Rob Tapert
Executive Producer
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 11
SD: We're heading into the Twilight of the Gods. Is this a story you wanted to tell when the series started if it lasted long enough?
Rob: No. What if I told you I thought we'd do it on Hercules and it ended before we got there?
SD: I'd believe you.
Rob: This was also the feature film I wanted to do with Hercules and Xena once upon a time.
We never dealt that much with the Greek gods on Xena and it dove-tailed that Hercules ended 14 episodes before we thought it would and Xena's baby provided us with an instrument to use for this backdrop. I don't know if it's the end of the gods, but it's the end of their reign of power. I know people are concerned that we’re going to switch to a monotheistic universe, but Xena's far smarter than that. She's had too many encounters with the gods.
SD: That’s what fans have been saying. Xena's had so much trouble with the gods, why would she believe this new one, Eli, would be any different?
Rob: She doesn’t. It’s only that her daughter is confused. She’s into a cult.
SD: How is the actress playing Eve, Adrienne Wilkinson, doing?
Rob: I haven’t seen much footage yet. It’s always hard to find someone who can act and do the fighting.
SD: Does she look anything like Xena?
Rob: She looks shockingly like a cross between Lucy and Hudson!
SD: She’s the best nemesis for Xena that's come along since Callisto because she has an emotional tie to Xena the other villains haven't had.
Rob: She does and that's my hope.
SD: No pun intended?
Rob: We have not forgotten about Hope. She shows up at just the right time.
SD: The gods on Xena haven’t really been that bad. Even Ares was too good-looking and seductive to make everyone hate him.
Rob: He does something bad. He does something very good and then he does something very bad.
SD: I can't wait to see the shows at the end of this season.
Rob: I hope it all works. I wasn't satisfied with a lot of the episodes this season. I liked “Fallen Angel,” “Them Bones,” “God Fearing Child,” “Seeds Of Faith,” and “Amphipolis.” But I like what we’re doing in the last five episodes.
I just saw the breakdowns of the demographics of the people watching “Lyre, Lyre.” I was shocked women turned it off. Men loved it.
SD: You had the song “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” sung by women dressed as go-go dancers. That's a bit of a conflict.
Rob (smiling as he thought about this): That is a conflict.
SD: The images from “Fallen Angel.” Who was the artistic inspiration?
Rob: Gustave Dore.
SD: It seems you're faced with a continuity conundrum. If Ares dies, it conflicts with “The Xena Scrolls” and him being alive in 1940.
Rob: You know what, I’m still wrestling with that. I saw a bit of “Deja Vu” on tv last night and he’s in that too! And I thought, “That's not going to work with the story we’re telling now.” It starts shooting in two weeks. I’d better figure out what I want to do. (laughing) I’m not certain the season will end with him dead, but certainly the gods will be defeated.
SD: Well, you can work it out next year.
Rob: Next year, I'm going to do something totally different. The plan is to leave Greece and do more traveling.
SD: Which direction?
Rob: Germany.
SD: You've got stories in mind you want to tell?
Rob: Yeah. There's something I've always wanted to do - it's not “A Day In The Life,” because that episode is incredibly story-driven. I want to do the regular activities of Xena and Gabrielle traveling. Like water rafting. Things like that.
SD: That’s what people seemed to have missed most this past season. The two of them together. Season three had a built-in rift with Xena and Gabrielle lying to each other. In season four, there was a philosophical rift. They weren’t fighting, but they seemed to be walking parallel to each other. With Lucy being pregnant in season five, it simply wasn’t possible to have them together on screen for many of the episodes.
Rob: Certainly in the third season we went out of our way to show the consequences of lying to each other. Little white lies turned into loggerheads. That to me is good tragedy. But I disagree with people who thought they were apart in season four.
I thought we showed they were perfect mates and were going on a journey that one goes through in life with your partner. They were both trying to discover who they are. They gave each other the freedom and support to do this.
This season has absolutely been a failure in terms of missed opportunities.
SD: Do you have a more personal investment in Xena because this was a character you always wanted to do - a character you helped invent?
Rob: Yes. I love the bloody show! And no one is more disappointed that this season, for example, the two China episodes, which I felt should have been great, were disasters. They were done during a time of transition of the staff of the show and we tried to shore up the second one, but it didn't work.
A pregnant Xena facing the decision that the only way she could protect herself is to kill 100,000 people is a great emotional moment. And nothing was made of it. That was the whole story. Xena saying, “Gabrielle, I can't kill all these people and bring somebody into this world and not have it affect my child.” That was the story and it got lost and changed into things that didn't matter.
SD: I was stunned when there wasn’t any discussion about turning the army into stone. I realize it was based on that story about the archeologists finding the buried stone army, but that's something Evil Xena would have done. Not the Xena of today.
Rob: I think if those two episodes had been better, it would have changed a lot. They were just two letdowns. “Back In The Bottle” was one of the weakest shows we’ve ever done.
It's what Lucy and Renee have said. Even when you’re fighting, you need to find the heart of the characters. The heart of the scene that protects the love between the characters. And that didn't happen this season. We had that in the third and fourth seasons.
SD: Xena would never kill 100,000 people without blinking.
Rob: Right.
SD: They need to talk things out more.
Rob: You know what. I want to finish Xena on a high note. I feel confident in the sixth season that those who are disillusioned, if they watch what we do next year, will be rewarded.
I think some fans are going to be unhappy with “Kindred Spirits” because we show the Amazons sans nobility. But they're juveniles, kids, and they’re leaderless. But that episode has my favorite moment of the year so far. It's very simple. Xena sitting down reading Gabrielle's scrolls. It’s a small moment, but every time I see it I go, “Awww.” (chuckle)
SD: When did you decide to have Xena do that?
Rob: We knew it from the time we filmed “Ides.” We said there's got to be an episode this year where Xena sits down and reads the scrolls.
SD: It was confusing to see Renee and Ted bickering the way they used to in “Married With Fishsticks” after the relationship between Gabrielle and Joxer had been rather neatly wrapped up in “Eternal Bonds.” Even though they were playing different characters, it was disconcerting to see Ted as Hagar the Lech and Gabrielle/Crustacea mistreating him.
Rob: Hardcore fans will know we filmed “Fishsticks” before “Eternal.”
SD: I heard there was a kiss between the dying Joxer and Gabrielle in “Eternal” that was cut.
Rob: Right, we cut that. I was at the readthrough and I said, “She can't kiss him! You know what a betrayal that would be to everything you’ve said?” And Renee said, “Oh, thank you.”
SD: Renee was a hit in “Fishsticks,” but not much else about the episode went over well.
Rob: You know what, I will freely cop to this because we had to do a totally Lucy-free episode or only use her half a day. And I wanted to try, as the basis for another show, the concept of a Simpsons in an underwater Jetson’s-like environment. South Florida kitsch, mermaids, all that stuff in a live action format. And it didn't work.
SD: Was it supposed to be partly animated?
Rob: No, totally live action. Even Steve Rosenberg, the head of sales, called me and said, “It was good eye candy, but what were you thinking?” (laughing)
SD: Are there any rules to writing Xena?
Rob: What are the rules, hmm. Every rule is meant to be broken. Is there anything written in stone? I can only say that, going forward, the relationship between the characters is the heart of the show. That's what has to be serviced by the story rather than the characters serving the story. That’s what happened in the fifth season. When you lose that, it becomes a big story and who cares about the people in it.
I went out of my way recently to watch a bunch of Buffy and Angel episodes. And I wondered why I enjoy watching Xena more? It's because of Lucy and Renee. It's the actors and their characters of Xena and Gabrielle that I love.
SD: As the executive producer, do you have to make a decision about who you make the show for - kids or adults?
Rob: You do. You have to decide tonally. And Xena was schizophrenic more so this season than ever.
SD: Will you be going more for the adults next season?
Rob: Yes, I am. And there’ll be no more Joxer next season.
SD: Do you kill him off in a good way?
Rob: We do. You know who kills him?
SD: No, who?
Rob (chuckling): (whispers the answer to me)
SD: Oh my God!
Rob: He dies saving Gabrielle. That’s all Joxer’s wanted to do.
SD: There have been some pretty hot scenes between Xena and Ares lately.
Rob: We have an episode coming up that’s the most sexually predatory story we’ve ever told. And if I have any concern, it’s over that.
SD: Predatory?
Rob: Xena uses sex as a weapon. “Amphipolis” was the first time we've ever done that. We do it again in “Antony And Cleopatra.” It didn't bother me with Ares in “Amphipolis” because it was part of Xena's ruse.
SD: They've played so many games with each other?
Rob: Yeah, but in that episode it was the only weapon left to her. The siege mentality was the justification for her going to Ares and spinning her web that way. Lucy as an actress is hot and Kevin’s a good-looking guy. There's a certain chemistry between them that we wanted to utilize.
SD: Renee and I had a talk about kissing scenes and the guy in “Back In The Bottle.” There just seemed to be something missing in their scenes.
Their lack of chemistry might have helped the story. What I saw was Gabrielle focused on Xena and what they had to accomplish. That was where her life was. She couldn’t go off and settle down with Lin.
Rob: There was no passion. Renee came to me and said, “This is not going to work.” I told her to do her best and I’d try and rescue it in the editing room.
But the story between Gabrielle and Lin was such a bad idea. It needed to be about Xena and Gabrielle and the weight on their shoulders.
SD: You need more of that.
Rob: I know.
SD: I heard you were thinking of using Karl Urban to play Octavius/Augustus Caesar? By the way, who is Augustus Caesar?
Rob: Caesar was Julius Caesar and after he died, Augustus Caesar was his grandnephew. He was originally born Octavius and took the name Augustus. He tried to get the name Caesar added to it, but the Romans had deified the name by then. They were loathe to give it to him. But, over time, all the rulers who followed took the name Caesar if they had any of his blood in them.
SD: So you wanted to use Karl to play another Caesar?
Rob: We thought about it and then everyone talked me out of it. I should have gone with Karl. I like him. Others thought it would be too confusing.
SD: What would you like people or children to take away from watching this show?
Rob: I've made plenty of episodes that are far too violent for young children. But if there's any legacy I hope these shows have at the end, it's that they promote tolerance. It’s okay to be black or Maori or white or gay or straight. That's really the only thing I care about.