ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 7, 1997 TAG: 9704070123
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: DENNIS ANDERSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
These series provide heroes and hunks, monsters and nostalgia, and if you catch on, humor.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - and in television, imitation can sometimes be darn near the whole show - the heroic fantasy series ``Hercules'' must be getting a swelled head.
In recent months, such fantasy adventure shows have popped up faster in television syndication than ``Friends'' clones hit the networks.
Following the path of ``Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'' are offerings drawn from such staples of the old cliffhanger genre as ``Robin Hood,'' ``Tarzan,'' and ``Sinbad,'' each circulating in the off-peak hours of the 50- or 60-channel TV spectrum that syndication serves.
How much mythical traffic will the system bear? Well, any show survives only on its ability to pull an audience and hold it.
On the successful side, ``Highlander,'' a heroic predecessor of ``Hercules,'' recently wrapped its 100th episode, and its global audience can order from a catalog of licensed goods that range from 10-buck T-shirts to lethal ``Highlander'' swords that cost hundreds of dollars.
In audience pull and popularity, ``Hercules,'' in its third season, and its companion spin-off, ``Xena: Warrior Princess,'' already have shown their rippling muscles.
The shows, both rated TV-PG, are vying with ``Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' for pride of place in syndication popularity.
Rob Tapert, the executive producer of both series, describes his creations as ``a guilty pleasure for professors, relevant for kids'' and populated with scantily clad females ``for the guys who can't find the keys to the pickup.''
``We knew we could make a better show than `Baywatch,''' Tapert said.
The popularity of Herc & Xena isn't related to nostalgia for corny 1950s gladiator movies or the ``Conan The Barbarian'' mold. They just don't look, or sound, like a bunch of stuff that happened on television in an earlier life.
The Hercules character played by Kevin Sorbo talks like a surfer guy and makes his heroic warrior move with the ease of quarterback Joe Montana.
Lucy Lawless, who plays Xena, is a kind of she-hunky leather queen who sails through the air like Bruce Lee and could be a dream date - as long as you surrender the car keys.
``We wanted action, we wanted monsters and, for those who catch on, they'll find it funny,'' Tapert said.
Shot in the lush, forested locale of New Zealand, Hercules and Xena offer a fantasy universe populated with dragons, harpies, Cyclops and sandworms. The special effects created by Flat Earth productions rival those of the big screen.
Tapert and his colleague, executive producer Sam Raimi, vaulted into the mythic countryside of Hercules from the universe of action movies.
They launched their careers with a cult horror flick called ``The Evil Dead.'' Together, they created macabre action movies that included ``Darkman'' and ``Army of Darkness.''
When they were approached to create an action television movie derived from the Hercules legend, they hooted.
```Nobody cares about Hercules,' we said. `Give us Conan.' They told us Conan's not available,'' Tapert recalled in an interview.
Antecedents of ``Hercules'' and ``Xena'' were uncool even as camp. Gladiator movies? Ugh. Barbarian flicks with leaden dialogue.
But in one Xena episode, the warrior princess gushes, ``Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!'' Then she tosses a bad guy with a full-arm twist and sends up the old hair-coloring commercial in the same instant.
Hercules regularly dispenses lines like ``Come on, guys!'' or observes sagely, ``That's a big dragon.''
The tone delivers a show adults can laugh with and kids can revel in.
``I just wanted to make the kind of show that I would have watched,'' the boyish Tapert said. ``The kind of show I would have fought my parents to watch.''
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB