Interview with Liz Friedman (Producer)
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 02
Why a rift? Why now?
We wanted to shake things up a bit. Historically, what happens with action shows is that you build your audience for the first two years and then you level off in your third.
You watch television for familiarity, you want to see the same characters week after week. But after a certain point, that familiarity can become stale. What we said is, let’s take this relationship and, while keeping it in realistically the bounds of what the relationship is, what we can throw at it?
We’ve had in these four episodes the loss of Gabrielle’s Blood Innocence (established in the “Dreamworker” episode), the birth of the baby, the Rift and Xena’s back story. All of which could have been separate episodes. For instance, the loss of Blood Innocence was to set up Gabrielle so she could be the vessel to bring Dahak into the world. Yet, you made up the god and you can make up the rules, so she could have been the proper vessel simply because of the pure soul she is. Why make her kill?
It seemed more compelling that way because the fact is that what Dahak had to do was take the purest thing in the world and soil it and then it becomes a possible vessel for his seed. That’s cooler than thinking evil can just implant its seed in good anytime. No - good has to take a step toward evil. And the idea that anybody, even somebody as good as Gabriele, can be put into a situation where they kill someone - that’s just inherently more interesting.
What about the idea that Gabrielle could have lost her Blood Innocence saving Xena?
You know, I just don’t think Xena would ever need to be saved. My feeling is that people would end up feeling ripped off because Gabrielle would have given up her Blood Innocence for something that she didn’t need to do. Because you would be saying, “Well, Xena could have gotten herself out of that.” I was happy at how successful we were at duping people with Khrafstar.
At the end of “The Debt II,” when Xena’s under the axe, we have Gabrielle standing next to Ming T’ien and she doesn’t make any effort to save Xena. We’ve seen her throw herself on the executioner’s block to save David (“Giant Killer”) and kill to save Khrafstar. It seemed uncharacteristic of her not to be trying in every way possible to save Xena’s life.
She’s been saying to Xena, “Tell him you won’t kill him,” and Xena won’t say that. Xena won’t do anything to save herself. So the question is, if Gabrielle throws herself on top, is it really going to save Xena if she wants to die? When Gabrielle put herself on the block for David, she really thought she would prevent his execution. But if she put herself between the axe and Xena, she knew Ming T’ien would kill both of them.
After this arc (which also includes “Maternal Instinct” and “The Bitter Suite”) is over, will we see a lasting change in the characters?
You know, I don’t feel I can comment on that cuz that’s the writers’ arena. It hasn’t been fully explored yet. But is it going to have some impact on who those characters are as people? Yes. it doesn’t ever really quite be as if it never happened and in some ways it can be stronger. You say, okay, I know that there can be a wrinkle and we can make it through, but it’s still not the same as if that never happened.
Is there anything in particular that stands out for you about the making of these episodes?
I think the entire time we were all filled with a mixed sense of both the glee of coming up with a really wild and dramatic story and also going, “Are we really gonna do this!” And I will certainly cop to the fact that now that we’ve done it, it was absolutely the right thing, but I was a bit worried in the beginning.
About doing the Rift?
The whole thing - Gabrielle used to bring Satan’s child into the world and Xena wanting to kill a baby and, oh boy, do we really want to shake things up this much. But hats off particularly to Rob and R.J. who, I think, never had a second of doubt. To do things that are risky when you’re in a position of success is a much more courageous thing than anyone realizes.