PROMO
TRANSCRIPTION
THE GODS ZAP A SPELL ON GABRIELLE
(Aphrodite appears. Gabrielle does a flip and
pounces a man on the chest.)
Gabrielle: I can write anything and it comes
true.
(Gabrielle writes on a scroll, using Joxer's back
as a desk as he bends over.)
AND THE WORLD IS AN OPEN BOOK
Ares: My powers. What's happened to my powers?
(Xena pulls out her chakram; it's rubber or made
of vines or something.)
BATTLE ON XENA
TV GUIDE PROMO
Aphrodite casts an odd spell on Gabrielle:
everything she writes comes to pass. Of course, what
Gabrielle writes isn't always precisely what she means.
Aphrodite casts a spell on Gabrielle's scroll,
making her words reality.
A jealous Aphrodite casts a hex on Gabrielle's scroll, which causes everything she writes to come true.
AIRING AND RATING
INFORMATION
1st RELEASE: 01-19-98
An AA average of 6.1
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 8th with 6.6
(2) XENA 11th with 6.1
(3) HERCULES (69/410 "Hercules on Trial") 13th with 5.3
(4) WALKER 18th with 4.5
(5) STAR TREK DS9 (603R "Sons and Daughters") not on top 20
2nd RELEASE: 06-08-98
An AA average of 4.2
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 6th with 5.6
(2) XENA 12th with 4.2
(3) STAR TREK DS9 14th with 4.1
(4) HERCULES 15th with 4.0
(5) WALKER 19th with 3.9
(6) NYPD BLUE with 3.8
SYNOPSIS:
This synopsis is by Bluesong.
Graffiti in the ancient world
sets the stage for this show. Vandals paint
such things as "Xena rules" and Xena should be a god
all over Aphrodite's
temple. Ares appears and tells his sister that it's
all Gabrielle's fault,
because she is the bard who spreads Xena's name all
over the land, making the
warrior famous. Aphrodite then visits Xena and
Gabrielle at their campsite,
where Gabrielle is preparing a new scroll. Xena
suggests Gabrielle try
fiction, and make someone else the hero for a change.
So Gabrielle begins to
write, and sends Xena fishing. She declares herself to
be the "warrior
Gabrielle" who "wakes with a jerk" to find herself
under attack by five
barbarians. Aphrodite finds this amusing and puts a
spell on the scroll so
that the words will come true. Gabrielle does awaken
to the sounds of an
attack; she defeats the five men, performing a
Russian-type dance on top of
her staff, no less. She finds that Joxer is with her
now, not Xena, and
realizes that the words on the scroll have come true.
Now she believes she
can do great good with the scroll.
She and Joxer meet some
"sisters" who keep an orphanage, and Gabrielle
makes a
man appear and offer them a sword, something of great
value. Then the bard
and "the jerk" venture on to a tavern, where Gabrielle
learns that "drinks on
the house" means just that as ale rains through the
roof.
Meanwhile, Ares has an army
ready to attack the valley, but the leader won't
attack unless he is sure Xena is out of the way. Ares
says he will send the
leader a signal so he will know when to attack.
Aphrodite tells the
barbarians to go back after Gabrielle, which they do.
Gabrielle then sends
them to a cave to go to sleep. She decides then to end
all war. When she
writes that, Ares falls from the sky. He has lost his
powers. Gabrielle then
writes that the enchantment of the scroll will end, and
that causes Aphrodite
to lose her powers. (Wording is everything, Joxer
opines.) Gabrielle decides
she has to reconstruct everything from the beginning,
which means getting Xena
back. She writes that the leather-clad warrior woman
with the whip of Xena
appears -- and Minya (from "A Day in the Life") shows
up. The army continues
to wait for the signal.
A man appears to reclaim the
sword the orphanage people sold. Gabrielle
sends
him to the caves. Joxer asks Aphrodite's advice on
love; she tells him to
write poetry and give presents. Joxer writes on the
scroll; three naked
Gabrielles begin dancing on the wall behind him.
Gabrielle sends them to the
caves. During the night, Joxer goes to town to sell
his scabbord so he can
buy Gabrielle a necklace. He loses the scroll because
Gabrielle had hidden it
in there. The peddler who bought the scabbord found
the scroll and went to
the caves. Gabrielle and Ares have "a moment" of sorts
where they get along.
Everyone except Xena eventually winds up in the caves.
Gabrielle finally writes that
the scrolls find their way to Xena since she had
been unable to bring Xena back to her. Xena appears
with a cart of fish and
the scrolls. Gabrielle had sent her many places; she
had written that Xena
returned to her #1 friend (Xena saw a girl she knew
when she five years old --
her first friend), and to the woman her brought her a
new life ("Mom says
hi."). Xena said she knew something was up with
Gabrielle because she was the
only person Xena had not seen.
Xena figures out that the
truth will set them free from the fiction in the
scroll. She goes to defeat the army, which has seen
the three naked
Gabrielles running down the road with the barbarians
chasing them, and taken
that as a sign from Ares. Gabrielle writes about the
fight as Xena defeats
the army with her cart of fish. Ares and Aphrodite
regain their powers and
everything returns to normal. There is still some
space left on the scroll;
Gabrielle writes "The End" and the screen goes blank in
the middle of
Gabrielle's sentence.
COMMENTARY:
This commentary is by Beth Gaynor.
OK, folks, time for a new
rule. The Xena writers have got to cut back on the
number of controlled substances in their system while
they work. This was one of the strangest episodes
I've seen yet. Yeah, it was funny sometimes. But this
was in deep farce territory, with a
barely-strung-together story to provide excuses for the
gags. I'd rather sacrifice goofy antics for coherence,
not vice versa.
Ares has finally clued in to
the fact that Gabrielle is a key to Xena's life. He
took
note of her for the first time in The Furies; this time
he actually worked to get her out of the way. He was on
the right track, but it ended up backfiring; Ares and
Gabrielle discovered that they have common ground in
their hero-worship of Xena. Who'da thunk it? Great "I
didn't like it." "Right back at ya." "OK." reactions
from
them. But even though they wanted to deny it, Ares was
darned affectionate with Gabrielle when he left, and
for once, Ares' trademark fading laugh isn't sinister.
It's genuinely amused, instead.
I would have given a week's
take-home pay to see the look on Renee
O'Connor's face when she read the script and got to the
part about the three naked Gabrielle go-go girls. It's
only fair: we've seen Xena nekkidness a few times, Gab
had some catching up to do.
"She awoke with a jerk." Best
joke of the episode - very,
very funny. The first time. Didn't need to hear it four
times to get it.
Joxer is a terrible warrior,
but he's not too shabby as a romantic. Gabrielle
awaking to the necklace and Joxer's quiet admission
that he bought it for her with his scabbard was
actually
touching. Too bad Gabrielle didn't at least recognize
the gift - and Joxer never did get the scabbard back,
did he? Joxer got decent treatment in this script; he
came up with some respectable ideas sometimes.
Instead of being justifiably ignored this episode, he
was underappreciated. Go fig. (One notable exception:
he used the scroll for his poetry attempt? Dum-dum on
the highest level.)
Joxer was right: it was an
octopus. Was the squid/octopus debate an in-ref to
the "squid" that Gabrielle ate in Lost Mariner that was
really an octopus?
OK, everybody, repeat after
me: Here's the line. Jokes about fish and hygiene
are on thaaaaaaat side of it. I can't believe they went
there.
I liked some of the clever
word tricks: Minya's appearance with Xena's whip,
Aphrodite losing her power because she was the force
that enchanted the scroll. But the script tried to get
TOO clever. Gabrielle alternated between using names to
very accurately identify people and being too
scared to use a name for fear of being misinterpreted.
"Xena returns to Gabrielle" was really that tough to
think of to write?
I had guessed that you could
bounce a quarter off of Gab's Abs, but a sword
point? None-so-subtle wink at the audience - between
that and Ares' dreamy "Leather... mention the leather"
description for Xena, I'd say the XenaStaff are very
much in tune with what the fans love to dwell on.
Apparently, when gods become
mortal, they're required to get drunk and belch.
Must be in the Olympian handbook. Ares did it in Ten
Little Warlords, now it's Aphrodite's turn.
Mortality wasn't easy on the
gods - Ares turns cowardly, Aphrodite gets messy.
(Sorry, I wasn't buying "plain." If that's plain, 95%
of the world is absolutely homely, Lord help us all.)
Joxer, inventor of the beer
cap! Football fanatics everywhere now know who to
thank.
XenaStaff seems to want
Aphrodite to be annoying but sympathetic. But wow,
that "I'm gonna end up like you!" wail at Minya was a
low blow. That's NOT the way to make a character
likeable, folks.
Gratuitous slapstick alert.
Ever-alert Xena is accidentally smacking Joxer
senseless with fish as she tells her story? Not
necessary, especially since the matter-of-fact rundown
on the
parade was funny on its own: "I took it off a merchant,
who was being chased by some barbarians, who
were being chased by three
naked Gabrielles..."
I'm going to go drink
heavily, then watch this episode again. I bet it'll
make
perfect sense then.
WHIMPERS,
MURMURS, AND A LOVE GONE TOO
FAR
11-13-00. Kevin (Ares) Smith was at the Panathenaea Convention in London, England on September 3, 2000. He stated that his favorite episodes were The Quill is Mightier, The Furies, and the Hercules' Golden Hind ones.
03-17-00. Kevin Smith, at the Orlando May 1999 con, was asked about the rumor of practical jokes between him and Renee O'Connor. He explained that the final scene in `The Quill is Mightier` originally called for a more intense semi-kiss thing that neither he nor Renee liked. The two of them decided to add the practical joke nose flip thing that we all
saw. Also, Smith noted that Gabrielle mostly plays out as the antithesis of Ares.
01-10-98. Hey! QUILL is the
first Aphrodite episode of the season (to be followed
later by another one which has not yet been filmed).
However, Alexandra Tydings in an interview that will
appear in WHOOSH #17 (February 1998), says that the
episode she has already filmed has Aphrodite
losing her powers. However, a promo for this episode
says that Aphrodite puts a spell on Gabrielle's scroll
which one would think would be difficult if you had
lost your powers. Also, it looks like the statement
made at
a con last year was erroneous. The statement was that
Michael Hurst was appearing in QUILL. The
statement was made in the context of the news that
Renee O'Connor and Michael Hurst would not be able
to make the January 1998 Burbank con because they'd be
filming THIS episode. However, the episode was
actually filmed in November 1997!!! So, I doubt Hurst
is in the episode. We shall see!
11-16-97. Although given as
the excuse
Renee O'Connor would not be making the January Burbank
Convention
in 1998, the gang is supposedly filming this episode in
the month
of November 1997. Perhaps they moved up the production
date? Does
this mean Renee O'Connor and Michael Hurst will be free
for
Burbank? Or will they just find something else to
occupy their
precious convention time?
10-20-97. Michael Hurst is
alledgedly
in this episode too. Stay tuned for more info!
10-15-97. Apparently this is
why Renee
O'Connor will not be at the '98 Burbank Con...she shall
be
filming this episode. Billed as an "All-Gabrielle"
episode, it
will cover for Ms. Lawless' stateside tour in the US.
From the
name of it, perhaps they will concentrate on her
bardliness?
HIGHLIGHTS:
Highlights by Beth
Gaynor.
Cameo Appearance of the
Month award goes to Minya's welcome return to
celebrate all us geek fans. And she's been practicing
with that whip! A Day in the Life is fast becoming the
episode that is most often referred to by other
episodes. Must be a favorite of the writers as well as
the fans.
THINGS TO
LOOK OUT
FOR
11-16-98. From Lindsey Neef. This stood out to me the second I saw it, the reason for that being that I grew up in Detroit as a huge Red Wings hockey
fan. As we know, both Lucy and Rob also love the Detroit Red Wings -- which to me seemed like the source of a certain flying octopus in the fish-fight scene. (It's an ollllllllld Detroit hockey tradition to fling octopi to the ice whenever the Wings score during a playoff game. In the old days it took 8 games to win the Cup... 8 games, 8 legs, etc.) It's also traditional to give the octopus a couple good
twirls before flinging it-- just as Xena did.
11-16-98. From Joan Leib. About the bust mentioned below in Nick Nayko's post from 01-30-97, I just want to point out that the same bust also appears as Aphrodite in HTLJ episode "Love Takes a Holiday." Just another bit of useless trivia for us hardcore nutballs to mull over.
01-30-97. From Nick Nayko.
Recycled props department: Aphrodite's temple
has the Lost Athena bust from LOST MARINER in it.
01-30-97. From Nick Nayko.
Named the warlord Thelonius (Felonius?) and his
henchman Munk as a takeoff of the jazz musician
Thelonius Monk.
01-27-97. From Bret: Gabby's
mouth is also an inkwell. Several times she
licked the end of the quill and then wrote on the
scroll without benefit of ink.
01-27-97. From Bret: After a
commercial break, we see Joxer doing shadow
puppets. But when the camera pulls back, we see his
hands and it's obvious he was doing one of the two
shadows, but we don't see who or what was doing the
other.
01-27-97. From Bret: The
character Scabrous, the one seeking his kinsman's
sword, is an homage to a character in A FUNNY THING
HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM.
01-27-97. From Bret: In the
"use those props again" department, the warlord
"waiting for the sign" from Ares was using a spyglass
that a crony of the warlord looking for the Ixion
stone was using in ORPHAN OF WAR.
01-27-97. From Nicholas
Nayko: Inconsistancies in QUILL. After Xena got
Gabrielle to write "true words", the scroll lost its
enchantedness. So how did writing "The End" do anything
unless Aphrodite recharged it before she disappeared?
Even if she did, there is an inconsistency:the rules
were if the scroll was filled up-the curse doesn't end
but everything stays as it was when the scroll was
written on. Yes-sounds kinda ambiguous! But if the
scroll got recharged; by writing "The End", the world
ended. So something has to recreate the world again for
continuation of the series. Right? They need a
good editor.
From Beth: The music while
Minya is waxing fannish over Ares and Aphrodite
is the same music she got for the Warrior Princess Haze
in A Day in the Life.
From Beth: Picking at logic
problems in this episode is a bit akin to shooting
fish in a barrel, but I can't pass up this one without
comment: "Aphrodite, Minya: you go to town... Ares and
I
will go where it's raining dinars..." which was...
town.
From Beth: By the time we
got to the caves where Gabrielle had been sending
people, I was getting pretty lost. Why was everyone
suddenly after the scroll? (Except the Go-Go Gabbies -
they were just looking for an audience.) Nobody should
have figured that out except the peddler.
By the time we got to the caves where Gabrielle had
been =
From Kym: In this episode
there is a discussion about whether a sea creature
is an octopus or a squid. This recalls in detail an
on-going internet discussion which of said sea critters
were
Gabrielle's meal in THE LOST MARINER
TRANSCRIPT
Click here to read a transcript of THE QUILL IS MIGHTIER... .
DISCLAIMER:
No naked Gabrielles were
harmed during the
production of this motion picture.
