THE TROUBLE WITH ANGLICANS (17)
SUMMARY:
A chance encounter with Sister Bernadette's childhood sweetheart, now the priest of country parish overrun with Undead, sparks an overlong flashback to the stalwart sidekick's early days as a young novice, when Sister Bernie briefly questioned her calling for love of a hunky, young seminary student. Ultimately, however, their nightmarish encounter with a satanic night-gaunt convinced the future Father to dedicate himself to the priesthood, breaking poor Bernie's heart. Now, years later, the former lovers finally lay their troubled past to rest, while Vixen rids the village of vampires (offstage).
COMMENTARY:
Suddenly, killing off Sister Bernie didn't seem like such a bad idea. I mean, I love the chemistry and clever repartee between Vixen and Bernie as much as the next Vixite, but who wants to spend a hour reliving some boring romance that happened before she ever met the Slayer? Did Star Trek ever waste time showing a young Leonard McCoy cramming for med school exams? Do we really care what Gabrielle was doing on the family farm before she hooked up with Xena? Of course not.
Also, to be brutally honest, all the wigs and soft-focus lighting in the world cannot make Anne-Marie Campbell look like a dewy young maiden, a glaring visual distraction exacerbated by the twenty-something Leonardo DeCaprio clone cast as her long-lost swain. She looks ridiculous in the flashback sequences, while, buried beneath a ton of unconvincing old age make-up, he looks fakey in the present-day framing scenes, thus guaranteeing that none of their scenes together work at all.
Add to this the conspicuous absence of Glory McArdle (who was off doing a press tour in the States), and you have an episode that makes one yearn longingly for a nice, exciting rerun.
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SIGH OF THE SELKIE (18)
SUMMARY:
For once, the Slayer must come to the aid of a supernatural creature when an innocent seal-woman, or selkie, is captured by an unscrupulous Scottish fisherman, who puts her on display in a caged metal tank. (Sort of the Elizabethan equivalent of SeaWorld, when you think about it.) Sister Bernadette initially opposes risking their lives on behalf of such an "unnatural" creature, but eventually comes around as our heroines race against time to get the dying selkie back to the sea where she belongs.
COMMENTARY:
Glory's Olympic roots paid off here when the producers recruited her former Olympic teammate, bronze medal-winning swimmer Julie Sluice, to play the captive selkie. The scene where she reluctantly performs various aquatic tricks in exchange for fresh fish, while a jury of stone-faced judges hold up signs scoring her performance, succeeds as a hilarious parody of both the Olympics and trained dolphin shows, although, admittedly, the whole sequence is a good deal campier than the series usually gets.
Having learned their lesson from "What Lurks in the Loch?" (4), the producers wisely contrived a literal fish-out-of-water plot that takes place mostly on dry land, only attempting to simulate actual ocean conditions at the very beginning and end of the episode. Even still, Sluice is rumored to have caught a nasty cold from the frigid water within her enclosed tank, which may explain why she's been in no hurry to reprise the role, her old athletic ties to Glory notwithstanding.
Geographical Trivia Alert. The seaside village of Blackwaterfoot, where this episode is set, is a real place, located on the Isle of Arran, off the coast of Scotland. You don't think the Slayer Staff could make up a name like that, do you?
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A SLAYER IN LOVE (19)
SUMMARY:
At the request of Queen Elizabeth, Vixen must team up with Christopher Marlowe, dashing playwright and part-time secret agent to uncover Guy Fawke's nefarious plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Sparks fly between Marlowe and the Slayer, who ends up inspiring the warrior queen in his play Dido, Queen of Carthage, but their passionate romance ends tragically when she discovers that his most famous play, Doctor Faustus, is largely autobiographical; Marlowe has sold his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for literary immortality. Despite a fierce battle, Vixen is ultimately unable to stop the Dark Forces from claiming her lover.
COMMENTARY:
Historical purists will no doubt point out that the real Marlowe died in 1593, a good twelve years before the notorious Gunpowder Plot, but who cares when an episode is this good! Clever, dramatic, and full-blooded, "Slayer in Love" has plenty of great dialogue ("Is this the face that stalked a thousand crypts?" Marlowe asks upon first meeting Vixen) and, for once, a genuinely moving love story that only the hardest hearts could resist. As the witty, doomed Marlowe, Canadian actor Malcolm Craigie makes a much better paramour for our favorite ninja vampire hunter than Count von Blitzkrieg ever did; even though he's ultimately dragged down to Hell, one hopes that the Slayer Staff will find a way to bring him back for a few more appearances.
Granted, Sister Bernadette doesn't have much to do in this episode, aside from clucking disapprovingly at Vix's growing infatuation with Marlowe, but I guess you can't have everything.
THIRTEEN MINUTES TO DOOMSDAY (20)
SUMMARY:
An ominous prophecy from The Book of the Damned, which Sister Bernadette filched from Father Diavolo in Episode 14, hints that Armageddon itself is drawing nigh, in the form of a brilliant alchemist who is on the verge of discovering the secret of cold fusion—in 1592! Vixen must reach the reckless genius's secret laboratory, protected by all manner of ingenious boobytraps and pitfalls, before all of England undergoes a catastrophic meltdown!
COMMENTARY:
Not a lot of characterization or humor here, but plenty of nonstop action and suspense, that starts off with a bang in scene one, then just keeps accelerating towards the apocalyptic conclusion. Dr. Xavier Fell's steampunky gadgets and deathtraps are a hoot, too, although the candle-powered laser is a bit of stretch, and you've got to admire any show that has the chutzpah to do a nuclear countdown plot almost four hundred years before the Manhattan Project.
Unfortunately, "Doomsday" turned into a much more of a cliffhanger than intended when Gloria McArdle mysteriously disappeared while taping an MTV special in Hollywood, with the final scenes of the episode yet to be filmed, forcing the producers to tack a TO BE CONTINUED title over the truncated final scenes, and raising dire questions as to the entire future of TITAoVtS.
Will the missing star reappear in time to film September's big season premiere . . . or will it always be "Thirteen Minutes to Doomsday" for the show's devoted fans?
Let's cross our fingers and pray for the Slayer's safe return. Meanwhile, I wonder: what's Doreen Liu doing these days?
(for now)
The Warslayer Page 28
