WEB OF DESIRE
aka Kiss Me Deadly

GUEST STARS, CAST & CREDITS
PROMO TRANSCRIPTION
TV GUIDE PROMO
AIRING AND RATING INFORMATION
SYNOPSIS by Liz Sheppard
COMMENTARY 1 by Kent Simmons
COMMENTARY 2 by Nikalaos
TALES OF THE HERCAVERSE
TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER
LINKS

PROMO TRANSCRIPTION
Hercules-We find it before it finds us
ITS WAITING
Nebula-We never saw it coming
ITS WATCHING
ITS HUNGREY
Hercules-This is a big website
DONT BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, BE TERRIFIED
Hercules-We have company
ON THE NEXT HERCULES THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS

ON AN ALL NEW HERCULES
Herc, Iolaus, and Nebula in dark cave.
Herc: "We find it, before it finds us."
IT'S WAITING...
Shadows of something killing a man.
Nebula: "It moves in the shadows, we never saw it coming."
IT'S WATCHING...
Man looking up scared.
Herc: "I've never seen anything like it."
IT'S HUNGARY
Big spider dragging a man away.
Herc: "This is one big web site."
DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK...
Herc fighting large spider.
BE TERRIFIED
Man screaming.
Herc: "We have company."
Iolaus running from fire.
AN ALL NEW HERCULES THE LEGENDARY JOURNIES

TV GUIDE PROMO
Herc, Iolaus and a beautiful pirate seek refuge from a storm in a cavern. Bad luck--it's home to a killer cocoon.

Hercules and Iolaus join forces with beautiful Captain Nebula to battle deadly spider-woman Arachne

Hercules and Iolaus must confront an evil spider woman.

Hercules and Iolaus team up with a woman pirate to battle a queen who is now part arachnid.

AIRING AND RATING INFORMATION
1st release: 10/20/97
An AA average of 5.6
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 4th with 7.9
(2) XENA ("The Deliverer" 50/304) 9th with 6.0
(3) HERCULES 10th with 5.6
(4) WALKER TEXAS RANGER 13th with 5.3
(5) STAR TREK DS9 ("Behind the Lines" 128/604) 16th with 5.1
(6) EARTH FINAL CONFLICT ("Truth" 02/102) 23rd with 4.2

2nd release: 05/18/98
An AA average of Unknown
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 9th with 5.3
(2) STAR TREK DS9 13th with 4.6
(3) XENA 16th with 4.2
HERCULES (not in top 25)

SYNOPSIS:

Synopsis by Liz Sheppard

A bunch of pirates led by a woman named Nebula land on an island to unload their treasure. While in a cave, they plan to hide the treasure underground and they start digging. They find a sack full of nasty stuff.

Hercules, Iolaus, and a crew of men are having ship problems when a storm is about to come. They land on the same island and find nobody there and the treasure left behind. Some of the crew want to keep it, but Hercules talks them out of it.

Hercules and Iolaus are exploring the cave when they find a big cocoon. A crew member screams and they find him with his face melted off. They all decide to bury the body and stay on the island until the storm passes.

Monacles starts singing while he's stealing some jewels and gets pulled into the roof. Paxxon gets paranoid. Everybody goes in search of Monacles but gets scared because of the storm and weird noises.

Nebula pops up and beats the stuffing out of the the guys. Big long fight scene etc. etc. She uses these little throwing knife things which are cool. After she wounds someone, she runs away, but Hercules and Iolaus find her. She thinks that King Zoles, who she stole from, sent them to get her, but they tell her she is wrong.

Paxxon scares the other guys but ends up getting thrown across the room by a big spider thing that spits acid on one of the guys. Nebula kills him to stop the pain. She informs them that her crew of 20 men were dead in less than a day and that the spider thing did it.

They are able to track it down because it is wounded and is leaving a trail of blood. Paxxon admires Nebula's tatoos. The spider causes a big boulder to fall, then she makes her grand entrance. Paxxon is trapped on the other side of the boulder and the spider goes after him. She gets him and takes him to her web.

Hercules tells the story of Arachne, half woman/half spider. And I thought the Golden Hind was weird. She was cursed into the form of the spider because she killed her daughter who was more beautiful than her. Light is her enemy. They decide to get pyrotechnic.

Paxxon is wrapped in a cocoon-like web when Arachne comes by and gives new meaning to the term-swapping spit.

When Hercules seperates from Ioalus and Nebula, they get a little flirty. All three of them spread oil all over the place and light it, looking for Arachne. Arachne drops in and takes Iolaus away. Nebula wants to abandon Iolaus, but Hercules the Hero goes to get his trusty sidekick. He finds Iolaus' medallion.

Iolaus wakes up in the web, next to Paxxon, who had a spider thing pop out of his mouth. Arachne comes by. "Do you think I'm beautiful?" Great Iolaus line. "Yeah, I like bugs." She tries to kiss him.

Hercules the Hero comes by and saves the day. Arachne and Hercules have a little fight. Hercules falls into a big web with lots of dead bodies in it.

The storm passes, but Nebula decides not to go just yet. She throws her little knife things at Arachne. Girl fight! Hercules and Arachne fight some more while Iolaus and Nebula flirt and fight little spiders. Well, they're big spiders, but not as big as Arachne. "I think what we need is a really big shoe." *splat* Hercules takes a shield and shows Arachne her reflection. She freaks out and walks into the fire. Hercules gives Iolaus his medallion back and they leave.

They sail off with Hercules not returning Nebula to the king and Nebula ordering the guys around and flirting some more with Iolaus. He doesn't mind.

Cute lines in this episode! Some of my favorites:

      Hercules: "Overall, I'd have to say, it's been a really disgusting day."
      Iolaus: "We should be pirates, the two of us, swashbuckling. I'd be good at buckling swashes."

COMMENTARY 1:

This commentary is by Kent Simmons.

Nice Halloween episode. I enjoyed this one much better than XWP's "Gabrielle's Hope" since this episode was a good old creature feature just in time for the Halloween Holiday. I thought GH had some good momments that fit it's job as a Halloween episode [The birth of Hope, banshees, Angry Angry Xena] but this episode had more and also had a new intresting faboulas character by the name of Nebula.

We once again see Herc do all he can to rescue his best friend Iolaus, and see a relationship start to develop between Hercules and Iolaus. We also get to see a darker side of Hercules as he doesn't take Nebula to trial for robbing treasure from Zolos. Of course she did help them but Herc isn't always the most forgiving guy at times. This time we saw Herc simply het a pirate go, although Nebula wasn't all bad and pirate, as well learn in season five during the premiere episode "Faith" and later in "Descent" and "Darkness Rising."

Arachne was one of the better monsters. Too bad attractive Josephine Davison had to get ugly to play the spider. The fight between Arachne and Herc was one the better ones and the website joke was well....Universal never took time to fix there website untill a year from when this episode first aired in syndication. The funniest line to me was from Iolaus, were Arachne seduces him. Iolaus says "I like bugs." Michael was great in this episode. The interaction between Herc and Nebula was also wonderful. Nebula remained a bad girl, but a heroic one afterall, as this episode ended.

When this HTLJ episode aired, the XWP episode that aired with it was "The Deliverer" which also had some ship scenes. Both were darker episodes as well.

Some Things to Look Out For

The coccoon material was later used in XWP's "Sacrifice I and II"

Recognize that scenery at the beginning? It was also seen in XWP's "Here She Comes Miss Amphipolas" at the beginning of the episode during the opening credits.

The music used during the scene were Nebula considers heading back to the ship was also used in many past episodes.

Some Highlights

Iolaus saying he likes bugs.

Nebula calling Iolaus a monkey boy and Herc an ape.

Nebula touching Iolaus on his behind and Iolaus' expression.

The little spider picking Iolaus' nose.

Hercules and Iolaus thinking about becoming pirates speech.

Herc gets pissed because Nebula is after him for what Zeus does.

Nebulas character.

This episode gets 5 out of 5 stars. A good episode for Halloween and a good creative one period. No homage and no ripoff, although I don't mind some of the homages and ripoffs.

COMMENTARY 2:

This commentary is by Nikalaos.

Things to look out for

The lady who plays Arachne first appeared as Alexa, in the last season's "War Bride".

Look out for the part where Arachne plants her seed or whatever into that one guy - super gross. Then watch, after Iolaus is caught, for the baby spider-thingy to come out of the guy's mouth. Double supreme gross.

At the end fight sequence between Herc and Arachne, when she comes down into the pit with him, watch for the actress' legs, barely hidden by some skirt wannabe thingy.

Just on a personal nitpicking note: The myth on Arachne was very wrong. Arachne was said to be a beautiful weaver, who bragged she was better than the goddess Athene. Athene disguised herself as a mortal crone to warn Arachne of her brash bragging, but Arachne insisted she was best. So Athene turned into her true self and they had a contest. But Arachne won - so Athene, jealous, turned her into a spider so she could weave forever.

TALES OF THE HERCAVERSE

01-13-99. From Kent Simmons. Robert Bielak mention in his chat at Real Hollywood in the Summer of 1997 that a new character would be introduced this season, a pirate queen named Nebula. Nebula is the favorite character it seems of whoosh's publisher/head editor Kym Taborn! Bielak mention in the same chat that Herc and Iolaus would have to face a deadly spider woman.

01-13-99. From Kent Simmons. The original episode title was "Kiss Me Deadly."

01-13-99. From KSZoneW. In Armageddon Now: The music used when Iolaus arrives in Corinth [Xena's Corinth] was used in "Mercenary" and "Atlantis" in the scene where Hercules awoke on the is lands. It was also used in "Lady and the Dragon" and "Web of Desire". All are HTLJ episodes.

TRANSCRIPT

Click here to read a transcript of WEB OF DESIRE.

DISCLAIMER

The original website was severely harmed during the production of this motion picture. However, through the miracle of modern technology it was ressurected several centuries later.