Xena: Warrior Princess Episode 2.09: “A Solstice Carol”

[chavalah.livejournal.com]

Eh. A bit of a dud after some great stuff. In all fairness, it was meant to be a dud. It was a phone-it-in obligatory Christmas-Carol-parody affair. But it wasn’t quite funny enough to be a success, and you’d have to look past a bunch of big, gaping holes in the plot and backstory (insert “Solstice” for “Christmas”,) and some really, really shallow characters. And bad acting. Sorry, kids.

…I do have a soft spot for the solstice song, maybe because it’s so different. (Kudos, LoDuca.) And in good acting, Lucy and Renee killed it. Lucy got to play around with voices again and Renee handled all of the slapstick comedy since Ted, aka Joxer wasn’t around.

And there were some funny, if ridiculous allusions to the real holiday of discussion here. And just in case you didn’t get the CHRISTMAS sign flashing in red and green lights, we run into a certain couple with their infant in the final few minutes. Sheesh. In an episode where nobody died (because it’s a morality tale, and more fun to beat them senseless with ribbons, bells and stuffed stockings,) that was a real sledgehammer to the brain.

Summary is here, courtesy of whoosh.org.

( Spoilery thoughts )