Journey’s End
Although Hercules' adventures officially conclude with the series finale, Full Circle, the preceding sixth season instalment Hercules, Tramps & Thieves was actually the final episode to be shot. Kate Barker visits the set during filming and meets one of Hercules' most unusual co-stars yet: an authentic wild west sheriff!
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 04
There are a number of reasons why the sixth season episode Hercules, Tramps & Thieves is a very special instalment of the series. For one thing, it's a wild west tale of lust, greed and bank-robbery. For another, it stars former porn queen Traci Lords as a black-clad femme fatale named Luscious. The plot also involves the King of Thieves, a looted steel bank vault, and a sheriff who will stop at nothing to lay down the law.
Wait a minute. Sheriff? Bank vault? The wild west?
Yes, Hercules has gone west - and that perhaps is the most important fact of all. After five telemovies and six phenomenally successful seasons, Hercules, Tramps & Thieves is the show's final instalment to be produced. And being on the set of a long- running series when the director calls “Wrap” for the last time is certainly an emotional experience.
Outside a dark studio temporarily transformed into a bank vault, character actor John Sumner takes a break from playing an authentic western sheriff to reminisce about his first adventure with the son of Zeus.
“I first arrived on the second movie [Hercules and the Lost Kingdom] - I played the Innkeeper - and I was fortunate enough to act with Anthony Quinn [Zeus]. I mean, you arrive from your office, and there's somebody like Anthony Quinn on set!”
Quinn was approached to play the father of the gods (and of Hercules) after fellow acting veteran Charlton Heston passed on the role. Now, on the last episode of Hercules to be shot, actors like Sumner get to work alongside a different kind of screen legend.
“This time we’ve got Traci Lords,” notes Sumner. “You just get to play with all these really good actors - it’s amazing!”
But, a Western in Ancient Greece? “It's fantasy,” points out Sumner. “It doesn’t matter!
“The one thing about Hercules that’s really interesting," he continues, “is that it's able to successfully cross genres all the time. I mean, look at this...” Sumner proceeds to show off his ‘authentic’ sheriff's outfit, which appears to have come right out of a John Wayne movie. “What a great costume! It really looks like it fits. You come in here and you get dressed up and you do the whole thing with your tongue firmly in your cheek. Doing this show's just a whole lot of fun."
Sumner, like many of the cast and crew, emphasizes comedy as a large part of the formula behind the success of Hercules. “I don't want to overstate it, but it is just a lot of fun to do. We assumed when we first read it that it was pretty tongue-in-cheek... and Kevin [Sorbo, Hercules] is always a lot of fun to work with.”
Maybe it’s the location. Sumner feels that the show's local cast and crewmembers infuse the production with a slightly quirky, Kiwi sense of humour.
“It’s very much an ensemble piece, in that the cast and crew all step in,” he explains. “So there’s a combination of the [American] writers, Kevin’s talent and also this Kiwi twist. Being shot in New Zealand gave it something that I don’t think anyone expected at the time. But it worked, and it kept working the whole time through.”
During the six years that Hercules: The Legendary Journeys has been in production, Sumner has appeared on the series several times in a variety of guest roles. “The last time I was here, I played a lawyer in an episode called Hercules on Trial,” he recalls. “That was two years ago, and I come back and it’s like I haven’t been away.
“It’s been great,” he adds. “I spend the rest of my life in serious business, then I come out here and play.”
Sumner admits that although the show’s completion does mean the end of a legend - or at least this version of it - it’s all part of the business of television. “There’s a certain sadness about it, but also, I’m aware that the acting business is just going to keep on going. I’m going to run into most of the cast and crew again, because... well, I usually do! [In New Zealand] we just sort of run into each other all the time. So I’m sad to see it go, but it is a natural progression.”
That said, Sumner is very grateful to have been able to take part in the final Hercules shoot. “Being there almost from the beginning, I really wanted to get the last episode. I was very, very glad when the opportunity came up.”
So that’s a wrap. Kevin Sorbo and sidekick Michael Hurst (lolaus) have already signed up for other features and series, most of the Hercules crew will either stay with its production company, Renaissance Pictures, or find more work elsewhere, and actors like Sumner will probably continue guesting and starring in new and exciting projects. We’ve already reported on the two new half-hour action series (the swashbuckling Jack of all Trades and futuristic Cleopatra: 2525) already set to take over from where Hercules left off.
Of course, nothing can take the place of a hero that easily. Six years is a long time to build up a legend, and this legend will not be forgotten.
Asked for one line to sum up this final filmed episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Sumner puts it as succinctly as possible: “The end.”
That about covers it really.