Hercules and Xena |
And Now, The Best of the Story... | Hercules and Xena essays |
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Hercules and Xena |
And Now, The Best of the Story... | Hercules and Xena essays |
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And Now, The Best of the Story...
I'm waiting for the BEST OF XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS to be picked up by the SciFi Channel some day. This will be like CAROL BURNETTE AND COMPANY or THE BEST OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. The former show was a syndicated thirty-minute series of clips from the CAROL BURNETTE SHOW, which ran for 11 years in the 1970s and 1980s. Burnette ended the show while it was still in the top ten because she wanted to go out on top. Her ensemble cast included (through the years) people such as Lyle ("Wonder Woman's Boyfriend") Waggoner, Harvey Corman, Tim Conway, and Vicki ("The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia") Lawrence. Some of the classic characters and clips from the variety show included the "King and Queen" (based on Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Prince Phillip) played by Corman and Burnette, Mama's Family (which spawned a show starring Lawrence), and Conway as...well, as just about anything. The variety show had a very distinct feel to it. When I first saw CAROL BURNETTE AND COMPANY I thought, "Wow! A new show." Nope. It was the previous show cut down to size. It didn't quite feel right. I never could quite put my finger on it. Anyone who has seen COMEDY CENTRAL's THE BEST OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (maybe it's been shown on other networks, I'm not sure) knows they have taken the 90-minute show and cut it down to a 1-hour show. I suppose this sort of editing gets rid of a lot of the lamer skits which never really worked. I'm not sure of what they've cut out, but I don't recall if they ever included the lobster attack from the 1970s (giant lobsters attacked New York and invaded the set, eating the audience and driving the cast and crew out of the studio at the end of the show). THE BEST OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE is actually better, in my opinion, than the original show. It has more consistency, I think, and undoubtedly that is because the producers are able to filter out the worst material. With the Carol Burnette skits there was almost never any "worst material" -- they were always very good with that show, despite the obvious gaffes where the actors would start laughing in the middle of a skit if Tim Conway started ad libbing things (which he usually did). So, why a BEST OF XENA? How could they make it work? Think daytime televsion for kids. A 30-minute syndication is sometimes easier to sell than a 60-minute syndication. Ah, but the USA Channel is showing H:TLJ and X:WP on a daily basis now. Yes it is. So what better way to remarket the series than to trim out a lot of the "extra" stuff and sell it for younger than average audiences. A lot of young people watch X:WP and H:TLJ now, but the shows are intended for a more mature audience. Well, X:WP is supposedly intended for the mature audience and H:TLJ is supposedly intended for the younger crowd. Funny how real life doesn't match the marketing hype. Most of the early viewers of X:WP were H:TLJ fans, and H:TLJ did depart from its original dark, gritty format to include lighter stuff for the kids. This was a mistake that has been corrected, but because the experiment was attempted -- and because YOUNG HERCULES has already been tried -- I think that if anyone brainstorms a re-edit of one of the series, they'll turn to XENA and not HERC. Now, maybe that's pushing it. After all, they'd either have to break each episode into two parts (and it's not like DR WHO wasn't shown as four-part episodes for years) or they'd have to cut down the storyline in each episode. My guess is they would do better to break the episodes into two parts. H:TLJ is more episodic than X:WP. There are story arcs in H:TLJ but X:WP runs very much like a soap opera with an almost continuous storyline (hence, a difference audience eventually developed around X:WP). So, if X:WP is almost a soap opera, then it won't matter if the episodes are broken into two parts. Now, after THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES we'll get THE BEST OF XENA (which may leave out of few of the non sequitur episodes, such as "The Xena Scrolls", although that is one of my personal favorites). But then, what will happen to H:TLJ? I think it will live on in hourly syndication. Kevin Sorbo's continuing on-screen presence will ensure that his fans want to see everything they can find of him. H:TLJ will thus probably go on, untouched, for a long time. Of course, there is the "second" production company to consider. This is the darker aspect of modern television fandom. Eventually someone is going to splice together their own H:TLJ or X:WP movie from the various episodes and post it to the Internet (probably getting caught in the process, but once it's out there, it's out there). Then what? Will fan fiction be broadened to include fannish re-edits of actual episodes? I've met a few people who have told me they did that with old STAR TREK episodes (the original series). Their diehard desire to see more of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy led them to engage in some creative videotape work. I've never seen any of these illicit episodes, but the day is coming when we'll be able to download movies off the Net quickly and cheaply. A black market is bound to appear. So, just as STAR TREK has lived on for decades in the homes and VCRs of fans (who had to wait for the VCR craze to tape the shows), so, too, will X:WP and H:TLJ. But if the shows are indeed repackaged for new distribution channels in a few years, one will have to wonder whose edits will be more appreciated: the professionals' or the amateurs? Fans already deplore the edits some stations and networks around the world put into first-run episodes. A BEST OF... series may be even more disappointing. I hope not. Because I don't think we'll have seen the last of X:WP and H:TLJ when they end their runs. |
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