Greg responds...

When Puck transforms into Owen, he transforms into a human being, with all a human's weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Now Owen can transform back into Puck, but he can't perform magic as Owen. And Demona caught Owen off- guard with a spell that affected his all-too-human form. I suppose Owen could have transformed back into Puck in between the two nights of the curse, but that would mean he couldn't help Xanatos at all. Remember their deal: one wish from the Puck or a lifetime of service from Owen. Xanatos chose Owen.

As for "The Mirror", Xanatos went without Owen for a few hours. Who knows whether he even noticed.

Greg responds...

1) Cary's done some movie and television work. (Columbus & Superboy immediately spring to mind.) He also happens to be one of my best friends and my former writing partner. When I expanded the story editing staff beyond Michael Reaves, he was one of the first people I thought of.

2) I've never met David Wise. I don't ever remember considering him for the show, not even when I was an executive with no real intention of producing the show myself. Maybe David was considered for Goliath Chronicles. I didn't participate in that decision at all. (This is not to imply that I have something against David, it's just that I was going with people I knew.
Michael Reaves had shown me his excellent work on Batman. Brynne Chandler Reaves did great stuff on the first season of GARGOYLES and had earned her promotion. I had known Cary from as far back as my DC Comics days. And I had worked with Gary Sperling at Disney on a number of shows. I didn't know David, and wasn't too familiar with his work, so he was never in the running.)

Greg responds...

Time is the factor that it all comes back to. I do think that the lack of continuity, i.e. the near-complete change-over in creative staff was another major factor. But they still had some good people, who given more time could have done better. Though I immodestly believe that since the episodes only incidentally reflected my plans for the characters, the series lost some focus.

Money and resources were other important factors. Less was spent per episode. And much of the work was sub-contracted out to Nelvana.

(I should say, that I'm hardly objective about Chronicles. Someone said that Chronicles is a good show if judged outside the context of the original series. I'd guess that's accurate. God knows I was pleasantly surprised by "The Journey" which turned out much better than I had a right to expect.)

Greg responds...

Thirteen or fourteen, unless we decided to incorporate the 2158 Future Tense spin-off into TimeDancer. In which case it could be much more open-ended.

Greg responds...

I believe that some things are eternal.

Greg responds...

By 2158, Elisa & Goliath were both dead.

Greg responds...

How many would they give me? How long will I live? I promise I would never have run out of stories. Hell, I have the damn thing laid out beyond the year 2158. It would be fun to meet up in the middle. Plus there was a lot of interesting stories in the past that still needed to be told. (Ever wonder how Wyvern Hill got it's name?) And as the "gargoyles universe" expanded and added characters, that gave me even more stories to tell.

Greg responds...

Define "peace". Is white and black America at peace with each other today?
I don't think we would have seen an end to racism, but overt discrimination would be a thing of the past by the year 2158. Yes, 2158. I can't say for sure how fast each step forward would have come. The point of a "Master Plan" is to know the general direction and have specific tentpoles, without tying one's hands thus allowing for creativity and serendipity.

Goliath Chronicles did go a bit fast for my taste. They skipped a lot of steps even within episodes. The trial of Goliath is a fascinating idea that I had had myself, but I would have done it quite differently. Beginning with the notion that most of humanity wouldn't think about putting Goliath on trial for a crime, anymore than it would occur to them to drag a dangerous mountain lion into a courtroom. Before you can agree to have a trial, you have to agree that what your trying isn't a beast, but a sentient individual. I don't think Margot would have made that jump very quickly.

Ironically, I believe that the presence of Gargoyles would have done a lot to help real race relations between humans. Nothing like something even more different to make people realize how much they have in common with each other. In "The Journey" I tried to show that the Quarrymen appealed to a multitude of human "races".

Greg responds...

What are you basing your analysis of their characters on?

I've heard a lot of complaints about the Weird Sisters. At first they struck me as odd, but now I think I know where the confusion came from.

A. People took the way they presented themselves in "City of Stone" and in "High Noon" at face value.

B. When they saw the Sisters again in "Avalon" and "Ill Met by Moonlight", people didn't like the way they were behaving as much. The Sisters weren't as mysterious or powerful or something. So they rejected the "face value" version that was presented in those episodes.

C. People were less enamored of the Archmage than I was. When we first used the Archmage in "Long Way to Morning" I was phenominally impressed with David Warner, the actor who voiced the part. The character was just a cliched sorcerer, but I felt David added a level of menace that was irresistable. So even though we had killed off the character, I was determined to bring the Archmage back in a way that would let David go to town, and make the cliched Archmage into the near Satanic villain I envisioned he could be. That was what "Avalon, Part II" was supposed to accomplish. David didn't let me down. His dual performances as both versions of the Archmage was a true tour-de-force. But perhaps I failed David. The "Archmage-plus" was supposed to be all-but-omnipotent and all-but-omniscient. Once he had the Grimorum, the Eye and the Gate, he was supposed to be much more threatening than any villain we had encountered up to that point, including the Sisters. His fatal flaw (demonstrated in parts two and three) was his unwavering arrogance. He could have finished all his enemies off instantly. But at heart, he was still this cliched guy who had to toy with his enemies and make them suffer before he wiped them out. That gave the good guys time to rally and defeat him. I'm sure most of you basically got this, but you didn't FEEL it enough, so the Archmage didn't seem tough enough to boss the Sisters around. So everyone assumes that the Sisters are using HIM in some way.

D. Part of the reason for this is probably due to the fact that the final script for "Avalon, Part II" was WAY, WAY too long. We had to cut a lot of stuff before we shipped in order to get the show down to the correct length.
You didn't miss any important info, but I do think we lost a bit of the scope of the Archmage's plans, as well as some nice character moments and a bit of helpful expository stuff.

E. People didn't get the Sister's constraints vis-a-vis Oberon. Their hands were much more tied than people seemed to realize. They couldn't enter Avalon of their own volition. They were banished to the barge to guard it. The Archmage's commands gave them their excuse. And they wanted that excuse. So let me make something clear here: THEY ARE A VENGEFUL TRIO OF WITCHES. They wanted vengeance. But as immortals, they could afford to be patient. It didn't matter whether vengeance came in nine days or nine centuries. So, they were using the Archmage. Using him to extract their vengeance. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have eventually turned on the Archmage to get him off Avalon, but that would have been some fight, let me tell you.

F. Having said all that, don't imagine that helping the Archmage is the only thing they did for a millenium. They didn't follow Demona and Macbeth around every minute. They do have other things going on. Other plans. And I'm not saying that what they did for the Archmage doesn't dovetail with these other plans, but that doesn't mean they didn't sincerely want revenge on the Magus and his friends.

G. And they still do. The Magus may be largely beyond their reach, but Goliath and the others aren't. They still need to tread carefully because they can't risk Oberon or Titania's wrath, but believe me, they've got something up their sleeves.

I'm sure this "answer" raises a lot more questions. I can probably predict some of them, but it's much more fun to wait for you guys to ask them.

Greg responds...

Masquerading isn't really the correct word. They sort of possessed Desdemona briefly, splitting her image into the three facets of their personality. Keep in mind, that Desdemona didn't exist in bodily form. She was just a wisp of soul inside a crashed computer. The Sisters stepped in for one brief moment. Desdemona was there the whole time, and it was all her in every other scene she appeared in. Sorry if that wasn't clear.