MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*
In the ranks of syndie adventure-serials, it's a rare bird-- or beast-- that survives to three seasons. I'd like to report that BEASTMASTER's last outing was at least as good as the first two. Unfortunately, though Season 3 wasn't plagued by as many cast-shakeups as Season 2, Three ends up feeling like the writers and showrunners were just spinning their wheels. Based on the fact that Season Three displays what might be a record number of clip shows in one season-- at least I think three might be a record-- I hypothesize that the show might've had its budget slashed. That sort of cost-cutting can eventuate in the creative people losing focus and hacking things out.
A slight improvement is that the Ancient One disappears or dies by the time Season 3 begins, and the original Sorceress (Monika Schnarre) escapes the prison her tutor placed her in. Both Marjean Holden and Stephen Grives get main-credit billing this season. However, Holden's Arina is never truly integrated into the series, appearing whenever writers choose to inject her. By contrast, Steven Grives's despicable King Zad gets a lot more time here than in either previous season, and Grives makes the nasty conqueror so vital, he's almost likable.
On the minus side, out of nowhere Zad has now become the servant of a gimcrack demon-lord, Balcifer. (Ooohh-- Baal + Lucifer-- bet that took a whole ten minutes to come up with). As for the Sorceress, the writers aren't able to come up with much for her to do. They use her to get rid of a leftover demon-woman, "The Apparition," from a previous season, and she duels another demoness, Yamira, in order to help Dar. However, she also betrays Dar in an attempt to restore the eagle Sharak to his human form. Sharak, however, sacrifices his humanity to redeem Dar's quest. With the Sorceress' "Ladyhawke" arc concluded, the character fades from the series before the climax.
The biggest change is one derived loosely from the first movie. Rather than being simply the last survivor of a tribe that Zad exterminated, Dar is now an "orphan of high estate," the son of a noble slain king, Eldar. A cocky older man named Dartanus (Marc Singer, the original Beastmaster) informs Dar of his special destiny: to prevent Balcifer from gaining dominion over the world. To do this, first Dar must reclaim the magical sword of Eldar (which he does, though Dar still doesn't kill his enemies with said weapon). Second, Dartanus reveals that five of Dar's proximate relatives didn't die as thought but were transformed by Dar's adoptive tribe into ordinary animals. Most of Season 3 involves Dar, Tao and Arina attempting to round up these creatures and place them in a magical Crystal Ark. This ark will redeem the world not by preserving animals but by allowing Dar's family to transform back into humans, which event is crucial to Balcifer's defeat. Occasionally this running plotline is diverting, but often it feels undeveloped and low-energy.
I no longer felt that Dar's world was as mythic as in the previous two seasons, in the sense of "anything might happen," and no episodes met my criteria for high-mythicity. Too many of the stories were dull, not even counting the clip shows, and there were only a handful of tales with fair mythicity. For instance:
"Slayer's Return"-- Dar and Tao once more encounter Princess Zuraya, for whom Dar had a small thing. Zuraya is getting married to another noble, but wouldn't you know, he's a pawn of Balcifer, who wants to be reborn in the child he spawns in Zuraya. (Devotees of the first "Ms. Marvel" will find this concept a tad familiar.)
"Serpent's Kiss"-- the succubus Nadeea offers her services to Zad to drain the souls of the heroes
"The Alliance"-- Dar has a fractious first meeting with Princess Talia (Gigi Edgley of FARSCAPE fame), but it seems to bode well that her brother Galen pledges the armies of his kingdom to aid in the war against Zad and Balcifer. There's also an old marriage contract between Galen's kingdom and that of Dar's people that would bring Dar and Talia into holy matrimony, and this prospect makes Talia even more quarrelsome, though she naturally comes around somewhat. However, Galen's a servant of Balcifer, and Talia sacrifices her life to destroy her corrupted brother.
"Double Edged"-- a teen girl dressed like a ninja steals Dar's magic sword, hoping to use it to kill Zad. Instead, she ends up leading Zad to the village of the people who made Dar's fateful blade.
Lastly, Season 3 introduces one decent recurring character for three episodes: Callista (Mel Rogan), Zad's half-sister. Rogan and Grives seem to be having great fun trading acerbic jibes, up until the final section, where Callista tries to kill both Zad and the Beastmaster. It's not clear why the evil female-- another dang Balcifer servant--chains the two of them together, unless she-- or her writer-- had just watched a telecast of "The Defiant Ones." Still, it's fun to see Dar nearly rolling his eyes at the venomous intensity of Zad's malice. Zad, of course, doles out an impressive punishment to his errant sibling.
The two-part finale is somewhat listless and doesn't even give Zad a very dramatic finish. In a conclusion that seems to come out of nowhere, Dar, in order to rule over his restored people, must leave his fantasy-world for another realm, accompanied by his animal friends but not by his two main human friends. Since the regular BEAST-verse is only occasionally said to be trending toward some quotidian fate, this conclusion is not quite the same as its likely LOTR inspiration, where Frodo Baggins goes off into the mists of the past because the world is changing. It's more like, by thwarting Balcifer, some Camelot-like regime has been restored-- though originally Dar's people were just regular folks in the BEAST-verse. So it's not clear why the New Realm is set apart in such a way that Tao and Arina can't just drop in and visit when they please. Yet I find I kind of liked the ending, since it hearkened back to the quality of the first two seasons, where everything was a bit mysterious and many phenomena didn't admit of simple explanations.
As I said, the mythic resonance of the previous two seasons is largely absent, and, aside from the usual quota of sexy, scantily clad women, Season Three's best element is finding out how many different ways Steven Grives can put maximum spitefulness into uttering the name "Beastmaster!"
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