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A clip show is often a real low point in US tv series, but XWP has managed something a bit different in each season. Athens City Academy in series one was a nice showcase for Renee O`Connor and some old film clips too. Series two`s The Xena Scrolls featured a spoof Indiana Jones characte r- Janice and Mel may even return some day. This episode is actually a very important one in the series, as it focuses on Gabrielle and her efforts to come to terms with her memories of some of the things that have happened to her this year. It also answers a big question - how did Gabrielle get to Chin before Xena in The Debt?
The set up is that Gabrielle is having terrible nightmares and decides to see the Priestess of Mnemosyne - who has the power to take away memories. The priestess, (a spectacularly bad actress named Jan Hellriegel) tells Gabrielle that she must enter a sort of dreamscape where she must face her memories and come to terms with them or risk losing them altogether. Joxer is around to take care of her memory-less body, while Gabrielle encounters Ares who "helps" her to cross the lakes of her memories in search of the truth.
Naturally there are lots of clips, (shame they had the dullest song from Bitter Suite), but the scenes with a blissfully ignorant Gabrielle and Joxer are amusing. The Gab/Ares scenes are a bit more unnerving as Gabrielle suffers the torments of the previous episodes again. When it comes, the revelation about how she beat Xena to Chin, and why are quite a surprise. It was a question that bugged a lot of fans, although of all the things that have happened to Gabrielle, THAT was the worst? The one that she had nightmares over? This episode has very little Lucy Lawless in - I think she was doing the January convention while Renee filmed it, but she is in the flashbacks of course.
Special mention to the really incredibly bad actress playing that priestess. She must have been a late stand in because she fitted the dress, or a relative of someone as she really was more wooden than the RenPics trees.
Renee O`Connor on the other hand was very good again. She is more comfortable with comedy, and plays up to Ted Raimi as Joxer as he spins her a tale about Gabrielle being in love with him. However, she is also very good as the suffering Gabrielle, and her attack on Ares with her trusty staff shows once again that she is a more than capable fighter these days too. Some people felt uncomfortable with Joxer fooling Gabrielle into thinking she was in love with him, but I think that is taking a comedy sequence too far...Ted is great as comic relief, and he and Renee always look like they are having fun.
Among some excellent episodes this year, this is not a classic, but it is an above average one.
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