
THIS WEEK IN XENA  NEWS...  
TWXN 112
09/25/97

The advance sheet of XENA MEDIA REVIEW (XMR):
http://xenafan.com/xmr

Excerpts from the following cites will appear in future
issues of XMR.

From the editor:

1. I have started watching TV again. I was only
watching XWP for a while but I have decided to give
this season a bigger chunk of my discretionary time.
Last night I watched ST: Voyager. What a weird episode.
Chakotay was trapped in a massive indoctrination
program. I found more questions than answers when
watching it. So, why am I even mentioning it in a XWP
broadside? Because Voyager is one of the few programs 
on TV that could learn from XWP (and vice versa)
without having to completely re-write itself. "Nemesis"
was the episode title, and it was an exploration into
how ultra liberal peaceniks like Chakotay could be
sucked up into one-sided militaristic marginalization
of sentient beings in less than thirty minutes if
exposed to the proper "training" program. I have
suspicions we might see a story or two like this on
XWP. Okay, I really think it will be a long dragged out
story arc. After all, the resident liberal peacenik on
XWP is Gabrielle. This year has been promoted as her
Year of Hell (tm). Rumors of a demon child, loss of
blood innocence, and a serious rift from her best
friend (and companion for the last two years) seems
like things that one would expect to put someone a
little "out". Again, the mantra is "Wait and see". So,
let's wait and see. 

2. Want ad! WHOOSH is possible only through the hard
work and dedication of volunteers. WHOOSH needs another
volunteer! The "On the Road" feature needs an assistant
editor. If you love reading about conventions, fests,
and gatherings, this is the job for you. It's a plus if
you know coding and have a flare for graphics
placement, but it is not a requirement. Really, just
enthusiasm, an ability to edit text, will get you the
job and the rest will work it self out. Write to
ktaborn@lightspeed.net with the subject "ROADIE". You
will be glad you did!

3. Upcoming in TWXN: May is Prom month and fashion
month...all rolled into one, so look forward to more
fashion stuff than a human should be exposed to and
hokey stuff like People's 50 Most Beautiful People.
Once we get over May, things should settle down...


And here are the stories:

[    ] 05-09-97
   LOS ANGELES TIMES. Friday. Sports. Page C10. 1555
words. "Outdoors / Pete Thomas. Sports Weekend. Gray
Whales' Trip Home Is a Killer" by Pete Thomas 
   COMMENTARY: This is really a bizarre article when
you think about it. 
   EXCERPT:
   ...In the La Paz area, fishing has picked up
markedly in the last week. David Jones of Fishermen's
Fleet says the estimated size of the school of pargo on
the east side of Cerralvo Island is 10,000 fish. One of
his customers--Jones didn't divulge the name but a
friend said it was Lucy Lawless, a.k.a. Xena the
Warrior Princess--muscled in a 44-pounder. Jones said
cabrilla and yellowtail are also abundant and feeding
around the island, and that schools of sizable
tuna--one tipped the scales at 72 pounds--are breezing
about offshore...


[    ] 05-09-97
   LA WEEKLY. Page 147. 841 words. "KTLA'S 50 Golden
Years" by Derek Thomas
   COMMENTARY: Yes, KTLA gets skewered for airing shows
the likes of XWP. XWP is probably one of KTLA's highest
rated programs if not the highest.
   EXCERPT:
   ...It's too bad that KTLA today has lost much of its
taste for homegrown programming. The channel's current
sked (among the most popular shows are Xena, Hercules
and reruns of Seinfeld) is really just so much TBS.
KTLA-TV 5, Thurs., May 15, 8-10 p.m. (A special edition
of the 10 p.m. news, revisiting major L.A. stories of
the past 50 years, follows.)...



[    ]  05-09-97
   THE HOTLINE. 667 words. "TV Monitor"
   COMMENTARY: This is a David Letterman top ten from
5/8/97 which mentions Xena.
   EXCERPT:
   ...TOP TEN SIGNS YOUR MOTHER IS NUTS
   10.  What she calls a "Tupperware," the FBI calls a
"Three-Week Standoff."
   9.  She tried to rob a convenience store with her
Martha Stewart glue gun.
   8. Instead of "Mom," she makes you call her "Xena,
Warrior Princess."
   7. You and your eight siblings are all named Carl.
   6. It took her four years before she divorced Donald
Trump.
   5. She insists on eating Mother's Day dinner under
the porch.
   4. Every morning, says, "Wake up, or you'll be late
for Comet Hale-Bopp."
   3. Whenever you lose a sock, it turns up in that
night's meat
loaf.
   2. Believes Eddie Murphy really was just giving
hooker a ride.     
   1. Your name is Michael Jackson Jr.  
("Late Show," CBS, 5/8)


[   f]  05-10-97
   THE SEATTLE TIMES. Saturday. Sports. Page B1. 722
words. "Program Gurus: Sonics in Need of Screen Savior"
By Ron C. Judd. Seattle Times Columnist
   COMMENTARY: A bizarre quick mention of the Ducks-Red
Wings hockey incident. Someone obviously felt they were
being clever.
   EXCERPT:
   ...Keeping You Abreast of Hockey Developments: TV
star Lucy Lawless, aka "Xena: Warrior Princess," was in
the middle of an animated national anthem performance
at an NHL playoff game in Anaheim this week when her
lowcut dress failed and . . . well, her left-side
personal flotation device deployed, right there in
front of the Zamboni and everybody. At press time
today, stunned Anaheim hockey fans were still on their
knees, thanking God it wasn't Roseanne...


[    ] 05-11-97
   CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Sunday. Page 10. 191 words.
"Shortcuts" Compiled by Leigh Behrens.
   COMMENTARY: Is there ever such a thing as knowing
too much?
   EXCERPT:
   ..."Tampons."
   --actress Lucy "Xena" Lawless, in TV Guide, on what
modern, indispensable comfort her character would kill
to have...
   ...GRAPHIC: PHOTOS 2; PHOTO: (Lucy "Xena" Lawless.);
PHOTO: (Florence Henderson.)


[    ] 05-11-97
   THE SUNDAY STAR-TIMES (Auckland). Page 2. 1449
words. "No time to brag" by Michael Lamb & Melvyn Bragg
   COMMENTARY: Whoa! Someone doesn't like the writing
style of XWP. Isn't it fun when writers get catty?
   EXCERPT:
   NIP down the pub for a pint with Melvyn Bragg? No
problem. Sit next to him on a bus? Bit of casual
conversation? Certainly. But interviewing the master
interviewer at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning? Surely
there are laws.
   And rightly enough, by the time we're down to
discussing the art of interviewing itself (shape, says
Melvyn, an interview must have a definite shape), I've
come to the terms with the fact that the man who
quizzed a dying Dennis Potter, the man who has chatted
purposefully to a smorgasbord of late 20th century
creative luminaries from Ingmar Bergman to Barbara
Cartland, is nonchalantly swatting aside my little
league grilling.   
   Despite dozens of interviews, I'm a straw-grasping
neophyte compared to the maestro. Mind you, Melvyn
Bragg makes most of us look like underachievers. In
between pumping out endless seasons of the South Bank
Show (now in its 20th year), Bragg is controller of
arts for London Weekend Television, president for the
National Campaign for the Arts, a novelist, has been
known to serve on various boards and advisory groups,
writes a regular newspaper column, hosts a weekly radio
show and still finds time for wife, family and the odd
drinking binge...
   ...The latest result of Bragg's four-lane highway of
energy is the epic novel Credo, warmly received by
British critics and the book-buying public alike. No
mean achievement for a novel set in the 7th century BC.
But at 800 pages plus, even india-rubber man Bragg felt
this one -- a little...
   ...While Bragg's descriptions of feelings, places
and events recapture the idiosyncratic and very
successful style of earlier historical novels like the
Maid of Buttermere, the dialogue in Credo could be
mistaken for a contemporary vernacular. He considered
it the only course...
   ...Harder still was inventing the characters. But
Bragg easily avoids slipping into the overly ornate
styles of fantasy novels, or worse still, a script from
Xena, Warrior Princess....

     
[    ] 05-11-97
   THE SUNDAY GAZETTE MAIL. Sunday. Page P4E. 745
words. "Gardenscape. Aa Close Encounter of the Compost
Kind" By Lynne Schwartz-Barker
   COMMENTARY: Gardens and XWP. 'Nuff said.
   EXCERPT:
   At this time of year, I have a list of garden chores
an arm long. I keep it on my computer and update it as
thoughts occur to me...
   ...I got four more wheelbarrow loads out before I
finished and another whole bed done. I could feel my
muscles pumping up. I was Xena, Warrior Princess. I
felt really strong.....


[    ] 05-11-97
   STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis, MN). Page 1F. 1311 words.
"Viewers face battling miniseries" By Bill Ward; Neal
Justin; Tim Campbell; Staff Writers
   COMMENTARY: The reviews for The Odyssey on TV
(miniseries) start to come in....guess what? This
reviewer felt "Xena does it better". Hey!!! We already
knew that!
   EXCERPT:
   ...'The Odyssey'
   8-10 p.m. next Sunday and May 20, KARE-Ch. 11...
   ...Director Andrei Konchalovsky gooses the narrative
with cinematic craft and a funky tribal atmosphere far
removed from stereotypical Greece. But after four
hours, we hardly know Odysseus. And the lessons learned
(don't mess with the gods; there's no place like home)
seem hardly worth the journey. If fun is your quest,
"Xena" does it better. Three out of five stars...



NOTICES:

All back issues of XMR and TWXN are available at
(http://xenafan.com/xmr). We herein give praise and
thanks to Tom Simpson for the space he has graciously
donated from his spectacular, TOM'S XENA PAGE
(http://xenafan.com). If you have never been there, you
are **not** a xenafan! And congrats on Tom finding the
woman of his dreams. I wish them all the happiness in
the world and look forward to the wedding of the
decade.

TWXN is the advance sheet for XMR, an annotated world
press review of reports regarding the internationally
syndicated television show XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (1995
- 2000) and the castmembers, Lucy Lawless and Renee
O'Connor. TWXN is not available for subscription,
however it is posted regularly on the XenaVerse,
Hercules-Xena, and Chakram Mailing Lists (thank you
Lucia! I am greatly indebted to you), the MCA NetForum,
the Xenite Message Center, and alt.tv.xena. I also
would like to thank sirvin@law.wfu.edu for assistance
in collecting the newstories. For a free e-mail
subscription to XMR subscribe by e-mail to
ktaborn@lightspeed.net by stating somewhere in the
subject or text "sub xmr". 
