HERCULES THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS: "ARMAGEDDON NOW PTS 1-2" (1998)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

I've yet to review the majority of episodes for the series HERCULES THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS. My general impression is that the more formulaic HERCULES never even tried to equal its sister show XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS in the game of delving into matters mythic. I recently examined the first time the Xena-fiend Callisto crossed over into the Herc-verse here, and that one-shot story wasn't much more than a means of establishing some continuity-points. 

The two part ARMAGEDDON NOW, airing on February 18, 1998, was considerably more ambitious, though to be sure NOW also served to link parallel occurrences in the two shows. Callisto was still dead and powerless in the 11-18-96 XENA episode "Ten Little Warlords," and following that, the villainess receives an immortality upgrade in "Surprise" on the HERCULES show, dated 1-27-97, She then shuttles back to XENA for A NECESSARY EVIL on 2-10-97, which ends with her being imprisoned by Xena. About a year later Callisto's released by Hope in MATERNAL INSTINCTS (1-26-98), and she's reluctantly working for Hope once again in her last fourth-season episode of XENA in the two-part THE SACRIFICE (May 1998). But Callisto's demeanor changes appreciably between the two 1998 stories, and that's because of ARMAGEDDON NOW on the HERCULES show (February 1998).

In truth, the continuance of the Callisto arc is the main strength of NOW, but all the rest is just the usual melodramatic alarums and excursions, though the dramatic scenes are handled well enough. At the beginning of this episode, Hope once more frees Callisto from a prison wrought by Xena. But this Callisto succeeded in getting her cherished revenge on Xena in MATERNAL INSTINCTS, only to find that it didn't mean anything to her. But Hope has anticipated the warrior-woman's ennui, and comes up with a devil's bargain. If Callisto will go back in time to prevent Hercules from being born, she can also rewrite time so that her father and mother are never slain by Xena's army. 

Callisto also suborns the somewhat gullible Ares into helping Callisto obtain a solution of hind's-blood, fatal to all gods, from an alternate-world version of Hercules, The Sovereign, who had his own separate arc in the Herc-verse. The two villains manage to acquire their prize and hurl both Real Hercules and Evil Alternate Hercules into the same limbo from which they liberated the Sovereign. But then Callisto steals the hind's-blood and, with Hope's help, vanquishes Ares. Despite his humiliation, the war-god won't pursue Callisto through time, but he will send Herc's best friend Iolaos into the past, to save Herc's mother from being slain.

Many of the story's rationales don't hold up to strong scrutiny. Why does Hope want Hercules eliminated, given that the record does not exactly show him (unlike Xena) actively seeking to block the rule of Dahak? And why does Hope want the hind's-blood? For some future use against the Greek gods, perhaps. But Callisto, possessing ample godlike powers, certainly doesn't need it to knock off the mother of Hercules. Indeed, Iolaus almost get the chance to slay Callisto with a blood-daubed blade. But the blade is set aside for use in the later XENA episode SACRIFICE, when Xena does use it to kill immortal Callisto. Lastly, the time-frame of Hercules being an unborn child at the same time when Young Callisto's village is raided makes no sense whatever.

I won't go into detail about how badly the devil's bargain works out for Callisto. But it's one of the great moments in the HERCULES show, illustrating the futility of the evildoer's desire to change the past, and it also accounts for why the only thing Callisto wants from Hope in SACRIFICE is a memory-less oblivion. And the plot succeeds for a time (so to speak), as Infant Hercules's life is indeed snuffed out, Since there's no Hercules, no one reforms Bad Xena, and Lucy Lawless has some standout scenes playing Xena as an Empress of Evil. But Iolaus works out a contingency plan and the proper timeline is set right. Hercules has a few decent fight-scenes with his opposite number, but that doesn't mask the fact that he's almost completely written out of the main action. So NOW is more ambitious than the average HTLJ episode, but not quite up to the best of the XENA offerings.