"Hercules and the Phil Factor" (10-16-98)
Friday's episode was another long anticipated one for me, for it was the show's first (will there be more?) appearance of Chiron, the "good" centaur, but I was sadly disappointed...
On with the review...
Nice banter between "Bob" and the Muses... I really like Thalia (the hefty one) 'cause she always gets the good, sassy lines. And she has the most defined personality of the five.
Anyhow, the situation, as one might assume by the title, centers around "the wise and knowledgable Philoctetes" (as "Bob" calls him), being listed among the great heroes of Ancient Greece. m Thalia challenges "Bob" on this point, so he proceeds to justify his words, thus we have the tale of "Why Phil is a HERO."
Surprisingly the tale of justification is concurrent with his training of Herc (I would have figured Phil's reputation should have preceded his tenure as a trainer, even back when he was training Achilles and Theseus... This seemed poorly planned for the series to me...)
Phil and Herc are having luch a Speedy Pita when Memnon (Hades' minion) show up wreaking havoc. This is, I believe Memnon's third appearance (second speaking role), and I think I'm a bit more fond of his character now. I really like David Alan Grier's comedy since "In Living Color", and I've grown accustomed to Memnon's speaking style. His intrusion into Phil & Herc's afternoon reveals the presence of yet another of Classical Greek mythology's great characters: Chiron! I thought his character design was so much better than that of Nessus from the Film, or Bloatox and his companions from "Techno Greeks." Best of all his face didn't look like it had been through a meatgrinder (it did look like it had been punched and still hadn't popped back into shape... but still better than the others). His personality and series background was a bigtime let down. I seriously expected that since Chiron was the prototype for Phil as trainer of heroes he would have been a much more *positive* role-model. Instead he came off as yet another blowhard, egocentric jerk.
Apparently he was in town promoting his latest scrolls which were lessons in Heroics based on his own personal experience. Even Memnon (a foe of his) was duly impressed (so much so, he left Hads to get a copy Chiron. Another thing I found curious is that my cheatsheet for the series says that Louis Gosset Jr. was the voice of Chiron, however the credits either failed to recognize him, or it wasn't him at all. Anyone know who voiced Chiron?
At least Chiron is still known for training heroes, but only "How to" scrolls now. Oy. So Chiron taunts Phil about having no real experience as a hero, which, gets Phil's goat (so to speak).
The rest of the episode reflects how little Phil really knows about first-hand heroics. He fights a Cockatrics, Echidna, a giant snake and a giant octopus... and fail each time. He then gives up training and becomes a door-to-door spear salesman.
Icarus takes over training Herc by reading from Chiron's scrolls, which has the undesirable effect of reenforcing the unappealing attitude of Chiron (as even his scrolls berate Herc, despite his lack of physical presence).
A nice cameo from a haggard old Gorgon... I wanna see more.
Achilles, the has-been, makes a cameo.
Where did the word "catablepas" come from? Never heard of it, but apparently it's a giant rampaging bull with a flaming tail. Perhaps the term is a joke...interjecting the "bleep" meaning "fill in the blank"? like "expletive deleted"?
I thought the technique of "Vision Deprivation Training" might have been more appropriate when fighting a gorgon... I didn't wite understand why it was necessary for Herc to try it on the catablepas.
Cute ending with the Muses and "Bob."
Except for my great disappointment with the portrayal of Chiron, the episode was fairly good. I hope Chiron appears again, and has a chance to redeem his character.
Why do ALL the OTHER heroes have to be jerks or failures in this series? Herc was good, but in the myths his heroics never put the other heroes to shame! They all stood on their own merits... This trend in the series may be the one element that really gets my goat... I can deal with the rewritng of the myths, but not the bad showing of all the OTHER heroes. Well, I'll stop ranting now.
Rich (xephyr)