We toil in obscurity. It is our fate. From now until forever more. It is the way of things. Though we may occassionally delude ourselves into believing otherwise, this is the way it has always been, and so shall it always be. Yet still, we persist. Life goes on.

Late on Friday afternoon, I went to the Temptation Zone and spent money I didn't really have to get my very own copy of the complete 3rd season of Xena. It took all the willpower I could muster to resist the urge to also grab Angel Season 3. That will come later, when finances are better, I told myself. Hell, it was foolish of me to even be in there buying anything at all, and I knew it. But sometimes, you just gotta live a little.

[Bitscape gets lost for a while in the electronic techno bliss entering his ears.]

"Embracing the Goddess energy within yourselves will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life. A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet Earth. Like a priceless jewel, buried in dark layers of soil and stone, Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time. Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home, and experience it as a place to visit and play with reality. You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster.

"Imagine Earth restored to her regal beauty. Stately trees seem to brush the deep blue sky. Clouds billow to form majestic peaks. The songs of birds fill the air, creating symphony upon symphony. The Goddess is calling for an honoring of what she allows to be created through the core mystery of the blood. Those who own her planet are learning about love."

...

The sun sets behind the mountains. Just as it has always done, and always will.

In times like these, it is so easy to become disillusioned. We look for ways to console ourselves, taking comfort wherever it can be found. Hope, as it grows scarce, becomes an ever more precious treasure. But even as it becomes commodified, it loses its value.

"A land in turmoil cried out for a hero."

Over the weekend, I watched the first part of the season 3 set, up through The Bitter Suite. Following the Xena DVD trend of improving significantly with each passing season, the DVD production quality of this set is supurb. Rather than squeeze 4 episodes onto each disc, as has become the norm for most tv shows, this set features 3 episodes per disc, pushing the disc count up to a whopping 8 dvds, plus a cdrom insert. This leaves room for 5-10 minute documentary interview specials to go with every episode, along with audio and video commentaries on some (1 per disc so far), and excellent picture quality for all those beautiful New Zealand locations (not to mention the beautiful actresses who occupy them).

As far as the content itself goes, it was the first truly controversial season. Many fans hated the rift arc, along with the accompanying Dahok plot. I myself enjoyed it well enough at the time, though watching all the episodes again in a row now, I can see flaws in the way it was done. Not in the idea, which was good, but the implementation.

I think they would have done well to spread it out over more episodes, and develop the characters' shifts in attitude in a more subtle, gradual manner, thus making the episodes where Big Things Happened more credible. As it was, there would be a couple episodes of plot arc (i.e. The Deliverer, followed by Gabrielle's Hope), at the end of which the characters would come to a sort of quasi-resolution. Then next week, the writers would hit the reset button and do a comedy episode or two, which are good in their own right, but completely ignore everything that happened before. Then, it's back to the big story (but only for a little while), where Xena and Gabrielle both behave fairly erratically, as the script attempts to squish what should be several months worth of character development into a few minutes.

In other words, the show should have been Joss-ified. (Indeed, I'm probably only noticing what wasn't there now because I've since been spoiled by season after season of the genius that is Buffy/Angel/Firefly story telling. Xena's plot arcs, unfortunately, pale in comparison. But they were damn cool at the time.)

[Bitscape, having now eaten, contemplates the next words.]

Blah. Can't think of anything else right now.