HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL ("THE MONSTER ON MOON RIDGE," 1959)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

It's no great tragic thing to remain a child. Theirs is the best age. Their world is mysterious, wonderful, half real, half make-believe. Mr Bella, the world we live in is not always so pleasant. -- Paladin, "Monster of Moon Ridge"

 

HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL stands at the pinnacle of a small category that might be called "intellectual westerns." Most if not all of the half-hour episodes were framed as dramatic exercises, in which the cultured gunfighter Paladin (Richard Boone) accepted troubleshooting missions on behalf of his clients. Rather than passively doing what his clients wanted, Paladin applied his own strong ethical principles to suss out who among the parties he met were or were not meritorious. TRAVEL's writers wore their intellectual credentials on their sleeves, as Paladin seemed to have a literary quote for every occasion. So those scribes clearly understood how to frame moral problems on the didactic level-- but for my purposes, did any of them succeed on the corresponding mythopoeic level of meaning?      

The script for "Monster on Moon Ridge" might have been compromised by the length of the episode, making it impossible to shake out some of the fuzzy spots. From his base in San Francisco Paladin is summoned to Moon Ridge, Colorado, but even before he leaves, there's a newspaper item alleging that weird events have happened in the town, centering upon one Emily Bella. Paladin's client is rancher Dan Bella, who wants to get to the bottom of the rumors about his daughter and some sort of "monster" dwelling in the barren mountains. At least the yahoos in town believe there is one, claiming to have seen tracks that are neither animal nor human.

Paladin meets Emily Bella and finds that she acts like a child in a grown woman's body. Dan explains that ten years ago an "epidemic" ravaged the area, and that its legacy was that some of the afflicted became mentally childlike (thus prompting Paladin's remark above). Dan too has seen the mysterious tracks. and though he doesn't believe in monsters he knows that Emily wandered off for a week earlier, and he suspects she's been beguiled by something in the mountains.

Once Paladin ventures into the mystery area, he's exposed first to a hideous witch, and then to a hairy beast that overwhelms him. The gunhawk awakes to find himself chained to a wall in a cave, not far from a black bear, similarly chained. The witch appears and uses flash powders to make it look like the bear transforms him to a man. But Paladin has gone beyond the make believe of childhood, and though he's a little thrown for a bit, he quickly recognizes that the witch wears a mask and has been counterfeiting the monster-tracks, while the "were-bear" is her grown son, who like Emily was mentally impaired by the epidemic. The trickster, one Maria, was forced to leave the town because the yahoos tormented her retarded son. But as she had no money, she set up a cabin on the mountain and tried to scare away the yahoos with her witch-act.

One detail omitted from the rushed script: why did Emily leave her father's house for long periods of time? Surely Maria would not want to encourage that behavior, given that it resulted in more publicity than she would want. The narrative's broad implication is that somehow Emily befriended Maria's similarly limited son Clairy, for they're seen laughing and playing with Maria's trained bear. Still, the script rushes past those details-- including the whole utility of Maria's deceptions-- to put together a happy ending, in which Dan takes a shine to Maria, implying that he will extend his male protection to her and her son, making feminine trickery unnecessary.             

"Monster" was one of 24 TRAVEL scripts written by Gene Roddenberry, who in my estimation is one of the few toilers in the TV medium who succeeded at making mythopoeic scripts, mostly in the series STAR TREK. "Monster" is not as good in the myth-department as the best TREK scripts (which Roddnberry reportedly always rewrote, no matter who was the credited writer of each episode). However, underneath the routine contrivances of "the rational Gothic" pattern followed by the episode, Roddenberry invokes a folkloric motif that I'll term "the demon lover." In some iterations, the motif takes the form of some demon or devil luring innocent girls-- who may or may not be "special" in some way-- into assignations. Maria admits that she patterned her witch-act on MACBETH, but in the symbolic sense Emily's the true witch-woman. Because she's a child in a woman's body, she suggests the possibility of sexual transgression-- which here could be one involving intimacy with a man-child. Maria's trickery can't keep that from happening, but a strong father like Dan Bella can. Together Dan and Maria can not only keep away the bothersome town yahoos, they can also ensure that Emily and Clairy are never more to one another than de facto brother and sister, and so never produce any "monsters."

A minor point: though Paladin does not dispense justice this time using either his fists or guns, he does so on many other occasions. Therefore the episode is a combative drama because so many others in the series have been in the combative mode.

                

LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, SEASON TWO (2009-10)

 

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

The first season dealt with the relatively mundane threat of warlord Darken Rahl's dominion of the SEEKER fantasy-realm. Season Two, however, concerns a more cosmic threat. The three heroes-- Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd-- managed to kill Rahl, but in so doing they open a rift between the living world and the world of the dead. The Keeper, malefic ruler of the death-realm, uses this opportunity to seek the world's destruction, unleashing zombie-like beings called "banelings" and installing the ghost of Darken Rahl as his lieutenant. The heroes must find a mystic artifact, the Stone of Tears, in order to seal the gap between the worlds.

This time, though, the three heroes get a fourth ally. drawn from the ranks of the Mord-Sith, the priestesses of pain and torture who normally serve the head of the Rahl bloodline. Early in the second season it's revealed that the father of Darken Rahl wished to spawn a second son who would overthrow the first one, and that second son was Richard. Cara Mason (Tabrett Bethel) decides that as a Mord-Sith formerly loyal to the previous Rahl, she now must follow Richard's band as they seek the talisman that can save the world. Her decision is aided by the discovery that the priestesses who recruited Cara betrayed her-- but even more so, her choice to walk the heroes' road represents a desire to reaquire her lost humanity. That said, though the trio of Richard, Zedd and Kahlan worked well, Cara adds a refreshing new element, as her ruthlessness and acerbic attitude add considerable "edge" to the proceedings.

As in the first season, the showrunners alternate between simple, "done in one" predicaments and the more "cosmic" events. The Mord-Sith Denna returns to cause the Seeker-group more trouble, and a new group of enemies, the Sisters of the Dark, are prominent in Season Two; they seek to control the magic of the Rahl line that Richard has inherited. The vague mythology behind the fantasy-verse is established as a duality: the female Creator engendered the world, but her consort envied her love for humans and sought to destroy her children. In the best tradition of the Miltonic deity, the Creator exiled her consort to the afterlife, so that he became the Keeper. Toward the end of the season, Darken Rahl is able to come back to life, playing a lone hand against both his infernal master and his half-brother Richard.

The most mythically complex episodes all congregate toward the end of the season, such as--

"Bound"-- This story exemplifies the "Wizard's Second Rule:" the greatest harm can result from the best of intentions. Nicci, the most formidable of the Dark-Sisters, casts a spell that imperils Kahlan's life. The spell can only be broken if Kahlan contacts the spirit of her long-dead mother, but this necessitates making contact with Kahlan's long-estranged father. Kahlan's father Frederick tyrannized his two daughters after their Confessor-mother passed away-- but he too was the victim of tyranny, as he was forced to love, marry and procreate with Kahlan's mother. The dispelling of ghosts from the past proves more effective than the cancellation of Nicci's magic.

"Desecrated"-- a magician, Cormac, abducts Cara and Kahlan to force Richard to dispense justice upon the leaders of a village that sinned against him. A ticking clock inheres in the fact that the two heroines are confined in a tomb where the air is running out. Cara and Kahlan, despite often competing with one another, now compete to see which of them can sacrifice her life for the other, resulting in a hand-to-hand battle.

"Extinction"-- Rahl has returned to the living world, and because he knows his brother needs the help of the fairy-like Night Wisps, he orders the delicate creatures massacred. Kahlan finds and saves one pregnant Night Wisp and charges Cara with getting the fairy to a spawning-ground, which makes for more scenes both amusing and touching as the hard-bitten warrior-woman has to call upon her softer side to keep the fragile entity alive.

"Eternity"-- the Seeker-group encounters a Mord-Sith named Dahlia. She claims that Cara spawned a son with Darken Rahl during her service to him, and then Rahl now wants to use him as a pawn. Cara won't agree to let this matter distract from their mission to use the Stone of Tears to save the world, but the others are more humanitarian in nature. It's a trick, of course, for Dahlia, despite having had intimate relations with Cara in the past, is working for Rahl. Cara is captured and subjected to new tortures to restore her allegiance, and at the end of the episode, Cara seems to have been turned.

"Tears"-- The final episode of Season Two starts with Zedd having rewritten the past to restore Cara to normal. Then it's a race to reach the site where the Stone can used to seal the rift, so of course Richard gets separated from his allies. This separation prefigures other shifts in loyalty, with the sorceress Nicci enslaving Kahlan and the Keeper taking over the body of a young boy whom Richard trusts. Unfortunately the final season does end with some dangling plot-threads, as both Rahl and Nicci remain at large once the world's been saved, and Richard and Kahlan still can't consummate their love for Various Reasons. I said earlier that SEEKER may have been a little too much a "straight" magical fantasy to be as successful as XENA and HERCULES, and that still seems like the most likely reason for its brief shelf-life.

             

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (2026)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

The substantial improvement of the third and fourth MCU/Sony SPIDER-MAN films, in comparison to the "meh" first and second films in the series, moves me to posit a symmetry between NO WAY HOME and BRAND NEW DAY.

HOME is about how the hero responds ethically to villains.

DAY is about how the hero responds ethically to monsters.

I'm sure I could be cooking up this symmetry out of my on preoccupations. Still, all four of these MCU/Sony spider-projects have shared in common two writers-- Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers-- so that's one real-world symmetry. And until the fourth in the series, Jon Watts directed them all, only to be replaced by Destin Daniel Cretton. But even if none of the previous raconteurs had returned, whoever worked on DAY would have been obliged to deal with the dangling plotline from HOME: the mind-wiping spell that restored the secrecy to Spider-Man's secret identity but also caused his two best friends to forget they'd ever known Peter Parker.

Now while NO WAY HOME probably owes some debt to the 2007 comics-story ONE MORE DAY, BRAND NEW DAY movie bears little resemblance to the 2008 comic of the same name. DAY's script forces Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to revert to a status not unlike that of the 1962 comics-Parker: an antisocial loner. Having been cut off from his boon friends MJ and Ned (Zendaya, Jacob Batalon), Parker chooses not to seek new acquaintances, but to devote all of his time to being Spider-Man. Even his confidante on the NY police force, Jean DeWolff, intuits that the hero is burning the candle at both ends. But there's a new menace in town, and this time it's not a familiar face from the Spidey rogues' gallery, but a monster-- albeit a monster with a hero's name.

I belabor this point because audiences don't respond to monsters the same way they respond to villains. Some reviewers were understandably ticked off to learn that the mystery menace-- a psychic able to remotely possess and control innocent people-- is named after the classic X-MEN character Jean Grey. This Jean Grey shares none of the history of other Jean-iterations, so while I wasn't crazy about the usage of the name, I wasn't as scandalized as those other reviewers. I will castigate the writers for making Grey *seem* to be a diabolical villain for the movie's first two acts, when they show her executing some mysterious grudge against the government agency Damage Control. Then the writers shift gears in the third act, making Grey a monster obsessed by the wrongs done her by the agency, more "sinned against" than embracing the life of sin, as do proper villains.

Yet I cut McKenna and Sommers a small break on the storytelling problems of DAY. I admire how the relatively new concept of Jean Grey's monomania against Damage Control-- for reasons I'll skip over-- acts as a mirror to the hero's obsession. This Spider-Man didn't lose his Uncle Ben, but "with great power there comes great responsibility" remains his watchword. But just as Grey loses herself in her obsession-- so much so that it never occurs to her to tell Spidey why she has a mad on for Damage Control-- Parker in effect neglects his "responsibility" to himself. The spider-DNA within his system begins to mutate the hero, at least partly due to his emotional trauma. This makes it tough for him to cope with the many pawns Grey sends against him, as well dealing with more unscrupulous crusaders, like the Punisher, making his debut in a live-action Spider-movie.

I'd find it easy to believe that the main reason McKenna and Sommers only name-dropped Jean Grey because some higher-up demanded some X-reference in DAY, just because the impending DOOMDSAY movie will reboot the MCU Universe to include the X-Men and other "Disney acquisitions." This possibility should seem probable to any viewer who suffered through ABC's godawful attempt to shoehorn The Inhumans into the AGENTS OF SHIELD universe. But the film's other major crossover proves far less problematic. After Spider-Man experiences his own "Hulk-out" moment due to his mutations, he has a smidgen of good fortune when Bruce Banner lectures at a Big Apple college, allowing Parker to get some advice about controlling one's inner monster. Unfortunately, this also puts the power of the Hulk into Jean Grey's clutches.

I'm not giving away much in divulging that the only cure for Peter Parker's malady is a return to the status quo from just before the worldwide revelation of Spidey's identity. I'm still not in love with these iterations of Parker's besties, but Zendaya and Batalon acquit themselves well-- though it goes without saying that all the support-cast proves secondary to Holland's performance as the wall-crawling bad-luck boy. DAY has its share of good character moments, but the movie wouldn't have become such a box-office phenomenon if it were not also, to invoke Martin Scorcese's terms, an entertaining roller-coaster ride. The biggest downside to this DAY is that Tom Holland probably doesn't have many more years to play the web-slinger, even though the character's finally been purged of all the extraneous MCU elements of the first two films.

                             

      

          

SUPERMANSION SEASON THREE (2018-9)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

The final episode of Season Two set up the gimmick for Season Three. Titanium Lex defied her adoptive father Doctor Devizo by saving Rex from death, but Devizo turned the situation to his advantage. Because Devizo and the Injustice Club helped repel the Subtopian invasion, the government gives the Club permission to move into the Mansion and join the League.

HOME IS WHERE THE SHART IS-- Hijinks ensue as the League and the Club attempt to share living space. Lex acts as liaison since she's been a member of both groups, and her loyalties are still divided. Though she saved Rex's life, she didn't tell him that Devizo betrayed him-- apparently because she still has feelings for her adoptive father. Groaner tries to break things off with Black Saturn but then becomes jealous as Saturn spends more time with his sidekick Ringler (aka Portia's former bf Courtney).

MASTERS OF LEX-- For the first time, Lex treats both Rex and Devizo as her fathers, by trying to provoke them into getting angry/protective when she dates a promiscuous vigilante, Max Penalizer. Robobot starts telling white lies to make life easier and ends up creating a death cult.

MY COUSIN KITTY-- A flashback reveals how Cooch was transformed from a regular cat into a cat-humanoid and how Rex took her into the League. Now Cooch's original owner sues to get back Cooch (and for $1 million damages), so Robobot becomes a lawyer by downloading countless David E Kelley TV shows. Groaner, irritated at having been eclipsed by Ringler, plans to expose Saturn's most humiliating secret. Lex is perturbed that aside from Penalizer, no men seem to want to approach her, and even Saturn, the ex she deemed far beneath her, ignores her entirely.  

ILIGA THEIR OWN-- Although Rex manages to get Devizo's team moved to a new location, the villains steal furniture from the Mansion, forcing the heroes to go shopping at the superstore Iliga (parody of Ikea). The man in charge is the League's foe Ivan Whiff, and in addition to selling shoddy furniture he plans to take over the world with Swedish supervillains. One of these villains, Bugula, has a hate for Black Saturn and nearly breaks his back. This is doubly significant because in an earlier episode Saturn pretended to be a Bane-like villain named Mange -- but here the doofus hero gets the treatment the comics-Batman got when Bane busted Batman's spine. In other news, Lex learns from Robobot that her insect-DNA has been emitting pheromones, so that she repels human males. (Again, no mention yet of her bisexuality since Season One.)

BROKEBACK SATURN (G)-- In a first-class spoof of the Batman-Bane comics-storyline, Saturn remains bedridden at the Mansion when a new menace arises. To cope with the menace, the government enlists Ringler to don a suit of super-armor and to become Saturn's replacement-- thus forming a parallel to Brokeback Batman being briefly being replaced by an armored "new Batman." Saturn is aghast to see citizens liking the new Saturn better, and showing more nerve than sense, leaves his sickbed and assumes the Mange ID, the better to trick Ringler into surrendering the armor. As for the threat, at first it looks as if Cooch's purely imaginary tormentors, Irish leprechauns, are real. But the 'chauns (as Cooch calls them) are part of a greater supernatural evil that has possessed Portia Jones, with which the League must grapple in the ensuing episode.

THE LONG CHAUN-- This follow-to "Brokeback Saturn" is the closest thing to a poor episode yet, as the League journeys to the god-realm, occupied by Zenith's people, the leprechauns and assorted fantasy-creatures. Such scenes as Zenith fighting her evil uncle Ridan and Robobot turning human are under-developed, and the only bit that works involves a big finish to Cooch's antipathy to leprechauns.

SUMMER VACATION SPECIAL (G)-- The third special is the best of the five, delivering a fine spoof of Hawaiian vacation stories. Rex meets a retired Barack Obama, Ranger tries to impress a USO audience with corny old routines, Robobot endures a timeshare, and Black Saturn holds a secret that may allow a shark-man to conquer the surface.

BACK IN BLACK TO THE FUTURE (G)-- A coda to "Black to the Future" posited that even though the League prevented the birth of Gamora, a future version of American Ranger will become just as much of a tyrant. At the end of "Long Chaun," the heroes are flung out of the god-realm into the Tyrant-Ranger. Saturn's dim brain finally realizes that his future self is married to Future Groaner, and Cooch meets "the Bureaucat," a button-down version of herself. But this time the Future-Tyrant isn't what "he" appears to be, for *she* is actually futuristic Titanium Lex, whose insect-DNA has mutated her into a soulless monster. When the League returns to its own time, Lex must figure out how to restrain her evil nature.

OPTIMO REX-- While the League is gone, Sgt Agony uses Rex's DNA to make a Rex clone, Optimo Rex, who's as even-tempered as Rex is cranky. Moreover, Devizo's team has taken over the Mansion, forcing the original League to move into the Club's rundown hovel. Rex takes the downgrade badly and becomes a near-supervillain when he makes a Devizo clone to get even. 

SYMPATHY FOR BLACK SATURN (G)-- Cooch protects the rock-monster Liplor from Devizo, and Robobot tries to help Lex control her transformations. But the A-plot concentrates on two clans of monsters. one of vampires and one of werewolves, seeking to convert Saturn to their cause, in a clever spoof of UNDERWORLD. Courtney gets turned into a vampiric valet. 

 

COMICARNAGE-- The League attends a comics convention, where Rex runs into his previous team, "Da League," who are even lamer than his current heroes. Geek jokes abound, with an odd subplot devoted to David "American Werewolf" Naughton turning into a real wolf-monster.

JUNGLE ALL THE WAY // DEBBIE DOES DEVIZO-- Agony talks the League into playing "Expendables" for a rescue mission on a tropical island. The heroes soon learn that it's a prison for international supervillains, and that one of the prisoners has devised metal gauntlets which harness the powers of numerous criminals. The gauntleted villain is Debbie Devizo, formerly Doctor Devizo's wife, who committed adultery with Rex. For revenge Devizo lured her to the island so that she became part of the prisoner population, becoming tough and embittered. She hates both Rex and Devizo but will leave Rex alone if he allows her to murder Devizo. Lex for her part fears that the only way to stop Devizo is to transform into her mantid self. When she does so, Debbie gets defeated and returned to the island-- but Lex's return to normalcy is only temporary.  

A PRAYER FOR MISTER T-- It's SUPERMANSION's Thanksgiving special. Devizo invites the League to the Mansion, resuming a tradition in which Rex and the Doctor competed to see who could produce the best turkey dinner-- though Rex always cheated by having the Mansion's maid Margery do the cooking. This time Devizo gives Margery the week off, and so Rex overcompensates by injecting his turkey, the titular "Mister T," with steroids, creating a turkey monster that promptly lays a bunch of monster-eggs. In other news, Black Saturn gets dissed by his family when he tries to horn in on their holiday, and Margery makes her first on-screen appearance. 

RUN, RANGER, RUN-- After Lex defeats Debbie Deviso, she goes into hiding to master her insect nature, and Saturn has to cope with Groaner's new girlfriend Harley Qu-- er, Patty Mime. But the A-tale concerns the Russian super-soldier Soviet Slayer to challenge Ranger to a ROCKY IV-like boxing match. Ranger is initially spooked by the Slayer's great power, but during the match he rallies, winning the fight but reaching a "detente" with the Russian. At episode's end, it's revealed that Robobot and Devizo secretly have Lex caged in the basement.

TEACHER AND THE GOOF-- TV executives want to get rid of the titular hosts of a long-running children's education show, so they hire Cooch and Liplor as new additions to the program, whom the executives hope to use to edge out Teach and Goof. But Teach is a fanatic who has got rid of all previous co-hosts, so Rex and Robobot intervene. In a dovetailing plotline, Ranger meets a son he begat back in the forties, meaning that Ranger is faced with a eighty-year-old man.

BACK TO THE ISLAND-- Rex finds out that Devizo and Robobot are seeking to cure Lex, but their only hope is to obtain a "power retardant" invented by Debbie-- whom the Doctor returned back to the prison-island. Cooch and Liplor take over hosting the kids' show, with "Meta-Zenith," a fusion of Zenith and Portia, as a guest. Saturn wangles a position as casting director, so he uses his new authority to invite both Groaner and Patty Mime to audition for the same role. hoping to break them up. When Rex and Devizo reach the island, Debbie-- now an ordinary woman-- removes their powers with the retardant. The three of them ramble down memory lane, revisiting the way Debbie, in her superhero ID of Heartshine, fell in love with Devizo, but also sought love with Rex. But this time, Debbie reveals that her Heartshine-power sapped love from Devizo, so he's not entirely responsible for his villainous career. Nevertheless, Rex booby-traps Debbie and obtains the retardant. However, Agony finds out about Lex's threat, forcing Lex and Robobot to go on the run.

BUG HUNT-- While Robobot and Lex go looking for a cure, the artificial man begins to harbor feelings for Rex's daughter. Rex calls the League together to locate the fugitives, while back at the Mansion Debbie, confined to a cell, seeks to get into Devizo's head. The fugitives find an eccentric horse breeder, whose son has access to the DNA of Lex's dead mother. Lex acquires the DNA but transforms into her monster-self, after which she and Robobot must flee again from Agony's forces. The League shows up, chaos ensues, and all the heroes but Saturn are imprisoned.

SATURN'S SIX-- Agony's forces chase Lex, but she managed to conceal her mother's DNA in Robobot's body, thus putting a potential cure in Devizo's hands. Saturn, seeking to free the League, tries to recruit a team of six liberators, but only gets three others: vampire Courtney, his butler Bunsen, and Commissioner Gomez. Saturn dons the Black Saturn armor, but he's still unable to beat Optimo Rex-- though surprisingly Saturn's overall plan works, freeing the League from prison and Courtney from his vampire status. But Agony and his people launch a killing attack on Lex, causing her to morph into a mantis-monster.

BAD LEX-- While Lex slaughters most of the Agony team, Devizo finishes his "gene ripper," though he's not sure it will save Lex or kill her. Lex's mutation gives her the power to resurrect her victims as "drones," and now Bad Lex plans to extinguish humanity with nuclear bombs. Rex refuses to take the gene ripper with them, but Devizo arranges things so that Debbie follows the League with the weapon. Rex keeps Debbie from shooting Lex, but amid the chaos Debbie's own plan coalesces, forcing Devizo to give up his humanity to save his adoptive daughter. The villains return to normal and leave with Devizo, now in total Luthor-mode, and though Lex is at least dominantly normal, the League mourns its fallen member, Robobot.

WORLD WAR TREE-- SUPERMANSION's last outing, an "Earth Day special produced about half a year after the series finale, has the League (including a conveniently rebuilt Robobot) show at an Earth Day celebration. However, eco-terrorist scientists bring a device that turns three sequoia trees into rampaging monsters, and the trees escape with Cooch. Rex seeks out his old "Da League" member Planetessa because she's a "Captain Planet" refugee and can talk to trees. Instead, Planetessa puts Rex and Lex in contact with Mother Earth, and so Planet Earth is saved, even though the League manages to set the sequoia forest aflame.    
             

        

     
 

SUPERMANSION SEASON TWO (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

The season starts with the mansion and Robobot rebuilt, and the reference in the last episode to "new candidates" for the League of Freedom is blown off in one joke. Season Two does reach out to the former member (and Wonder Woman analogue) Zenith, a celestial goddess who shares the body of a mortal talk-show host Oprah W-- I mean, Portia Jones. The fugitive Injustice Club figures into more plots this season. but the only ones worth mentioning are Devizo, Groaner. and Lex Lightning, still full of passionate hate for Titanium Rex but no longer inclined to morph into a male version of herself. Curiously, though she was ostensibly raised by Devizo, there's nearly no sense that the two of them have ever had a father-daughter relationship.

VIRTUAL REALITY BLUES (G)-- Cooch misses Brad, so when Ranger tells her Brad's in heaven, she wants to become a Christian to join him, but she gets hinky about baptismal immersion. When Saturn learns Groaner's alive, he crushes hard on his nemesis, resulting in many embarrassing moments.  More importantly for ongoing plotlines, Devizo steals a computer file containing Rex's greatest secret, and when Rex descends into a VR world to recover the file, Devizo and Lex are waiting for him. To Rex's good fortune, a rendezvous between Saturn and Groaner crosses his path in VR and a goofy time is had by all.

SCHOOL ME ONCE-- Rex plots to get Zenith back on the team, and that leads the League to "go back to school," i.e., the university of which Ranger and Saturn are alums. Saturn's old frat is ashamed of him, while Cooch is enlisted to be the school mascot. The upshot is that Portia does rejoin the League, but mainly to help the heroes upgrade their tarnished reputation.

THE LEAGUE OF CHEESEDOM-- Portia's first move is to use the League's images to merchandize a pizza place, "the League of Cheesedom," on the advice of her boytoy Courtney. Ranger becomes attracted to Portia when she scolds him and Saturn gets Groaner to perform on stage. Menace arises when Robobot, who's taken on the persona of a rebellious teenager, reprograms a band of animatronic robots, who promptly go berserk. Best line:

ROBOBOT: "I thought I'd found a family, but they ended up being bloodthirsty monsters." 

REX: "That's pretty much every family."

I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO USE MY J.K.-- With Portia's encouragement, Oscar winning actor J.K. Simmons floats the idea of a Titanium Rex movie, but only if Rex is willing to reveal his deepest secrets. It's all a Devizo plot, which goes a lot better than Lex's short-lived takeover of the Injustice Club. Lex has her first meeting with Rex since he shot her in the face, and it's an ambivalent encounter.

 

BLACK TO THE FUTURE (G)-- This one's a knowing satire of time-travel stories like X-MEN's "Days of Future Past." A future-version of Black Saturn changes places with the current version and he warns that his era will be turned into a hellscape by Gamora. the spawn of Zenith and American Ranger. The League must prevent the two of them from procreating in the current era. There's a brief scene showing Zenith's paradisical all-female domain. Good payoffs on all plotlines this time.

BLAZARMAGGEDON (G)-- The villain Blazar was devolved to a monkey earlier, but it turns out that Blazar was an alien herald of a Galactus-sized humanoid, Asteros, who plans to destroy Earth. For once Ranger gets the best plotline, as he goes space-mad at the meaninglessness of the cosmos.

THE GURMAN FILES (G)-- Two sex-heavy plotlines diverge here. In one, Ranger wants his wife to sign their divorce papers, and to that end he and Portia seek out Gloria at a fetish-convention, leading to Dueling Dominatrixes. In the other, Black Saturn tries to go solo (albeit with Courtney as a sidekick) to solve the mystery of kidnapped 1970s models. Rex, who is to some extent a father-substitute for Saturn, falls under suspicion because he knew the models in his youth. With the League's help, Saturn finds the kidnapper and his victims, but also that one of the models is his own mother, and that Rex boned her numerous times.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT LIPLOR (G)-- Rex's big secret is revealed to the public and the League-- that he came to the surface looking for new worlds for his people, the Subtopians, to conquer. Rex let his people think him dead so that he could use his powers to protect humans (and to chase tail). But now Rex's older brother Dax reaches the surface with his rock-monster slave. Dax is disgusted that Rex didn't use his beacon to summon an invasion-force, so he takes the initiative. Rex and the freed slave defeat Dax, but now the government deems Rex an enemy agent. To protect his friends, Rex pretends complicity and flees.

LOGS DAY JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (G)-- Rex takes the identity of a lumberjack to conceal himself but still finds himself forced to battle injustice. The other heroes have been forbidden to crusade, but it turns out that Dax managed to send a message to his people. Robobot deduces that because Lex stole the anti-magno rod from the mansion, the League must make common cause with the Club. Unfortunately, Devizo has the rod now, and he seeks out Rex. In addition, the Subtopians reach the surface.

TITANIUM LEX (G)-- Within a short space of time, the Subtopians conquer Storm City while holding off all counterattacks from the government. Both the League and the Club are in hiding, and Devizo brings Rex back to the city for his own reasons. Devizo shows off the anti-magno rod and announces that they need more of the element to repel the invaders. Despite lots of bungling by the heroes and villains, Lex acquires the needed ordnance-- and though she plans to leave Rex to the mercies of his evil brother, she can't resist returning to save her dad, killing her Uncle Dax. Rex almost sacrifices himself in the stratagem that banishes the Subtopians, but Lex rescues him again, and agrees to join the League, but under her new name, Titanium Lex. But more trouble for Season 3 looms, as Doctor Devizo is put in charge of the heroes' future.

WAR ON CHRISTMAS-- Cooch, who believes in Santa Claus, releases from captivity an evil imp, Skibumpers (a clear analogue of Mxyzptlk). The elf grants Cooch's wish to make Santa real, forcing the League to cope with the chaos. This and one other special were filmed before Season Two, so Portia and Courtney don't appear, though on streaming the specials are lumped in with the second season.

DRAG ME TO HALLOWEEN-- In this Halloween offering, Ranger is almost seduced by a sexy ghost, Robobot is "possessed" by malware, and Cooch uncovers a malevolent dentist. The best plot involves Saturn and Groaner trying to score at a Halloween party, with more homoeroticism resulting.                         

  

SUPERMANSION SEASON ONE (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

At first glance SUPERMANSION, a stop-motion animation series launched on the defunct service Crackle, might seem to be in exactly the same vein as Cartoon Network's acidulous ROBOT CHICKEN. Both of MANSION's creators had CHICKEN associations, with Matthew Senreich billed as the CHICKEN co-creator while Zeb Wells worked on the CN program in assorted creative capacities. Further, CHICKEN frequently used superhero-themed blackout gags that revealed the writers' geek-level knowledge of superhero comics, while MANSION is obviously about nothing but superheroes. However, I consider CHICKEN an irony and MANSION a comedy, and I define the difference here as being the degree to which the characters' world is effed up.

 MANSION's main focus is to bombard the viewer with sexy/slapsticky jokes about the six superheroes, the League of Freedom, who watch over Storm City and/or the world. The humor's crude but inventive, and most episodes are at least fair in mythicity (I've used "G" to denote the ones rising to the "good" level). The League members all derive from well-traveled genre tropes, to wit:

TITANIUM REX-- the League's leader and the "Superman" of the group, though he arrived in Storm City not from outer space but from a civilization beneath the surface. He came to the surface world as a young man but as he's old now, implicitly he's been a superhero for some forty years.

COOCH-- a former housecat evolved into a feline humanoid. Drawn from various heroes with animal-like characteristics, like both Spider-Man and Spider-Woman.

BRAD-- A mountainous crusader who, like many other heroes who are enhanced through chemistry, only has power as long as he takes steroids.

BLACK SATURN-- A thorough parody of Batman, Saturn is conceited and stupid, sounds like a whiny baby most of the time, and has recurring encounters with a Joker-like villain, "the Groaner," which relationship eventually turns homoerotic.

ROBOBOT-- A spoof of android heroes like Vision and Red Tornado, constantly questioning his identity due to his artificial origins. In Season One he converts to Judaism and takes the name Jewbot.

AMERICAN EAGLE-- A super-patriotic WWII hero in the mold of Captain America, and one who, like the Captain, got unnaturally preserved for decades until reaching modern times. This is the weakest character, used almost exclusively to assert that his patriotism is infused with racial and religious chauvinism.

GROANER'S WILD-- Rex's irresponsible teammates have abused the League's government budget so badly that a governmental bean-counter, Sgt Agony, is assigned to rein the heroes. Saturn's dialogue with the Groaner establishes the hero's pathetic need for the validation of an "arch nemesis."

THEY SHOOT OMEGA PETS, DON'T THEY? -- The League comes across what seem to be amiable super-pets, but the name "Omega" suggests their nefarious nature.

LET'S TALK ABOUT REX-- Despite Rex's many powers, including a titanium hand that can morph into various weapons, his battle with the villain Blazar makes the public wonder if the hero isn't too old for superheroing. Despite many age-jokes, Rex does get a little validation from his team of goofballs.

A SHOP IN THE DARK-- Rex invites the Defense Secretary for dinner at the Mansion to wangle a higher budget from the government. Rex thinks the deal's sealed because as a teen the Secretary was the kid sidekick of American Ranger, but of course everything goes wrong with the dinner. At least when it's revealed that the Secretary is a gay man, his relationship with Ranger remains platonic.

PUSS IN BOOKS-- The terminally distracted Cooch must pass a college-level test to stay in the League. 

LEX (G)-- A hot young costumed woman, Lex Lightning, shows up at the Mansion asking for Rex, and the geriatric bladesman assumes it's a groupie. Instead she shows him her titanium hand and claims to be the offspring of one of his many hookups. Since Rex doesn't know what the name "Lex" means in another super-universe, he tries to bond with Lex, endeavoring to teach her how to fly-- though he also runs out on her, showing his paternal reluctance.        

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S REAM-- Jewbot experiments with his feminine side, Saturn goes clubbing, and three Leaguers get trapped by an evil gym membership. 

BRAD MEDICINE-- The company that makes Brad's steroids cuts him off, causing him to shrink back to his original size. His friends try to get him back on the sauce.

UNFORTUNATE SON-- Lex gets a look at Saturn's home life, where the latter is always seeking the approval of his uptight parents, who prefer his more practical-minded younger brother Dudley. Jewbot, however, learns that Dudley is a drug dealer.

BABES IN THE WOODS (G)-- Apparently sympathetic to Saturn, Lex plans to have sex with him on a League camping-trip. Saturn is willing but has fears of Rex punishing him for crossing a line. Rex has his own secret, revealing to Ranger that he Rex has been sleeping with Ranger's 80-something wife. Ranger unfriends Rex but still comes to the team's aid against killer hillbillies.

THE INCONCEIVABLE ESCAPE OF DR DEVIZO (G)-- Doctor Devizo, imprisoned in a Mansion cell, informs Rex that he plans to escape. He almost does, only to be thwarted by Lex Lightning, thus making the other Leaguers look bad. Ranger, having tasked his elderly wife with her infidelity, plans to commit his own transgression, but his plans go astray.

LEXANITY (G)-- Rex won't let Lex join the League, so when another superhero team is formed by a billionaire, she accepts that offer of membership. The highlight is Saturn acting the fool as he tries tp get into the new group-- until the ending, when Jewbot learns a secret about Lex and she chops off his head.

LEX AS A WEAPON (G)-- The Big Reveals: Lex is the bisexual offspring of Rex and one of his old villainess-flames, and since childhood Lex was raised to hate Rex by Devizo. Lex releases the evil doctor and his Injustice Club from their cells and incapacitates all the Leaguers. Devizo plans to unleash the Mansion's nuclear missiles on the world, but Lex becomes frustrated at her inability to torment Saturn with his having slept with a bisexual. She assigns Groaner to torture Saturn, but when Saturn proves to be the only hero who appreciates Groaner's villainy, Groaner releases Saturn, who frees his friends. Rex and Lex have a brief but intense battle on both physical and psychological levels. after which Lex escapes, albeit with her eyes (temporarily) burned out. Further, Brad ends up sacrificing his life to save the world. This probably stands as the show's best episode, dependent though it is in other continuity.

ADDENDUM: In the above review of "Babes in the Woods," I said that Lex "apparently" felt sympathy for Saturn, by which I meant that the writer(s) wanted viewers to think that. Having seen Season One before, I knew Lex intended to betray the League, so everything she did was oriented to that end. However, she really does not gain any advantage by sleeping with Saturn and is generally disgusted by him. Her only probable motive was that she knew her real father would disapprove of her dating Saturn, and that she mainly wanted to honk him off. On a deeper level (or as deep as a fictional character can get), Lex also wanted to know that Rex gave a shit what she did, and this is supported by Season Three's "Masters of Lex," wherein Lex dates a scumbag to draw a reaction from both her fathers.

SMALLVILLE SEASON 3: 17-19 (2004)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: (1) *good*, (2,3) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

Finally, in "Legacy," Season Three wanders back to the still-mysterious designs of the Jor-El AI, left unaddressed since "Exile." In a few previous episodes the writers suggested that Jonathan's health has suffered from Jor-El's "power boost," and Clark becomes concerned enough that he takes the Krypton-Key to the Kawache Caves, trying to draw out the AI for a heart-to-heart. But the key's only response is to send forth a ray that carves a new aperture in the wall with the Kryptonian symbols. Critically-ill Lionel, though, gets alerted by his agents re: Clark's cave-trespass, and somehow arrives in time to behold Clark and the "new keyhole," but not the key in Clark's possession.

Lionel doesn't reference the Adam Knight failure, but clearly he ups his investigation of the Kents, even sending bogus FBI agents to the farm, because he seeks a reprieve. He also meets with Virgil Swann (Christopher Reeve in his final performance), and the enigmatic genius reveals nothing, though he lends Lionel some conditional aid. This motivates Clark to confront Swann, thus also providing the show's last encounter between "Superman" and "Superboy." Jonathan makes an effort to end Lionel's threat, and Clark must intervene. It's a solid "mythology" episode, though I suspect the many SMALLVILLE mysteries don't have a payoff much better than LOST.

"Truth" turns out better than its premise suggests. Demon journalist Chloe inhales an experimental gas and acquires the power to make almost anyone answer her questions with complete truthfulness. Clark alone can resist her power, but Chloe becomes drunk with her new abilities. Naturally most of the episode concerns characters managing to dance around the Big Reveal, though Chloe does play dice with the devil when she tries to blackmail Lionel.

"Memoria" puts aside one Luthor's obsession for another's, as Lionel's struggle to avert death takes a back seat to Lex's quest for his repressed Belle Reve memories. To that end, he accepts treatment by Doctor Garner, one of Smallville's many resident mad scientists, who stimulates buried memories via a machine powered by-- what else-- meteor rocks. Both Lionel and Clark don't want Lex's memories to return, but while Lionel just puts pressure on Garner, Clark beards the rogue researcher in his den. Garner sticks Clark in the memory-machine, offering the teen's memories to willing buyer Lionel, but even after kryptonite weakening Clark's body generates enough feedback to destroy the machine. Lex then arrives in time to save Clark's life without learning the Big Secret. Yet Garner's process does give Lex closure on a trauma dating back to the show's first season: the belief that he killed his baby brother Julian. It's a good payoff for a so-so story.

   

    

LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, SEASON ONE (2008-09)

 

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

As I have only read the first of Terry Goodkind's "Seeker" books, WIZARD'S FIRST RULE, I can't speak to the overall quality of the series, or whether it was a crying shame that Sam Raimi's teleseries adaptation didn't get more than two seasons. But the first novel offers in part a theme opposed to most otherworldly Tolkienian fantasies. one that might boil down to, "Power of all kinds-- not just One-Ring power-- corrupts the good and the bad alike." The dramatic consequences of this theme are that even the three pure-hearted heroes are innately capable of harming one another, even with the best of intentions.

Though most of the 22 episodes of LEGEND's first season don't adapt incidents from the first book, the overall outlines remain the same. Large portions of Goodkind's unnamed fantasy-verse have been conquered by the military might of tyrannical Darken Rahl, whose long-range goal is to control all life through assorted sorcerous stratagems. However, it's been prophecized that a rare crusader for justice, the Seeker, is destined to kill Darken Rahl. Young Richard Cypher (Craig Horner) is raised without knowing that he is the Seeker, but soon he's drafted to fulfill his destiny by two other heroes. One is elderly wizard Zed (Bruce Spence), who arranged Richard's concealment from hostile forces. The other, Kahlan (Bridget Regan), belongs to a line of priestesses, the Mother Confessors, and she becomes vital to Richard's mission-- although she threatens it as well, as the two fall in love, causing distractions from their purpose.

Some storylines are definitely derived from Goodkind, as with an arc involving the heroes trying to keep Rahl from obtaining the Boxes of Orden, whose power can corrupt even the Seeker. Other episodes are built around "done in one" problems. Yet even the simpler episodes, despite comedy relief, often reflect grim realities about war and death. This may be a reason why LEGEND didn't catch on like Raimi's more famous fantasy-serials, HERCULES and XENA. 

Only one episode merits a rating of high mythicity, and that is "Denna," a faithful adaptation of a long sequence from WIZARD'S FIRST RULE. In this sequence, Richard is captured by Denna (Jessica Marais), who attempts to break his will via torture. Like Kahlan, Denna belongs to an all-female priestesshood, but where Kahlan's order compels obedience through the emotion of love,  Denna's order uses pain. To some, this might sound like Goodkind importing the Marquise de Sade into a Tolkienian fantasy-setting. Yet because Goodkind structured his world so scrupulously, the concept is both dramatically and mythopoeically compelling. 

One additional point of merit is that the showrunners did contrive a "wrap-up" in the final episode of Season One, in case they didn't get another order of episodes. At the same time, the producers alluded to a major event of the next Goodkind novel, STONE OF TEARS, and introduced in Season One's last episode the character of Cara, a Goodkind creation from a later novel-- and both the event and the character proved of paramount importance to the second and final season.           

LOVE AND DEATH IN THE GARDEN OF THE GODS (1972)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

All of the giallo contributions of director/writer Sauro Scavolini took place within the space of about two years, while both before and after that 1971-72 period Scavolini plied his trade in other genres. But since that small sample of works includes one of my ten best giallos, YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM, Scavolini's "farewell to giallos" merits some sustained attention.

Structurally, GARDEN isn't as well-constructed as the best of this subgenre. Like a lot of "old dark house mysteries," the film's eminent character is dead when the main story starts, and the audience must follow an amateur detective sussing out the unhappy lives of rich siblings Azzurra (Erika Blanc) and Manfredi (Peter Lee Lawrence).

The "detective," an unnamed professor of ornithology, rents the sumptuous estate where Azzurra and Manfredi were raised. The professor knows nothing of the former occupants of the estate: he only intends to study the bird life in the adjacent forest. However, in said forest the bird-fancier discovers a pile of wadded-up audiotape. The professor untangles and cleans up the tape, which he's improbably able to replay on a tape machine.

 The tapes reveal the history of Azzurra as she confides in her psychiatrist regarding her twisted history with Manfredi. Both were raised without the oversight of their parents, so that they started sleeping together as kids, which grew into a sexual relationship. Later Azzurra marries another man, and Manfredi takes up with a "free spirit" named Viola, but neither of them is able to let the other sibling go. For instance, the tapes reveal to the professor that after Azzura married, Manfredi left the estate for a while, only to return with Viola, attempting (without much success) to maintain an art studio. In keeping with the title, the forbidden love of the siblings culminates in death, and the surviving sibling even extends his menace to the amateur detective.

GARDEN's pace is slow, possibly to take full advantage of the opulent setting of mansion and vernal paradise. The "love and death" trope isn't uniformly maintained throughout the professor's discoveries, but I assign high-mythicity to GARDEN less because of its rambling plot than for Scavolini's formulation of the transgressive couple, an "Adam and Eve" who exist not to propagate a new future but to be destroyed by their past. To be sure, the script (by Scavolini and a woman with no other IMDB credits) backs off on the incest-theme. Azzurra, who often manipulates Manfredi to keep him at her beck and call, cruelly tells him that they were never brother and sister: that he was a boy adopted by the family after Azzura's actual brother perished in childbirth. But this revelation seems random, since it doesn't hold any consequences for the plot-- and besides, if Azzurra's parents wanted to preserve the illusion of a viable male heir, why didn't either of them stick around to administer the estate and make sure that the two phony siblings made good marriages? The unnamed parents are more like a pair of otiose divinities who just dump their progeny into a beautiful paradise, just to watch them destroy one another.

Oddly, the trope of "perilous psycho" applies to both siblings, and though Manfredi is the one who becomes a murderer, Azzurra's Sadean influence seems far more profound and pernicious.

                  

  

ONE ARMED SWORDSWOMAN (1972)

 PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

A lot of chopsockies emulated the internationally successful ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN, so frankly I wasn't expecting anything much of this five-years-later Taiwanese knockoff. I have to hold the original producers guiltless of a screwup in the English credits: "Ching-Ching Chang als [sic] ONE ARMED SWORDSWOMAN," but I was unfamiliar with any other IMDB credits for the writer-director Sheng-en Chen. Similarly, I didn't know starring diva Chang or any of the other names, so I tend to assume the whole cast was Taiwanese, even if they were attempting to mimic the look of a Hong Kong Shaw film.

SWORDSWOMAN takes the opposite tack from SWORDSMAN in the characterization department. Whereas the viewer learns a lot about the family background of the 1967 protagonist, Chang's character Pan Yi Fung starts out as a one-dimensional "knight errant," who apparently has no other goal in life but to wander about killing ruthless bandits with her sword. Her puissance is displayed in an early scene where four bandits snare her with ropes, after which Pan frees herself and slays them with one smooth move. Then a traveling stranger comes along, praising her skills, which pleases her inordinately. More bandits appear to challenge Pan, and the stranger lends his skills to help her. But the stranger doesn't happen to kill any of the bandits and instead deals Pan a wound in her arm with a poisoned sword. The traveler reveals that he's really one of the bandit gang, and that Pan will soon perish of the poison. The noble fighter tries to take many of her foes with her, but she's clearly losing strength. But then another famous kung fu knight happens along and spirits Pan away.

The heroine's apparently able to direct her rescuer to Pan's estate, where she lives with one female servant. The savior is one Chen Peng Fei, known as the Black Dragon due to his attire: all-black robes and a hat with a face-shrouding black veil. Chen tells Pan and the servant that the only way to save Pan's life is to amputate her poisoned arm. Pan agrees to the operation, after which Chen takes his leave. Three years later, Pan has re-trained herself to compensate for her missing arm, but she's also formed an intense need to see the Dragon again. The terse script does not expound on her motives, but actress Chang conveys an immense feeling of loneliness.

She meets her black-garbed ally, who unmasks before her and sweet-talks her with homilies about the loner nature of martial artists. They have offscreen sex, but in the morning, Chen sneaks away like a dog. Pan follows him, and Chen insults her by offering her a valuable pearl for services rendered. Pan is heartbroken and returns home. Strangely, her maid advises Pan that she might still be united with the man she loves, and Pan decides to look for Chen once more, in case, I don't know, he's changed his mind about being a bastard.

Now, experienced filmgoers may foresee some shenanigans, given that Pan never saw Chen without his mask the first time, and anyone can wear an all-concealing black costume. But even if a viewer suspects trickery, Pan's next experience is unsettling, for suddenly she starts running into more black-garbed men, who, when she unmasks them, are not Chen. Then she kills-- or apparently kills-- a fifth Man in Black, after she's heard a young woman call him "Chen." Jealous, she attacks and kills the man, only to be told he's blind. She's so aggrieved that she almost lets a vengeful mob murder her. But once again, the Black Dragon saves Pan and takes her back home. There he unmasks, showing her that he's not the man to whom she surrendered herself. 

For some reason Chen and Pan fake their deaths to throw off the bandit gang, but the head guy-- Lee Ming-Tse, the fellow who deceived Pan-- sees through the charade. I don't know why Chen, divested of his costume, makes a solo attack on Lee and his goons in the bandit fortress, but the sortie ends with Chen retreating back to Pan's house, half-blinded by spears that eject streams of acid (!) Of course, the reason Chen must be sidelined is because Pan is the star, and to her goes the honor of confronting Lee and his gang, atop a mountain this time. Perhaps needless to say, Pan triumphs over all adversaries, though Lee does get in a mean jab about their romantic time together. And so the film ends with Pan alone amid her fallen foes, though in an earlier scene, the door's left open for a possible union of the two crusaders.

Chang provides a good range of emotions here, though everyone else is strictly Saturday-morning serial, and she does well in the battle scenes. As I commented in my SWORDSMAN review, the mundane removal of an arm doesn't generate an uncanny vibe for the "freakish flesh" trope, but Pan performs assorted superlative feats, particularly for being able to hurl twigs hard enough to pierce an enemy's throat. 

I'm sure that neither Sheng-en Chen or anyone else thought they were making a masterpiece. In the copy on TUBI, the final scene between Chen and Pan is spoiled by a sudden cut, presumably because some censor thought the romantic interlude too racy. Yet though I've seen dozens of flicks featuring kung-fu knights, even the few that address the disadvantages of a justice-seeking life, like CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, tend to underplay the emotional cost of the martial life. That cost is evident in the ease with which the disguised bandit gets Pan to turn her back on him, and her strange obsession with the real Chen, who relates to her only as patient to doctor, residing at her manor for a month just to preserve her life. Though the villain Lee never explains how he formulated his plan to sleep with her and then gaslight her, it's likely that he figured out how emotionally vulnerable Pan was, precisely because she'd tried to live a totally righteous life and found, like many others, that virtue being the reward for virtue was worse than no reward at all.  

                       

RAWHIDE: "INCIDENT OF THE BLUE FIRE" (1959)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Like INCIDENT OF THE PALE RIDER, BLUE FIRE is one of a handful of tales from the early seasons of RAWHIDE that use uncanny scenarios to throw doubt upon the substantial and rational aspects of the world.

Gil Favor's band of hard-working drovers and the cattle they shepherd are far from civilization when they encounter the "blue fire" of the title. The electrical phenomenon is said to herald lightning-strikes, but the drovers don't need the azure discharge to tell them that they stand in peril of a stampede, if the prevalent storm clouds should panic the easily spooked "beeves." Favor assures his men that the "St. Elmo's fire" is harmless, but the fact that he, like other 19th-century cowboys, don't know what the hell it is makes the situation even more unnerving. The terminally superstitious Hey Soos makes things no better by maundering about deaths and devils.

Into the drovers' camp comes an individual who becomes a flashpoint for all the cowboys' inchoate fears: a footloose fellow named "Lucky" Markley. Markley himself is a would-be drover, as he tries to sell Favor a tiny herd of scrub cattle he's rounded up. The cows are of such inferior stock that Favor won't have them. However, because they're in the midst of marauding Comanches, the trial-boss allows Markley to work for him as a drover, at least until they reach some civilized port. Unfortunately for Favor, Hey Soos openly disparages Markley as the harbinger of bad luck, and the rest of the men are just as leery of the stranger.

 Markley (affably played by Skip Homeier) does nothing to provoke this hostility, though he makes one arguable error. While he and another drover are rounding up a stray steer, three Comanches accost them, demanding not only the steer but also Markley's horse. Markley shoots one brave, and the other two flee, but return later with a larger contingent of Comanches. The drovers resent Markley for bringing on more trouble, though the Comanches probably would have sought to plunder the herd no matter what happened. The men want Markley cast out. Favor alone defends the man, so much so that even Markley wonders why the trail-boss protects him, given that Favor owes Markley nothing. Favor tells a tale of having lost a young male companion during a round-up due to "bad luck," and it's implied that Favor believes in determining life by one's own actions, not through beliefs in good or ill fortune. It's this novel approach that keeps FIRE from being just a dime-a-dozen "it is wrong to give in to mob rule" morality play.

The stunning conclusion suggests that Favor's view is too simple. Finally, just as the Comanches move in for a raid, lightning strikes and the cattle stampede. Only a skillful maneuver has the chance to box the cattle in and quell their rampage, and Lucky Markley performs the deed-- sort of. The viewer alone sees how Markley, riding his cowpony, is struck in the head by lightning, killing him-- and yet, somehow horse and rider curtail the stampede, as well as scaring off the Indian raiders. Later the drovers find both horse and rider. The horse is dead from falling and breaking his neck, but there's nothing to indicate how the so-called "jonah" died, except slight burn-marks on the back of his neck. Was Favor's "favored son" killed, only to complete his task despite being a dead man in the saddle? The episode ends with no pat answers for anyone and thus stands as one of the very best "weird westerns" ever produced for television.         

THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical, psychological*

Under the sea


Under the sea
Nobody beat us
Fry us and eat us
In fricassee

Yeah, yeah, everyone's all "THE LITTLE MERMAID, beginning of the Disney Renaissamce." I see "The Little Mermaid, Sellout." "The Little Mermaid, Species-Traitor!"

I exaggerate for effect, but not by much. Fetching mermaid Ariel is both an accomplished songstress and the apple of her father Triton's eye. She often hears, from both her father and her crustacean music-teacher Sebastian, that the humans from the surface-world have a marked propensity to devour the denizens of Triton's subsea domain Atlantica. Yet from the movie's beginnings-- long before Ariel has her "love at first sight" moment with human Prince Eric-- this fish-girl is as nuts for surface-world detritus as a Zoomer for the latest K-pop fad. The script never says why Ariel is such a human-lover, though theoretically one could chalk up her diffidence toward her own world to the seeming absence of virile young mermen. (Maybe Ursula ate 'em all up?) Ariel seems pretty indifferent to the fact that Eric's people would gleefully chow down on her buddies Sebastian and Flounder. Yet in terms of exogamous mating, one must admit that the seaweed looks literally greener in the surface-dwellers' "lake."

The fear of being eaten naturally exists "under the sea" as well as on land, not to mention the fear's prevalence in animated cartoons since the medium's origins. Carnophobia is also a big part of Disney gag-humor, making its presence in MERMAID one of two big divergences from the Hans Christian Andersen story on which the MERMAID writers riffed. The other big change from the source-material is the injection of diabolism. Andersen's Sea Witch has no Satanic propensities; she just tells the Mermaid: "you want to change your nature; here's what it'll cost you." Ursula though is a Tempter who takes sadistic pleasure in the misery of others; Lucifer as sardonic drag-queen. When Triton rages at Ariel for wanting to date outside her species, Ursula sees the chance to up her game. By securing Ariel's soul, Ursula can pull off a Satanic version of an Imitatio Dei, becoming the new ruler of the ocean-domain, the ultimate Big Fish that eats all smaller prey.

Happily, MERMAID's suggestion of heavy themes is more than counterbalanced by all the fun, light-hearted stuff that made Classic Disney possible from the beginning. When Prince Eric meets the voiceless Ariel, he can't believe she's related to the haunting mer-girl who saved his life, and she can only try to draw his love to her through the power of her fundamentally innocent sexuality. "Kiss the Girl" is the sort of musical number that would have been impossible in the days of Raging Feminism: the Awfuls would have been railing that in their world women didn't have to wait for the guys to make the first move. But underneath all the singing birds and frogs in the background dwells a priority older than humankind: if the male can't summon the mojo to make the first move, he might as well be sitting on the sidelines and watching the parade go by.

I recall one discordant note voiced back when MERMAID was new to movie-screens: some ultra-Feminist critic didn't like it when Prince Eric, who didn't do much of anything for the entire story, received the honor of killing Ursula by stabbing her with the "phallic" prow of his ship. There's not much one can say to that sort of dumbass thinking beyond, "sometimes a prow is just a prow." But even if some Disney scripter was actively thinking "prow=penis," who in the audience really cares who cares who kills the Sea Bitch, as long as she's sung her last note?

So, okay. expected happy ending, and maybe when Eric and Ariel ascend to the throne of Wherever, the ex-Mermaid enjoins the whole kingdom to lay off the marine delicacies. Buth human and merman realms are implicitly improved by the joining of houses and the expulsion of the Principle of Evil-- not counting the lesser evils of sequels, prequels, and live-action remakes.