Hercules and the King of Thessaly
A Review by Juan F. Lara
GOOD POINTS
This ep won me over early on with the scene of Salmoneus's hoax. In the crowd's cheering of "Zeus" I thought the creators cleverly portrayed Sal's cynicism about how the Thessalonians would enthusiastically fall for his scheme. The creators also did well in portraying the event's tackiness through the souvenirs and the intro by Sal's aide. Guzelian continued to satirize the people's naivete for the rest of the ep. I loved how the real Zeus's appearance led to Herc's coronation, and Act 2 had a funny scene of the people seeking help from Herc. This ep had a theme that I thought was worth writing about. The ep went against expectations in two instances. Yesterday I said I hoped that not every ep had a Hades plot. Today I got my wish and saw an ep with minimal screen time for Hades. :-) Sal might not have been an outstanding villian, but I still found it involving to see Pain and Panic interact with someone different. Also, when they made Herc king I assumed he'd become a bad king, like Donald in "Leader of the Quack" and Lucky in "Citizen Canine". Instead, Herc proved quite successful as the king that the Thessalonians wanted. So the creators could build sympathy for Herc as he dedicatedly served the people in Act 3, making the theme work for me. And I was glad to see the first entry of WD-Japan for this series. The Japanese gave their trademark solidity to the characters.
BAD POINTS
The main characters still tended to be one-note. Herc still was an Aladdin clone. Icarus's ranting and Hermes's cool-guy personality sometimes got annoying. Cassandra had only her running gag to do. Pain and Panic still haven't made themselves distinctive from each other. ( They even always talk at the same time. ) And Zeus has become very unappealing because of his constant bombastic gloating over his son. Hopefully the cast members will get fleshed out over time. Cassandra had a line, "You have to do what's right for you. Crud. I swore I'd never say anything that corny." But that line didn't work because Guzelian had characters say lines that corny but meant in all seriousness, like in the last scene of Zeus's parents. OTOH, the pathos in this ep felt more credible than in "Apollo Mission", and I particularly liked the scene in Act 2 where Herc felt obliged to go back to the throne. And I think I've heard the phrase "son of Zeus" enough times and seen enough swirls by now. :-) Likewise, ditch the puns. "Zeus-a-palooza", "Greekly News Daily", "Hemlock Latte", ewww. :-)
MISCELLANEOUS
Act 3 was just a long fight scene, but WD-Japan at least made it O.K. to watch. Pegasus made his first appearance in this ep. Also, Rob Paulson had a cultural reference cameo as Stephanopolous.
Panic: You don't want to clean it up? So don't clean it up, boyo. Pain: Are you familiar with the term, "labor dispute"?
Icarus: Hey, I don't think that's a real lion. Cassandra: Really...
This episode had a thoughtful premise and funny writing that I hoped "Hercules" would have if it was as good as people have been saying.
- Juan F. Lara http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jfl/intro.html
"The Grove of Despair is for despairing. You're SCHEMING, aren't you?"