olilolo blog

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that today is the first of December. And that means that the November Challenge is at an end. And I FUCKING NAILED IT.

Every goddamn day, baby. A couple of days I posted TWICE. Just because I COULD. And because I may have FORGOTTEN WHAT DAY IT WAS.

It got hairy at some points. The first week went all right as I took the 3 or 4 good ideas I still had waiting to be writen and wrote them, and wasn’t embarrassed by what I had writen. The second week was tougher. I went on holidays from work, (that was planned before the challenge by the way; I’m not insane enough to take time off work to do an internet project) but for some reason that made it even harder to get stuff written.

By the time I actually came back to work last week I was dreading getting out of bed every day because I’d have to find time to write the bloody blog for the day. I began seeing the world in article-sized chunks, every single thing that I saw or experienced was assesed for its value as possible material. I would come up with hilarious rants in my head about how grass is basically the most redundant plant, or how some people should be able to be legally killed under a strictly defined set of conditions. I itemised the contents of my wadrobe, before deleting the whole thing, line-by-line, softly crying.

But somehow I posted something every damn day. For that I have to thank you guys.  Blogging can be a lonely business sometimes, the feeling that you’re just throwing words into a great sucking void.

But fortunately you guys posted comments and tweeted about it and posted articles to Facebook and even came up to me personally to say you were enjoying my writing. And let me tell you- to a writer, that shit is like crack cocaine wrapped in bacon. It is a high like you cannot imagine, having someone say they not only read your stuff, but liked your stuff. And then ask for more of your stuff. That is the fucking BEST. So thank you so much to everyone who commented and emailed and everything else. You made the November Challenge go from this-

to this-

Exactly like that.

I’d like to extend a special thanks to olilolo’s other main writer, Doyle. I actually didn’t tell Doyle about the challenge until I posted the first post on Nov 1 explaining what I was going to be doing. I basically hijacked the site for a month, after he’d kept it going for three months while I had a case of “writer’s block” (laziness). So thank you for putting up with me, you sexy, hairy man.

olilolo.com now goes back to its regularly scheduled programming, except we’ve never had regularly scheduled programming, so maybe we’ll go forward to regularly scheduled programming. Doyle’s going to start posting again, and I’m going to keep posting reularly, only not every goddamn day, because seriously, if I had to fart out another olilolo article I was going to put my fist through the screen. You wonder why so many writers have drinking problems? Deadlines is the answer.

So thank you once again, and please keep reading. I can’t promise the quality is going to improve, but if you’re still here you’re a sucker for punishment and you have my respect.

When most people think of comic books they think of superheroes. And it’s true, superheroes are very much a comic book creation. The flying superstrong men in their fluttering capes are a product of the four colour world. But comic books can be so much more than that.

Independent comics have always been more anarchic, dealing with broader themes than mainstream publishers. But with comics booming in the mid 90s, there was room for a lot of  comics titles to find homes at the Big Two that wouldn’t have ordinarily got a run. And so it was that Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan was spewed into the brain-meat of thousands of unsuspecting comics readers.

What the Hell is That?

Set in the future (exactly how far is never stated, but it’s heavily implied to be quit a bit of time indeed) Transmetropolitan follows the exploits of gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem, a take-no-prisoners wordsmith with a fuck-you attitude and a habit for sicking anything vaguely chemical into any orifice that will accept it.

Hugely successful after publishing several best-selling books, Spider retires to a retreat in the mountains. However, when the cash starts running low, he has to return to The City (implied to be but never staed as Future New York) to take up reporting again.

Constantly causing headaches for long-suffering editor Mitchell Royce, Spider is helped in his debauched escapades by his “filthy assitants” Channon Yarrow (the tall, amazonian one) and Yelena Rossini (the small, angry one)

Spider soons gets involved in the coverage of the latest Presidential election, and after deciding that the candidate who wins, nicknamed The Smiler, is a complete and utter sociopath, sets himself the task of exposing him and getting him thrown out of office.

Along the way, Spider has to stay one step ahead of The Smiler, meet his deadlines, and keep his readers, all of whom he detests, informed about what’s really going on. As Spider himself will tell you, “trust the Fuckhead.”

What Makes Them So Special?

Like how a description of a crazy party can’t do justice to what actually went down, no mere description of Transmet can accurately portray the sheer insanity Ellis manages to pack into every issue. The world of Transmet is a post-cyberpunk fever-dream which would make William Gibson’s head explode, complete with aliens, designer genetics, and flying cars. Importantly though, all the old problems still exist- discrimination, corruption, and people being bastards.

Into all this Ellis drops Spider, a thinly veiled tribute to the original Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson. Spider is a bastard, and he’ll tell you so. But he also believes in the truth, and telling the truth to as many people as possible, so other bastards can’t step on people’s necks any more.

Or to put it in his words- “Journalism is a gun. It’s only got one bullet, but aim it right and you can shoot a kneecap off the world.”

Running for 65 issues, Transmetropolitan is about what it means to be human, why you should never trust a politician, and the simple pleasure of a brand new bowel disruptor.

Why It’ll Never Work

Ellis was working with an animation company until he realised they weren’t expecting to have to pay him, at which point the relationship soured. That project would have featured Patrick Stewart voicing Spider, although at that point he probably could have played him live action as well.

There is the argument that Transmet is unfilmable. I would argue not necessarily, but that it would work better as a television series rather than a movies or movies. The plot is rambling, but definitely has a beginning, middle and end,  with events at the start of the book paying off as the series builds towards its big climax.

Not to mention, Spider is a thoroughly unlikeable character. We root for him, but we’re ashamed to do so. He is a drug addict, emotionally unstable, self-centred, pathetic little man with a chip on his shoulder and a mean streak a mile wide.

He’s also got his redeeming qualities, of course, which is why he’s so popular. But he’s a hard sell to a movie exec.

Ultimately, any Transmet movie that wanted to stay faithful to the comics would need to be a hard-R rating, and combine that with the fairly high cost of bringing The City to life on the screen makes a film unlikely.

What We’ll Have To Settle For Instead

Transmetropolitan is a hard one to try and emulate, because there’s really nothing else like it. I guess if you want to replicate the experience, get a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Mnuemonic and All the King’s Men, play them simultaneously on three screens while taking several illegal substances.

It won’t come anywhere near being like a Transmet movie, but it’ll be a hell of a trip.

Up until now I’ve kind of avoided talking about Global Warming in this series, as it’s something which tends to attract fanatical debaters on both sides. People line up like rival armies, and like a war sometimes people’s arms get ripped off.

ABOVE: What each side in the climate change debate looks like to the other side.

But if you can accept the IDEA of global warming, that a fairly small rise in the overall temperature of the globe would result in the end of life as we know it, then we can proceed with today’s article. Okay?

So, scientists are now predicting that the world is on the way to a catastrophic six degree rise in temperature by the end of this century. If that doesn’t sound like much, think of the difference between a 24 degree day and a 30 degree one. Or, consider that many experts say as little as 2 degrees of change in the overall temperature of the world would be enough to permanently change the ecology of the planet.

This is, naturally, a problem. A change that large has impacts on every level of the ecosphere, from the tinest plants to the largest animals. And in between, looking nervous, humans.

A lot of people have the idea in their heads that “global warming” means that the seas will rise and everyone will be living in a world covered in water.

ABOVE: If only we had listened...

Fortunately it probably won’t be like that. Although it could possibly be that way for people living on small islands. But no one cares about those guys anyway.

ABOVE: No one cares.

In reality most of us will actually find it getting drier, as the temperature rises and previously sub-tropical areas become arid, while the tropics because so hot most of the wildlife literally couldn’t live there any more. It’d be like nature was the fat guy who spent too long in the sauna.

Of course there’s a lot of opposition to the idea of climate change. Mostly from people who have a fairly tenuous grasp of the science involved, but still, they have a sort-of point. There’s no actual hard data that backs up the climate change theory.

Having said that, getting rid of all the crap that we’re pumping into the atmosphere probably isn’t a terrible idea in the long run, you know?

Regardless, my bunker is fitted with airconditioning, just in case.

With changing climate, and pressures put on animals by human encroachment into their habitats, times are touch for our critter friends. And not just tough in an “I can’t find food” kind of way. It turns out that all this destruction of the planet is putting a real damper on animals being able to find a mate. Global warming is cock-blocking the animal kingdom.

Scientists have been noticing the emergence of a brand new animal, created solely out of sweet interspecies love- the Grolar bear. Half Polar bear, half Grizzly bear, all Artic killing machine.  Seriously, that’s a hybrid of the two largest land predators in the world. These things are going to sweep down from the Great White North and devour us all. How will they cross the oceans, you ask? They’ll fucking swim, that’s how. The ocean won’t be game to tell these guys they can’t.

Of course, this isn’t a Ways the World Will End column, so put that aside for now (seriously though, you’ve been warned). The intersting thing about the grolar bear is that it occurred completely on its own, in the wild, without human intervention. Until the thing lumbered at a group of hunters and was shot, presumably as the aborted first wave of their eventual killing spree, we had no idea polars and grizzlies were getting their bone on.

"It was screaming 'Death to all humans'. It actually screamed that."

Previous cross-species hybrids have all been created by humans, usually for a drunken bet. Thus we get useful animals like the Mule (a male donkey crossed with a female horse) and awesome animals like the Liger (a male lion crossed with a female tiger)

An awesome abomination of the natural order

Now, scientists are saying that changing conditions across the globe are going to see many species suddenly reconsider their priorities and maybe lower their standards a little. Researchers in Australia say they expect to start seeing hybrid bird species very soon, given the high nature of specialisation in Australia where there are often several sub-species of bird in a single area, all evolved to feed on diferent types of seeds and nuts.

The upshot of all this is don’t be surprised if you see a wallaroo on your next trip to the bush, or a zebraffe on your next safari. Not to mention King Douchbag Kirk Cameron might finally get his wish of seeing a Crocoduck.

This thing ignores the bread you're throwing and goes staight for the fingers.

In a form of self-destruction I’ve been trying to curb, I love trying new products at fast food restaurants. Every time the marketers come up with some new way to clog the arteries of the western world, I am the first in line, ready and willing to hand over my hard-earned cash to be blissfully brought one step closer to the quadruple bypass club.

So it was with great delight that I heard Hungry Jack’s (the local version of Burger King) was releasing a competitor to MacDonald’s Angus Burgers. Maccas has the Mighty Angus and the Grand Angus, but Jackas?

They have the ANGRY ANGUS

MMMM artery clogging

Not only does it have two angus beef patties, with cheese, as well as THREE different sauces, the marketers have decided to do a bit of free-asociation and throw some onion rings on there, because at this stage, you’re visiting the doctor one way or another; you may as well have some fun.

And in fact doctors have already expressed concern about the Angry Angus. It turns out that even after the changed the recipe slightly, it has twice the recommended daily dose of sodium.

But that sort of thing doesn’t deter a seasoned eating professional such as myself. So it was with confidence I sidled up to the counter at my local HJ’s and ordered an Angry.

“Please fill in this form, sir,” said the girl behind the counter.

“What is it?” I aid

“It’s a standard medical indemnity form, sir. Please list any medical defects you have, and any medication you may be on.”

“What’s this bit down the bottom,” I said, pointing to a worrying paragraph. “It says here I waive any responsibility on the part of HJ’s in the event of my death.”

“Oh yes sir,” she replied, ” that’s just a formality. “Very few people die from the Angry Angus.”

“I see. Well, that’s reassuring.”

I signed the forms and handed them back to the girl, who walked off. After a short wait, she returned carrying a tray with my meal including the fabled burger iself.

I had expected something more substantial, maybe at least a cardboard carton like the ones Maccas has. The Angry Angus simply comes in a standard paper wrapper like all other HJ’s burgers.

I unwrapped it and there it was in all its glory. Of course, it looked nothing like its picture, but then no fast food burger ever has so I wasn’t going to hold that against it.

I raised the deceptively heavy burger up to my mouth and took a bite. The flavours exploded like improvised bombs on the disputed causeway of my tongue. The rich taste of the meat and cheese, the zest of the sauces, and the tingling burn that gives the Angry Angus its Angry. It ws a surprisngly good burger.

I finished it reasonably quickly and got up to thank the girl at the counter. As I stood up though, a tight pain burned in my chest, my mouth went dry, and I let out a low groan as I slid to the floor. As I lay on the linoleum slowly blacking out, I heard the girl say “Gary come quick, we’ve got another one! Bring the trolley!” before blackness overtook me.

I came to in the alley out the back and was handed a bottle of water by a mute teenage boy with a fringe completely covering his eyes and a lip piercing. I thanked him, and walked shakily back to my car, vowing to maybe stop eating crap for a week or something.

Some higher power doesn’t want me to complete the November Challenge. I am sure of it. All this week, since returning to work from holidays, I’ve been all over the place trying to find time to squeeze out a daily article. And now, finally, not content to test me in that small way, the gods of the internet have reached up and sucked the very means by which I write out from under me.

I came home last night to find my computer displaying the Blue Screen of Death. I was understandably miffed about this, but figured a quick restart should do the trick. It did, but when I woke up in the morning, my computer had glitched. It was frozen on the screen saver, and it had weird sprites all over the screen. A restart again did the trick, for the time being.

However I’ve come home tonight, and a restart no longer does the trick. The computer seems to be working fine, but doesn’t revert back to normal display. It stays all glitchy and weird. Tomorrow is going to be taken up with trying to get it fixed, however as it’s a Dell, I’m afraid I may have to send it away to be repaired.

However, I have not learned how to use the internet with only my mind, although that is a talent I hope to some day aquire. Instead I’m using the computer in the next room, an inferior machine, but good enough to get the job done. I will not fail this challenge.

Although at this rate both my hands are going to drop off by Monday, and that would be unfortunate for a number of reasons, “not being able to blog” falling around 23rd in descending order of importance.

I’ve written a couple of times about the so-called generational divides, seperating such generational classes as Generation Y, of which I am a member, from, say, the Baby Boomers, of which my parents are members, and Gen X, of which the older, cooler guys who used to sell weed behind the bike sheds in high school are  members.

Generational issues can shake a society to its core. The activism of the Boomers who made up the core of the anti-war movement in the 60s, to those same Boomers graduating college, cutting their hair, and proceeding to drive the world into an economic black hole in the 2000s. A generation naturally shapes the world in its image, which is why we all have to be worried for the next 10 years or so, as the Boomers step aside and Gen X gets a shot at ruling the world. The generation of MTV and irony is going to be calling the shots. Start investing in bottled water.

Far from that, though, is the issue of what to call a generation. It has to be something of its time. Baby Boomers are so called because they were part of the post-WWII sex explosion which resulted from a lot of young men realising they’d just survived the biggest conflict in history, and it was time to get their bone on. Gen X was so called because of the nihilism and disconnectedness of their formative years.

But after that they started running into trouble. Generation Y was called that because it was the Generation after X. Clever, I suppose, but not exactly a defining name. Or maybe it is, in a way; Gen-Ys have perpetually lived in the shadow of their GenX older siblings. Maybe the name reflects the inferiority complex which infects most of the cohort.

“Generation Z” was just lazy, though. I mean, come ON, Generation namers. Z? Really? As in “after Y”? Someone came up with that after a long lunch, and then called it a day. How do you even get that job, anyway? Does it pay well? Cause I’m pretty sure I could waltz in and just blow them the hell away. “Generation Tyrannosaurus”. You can have that one for free, generation namers, but there’s plenty more where that came from. Call me.

Now, though, I’m really annoyed. Because you know what they’re calling the NEXT generation, the group of rugrats who’ll start appearing from next year, some of whom have already been conceived and are just waiting until January 1 so they can sally forth and lay claim to their birthright?

Generation Alpha.

Yep, you heard me. GENERATION A. They have literally just zipped back to the start of the alphabet and started over. That is lazier than the laziest man in Lazytown (A little place just west of Racistville). That is not even trying.

Oh sure, they dress it up with fancy language by saying that the generation is the first born into the 21st century, the first to properly grow up entirely in the digital age, but come on. Not to mention that it gives the little bastards a superiority complex immediately. “Ooh, we’re Generation Alpha,” they’ll txt. “Look at us on top of the generational ladder.”

Also, if you want to blame someone, blame this guy. I pretty sure he’s the one who put the idea in the generation namers’ heads.  Or possibly blame Kurt Vonnegut, a member of the Greatest Generation, who mentioned it during a commencement address back in 1994-

“Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.”

You were a couple of decades out Kurt, but you were always ahead of your time. And as a member of the last generation people could actually be proud of, well, we can’t really stay angry at you.

Generation A. Generation Y’s kids. I hate the little bastards already. I can’t wait to suck the world dry and leave them with the husk, and then die laughing. I learnt my lessons well.

Do you think we’ve reached a point where Batman is completely unrealistic in the real world?

(Yes, it’s going to be one of those blogs today)

I mean, other than the screamingly obvious argument- that he’s a guy who dresses as a bat and fights crime, who in the real world would have either been hunted down by the National Guard or beaten to death by a gang of thugs long ago.

And, of course, the other argument that Batman as he exists in the comics, despite being ostensibly a regular human being, excels in so many different fields that he’s practically superhuman anyway. He’s an elite athelete, master scientist, inventor, engineer, field medic, linguist and let’s not forget World’s Greatest Detective. He has a superpower- it’s “being Batman”.

And all that’s been fine up til now. We read comics about a guy in red and blue tights who can fly- suspension of disbelief goes a fair old way. But more and more, I find nagging questions popping up again and again while I’m reading Batman’s adventures.

“Why hasn’t anyone just followed him back to the Batcave? It’s easy enough to do nowadays- they have spy drones that could see what you had for breakfast, you’re telling me if the government didn’t want a crazed vigilante running around they wouldn’t try to find him somehow?”

“For that matter, why haven’t the paparazzi tried to find out who he is; finding out Batman’s identity would be the scoop of the decade. And you can be damn sure they’d be more determined than the Government”.

“While we’re on the subject, hasn’t a single paparazzi or reporter noticed that Bruce Wayne behaves really strangely, even for a millionaire playboy?”

“No one is independently wealthy any more; don’t Waynetech investors get worried when they see millions directed into “off-limits research”? Especially post-GFC? Doesn’t the Government worry about what Waynetech is researching?”

I mean, those are mostly off the top of my head. And I know the basic answer to all of them is “shut up and stop overthinking it, you’re poking holes in something which doesn’t need holes poked into it to work”. And that’s true. Batman comics, as long as you ignore big picture stuff like that, are fine. Batman has all the gadgets because he’s rich. No one’s found the Batcave because he’s Batman, and doesn’t let anyone find the cave.

But something else I realised was that a lot of those questions go away if you take Batman back to the time he was created- 1939.

Back then, WW2 was just getting started. Television wasn’t widely available, and most people listened to the radio for their nightly entertainment. “Radiation” was still a near-mystical concept, not yet laden down with the baggage of Hiroshima and the Manhattan project.

The point is that in 1939, it was actually kind of plausible for a guy with unlimited funds and plenty of free time, coupled with a slight mental tilt brought about by the death of his parents, to dress as a bat and fight crime. Not in an actual “this could actually happen” way, but in a comic-booky, suspension-of-disbelief way. Bruce Wayne was a millionaire in the 40s. People back then were raised on a diet of Howard Hughes and William Randolf Hearst; people with insane amounts of money who were actually insane. After their various excesses, dressing up as a bat and beating up street toughs actually looks fairly normal.

And you can explain away all the stuff about the press and the Government; if you were rich and white in the early forties, you could literally get away with murder if you knew enough congressmen. Being a bat-themed crimefighter made you “eccentric”.

Also, suddenly all the gadgets make sense again. Batman’s tech is always a few steps in front of the real world, which has led us to currently in the comics having a Batmobile that can fly. Which is AWESOME, but also kind of implausible. Put him in the 40s and suddenly advanced crimefighting techniques and a supercomputer that doesn’t take up an entire room are impressive again.

Not to mention, most of the great Batman stories exist in a vacuum anyway. The best Batman stories ignore the real world and exist in the heightened reality of Gotham City- looming buildings, grimy streets and deep, dark alleyways. Mobsters and big bulky cars, girls in fur coats and guys in three-piece suits. Zeppelins; there are always zeppelins. Introduce a timeframe onto it, and the vision crumbles.

Batman is a Hero, like Hercules is a Hero. He has thrilling adventures, and defeats fantastic foes, and doesn’t worry if this story was set before the Trojan War or after.

And maybe it’s time we get back to that. Even a continuity whore like me loves to see just a good standalone Batman story, divorced from the pulling weight of over 70 years of backstory and plot, given a chance to fly, or at least swing on a zipline (or do we want to just go ahead and call it a Batrope?)

Remember some of the best Batman properties in recent memory have been standalone, seperate creations. Nolan’s Batman films take the dark, adult side of Batman to it’s gritty extreme. And the fantastic cartoon Batman: The Brave and the Bold takes the goofy fun of Batman in the 60s (and, yes, the TV show) without including the silly camp.

I doubt very much that DC is going to essentially remove their biggest character from ongoing continuity, but a guy can dream. I’m actually really interested to see what  Brian Azzarello does with his First Wave maxi series due out from DC Comics early next year. I had a few minor problems with the one-shot Batman/ Doc Sanvage special one-shot which was meant as a preview of the series (especially Bats blasting away at crooks with twin .45s) but overall I love the hook- go right back to the pulp style stories DC put out in the 30s, include established characters DC owns the rights to like The Spirit and the Blackhawks, and throw Batman into the mix. Take him back to his roots.

Which are, and let’s not ever forget this- he’s an insane (or at least, extremely driven) millionaire who dresses as a bat and fights crime. There’s a purity to that which I think we can all get behind.

Scientists at CERN were left nonplussed over the weekend after the Large Hadron Collider, the massive particle accelerator built beneath Switzerland, failed to destroy the world.

“CURSES!” said CERN head Professor Dick Killington. ”The Device is not performing as expected!”

Professor Killington adjusting a detector array on the LHC

“You have failed me for the last time!” he added, this directed at a random underling in the control room, who fell to the ground, clutching at his neck and was pronounced dead a short time later.

“This is the work of that cursed Fightmaster!”

The Professor was referring to Special Operative Max Fightmaster, Secret Agent.

“Killington won’t be destroying the world any time soon,” Fightmaster said. “Not on MY watch.”

Fightmaster has been monitoring CERN’s activities for some time, since they announced plans to build the enormous particle accelerator beneath Switzerland and France.

“Even though it is under two of the countries we care least about, this machine has the potential to destroy the entire world,” said Fightmaster.

“A lot of people don’t know this, but America is in the world.”

Fightmaster, while remaining tight-lipped about his specific activities, is thought to have been behind several setbacks to the massive collider.

Among them are a technician being killed when a crane was dropped on him in October 2005, a problem with magnetic arrays causing a massive leak of liquid helium in September 2008, and early tests this year being halted when a bird dropped a piece of bread into a key cooling vent.

The bird is believed to have been remote-controlled, as Fightmaster has no known shape-shifting powers.

He said he’ll continue to do everything in his power to halt CERN’s plans.

“You may have wondered why their acronym is “CERN” while they call themselves the “European Organization for Nuclear Research” It’s because CERN stands for the “Collapse Earth Right Now!” initiative.”

Professor Killington remains much more positive about the LHC’s future.

“Once the proper modifications are made, you will see this Device’s TRUE POWER! THEN NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO STOP ME! DARKNESS WILL REIGN, AND THE WORLD WILL BE CONSUMED IN THE FIERY PIT!! MUHAHAHAHAHA! So obviously we’re disappointed, but hope to have better results in the new year.”

All right, here’s the deal. Girl Clumsy and I, despite being comrades in arms and best of friends, have a bitter feud which divides us. Like all feuds, it is a matter of honour, of principle, and of pig-headed stubborness to not see things from the other’s point of view. It involves something which we are both passionate about, about which we care deeply. It is, simply, this-

I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the best musical episode ever, while GC thinks Xena: Warrior Princess not only has a better musical episode, but did theirs first.

Obviously, this is a matter of great importance. Such things rend friendships in two, leaving only bitterness and anger in their wake. We had to settle this once and for all. So we decided a duel was required. We would be the combatants, and the episodes would be our weapons. We would match them against each other, and see who would be the victor.

Also, we would cook up some pasta and also have chips and softdrink and stuff.

So it was that I ventured to Chez Clumsy, armed with my copy of Once More With Feeling. GC, for her part, was ready for me, having the entire six seasons of Xena on DVD, including The Bitter Suite.

We decided the fairest option would be to review the episoide we weren’t championing, in order to get a non-fan’s opinion of it. Also we’d probably be able to snark more.

Therefore, I’ll be reviewing The Bitter Suite here on olilolo. Girl Clumsy will be reviewing Once More With Feeling on her blog. Click over there for part 2, the thrilling conclusion!

XENA: WARRIROR PRINCESS- THE BITTER SUITE

You have to respect an episode with a pun right in the title. It’s giving you something for free, right up front.

Although I am championing Buffy in favour of it don’t get me wrong, I was always a fan of Xena back when it was on TV. Especially her costume, which was basically bondage leathers and a sword, which appealed to a 13 year old Stu immensely. Hell, it appeals to a 26 year old Stu quite a bit as well.

But I always felt the show was a bit too goofy for its own good, something I’ve come to reconsider recently, having re-watched a few episodes and realising the fun everyone involved with the show seemed to be having. That sort of thing is infectious, and you find yourself having fun just watching the show, as the joy of playing dress-ups with swords and bodices bleeds out of the screen.

However I don’t feel it ever reached the greatness which Buffy did in terms of writing and acting. And for my money, nowhere is this more apparent than their respective musical episodes.

Suite is not a bad hour of television. It’s visually arresting, funny in places and tragic in others, and all round a decent experience to watch. But it has its problems.

First of all, you can’t really call it a “musical episode”. It’s an episode of the show which happens to have the characters singing. That sounds like nitpicking, but hear me out. To truly be a short form musical, it would need to be in that format from the start. It should ideally open with either a chorus number or at least some form of introductory song. Instead we see the fallout from the previous episode, with Xena wanting to murder long-suffering sidekick Gabrielle, who she blames for the death of her son, and literally dragging her behind her horse before trying to throw her off a cliff. I mean, I’ll totally take that as an opening, that is awesome. But it’s not a musical.

Instead, they wind up falling off the cliff, and also apparently drop a bunch of acid, because when they awake they’re in the land of “Illusia”, a world of wonders and mystic portents. Also they’re both naked. They definitely score points for this, but lose them again for the somewhat awkward framing device. Obviously there has to be some justification for the characters suddenly singing, but this just left me cold for some reason.

From there we get a series of musical numbers from lightly comic to deeply tragic. Lucy Lawless shines in this, as she is actually a trained singer with a strong alto, and can really start belting out the notes during songs like “Hearts Are Hurting”. Kevin Smith, who plays Ares, also impresses with a light baritone and a swagger that would make him the star of any stage he appeared on. And Ted Raimi is hilarious in his self-aggrandising “Joxer the Mighty”. However the disappointing thing for me was that the episode uses voice doubles for two of the major parts- Gabrielle is dubbed by Broadway singer Susan Wood, while Callisto, who serves as a sort of Greek Chorus (no pun intended) and guide figure in the episode is dubbed by Broadway and film actor Michelle Nicastro. These are two integral parts, especially Gabrielle who has several key songs with Xena, and to have them dubbed makes the episode lose more points, in my opinion.

To its credit though, Suite really latches onto the concept of Big Emotions in songs, the idea that something sung can have more resonance than something merely spoken. It’s an idea which also drives Once More With Feeling, but in The Bitter Sweet it’s taken to its most operatic level, with Xena and Gabrielle practically screaming their lyrics to each other in a genuinely moving series of moments.

My problem with this format is that everything feels as if it’s disconnected from everything else. One moment we’ve got Joxer capering around, the next we’ve got Ares doing what sounds like a cover of Arabian Nights from Aladdin, before a series of near-arias between Xena and Gabrielle. It feels like several songs thrown together, not a coherent muscial episode.

Still, it’s a lot of fun, even with shit getting heavy towards the end. But from what I saw, it never rises to the level of Once More With Feeling, which is a coherent self-contained musical while also pushing the plot of the show forward in several key ways.

None of those were “having its two hot female leads hugging in the surf” though, so one up for Xena there I guess.

Now if the competition had been between Once More With Feeling and Xena’s SECOND musical episode Lyre Lyre Hearts on Fire, it would have been no contest, cause Lyre is fucking AWESOME.

In it, a quest for a magical lyre causes Xena et al to travel to Melodia (Greece’s music capital!) where they organise a Battle of the Bands (no, really), including a group of Amazons, a band of warriors and Joxer’s campy brother Jace, who talks with an exaggerated Spanish accent, wears silk shirts and flamboyantly latin-dances. The episode includes the war band playing a thrashed up version of “Kick out the Jams”, and culminates with Xena and the Warlord Draco (played by Jay Laga’aia!) having a fight while crowdsurfing as the Amazon band play a metal version of Xena’s theme song. It is RAD AS HELL.

But it wasn’t in the running, and therefore has no bearing on this duel. Truly a missed opportunity.

Here is the entire audio track of our viewing of The Bitter Suite. For best results, have your own copy ready to go and press play when prompted. This will give you something to watch during the long pauses when we run out of “funny” things to say and just sit and watch the episode, quietly crunching twisties.

For those of you who don’t want to sit through nearly an hour of two nerds snarking, here is some edited highlights-

8:04- GC- “So now we have Gabrielle being whipped by Amazons” Stu- “Actually there’s retreats which offer this service now.”

8:15- GC- “And here we see our first bare ass of the episode” Stu- “I will admit, you do not get that in Buffy.”

9:10- GC- “Okay if you listen here that’s actually Lucy Lawless singing” Stu- “Is there nothing that woman can’t do?” GC- “No.”

11:40- Stu- “See if this were a different type of film, they’d start kissing now.” GC- “Actually in later seasons they basically just do.”

16:10- GC- (commenting on the lush New Zealand coastline standing in for ancient Greece) “I think this was why I was so freaked out when I visited the Cyclades.”

17:08- (Xena and Gabrielle have plunged into the sea) Stu- “All right, we’re currently in a washing machine ad.” GC- “Gets rid of grease and grime from all of your leather!”

20:08- Stu- “There’s currently an eagle a bull and a lion… AND a jackal-headed god, AND a small dog singing to Xena… in fact everything in this scene including the tables and chairs are singing to Xena.”

24:40- GC- “Currently Xena is being serenaded by a brutish group of warriors.” Stu- “Really the only thing that 300 was lacking was a few show tunes.”

27:45- (An incredible story by GC about how she nearly got cast as an extra on Xena one time. She has the best stories)

29:09- Stu- “This is a big war song between a bunch of soldiers and a bunch of peasants with pitchforks. Historically, those battles tend to be a little one-sided.” GC- “Gabrielle’s got a scythe.” Stu- “Never bring a scythe to a swordfight.”

29:45- (Xena and Gabrielle are fighting) Stu- “Gabrielle has rolled with Xena for how long now? Exactly how well does she think this is going to go?” (Gabrielle is stabbed in the gut by Xena) Stu- “That went about exactly as I was expecting it to.”

31:14- GC- “And now Xena and Ares are sexy-dancing, Xena’s in a sexy tight red dress…” Stu- “She’s got the girl equivalent of a murder boner up.”

33:17- Stu- “Ah it was all a clever ruse!” GC- “Well you know it is Mindfuckistan.”

40:00- Stu- “We’ve just seen a grim reaper looking thing with a hood that turned into a trumpet and blew a fanfare, which is much funnier than you’d think it would be.”

51:40- GC “And that was The Bitter Suite, filmed entirely on location in New Zealand. Any similarity to persons living or dead purely coincidental.” Stu- “Meanwhile there’s a woman on a couch dressed in leather going ‘this is BULLSHIT!’”