written by Emily Skopov
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 19
SD: When you were hired to write for Xena, did you know the show?
Emily: Yes. I knew of the show, but, frankly, like a lot of people, I wrote it off as being campy and for kids without having seen it. But one day I was flipping channels and caught one of the China episodes. I was immediately riveted. I was amazed and very, very impressed and realized I had no idea what the show was really about.
My impression is that a lot of other people don’t know either. The people who tend to write it off but never bothered to watch it. I called my agent and told her I’d seen that Xena show and it was unbelievable! When an opening came up at Renaissance, she called and said I wanted to write for the show.
SD: I hadn’t seen it either before we got the license. I was given the day, time and channel and told to watch this show, Xena. I don’t think I would have noticed it if not for that because I’m not an action-adventure fan. Now I think what I would have missed because of that prejudice.
Emily: Sometimes I don’t like the term “action-adventure,” because it has a bad connotation that the show will have a lack of quality - just a lot of action and not very intelligent. And if you watch some of these shows, they’re well done. And some, like Xena, are very, very smart - the dialogue is smart. Why can't you have good action, good stunts and also intelligent characters speaking intelligently. Three-dimensional characters with real stories that don't just showcase the action. I think that misleading genre term can scare people away.
SD: It shows the damage of labels.
Emily: Very true.
SD: When you got the job, what were you told about the show? For example, about the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle? How do they bring someone new up-to-speed with a show that has been on for five years?
Emily (laughing): With difficulty. They gave me a batch of episodes to watch and scripts to read. And then you end up talking about the show in the room as you're working on the story for your particular episode. You get your lessons day by day depending on the knowledge you demonstrate about the show.
For example, if you turn in an outline or pitch a story for an episode, that's an opportunity for them to say, “The relationship really isn’t like that and we would do it more like this.” Or, “We've gone beyond that and now they’re at this point.” Or, they might say you’re right on target. It's in the moment that they would correct.
But it was very difficult to come in at such a late date. To their credit, they had done so much already with the characters that it was almost like there was very little room anymore to grow. You knew you were probably winding up for the big finish. You understood that there was a direction. Whereas before, in the earlier seasons, they had a chance to be more experimental, they weren't hemmed in with a need to get to the end.
SD: Did you know going in this was going to be the last season?
Emily: No, I didn’t. There was talk that it might be. But any show, once it gets to season three or four, you start to wonder what might happen. It wasn't definite and there was some hope it might continue. But you begin to feel the vibe.
SD: How did they decide to do a trilogy of episodes in the Norse country based on the Valkyries? I know Lucy saw a statue of a Valkyrie in a park and told Rob she liked it.
Emily (laughing): I hadn’t heard that. It seemed like Rob and R.J. (Stewart) had had conversations about wanting to do something with the story of The Ring. Because of the style of the show, Rob and R.J. can do their own version of a big story like that. They were intrigued by Beowulf and The Ring. I think they were tossing around ideas before I came on staff.
SD: They wanted to visit other cultures and other gods?
Emily: Right. It was a new pantheon to deal with. Interestingly enough, a new translation of Beowulf had just come out and I read that. And we were all reading The Ring. Rob asked, “Is this viable? Can we make it work with Xena?” Can we blend two famous epics? It’s always amusing to me that we get away with certain things. (laughing) Sometimes I worry it confuses people who don’t know the real story. But, on the other hand, you bring it to a lot of people who, otherwise, would have no awareness of it whatsoever. It’s a good thing.
SD: Did you know Rob and Lucy are opera fans? That’s another reason The Ring would appeal to them.
Emily: I don't think I was aware of that. I'd never seen The Ring, but I wanted to after I got into the story.
SD: R.J. wrote “The Rheingold,” Joel (Metzger) wrote “The Ring,” and you wrote the final episode in the trilogy, “The Return Of The Valkyrie.” How did it get divided up like that?
Emily: It made sense for R.J. to lay the groundwork and start it off. He might have already had some ideas. Because R.J. and Rob have had an ongoing relationship for so many years, you got the sense there was no such thing as seasons. They were in constant conversation about Xena. They already had a grasp on how to open the storyline.
Being next in line, in terms of seniority, I believe they gave me the choice of whether I wanted to do the second or third episodes. We began to talk about what parts two and three might encompass and where they would go. I thought it would be really fun to play with the idea of Xena losing her memory and becoming a different character - to play with her identity. That became the last part.
SD: “Return Of The Valkyrie” opened with the notice that It was taking place “One year later.” It seemed that Xena had been plucked out of the water although some fans wondered if Hrothgar lied to her about that.
Emily: No, he didn't lie to her.
SD: Was there a section missing where the missing year and Xena being rescued from the sea would have been shown?
Emily: No, I guess you’d say it was dramatic license. (laughing) You don’t always know what the audience is going to accept and what they're going to question.
We had this idea that Xena had lost her identity and was wandering around. It’s cold and it’s winter and I think we even contemplated showing her wandering near water as she’s saying, “What’s happened to me?” The idea is that she's so lost and confused she might have gotten on a ship and washed up on shore in Hrothgar’s land or near where he is. Some catastrophe befalls her because she’s weakened. And he pulls her out of the water. We saw her as this weakened, injured, exhausted person. Almost as if she would wander into the water unconsciously.
When you conceive the story, you include scenes that you realize aren’t totally essential. But then you think maybe we needed something there like Hrothgar pulling Xena out of the water or seeing her wandering at the water’s edge murmuring, “Who am I? Who am I?” And then collapsing. These little bits that might have pulled the beginning of the story together just never happened. But Hrothgar wasn't lying and the Valkyrie had seen Xena wandering around, hopeless, and they assumed she had died.
SD: What was the power of the Ring and what did it do to whoever put it on?
Emily (laughing): Another fine question I hope I can answer. The power of the Ring imbued you with supernatural abilities. If you had forsaken love, you would reap all the rewards of the Ring. If you hadn't forsaken love and you put it on, bad things would befall you. You never knew how it was going to affect you, but it wasn’t going to be pretty. The things you valued most would be lost. For Grinhilda, it was not just her outer beauty, but her inner beauty that was lost. That’s why she became a monster.
For Xena, the most important thing was Gabrielle. By putting on the Ring when she had not forsaken love, she lost her memory of Gabrielle. If you have nothing else of the person you love, you have your memories.
SD: That's why she was so lost. At first, I thought Xena simply lost her memory. But in losing her memories of Gabrielle, she lost herself.
Emily: Right. But the point of the visions Xena was having of Gabrielle was that even though she had lost her memory, their love was so strong, Xena didn't have to know who Gabrielle was to still feel a pull toward her. No matter what, the bond could never be severed - not even by the Ring. There was nothing that could destroy their love.
SD: Rheingold and the Rheinmaidens - what can you tell me about them?
Emily: The Rheinmaidens are there to guard the gold. They were these happy, cavorting maidens and it’s interesting, looking back on it now, to think of them guarding anything. (laughing)
There’s no explanation for where the gold came from, just that it’s there. It’s part of the creation of the universe and is symbolic of some primal power that is pre-civilization. The gold is part of the natural world.
It’s not being guarded by violent beings, but by these creatures that seem as one with nature. And we see what happens to the world when the gold falls into the wrong hands. Those with a positive purpose would leave the gold where it belongs. And those who would abuse its power will try and steal it. It could be a metaphor for so many different things.
At least, that’s what I remember. I hope it’s right. (laughing) I read this stuff very fast in order to get up to speed in order to participate in discussions about the story. Then your brain has a place way in the back where it pushes everything so you can work on the next project.
SD: Things that are elemental are frequently imbued with a source of power.
Emily: And also innocence. I think that’s the idea. It’s part of an innocent time and it’s a question of who comes and ruins that and destroys it.
SD (laughing): Mankind.
Emily (laughing): Yep, pretty much.
SD: People felt that when Xena became Walthea, she was very much like Gabrielle - wanting to help people, being against violence.
Emily: I think that’s a pretty astute perception. She does become very Gabrielle-like. We did toy around with what Xena would be like when she lost her memories. That was the biggest challenge of the episode. We tried a few different ways. We were concerned that if she was not Xena, would people be turned off and not want to watch her? They would miss her being this ass-kicking, aggressive person. Would they be bored? Would they find it flat, uninteresting? It was a big debate. Until the episode was cut together, no one was sure how it would play.
It’s up to the individual how you view Xena in her earlier life - why she was so violent and aggressive. I think the point was that the change in Xena after she put the Ring on showed how much a part of Xena Gabrielle had become. Gabrielle changed Xena right down to her foundation. When Xena lost everything else, you see the influence Gabrielle has worked on her.
SD: Xena didn’t become a warlord because she was bad. She started out defending her village, got some power and it caught hold of her. R.J, Steve Sears and Chris Manheim always said there was a spark of goodness in Xena. And you could have turned her into a swordwielding Viking after she put the Ring on.
Emily: That was part of the debate, but then we thought she would still be Xena. That’s not interesting, it’s just changing her costume. We decided to do something we hadn't seen before and hope the viewers would go with it.
SD (laughing): People very much went with it and they particularly liked that white fur outfit.
Emily (laughing): That was Xena's Dr. Zhivago outfit. It was stunning. It also would have been good for a fashion shoot for Vogue.
SD: We’re now up to the “sleeping Gabrielle.” Was there a discussion about how to wake her? And when you realized how you were going to wake her, did you know the part you were going to play in the mythology of the show?
Emily: I was very excited to have the kiss in my episode. Oh yes, that was cool. (laughing) I don’t know when or how it came up, but I think almost from the beginning, once we got to the idea of “sleeping Gabrielle,” we thought Xena should kiss her to wake her up. It seemed the perfect time and place. Especially knowing this might be the last season. Why not?
SD: And “the kiss that wakes” plays a part in many myths and fables.
Emily: Right. I can’t think of too many other ways we even discussed waking her. If we did, they were so minor, I can’t even remember them. It seemed we were always going to do this unless we chickened out at the last minute.
SD: You know, Lucy didn’t remember doing that.
Emily (laughing)
SD: She also said that her only concern at the time was that it fit the story and not be gratuitous.
Emily: And I don't think it was.