabrielle some
breathing space to develop sans Xena (not to mention to give Ms.
Lawless a break and in the case of "Athens" to spend a little
less money and work the crew a less that week).
In "Athens", Gabrielle discovered that
she could function quite successfully without Xena, thus
furthering a process rarely seen in television called the
maturation of the character. She went about her business cleaning
up the bard acts of various up and coming bards, fixing a rift
between Homer and his father, and even redressing her bard
professor for ineffective teaching techniques. It was unclear
whether she was accepted and refused the scholarship or whether
she wasn't offered anything. However, it was clear that at that
point she had decided it was more important making the story than
telling it, which could be best achieved by returning to Xena.
This was cleverly emphasized by the evolution of her stories from
being just about Xena to finally stories about HER and Xena. Thus
Gabrielle returned to Xena with a more focused reason why she
wanted to be there. It also defined her evolution towards
becoming Xena's partner than just a tag-a-long chronicler, as she
sold herself to Xena in the first part of the first season.
All this was fine and good. The
relationship of Xena and Gabrielle seemed almost etched in stone
at that point, but then "The Prodigal" came around. Gabrielle
once again got itchy feet, and before you could say "No, you
didn't freeze", Gabrielle was out of there, leaving Xena in the
dust, and heading home to bond with her flesh and blood sister.
Again the parting was done very abruptly and without any
foreshadowing, other than Gabrielle's perception of her failure
at an ambush. Yet again, the parting was not the point, it was
that Gabrielle had to visit with her real family in order to
realize that she also was family to Xena.
Both shows highlighted the talents of
Ms. O'Connor and she carried both shows successfully.
This was the first "clip" or "bottle"
show in XWP's history. THE XENA SCROLLS (#34) was the second
season and highlighted the talents of Renee O'Connor as well even though
Lucy Lawless was more present in SCROLLS than she was in ATHENS CITY.
WHIMPERS, MURMURS, AND A LOVE GONE TOO
FAR
09-16-00. Dean (Orion) O'Gorman was at the Panathenaea Convention in London, England on September 3, 2000. He mentioned that the actors did not know that there would be old movie clips (from the Steve Reeves' HERCULES movies and SPARTACUS) used. Apparently they just thought clips from the show would only be used.
01-31-98. In an upcoming WHOOSH interview (tentatively scheduled for March
1998), Maggie Hickerson, the script coordinator for XWP, stated about ATHENS: "...when Steve Sears gave
me ATHENS CITY ACADEMY OF THE PERFORMING BARDS I saw that one of the characters, the one
with the stutter, was named Twickenham, and I screamed with laughter because that's my home town. That
stems from when I first came on board and we were all talking about ourselves and getting introduced and I
said I was from a town called Twickenham. He said I like that name, it has a nice ring to it, I'm going to use
it in a script one day.'
01-27-98. From Nicholas Nayko:I got Robert Weisbrot's book "Complete Guide
to the
Xenaverse" and was shocked to read R. J. Stewart (a writer) cite Euripides' play
"Helena" setting in Egypt as justification for his fooling around with
established mythological and historical characters. Stewart claims
Euripides did it, so why can't he. He doesn't understand that play takes
place after the Trojan War when Helen went to Egypt to meet with
Menalaes. Stewart claimed Helen should be in Troy, not Egypt. Even
Herodotus states Helen went to Egypt so Stewart is obviously mistaken in
his justification.
CHANGING TIMES
Changing Times is by Debbie White.
Xena learns that Gabrielle might not always be at her
side while Gabrielle tries to find out if she can really obtain
her dreams.
The Changing Xena
Xena appeared more in flashbacks than not
in this clip show episode.
Gabrielle learns about a bard contest when Xena comes
back. Xena tells her about some monster causing havoc and asks,
"I guess I don't have to ask if you want to come along, huh?"
Then Xena learns that Gabrielle is willing to leave her for four
or five years in order to follow her dream to become a trained
bard. Xena, though sad, tells Gabrielle a story to get across
that Gabrielle is like family to her, then lets Gabrielle go.
Xena even tells her to follow her dreams and that she WILL win,
because she is a good story-teller. We learn that Xena, though
sorry to lose Gabrielle, is willing to let her go and that she
now has confidence in her skills.
The Changing Gabrielle
The episode starts with Gabrielle telling stories about
the adventures she has had with Xena. Now we know it is Gabrielle
who is recording and telling these adventures for future
generations to come. Also, people pay her money after her story-
telling. This is one of the ways Xena and Gabrielle get money
since they do not fight for money.
Gabrielle is irritated enough by Orion's father and
tantalized by the chance to become a trained bard, that she is
willing to leave Xena for a time. It seems strange that Gabrielle
would do that, but it is a dream of a life-time versus her pride
against a short absence away from her friend. So she leaves Xena,
tricks her way into the contest, and immediately makes several
friends among her competition. At the introductory lecture,
Gabrielle gets a feeling that something strange will happen even
before it does. It shows how much she has picked up from Xena.
Not only that, but she stands up to the lecturer when she thinks
what he is saying is not good advice on story-telling. Several
times Gabrielle makes the point that she thinks that stories
should have morals.
Later, Gabrielle is taking to her friends in their room.
They look to her for advice on how to tell stories better, even
though she is a contestant with them. Gabrielle is just observant
enough to see what is wrong and is able to give good advice, so
they are smart to listen. They listen to her defend Xena and
believe her, too, despite having heard of Xena's evil reputation.
Her friends come to respect her enough that they are willing to
give up their own chance at the Academy so that Gabrielle can
stay in the competition. Gabrielle even tries to keep them from
getting into trouble over helping her, but they will not have it.
Perhaps why Gabrielle tries to stop them is because Gabrielle is
not used to attention, especially with Xena around. When everyone
starts gathering around to listening to her stories at the
beginning, she comes out of the story and seems self-conscious of
all the people standing around.
Gabrielle also learns the pros and cons of adventuring
versus being a trained bard. She wonders what Xena is doing and
misses the excitement of adventuring. She also does not like
having to meet and then leave so many of the friends she has made
along the way. Also, she wins a spot in the Academy, but in the
end she learns that her real dream, or her new dream, is to be
living the adventure rather than just telling stories about it.
"This is a story of two friends. They met each other in the
hardest of times. They learned to care for each other.
They became a great team. Some adventures ended better than
others. And together they learned life's mysteries."
-- Gabrielle, ATHENS CITY ACADEMY OF THE PERFORMING BARDS
HIGHLIGHTS:
Embarrassingly enough, for me, it was Stallonus. I loved him.
TRANSCRIPT
Click here to read a transcript of ATHENS CITY ACADEMY OF THE PERFORMING BARDS .
DISCLAIMER:
The producers would like to
acknowledge and pay tribute to Stanley Kubrick, Kirk Douglas and
all those who were involved with the making of the film classic
'SPARTACUS.' Additional thanks to Steve Reeves.
WHOOSH! ARTICLES:
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LINKS:
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