THIS WEEK IN XENA  NEWS...  
TWXN 84
07/09/97
Wednesday


Brought to you by XENA: MEDIA REVIEW (XMR):
http://xenafan.com/xmr

All back issues of XMR and TWXN are available at the
above site. 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).

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 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on
the XenaVerse, Hercules-Xena, and Chakram Mailing Lists
(thank you Lucia!), the MCA NetForum, the Xenite
Message Center, and alt.tv.xena. 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".

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


From Ze Editor:

1. Today is a major Baha'i holiday. A pretty somber one
too. It commemorates the martyrdom/execution of one of
the prophet-founders of the Baha'i Faith. I am
informing you of this to help with fostering interfaith
amity and education. Are you reading this, Deb?

2. In late May 1997, the Radio National (ABC) of
Australia on a half hour show called "Women Out Loud"
featured XWP and interviewed several U.S. fans about
what they felt was so compelling about XWP. It was part
of the campaign to get XWP back on the airwaves in
Australia...and it worked! Chris Clogston has been
gracious enough to offer copies of this tape AT COST.
For only $4 she will copy the audio tape and mail it to
your home. Just write to cclogston@earthlink.net with
the subject "Aussie tape". You will be glad you did. 

3. News of XMR!!! We are getting closer to production
date. I haven't decided yet to have it come out on
Mondays or Fridays, but I want #22 out no later than
July 18th, and henceforth from that date fortnightly! I
am getting excited over having XMR in action again and
with working with the new team I have assembled for
this "rebirth": Diane Silver, Maria Erb, Barbara
"Xenatwo", and Lydia Woods. 

4. The biggest news this issue is that we FINALLY leave
February of 1997. It was a nice month, but come on. I
am hoping to get my act together, earnestly try to
ignore those shiney things that jump into my path, and
over the summer, to play an intense game of "catch-up".
As to news content, we are sensitized to the acting job
market in NZ, we get to see Rob Tapert in denial (and
he ain't with Cleopatra!), and we get to experience
some feint rumblings about ROBIN HOOD. 

5. And what do we have to look forward to on Friday?
Glad you asked! We will have XWP intruding into an
article about gardening, an everso brief mention of Sam
Raimi (Sam Raimi? Who's HE?), some more exciting sports
page stuff, and can you say....SPY GAME?


And here is what **you** have been waiting for:


[    ] 02-26-97
   THE DAILY NEWS (New Plymouth)[New Zealand]. Page 3.
484 words. "Tutor tells of need to go offshore" By Mark
Birch
   REPRINT:
   IF YOU want to make a living purely from acting,
you'll have to go overseas.
   That warning was given in New Plymouth yesterday by
Wellington-based Macgregor Cameron, who is tutoring 19
young members of the Performing Arts Centre's core
course and also conducting workshops for former course
graduates and members of amateur theatre groups.
   "If you are going to make a living off purely
acting, you can't stay here in New Zealand," he said.
"And it's a very very small number who make it
overseas; you can count on the fingers of two hands the
people who are out there doing it.
   "Michael Hurst (a New Zealander who plays the
character Iolaus in Hercules) is my god. He and Lucy
Lawless as Xena are absolute success stories and
deserve all the kudos they get for playing their roles
and giving the public the performance that's expected
from them."
   In New Zealand, professional actors had to rely on
other kinds of work to top up their incomes, said
Cameron.
   "I have friends who have a multitude of skills. I
supplement my income by teaching and tutoring, and I
have a friend who is a plumber.
   "You become very much a jack of all trades; you
can't help it, because the opportunities for fulltime
acting work are pretty limited," Cameron said.
   Opportunities to act in filmed productions shot in
New Zealand, such as The Piano and some episodes of
Hercules, were wonderful -- but the problem was getting
cast.
   "However, there's a healthiness about the industry
in New Zealand that wasn't there five to ten years ago.
There's an attitude that we want to start creating our
own thing, whether in film, television or stage work.
   "The stage is pretty healthy, particularly in
centres like Dunedin and Wellington."
   People studying to become actors needed to do
homework "in varying degrees. Out in the business you
get everyone, from people who are very intuitive, down
to people who benefit from a lot of very formal
methodology.
   "And there's a growing sense at the moment that
actors should take more responsibility for their own
scholarship' of the text they are working on.
   "You are basically working from the text to find out
the truth of the text, the playwright's intention and
the characters' journey through the play . . .
   "The model overseas is one of three, four or five
years' formal training. In America it would be
post-graduate training; Hollywood stars like Jodie
Foster and Brooke Shields have masters degrees in their
CV; that's the pattern.
   "In New Zealand, I think we are actually going
closer to the European model, which is autonomous drama
schools.
   "Beyond that, there is the need for some foundation
skill work, which is what places like the Performing
Arts Centre serve," Cameron said.


[    ] 02-26-97
   THE CHATTANOOGA TIMES. Wednesday. Page C1. 1280
words. "Violence on the tube. Critics fault syndication
and ridicule the ratings" By Steve Bornfeld (The
Chattanooga Times)
   EXCERPT:
   Bang, bang -- you're dead.
   Or: Thump, smash, pow and thwack! -- you're maimed,
crippled, bloodied and battered.
   On the tube, that is.
   Television violence is a hot-button issue, ensnaring
everyone from TV set manufacturers (who will build new
sets with V-chip blocking mechanisms) to President Bill
Clinton....
   ...So who's responsible? Most viewers just blame
"television," that vast, amorphous tangle of networks,
affiliates, syndicators, stations and cable operators,
the latter breeding new channels at jackrabbit speed. 
   But one of those words -- "syndicators" -- has
particular resonance. The syndicate offerings are the
only ones purchased directly by local programmers.
   With their shows sold market-by-market instead of
nationally distributed by a network, they produce what
some critics call "violent" -- but they like to
describe as "action-adventure" -- series:
   Hercules: The Legendary Journeys; Xena: Warrior
Princess, FX: The Series; The Highlander; Real Stories
of the Highway Patrol; Kung Fu: The Legend Continues;
Real TV; The Extremists; LAPD: Life on the Beat; Viper;
High Tide; Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years; The Lazarus
Man; and Tales From the Crypt, to name a few....
   ...But a recent, exhaustive TV violence study at
UCLA praised the networks for toning down the torture.
Instead of pervasive violence, there are now pockets of
it, like NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street.
   Their view of syndicated shows was not as generous.
"Syndicated series raise more concerns on a percentage
basis than network series do," the authors say.
"Syndicated series are mostly one-hour dramas, a type
much more likely to contain violence than half-hour
network comedies. These syndicated dramas also run at
many different time periods throughout the country,
sometimes even in the daytime."...
   ...The UCLA study targeted several syndicated shows
as worthy of worry, including Kung Fu: The Legend
Continues; Babylon 5; and Real Stories of the Highway
Patrol. 
   Of Hercules, it said the show "features weapons such
as fists, clubs, branding irons, swords, rocks and
whips. . .The major reason it raises concerns is its
glorified portrayal of combat." Of Xena, it said: "Each
episode is full of threats, kicks, punches and
martial-arts fighting. In one program, there is a
scene in which a supernatural power comes out of a
treasure box and burns a villain to a crisp. In other
episodes, a man is impaled on an ax, and a sword is
shoved into the groin area of a man."
   But Rob Tapert, executive producer of both shows,
says the concern is unfounded. "On both, we don't make
the violence something easy to emulate," he says.
"Xena's acrobatic stuff is so over-the-top and Hercules
is so powerful. You hit people and they go flying a
hundred feet. Not all that much is believable. And we
try to put small messages or morals in them. People
feel comfortable with their kids watching it."
   Tapert also says he's grateful he's not producing
these shows for the networks. "We get no notes back
from syndicators, no network notes, we're allowed to
take this show in the direction we feel best for it."
   Wildly popular now is Xena, with its warrior heroine
slicing and dicing her foes, signaled by her
ear-piercing yelp of "ay-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!" It was spun
off Hercules, a similarly intense show about the
mythical demigod. And then there's The Highlander in
which decapitation empowers the hero....


[   b] 03-07-97
   ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. Page 56. 972 words. "The Week"
By Bruce Fretts and Ken Tucker
   EXCERPT:
   ...The combination of cartoonish violence,
anachronistic jokes, and voluminous cleavage (both male
and female) has made Hercules and Xena huge hits in
syndication. Now THE NEW ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (TNT,
Mondays, 10-11 p.m.) tries to replicate the formula on
cable. Johnny Depp look-alike Matthew Porretta brings
little panache to the title role; he wisely opts not to
attempt an English accent (unlike Robin Hood: Prince of
Thieves' Kevin Costner), but he's not going to make
anyone forget Errol Flynn. The rest of the cast is
equally anonymous: bland Anna Galvin as Maid Marian,
Fabio wannabe Richard Ashton as Little John, and token
fat guy Martyn Ellis as Friar Tuck. This Robin Hood
strains for campy humor but winds up delivering even
fewer laughs than Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in
Tights, if that's possible....


[   c] 03-17-97
   CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Monday. Page 8. 423 words. "TV'S
New Robin Hood Feels at Home" By Doug Nye
(Knight-Ridder Newspapers)
   EXCERPT:
   Matthew Porretta says he's "having a blast" these
days.
   And why not? He's making a living doing what he did
as a kid in Connecticut, playing Robin Hood.  
   Porretta is the star of "The New Adventures of Robin
Hood," a one-hour series currently airing each week in
the United States on cable's TNT Mondays at 9 p.m....
   ...Porretta says "Robin Hood" is part of the new
wave of adventure series such as "Hercules," "Xena" and
"Sinbad" that have shown up on television in recent
years....


