Hercules and the Owl of Athens
While I admit that I am more than excited to catch each and every episode of Hercules, I am still sorting out my feelings about this one. I've watched it twice now and I'm still not too thrilled by it.
The basic premise seemed to be Herc didn't see the relevance of his History class, especially to a "hero-in-training." After this was learned (within the first five minutes of the episode) the rest of the plot was pretty predictable. Of course our hero would learn "why" History was important. Thus making the show quite preachy.
The backdrop of this tale was another of the Sibling (god) Rivarly sessions between Ares & Athena. Athena started the *ahem* war with Ares by giving Ares' wardogs a poodle cut. Infuriated Ares assigns the task of stealing Athena's owl, Ibid, to his sons Fear (a.k.a. Phobos) [David Cross] and Terror (a.k.a. Demios) [Toby Huss].
[[ TRIVIA: Did you know that Demios & Phobos were Ares' sons by Aphrodite (according to most legends, others make them his sons by his other sisters Enyo/Bellona [goddess of war] or Eris/Discordia [goddess of discord]).]]
I was not as impressed by the introduction of the History teacher, Herodotus [Jess Harnell], and I thought he was not a very likable character (though that was most assuredly the purpose of the script).
I did like the cameos of Helen and Tempest, and despite the silliness of their scenes, it was good to see what the gods do at the office all day.
I think this episode rates alongside "The Living Legend", though I also rewatched that episode and found it a little more appealing the third time around... at least the way it ended with Achilles and Phil reconcilling.
BTW: I think it was Juan who wondered why Achilles was used, so I thought about a possible motivation. It seems to me that it was established in the original film that Phil felt Achilles represented Phil's greatest hope for stardom, but Achilles failed him, and that was the reason Phil didn't want to take on Herc's training. "Living Legend" in that way gave us a full circle in understanding Phil's motivation for helping Herc.
ARES: "Heed my words. This is the last time you make a god of the Fool of War.