THIS WEEK IN XENA NEWS....
TWXN 71
02/22/97

Brought to you by Xena: Media Review (XMR):
http://xenafan.com/xmr

TWXN is the advance sheet for XMR. XMR is a periodic
annotated world press review of reports regarding the
internationally syndicated television show XENA:
Warrior Princess (1995 - ) and the castmembers, Lucy
Lawless and Renee O'Connor.  For a free e-mail
subscription send "subscribe XMR" to
ktaborn@lightspeed.net. Excerpts from the following
cites will appear in future issues of XMR.


From the editor:
   1. WHOOSH #06 is currently on schedule and is due to
be released on-line Saturday, March 1, 1996. Haven't
memorized the URL yet? That's okay. It is
http://www.thirdstory.com/whoosh/ . I promise to try
to get the e-mail version out within 5 days of the on-
line release. 
   2. XMR #22 is starting to loom in the distance. Yes!
It has actually entered my conscious mind. I anticipate
that it will be released AFTER WHOOSH #06. 
   3. I am in the midst of processing 150 XMR
subscription requests. I am overjoyed and I am processing
them in batches of 20. I appreciate everyone's
patience. When you make a request I automatically send
out my "The line you have reached is busy" message.
Once you have been processed you will receive the
"Welcome to XMR" drone. After that you are
automatically placed in the queue for the next XMR
mailing.
   4. TWXN is now officially a month behind! Can things
get any better than this???? I hope not.
   5. Meanwhile, as TWXN slowly collapses, isn't XWP
just getting better and better? I am so happy I
invested my time in this show and not...well, I won't
be rude and name names. 
---Kym


[   ]  01-20-97 
   NOTES: ROYAL COUPLE OF THIEVES (#17), 3rd release,
12/23/96. Ranked 1st action hour the fourth time this
season with a 5.1 rating.  [1st release 02/19/96:
Ranked as the 3rd action hour with a 5.6 rating; 2nd
release 06/17/96.] Competition: (1) XENA 5.1; (2) HTLJ
5.0; (3) STDS9 4.9; and BAYWATCH 4.8.


[    ] 01-20-97
   DAILY VARIETY. Monday. 1509 words. "Just for
Variety" by Army Archerd
   EXCERPT:
   ...WHATTA REUNION on the Paramount lot! Anson
Williams and Henry Winkler discovered each other in the
commissary of the studio, where both worked on "Happy
Days." Williams today starts
directing a seg of "Star Trek: Voyager" and Winkler's
reining a "Clueless" seg. "We screamed across the
commissary when we saw each other," admits Williams.
"The memories started flooding back. We'd love to work
together again." Anson said, "Henry is a great actor
I'm not a very good actor!" They'd been in the series
from 1973-84. Williams said "Happy Days' co-star Ron
Howard was very helpful to him on "The Cape" seg he
directed, giving him advice on filming weightlessness
and calling NASA for him. "Ron has never lost his
perspective: he's always a gentleman and totally
modest." Williams has directed a lot of sci-fi/fantasy
TV segs, including "Hercules" and "Xena." He says the
"Star Trek" script (by Jerri Taylor)he is directing
is"exceptional; I am thrilled to do it." He's been
offered features to direct, but allows, "It has to be
the right one"...


[    ] 01-23-97
   THE STRAITS TIMES (Singapore). Page 8. 400 words.
"Big-budget film leaves positive impact for NZ
industry"
   EXCERPT:
    WHEN a US$ 30-million (S$ 42-million) movie
production comes to town, it can only be good news.
   "Having a big Hollywood movie here has a huge impact
on the local industry, not just from an employment
point of view, but it also forces New Zealand film
facilities and support services to come up to an
international standard," said director Peter Jackson.  
   "For example, on The Frighteners, we couldn't do a
sound mix of the complexity needed because the existing
equipment here was much too old.  But the sound studio
here said it would get the gear in," he said. 
   "And so now New Zealand film-makers have access to
that new equipment, which wouldn't have been down here
if it weren't for The Frighteners." 
   Haunted houses creak, graves rumble and Michael J.
Fox zooms through dimensions during the course of the
exhilarating movie. It seems, and sounds, inconceivable
that these highly-polished sound effects could have
been created outside of a large Hollywood sound studio.
Yet, they were completed in New Zealand.  "A film like
this with a very big budget in US dollars does
ultimately leave a very positive impact on the
country," stressed Jackson.
   "There's also a lot of production here with American
TV shows like Hercules and Xena happening down here
-it's actually quite busy."
   At present, the modest local film industry crafts
about three or four movies a year, all of which can
probably be made together for under the cost of one
Hollywood project like The Frighteners.     When
Tinseltown returns to town to film Jackson's King Kong
remake at the end of the year, the residents of sleepy
North Island are likely to meet another new high-tech
friend -a giant mechanical gorilla.


[x060] 01-23-97
   THE PALM BEACH POST. Thursday. Page 8E. 3466 words.
"Births"
   COMMENTARY: Another Xena born to the world!
   EXCERPT:
   ... PALM BEACH GARDENS MEDICAL CENTER...
   ... DEC. 16 - Mr. Keither Tucker Sr. and Ms. Vina
Glee, Riviera Beach, son, Keither Darnell Jr. and
daughter, Xena Lanett ...


[    ] 01-24-97
   ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. Page 30. 1554 words. "must
Bleed TV; Lookin' for a Little Action? Then Head for
the Last Stronghold of Tv Violence, the Punch-drunk
World of Cable and Syndication Otherwise Known as..."
By David Browne
   COMMENTARY: In an article about RENEGADE, XWP and
HTLJ are mentioned several times in context of the
general action-drama scene.
   EXCERPT:
   On Renegade, they don't just shoot a scene--they
pump it full of lead. "Makeup, we need blood!" barks
the director, roaming the living room of a suburban
ranch house that has been transformed into a TV series
set. Similar orders from other crew members bullet
around the room: "I really want to see that he got
shot!" "We need a badge and a gun!" One of the actors
pokes near his heart: "If I was shot here," he says,
"blood would be squirting up this way." 
   In the mood for an earnest, slice-of-life drama or
an impossibly clever sitcom populated by unblemished
twentysomethings? Scram. This is double-two-fisted
action TV, fella, and the cast and crew of Renegade are
cartridge deep into it.
   For those too sensitive to tune in, the USA Network
drama chronicles the travails of Reno Raines, an ex-cop
who is, of course, wrongly accused of murder. As played
by former Falcon Crest bad boy Lorenzo Lamas, Reno is a
brooding, morally upstanding fugitive-loner of few
words and many tight, sleeveless T-shirts. Reno and his
Native American cohort, Bobby Sixkiller (played by
hulking veteran heavy Branscombe Richmond), are always
eager to help victimized citizens--when not trying to
clear Reno's name and pulverize a few thugs in the
process.
   Lamas is hardly the only one who thinks so: The
airwaves are being sprayed with a buckshot load of
action series. In addition to Renegade, there are shows
about wisecracking mythological figures (Hercules: The
Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess), rip-offs
of wisecracking mythological figures (The Adventures of
Sinbad, Tarzan: The Epic Adventures), time-traveling
swordsmen (Highlander: The Series), crime-fighting cars
(Viper), cops with heightened senses (UPN's The
Sentinel), a Fugitive-meets-Twins merger (Two), hunky
astronauts in training (The Cape, with a depressed-
looking Corbin Bernsen), hunky special-effects men who
double as crime fighters (F/X: The Series, with a
depressed-looking Kevin Dobson), and a mad-virus-
scientist of the week (UPN's The Burning Zone). "Let's
face it, we're not doing Shakespeare," says Viper star
Jeff Kaake. "It's like being a kid again. You get to
shoot bad guys and save the girls."
   Call it B-TV--the B movies of television, a simple
world in which the heroes are virtuous bruisers and the
public is threatened on a weekly basis by cold-blooded
international terrorists, militia groups, or gun-toting
nutjobs. In the end, justice is inevitably served,
usually with the help of Uzis and explosions. "You need
big adversaries for big guns," says Danny Bilson,
executive producer of Viper and The Sentinel. "You
can't use the Viper car to take out counterfeiters."...
   ...One thing everyone agrees on: B-TV attracts a
devoted following--here and abroad. Because of its
simplistic good- versus-evil plots and characters,
action TV plays enormously well overseas, to the point
where many of these series have foreign investors.
(Viper, for instance, is partly owned by a German media
company.) Even Stateside, most action series bring in
roughly 2 to 3 million viewers--a modest hit for cable
and syndication--with titans like Hercules and Xena
racking up double that.
   Who are these viewers? The "male testosteronal
audience," cracks Okie of the predominantly young, male
fan base. Distinctions do exist. Lamas' hunkiness leads
more women to Renegade. Viper, thanks to a star car
that can morph into "a powerful armored machine,"
attracts more 12- to 17-year-old boys, and Xena has a
passionate lesbian following (in New York City, lesbian
bars hold Xena nights). Highlander pulls in sci-fi
geeks willing to dress in Scottish garb for conventions
devoted to the series and the feature films on which
it's based. 
   "Action shows allow us to explore our dark sides,"
adds Okie. "It's a real catharsis. If you were Greek
and saw tragedies in Athens, you got a vicarious
release. You wouldn't go home and kill your wife."
True, but don't rule out life imitating Lamas just yet.
In December, a New York bank robber confessed he'd been
partly inspired by a Renegade episode. "Obviously,"
says Okie, who wrote the script, "he didn't watch the
fourth act and see the bad guy screw up."...
   GRAPHIC: XENA, [Lucy Lawless from TV's Xena: Warrior
Princess]...


[    ]  01-24-97
   DAILY NEWS (New York). Friday. Page 81. 1375 words.
"on the Mark Mason on Mission All-star If He Makes Team
or Not" By Mark Kriegel
   COMMENTARY: It's always a special day when XWP makes
the sports page! In an article about Mark Mason making
the All-Star Basketball team, the writer, while
comparing Andrew Goleta with Dennis Rodman of all
people, stated, "Hey, how about Rodman going one-on-one
with Xena the Warrior Princess? I'd pay my $ 24.95 for
that." Xena also made a graphic!

