The Bitter Suite and All That Jazz
Interview with Rob Tapert (Executive Producer Hercules/Xena)
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 03
SD: I wanted to talk about "The Debt” first. This first glimpse of the early, feral Xena was spectacular. Made for some very popular photos in the calendar, too. (grin) When it aired, was that how you pictured her when you decided to do that story?
Rob: Lucy brought a great quality to it that only she can bring. Yes, the idea was to have Xena the Psychopath. And, we’re going to see that character again.
SD: Great! A lot of people will be happy to hear that. Where did the idea for Lao Ma’s power come from? Those terrific handheld lightning bolts.
Rob: I’m always trying for new ways to do action.
SD: You were looking for a new way to throw a punch?! (laughing)
Rob: Yeah. It’s derived from t'ai chi and seemed a logical extension.
SD: Jacqueline Kim was captivating!
Rob: She was great.
SD: Did you notice there was a chakram around the doorway in Lao Ma's house?
Rob: Ah — no.
SD: You didn't notice it? R.J. (who wrote "The Debt") said he didn't put it in the script and didn't notice it either. That was a neat touch.
Rob: Rob Gillies (Production Designer) would have done that. That's what makes it a great collaborative art because people bring so many different things to it.
SD: R.J. pointed out that that's now part of the myth of the show and he may utilize it in the future. [A quick phone call to intrepid editor/sleuth Robert Field, and a subsequent call to New Zealand, yielded the response, "Oh, of course, the chakram doorway." Apparently, it was Rob Gillies design and he was reported to have said, "Let’s put it in and see if anyone notices."]
Many fans have expressed their wish that "The Debt" had been a feature film.
Rob: You know what, that was meant to be the Xena movie if we had done one a year ago. Universal has not been interested in doing a Xena movie.
SD: "Maternal Instincts" — Hope says, "The Age of Darkness when Dahak will snuff out the people Xena loves till he’s crushed her very soul. And, as she goes, so goes the world." Who is Xena that she deserves all this attention?
Rob: Well, I can't tell you what that meant. Some day, somebody will play connect the dots and find out there’s a reason for her saying that.
SD: "The Bitter Suite" was your baby, right?
Rob: "Debt" and "Bitter Suite" were my babies this year, yes.
SD: That must have been quite a challenge. Not something we usually see on episodic television. Where did the idea to use tarot cards come from?
Rob: Oddly enough, the idea to do the musical came from the tarot cards. I had been mulling over doing a tarot story that went through a hero’s journey and also wanted to do a musical Alice In Wonderland story. Then I realized these two ideas would marry up as Xena In Wonderland with the tarot cards as the basis for Wonderland. It suddenly made perfect sense to do it with Xena trying to kill Gabrielle and their reconciliation. It was four ideas that got patched together.
SD: So it wasn’t decided ahead of time to do the reconciliation of the Rift in a musical?
Rob: No. It all came together. It was a tortuous process to write and there’s a reason people don’t do musicals in TV shows, because it’s too hard.
SD: (laughing) You know that after the fact now?
Rob: Yeah, I do. The pre-production a musical demands is incredible.
SD: About that opening scene . . .
Rob: You mean where Ted was out of character? (laughing)
SD: Well, that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking of, but... Ted was out of character?
Rob: Yeah. Let me tell you, everyone’s got their own problem with the opening of "Bitter Suite." My problem is that Ted broke his character. He wasn’t Joxer.
SD: He was too heroic and protective to be Joxer?
Rob: Right. So I said, "Who's that character and what’s he doing on the show. Tell him to go back to Seaquestl" (laughing) But you know what, here's the true Joxer. When Xena was coming after Gabrielle, Joxer put himself between them. His only thought was to protect Gabrielle. That’s what kind of a hero he is.
SD: Now, back to the opening scene . . . was the dragging of Gabrielle in the beginning, was that as you expected it when you viewed the final result?
Rob: You know, if I told you that was a bit harsher than what I, I (sigh)... There are times when you imagine things and put them on paper and work out sequences and storyboards — I did all that for this sequence — and then you see the footage and say, "Geez, that was more violent than I thought." It happened to me at least three times. Once was in the Hercules episode "The Gauntlet," in the beating scene. I thought, "Wow, I can’t even put that on television." We’ve tried different times to push the borders and this was another case where I thought that we made it too horrifying. I don't mind that Xena did that to Gabrielle. I just thought that, at its length, it was too intense, perhaps.
SD: Too intense for the viewers, not too intense for the characters?
Rob: Yeah. It was meant to make them feel uneasy, but I think they were actually repulsed. Don’t you think so?
SD: I was shocked by it, by the length of it. And the intro leading up to it, with Ares on the mountaintop, wasn’t strong enough to make me believe that Xena would do what she did.
Rob: There’s the rub. We needed her to try to kill Gabrielle and we needed to get there some way to tell that story. Perhaps the setup on the mountain with Ares wasn’t the proper scene to show how much pain Xena was in and why she felt she had to kill Gabrielle. There was so much we wanted to do in that ep. It's one of those things where you say, "Okay, does Xena do this at the end of the Teaser or the end of Act One.” And, believe me, I'm always saying, "I really want to do this as a two-parter.” There's so much that gets dropped in order to fit in an hour, you know.
SD: It played better for me when I ran the end of "Maternal’’ and then watched "Bitter” right after. I had forgotten how much pain Xena was in at the loss of her son. If you play the two episodes together, then the impact is there of why Xena did what she did. She reverted back to the feral Xena from "Debt!"
Rob: She absolutely did! That was the point.
SD: A fan on the internet wrote about "Bitter Suite," "The story at its core was about a love between the two characters. The kind of epic love story that - love conquers all — has traditionally only been shown as between men and women." I thought that was an intriguing way to look at it.
Rob: It absolutely was. It sounds incredibly cliche, but there’s only two things in the world — love and forgiveness. They had been in the trenches and clawed out their relationship. But now they were back together and, ultimately, going to be all the stronger for it. And they will find themselves in more challenging situations because Gabrielle couldn't have been the character she was in "Rome” unless she had been through "Bitter" and "Maternal."
SD: "One Against An Army" was, for me, an example of the quintessential Xena episode — humor, showing the relationship between the two characters, and Xena battling the entire Persian army!
Rob: That episode was incredibly intentional. We had Xena and Gabrielle doing a musical, then we had "Maternal,” and, before that, we had two comedies. The show was adrift as to what it wanted to be and that was coming back, restating very clearly, what Xena first and foremost is, is a kickass show about two friends.
SD: Who’s the Julius Caesar buff?
Rob: Ah, I have to admit, I enjoy Caesar a lot. You know what, we’re playing something very definite. We're not done with Julius Caesar. I like Karl in the part. We have a real story working with Xena that spreads over this year and next.
SD: I asked Steve Sears why Xena hates Caesar so much. And he said, not only was there the betrayal, but, if she hadn't met him, she might not have done all the things she did.
Rob: That’s right! He was the one that spun her out of control.
SD: Was that what you were thinking when you introduced Caesar in "Destiny"? Was he as pivotal a character as he’s come to be now?
Rob: That was always the deciding moment in "who was Xena." The betrayal of Caesar when she was adrift in her life and not knowing exactly what to do. She had successfully defended her little town and done what she was supposed to do and was looking for some other kick or thrill in life. Julius Caesar led her down the gangplank and ultimately betrayed her and Xena took off to the great warlord testing grounds. We’ll get to see a continuation of her rise as the world’s greatest warlord this coming season.
SD: We're going to go back to the days when she was with Borias?
Rob: We are, we are. (definite grin here!) Now, you got the scoop. The couple of Borias and Xena will be back together.
SD: I don’t have any questions about "King Con,” but I liked the byplay with Rafe and loved the gambling Xena.
Rob: You know what, I like Xena the Gambler, too. (smiling)
SD: Wasn’t that a great shot when she held the dice up to her mouth and blew on them?
Rob: Yeah. But I think we’ve seen the end of Rafe. I don't entirely disagree that that is not what our series is about. I know nobody’s gonna be happy for long stretches of time, but everyone’s gonna get moments of sheer and utter joy.
SD: With the broad audience base the show has, you tread the lines very well.
Rob: Have you been to Eastern Europe?
SD: No, I haven't.
Rob: Women, men and children walk down the street holding hands, arm in arm, they kiss each other on the lips all the time when they greet each other. I'd been in Turkey and R.J. had been in Moscow and we came back and said, "Did you notice ...?’’ "Yeah, we should . . .’’ So that's why the kiss was in "The Quest.”
SD: It was a kiss of love?
Rob: It was absolutely a kiss of love.
SD: "No matter what happens, Gabrielle, I will always be with you."
Rob: That's exactly what that was.