Gabrielle’s Hope
written by R.J. Stewart
Interview with R.J. Stewart (Executive Producer)
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 02
Gabrielle has a baby and the father is Satan. What was the genesis of this story… no pun intended (grin)
The whole thing came out of a meeting Rob Tapert and I had. We wanted to come up with an interesting villain. And we said what about a baby as a villain. That was the beginning.
I can see the glee in your eye!
You’re right (laughing). Then you can understand how that became Rosemary’s Baby and then the really outrageous point was when we decided it was Gabrielle’s baby. Because I think the first thing we spoke about was another character has a baby. But when we decided it would be Gabrielle’s baby, it got real interesting. We pitched it to everybody else expecting resistance. At first there was this shock and then writers and producers started clicking on it.
So you started with “Gabrielle’s Hope?”
Yes. And then we had to set it up. It had to be a two-parter. You have to see how she gets impregnated and that became “The Deliverer.”
Renee talked about the birth scene and that she had to do it over again this time with the animals on the set with her.
I called Renee and apologized to her because I was the one that wanted it done again.
She said you wanted it to be more horrific.
Rob was down there and directed the scene the second time and made it more horrific.
She said it was an intriguing experience. And speaking of intriguing, Xena is revealed as the rightful King of England?
The Round Table is a Roman Britain legend and we’re in Roman Britain, so the Round Table should be there! Of course, Arthur hasn’t shown up yet, the sword is still in the stone.
And then the Round Table shows up as a wall decoration in Lao Ma’s house. Were you aware of that?
Really. I didn’t know that.
“Gabrielle’s Hope” was one of those episodes I did not like until I saw it at home. I liked it when I wrote it, but then I thought, this isn’t working. But when I saw the finished version at home, I was very pleased with that.
What people wanted was more conversation between Xena and Gabrielle explaining their different points of view.
There actually was more conversation at one point, but I had to pare it down to a more emotional, visceral kind of thing. I couldn’t have Gabrielle’s argument be too good. In an earlier draft, I had written this really persuasive argument by Gabrielle why Xena shouldn’t kill this baby. Gabrielle explained that just because the child killed somebody, it’s half god and doesn’t know its own strength. I couldn’t get into that. We had to buy Xena’s conviction totally. That Xena knew this baby was evil. And we had to feel Gabrielle’s idealistic thinking. She changed Xena, she could change this baby.