Dangerous Prey Reviewed

After Queen Marga - who we met in Coming Home is killed, Xena and Varia go off to find who is hunting Amazons out of season. They come across Prince Morloch and his men, and he realises Xena is the sort of challenging foe he has been looking for. Of course, we could have told him he was asking for trouble - he might as well have kissed Gabrielle, as we know he a going to end up dead!

After a few skirmishes, Varia is captured and Xena is drawn into a duel with Varia tied up like a silent movies helpless heroine - only not on any railway track, but on top of a gigantic Jenga game. You know that game, loads of rectangular pieces of wood are stacked up on top of each other to make a tower and you have to remove the pieces one at a time. Well, Xena and Morloch play a big version. Morloch tried to make the tower collapse and bump off Varia, while Xena tries to save her. The fight ends badly for Morloch - but not quite in the way you might expect...

This was a pretty good effort from Renee O`Connor. She shows that she is very adept at drama as well as comedy. The main problem with this episode is that the second half of the story rather falls apart. It begins well, with some great chase sequences, Morloch`s face kept hidden, we get Xena and Varia having to come to an understanding about how to work together. Then we have that great sequence in the caves where Xena and Morloch begin their duel. Fabulous lighting and atmosphere. Funny one liners aswell. After that though, the story just runs out of steam and decent ideas. The final confrontation was quite exciting, and the way Xena wins it with cunning and coolness says a lot about her - Xena is no thrill seeker like Morloch, and his impaling on a log was lovely and bloody! However, there are just too many daft plot holes (which I will go into in the Huh? section below.)

I thought Prince Morloch was an intriguing character. He was quite similar to Xena in fighting style and even had a chakram like weapon - although it was like an inverted chakram - a sort of inside out circle.. He also made a nice change from the brainless thicko warlords who seem to be out for world domination with barely a brain cell between them. He is shown to be a fairly clever guy, who thinks and plans. His undoing is his motives: he hunts and kills for kicks. He seems to think Xena will want to fight him for the challenge and seriously misjudges her. Xena takes no pleasure from killing him, but put your hand up if you winced when Morloch got impaled on that sharp log! I know I did...

Varia gradually grew on me during this episode. Tsianina Joelson certainly looks the part, an athletic and strong looking girl - she does belligerant but tough, very well. The main mystery was quite why she would be so highly thought of by Marga to want her to be the next Amazon Queen. Her hostility towards Xena and gradual realisation that she could learn from her was believable. However, she doesn`t last long in a fight with Morloch, so I am not sure how great a warrior she really is...

Maybe she will learn from this, and the idea is that she will BECOME a great leader..stay tuned for later episodes.

Hits

• That cave scene. Wonderful lighting and some witty banter between Xena and Morloch. Also more ingenuity from Xena to get her and Varia out of there, and to disable much of Morloch`s army.
• The characters. I mentioned Varia and Morloch above. Nicely defined and developed.
• Xena in those Amazon leathers although we only saw her in them for about 5 seconds! Guess the onset photographer thought she looked good. The clothes switch was actually a clever little plot device.
• Loved the exchange between Xena and Morloch in the caves..
  Xena: I`m not an Amazon
  Morloch: But you`re so tall
  Xena: It`s the boots.."

  There seem to have been a few height jokes lately. I know some people who took that gag Lucy and Renee did at the end of the E! Celebrity Special seriously. If you didn`t see it, the two of them said with straight faces that Renee was actually the tallest and that Lucy stands on boxes!

• Varia referring to Xena`s killing of the Amazon leaders in Adventures in the Sin Trade. I always like to hear references to earlier events. Like they would forget something like that? Yet past events are often not mentioned at all.
• The big fight between Xena and Morloch. I hear the scene was pretty much copied from a Jet Li film, but it was a complex fight (wonder if Renee directed much of that or whether the fight director and second unit handled the filming?)
• The beautiful funeral music first heard in Endgame is given a groovy little revamp for this episode. Always great to hear the brilliant Joe LoDuca`s tunes.
• Tsianina Joelson - so often, those Amazons prancing about in their feathers look like skinny dancers, or in S5 we had those appallingly bad little girls in Lifeblood and Kindred Spirits. Finally, is season 6, they seem to have remembered that Amazons should be strong and noble. I liked the actress and character of Marga, and Tsianina (that's CHA-NEE-NA) Joelson is a super fit young actress, who fully convinced as a warrior - not something the Amazons always have done. She reappears later in season 6.

Misses

• As I said, I liked Marga, and was sorry she didn`t survive the pre-credits sequence. She was an authoratative and believable Amazon Queen in Coming Home.
• The plot. That forest fire was a weak story idea, Varia getting shot by a crossbow bolt was predictable, and her getting catapaulted out of danger was plain stupid. Basically, they had no decent idea for how to get from the cave confrontation to Xena and Morloch going one-on-one. Saggy scripting.
• I know there was a good reason, but a Xena ep with so little Gabrielle in it is always the poorer for it. The heart of the show is the way they work together, and while I enjoyed seeing Xena deal with Varia and Morloch, virtually no Gabrielle has to go down as a minus point.

Huh?

• Lots of these in this episode. Where did all of Morloch`s men disappear to at the end? OK, so a few had died, but his head bad guy Rascar`s disappearance made it to the disclaimer too (couldn`t read it though).
• And that gigantic arena in the middle of the forest? Must have taken months to build. Was it where Morloch took his opponents? We are given the impression he hunts them by chasing them, so was it just something his carpenter knocked up when Varia was captured?
• Why on EARTH would Xena catapault Varia over the fire. It was never going to fling her that far anyway, and HOW did Morloch know she was going to do it? His men had that net ready, but how could they know that Varia would get injured, that they would be in that exact place, and that Xena would come up with a hair brained scheme like that?
• Guess we know why the Amazons died out..Varia is hardly a balanced and rational person to have as a queen. Still, after that total drip Cyane2 in Kindred Spirits I guess the Amazons don`t always make the best choices.
• If Morloch is this great hunter, how come he has a gang of men with him when pursuing prey? Not much competition surely? And where in Sheherazadastan? I know Sheherazade was the story teller from 1001 Nights, but a daft place name for Morloch. It must be a long way away though...he has never heard of Xena??

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