Nyrtleka writes...

Why are the Mutates referred to as such? I mean, the more obvious name would be Mutants. Was this name not used so as to not be confused with the X-Men mutants?

Roe Tarusi writes...

Where exactly Is the Labrynth located? If in New York City, is it in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Statan Island, or the Bronx? Or is it located just outside the city, like Long Island or New Jersy or something?

Charles writes...

You've said that the mutates are capable of true flight, unlike the gargoyles who can only glide. Is this b/c of their energy boost from the electricity thing, or a result of their design, or some other reason?

Siren writes...

METAMORPHOSIS

I have a thing for cat-like characters as well. Catwoman from Batman has always been one of my favorite characters. So I liked the mutantes a lot. I love the electric eel thing too, it was very cool and very different. I like Talon's attitude. And Fang was a nice addition. I like Claw, but wish I could have seen more of him in the series. Maggie was a slight disappointment, mainly cause we didn't get to see her grow as much. They all seem to accept their new form later in the series, enjoy it even. Maggie was very different from the other mutants. She was more afraid, unsure, cautious...can't blame her. I am getting ahead of myself with this episode into other mutant episodes...but oh well...Maggie is very weak at first. Like a scared little kitten really. Very different from all the other strong female characters.
I think this episode also defined the moment for Brooklyn and all Brooklyn fans from then on. Here's ya got a handsome young gargoyle, who loves this new "gargoyle-like" creature and she blows him off, calling him a monster, even though she resembled a gargoyle. Then she runs to Talon. So ya got this sympathy for Brooklyn. Cause Lex and Broadway didn't seem as interested in her as he was. Ya got Demona even, in Temptation, to me, I felt that when he started to trust her, he started to like her, then she betrays him horribly. Then later, Angela goes for Broadway, when a lot of fans, including me, thought it would be Brooklyn. And poor Brook get's upstaged again, by one of his best friends too. Not that I wasn't happy myself. Actually, I like Broadway/Angela better then Brooklyn with her. Broadway isn't so "pushy"...I am gonna get it from all them Brook fans...So Brooklyn grows slightly from this. It's been over a thousand years, most of those sleeping, but the waking, with no females, so ya got this 16 year old boy, trapped on an island and suddenly the only female blows him off. It's hard for him and he develops the jealousy with Talon.
I also was slightly surprised, but certainly not disappointed by the ending. It was perfect for the episode and I wouldn't want to see it any other way.
BTW, I like look you developed later for the the mutants as well.

Blaise writes...

METAMORPHOSIS

Ah, one of my favs. Pity I missed it the first time it aired.
Throughout the second season, the show was on while I was still in school, so I had to tape it all the time. Three times the VCR, for one reason or another, failed to tape. Each time, the eps that aired were new ones--METAMORPHOSIS, THE CAGE, and KINGDOM (are you sensing a pattern here?). What made this twist of fate REALLY cruel is that these are some of my favorite eps. I love cats for one thing, so I was instantly attracted to the Mutates. This episode was also the one that cemented Brooklyn as my favorite character, so there's another. And, in two of the missed eps, Tim Curry, one of my (again) favorite actors, is featured.
Missing this ep didn't put me too far out of the loop. The only reference to it I picked up was Elisa's remark in EYE OF THE BEHOLDER that the Werefox was "human once, just like [her] brother." For some reason I didn't catch the reference to "mutated victims" and in OUTFOXED, after an initial "Huh?", I forgot about Renard's mention of some "Anton Sevarius" (keeping the strength of THAT revelation safe until the second time around). But, I digress. On with the ep itself.

Brooklyn's attraction to Maggie (whom I instantly recognized and grew interested in--what can I say, I have an affinity for cat-women) intrigued me. I always wondered if the fact that she wasn't a true gargoyle even mattered to him. Did I root for him and Maggie to get together? Not neccesarily. Did I *expect* it? Actually, yes. The attitude Brooklyn displays here is usually as deep as most animated shows go in depicting "love." After some intiial shock, my admiration for the series increased when Maggie wound up with Talon and Brooklyn's attraction was shown as just a crush. Regardless, his "love at first sight" mentality was something in Brooklyn I found appealing (a fellow hopeless romantic, perhaps). His experiences here and his final acceptance of the facts grabbed my notice and from this ep on, I always tended to favor him (though I made an effort not to do so at the expense of the other characters).
Looking at the ep, knowing what I know about the characters now, Brodway's ability to "read people" versus Brooklyn's self-delusion is very nicely juxtaposed, and they have some good exchanges. When Brooklyn tells Broadway "You don't know anything about her" there is much irony--Broadway knows more about her than Brooklyn does.

For what it's worth, I believed Xanatos (probably helped because I had seen EYE OF THE BEHOLDER before I got to see this). He seemed sincere enough to me, and mutation seemed ultra-slimy even for him. Boy was I surprised at the end. I was even more surprised by the end than by Sevarius' "death"--you guys had let people die in the series before, why not now? My surprise was tripled when I saw that Sevarius looked much younger and had a less thick accent than how he'd been played. I thought Sevarius the "mad scientist" was the real thing--he was voiced by Tim Curry who is usually thrown into the roles of over-the-top scientists and (in his own words) "east-European villains" so it was a pleasure to see a sort of send-up of type-casting in this. (And who couldn't recognize Sevarius? Even without the accent, he still had Tim Curry's inimitable pipes.)
The ending: Morbidly enough, this ending is one of my favorites because the good guys actually lost this round. Brooklyn's brooding and Elisa's crying really drove this point home. I am, strangly enough, reminded of a joke T-shirt: "Sometimes, the dragon wins."
And FINALLY! I now know who did the voice of the as-yet-unnamed Fang in this ep. I knew it wasn't James Belushi (it didn't have quite the same "growling" quality) but I couldn't for the life of me figure it out, something I can normally do. Truth be told, I would NEVER have guessed it was Jonathan Frakes (though now it seems so obvious to me). Still, the voices are similar enough, and even if they weren't, the Mutates' voices tended to change with their appearance (Rocky Caroll's (sp?) voice for Derek is different than his voice for Talon, and Kath Souci's voice for Maggie was slightly different in KINGDOM than for her first two appearances). But, nice trivia to know.
I hadn't really noticed how much the theme of self-deception was a factor in this, but it makes sense.
And yes, the animation is sub-par, but I just like the story so much I can live with it (and if I can live with the animation in KINGDOM, I think I can live with anything).
POINTLESS OBSERVATION> Not only does Hudson get left at the Clock Tower, but in this ep (as well as TEMPTATION) he doesn't get a single line). In fact his first words to Maggie are "Who's there?" in THE CAGE.

I'm sure there was more I wanted to say, but I think this message is thick enough already.

Aris Katsaris (repost by Aris) writes...

Outside the case of Goliath and Elisa, Brooklyn's attraction to Maggie seems to be the only case where we saw hints for an attempted interspecies relationship... Since (if I remember correctly) the rest of the Trio didn't seem particularly interested in Maggie, and we certainly know that it was not 'true love' on Brooklyn's side... what does his attraction to Maggie signify? By that I mean, is it that her mutation gave her a form which was closer to his gargoyle standard of beauty (so that he pretty much considered her a gargoyle)? Or is Brooklyn more likely than his siblings to pursue *any* sentient female, regardless of species? :-)

Hmm... that was a rather muddled question, wasn't it... Ah well...

Faieq Ali writes...

1. Were you planning on creating more mutants other than the descendants than of the ones we have already seen? like more creations from Sevarius
2. Could a mutate such as Claw or Fang mate with a gargoyle or would they face the same problem as Goliath and Elisa
3. Do the mutates have the same life span as when they did when they were human

Zeliard writes...

Hi mr. Weisman!

In Metamorphosis, why Xanatos didn't provided Goliath's DNA to Sevarius?

Thanks!

Anonymous writes...

In Gargoyles Goliath and co live in the highest buildings like angels while the clones and mutates live in the deepest parts of the city like demons and devils.Did you do this on purpose? If so why?

Todd Jensen writes...

One additional response to your "Her Brother's Keeper" ramble. You mentioned that the original idea for Catscan/Talon was to make him a scientist in Xanatos's employ who got mutated, but then realized that it should be Derek instead. I felt that the role going to Derek was a very good idea. If it had been a more or less unconnected scientist, it could still have made a good story, but making the victim Derek strengthened it. Here, it isn't just anybody getting mutated, but Elisa's own brother. Not only does that tie the victim in all the better with the main characters, but it also brought in those great scenes at the end of "Metamorphosis" where Elisa, after discovering who Talon really is, proceeds to let Xanatos have it, and then weeps back at the clock tower. I'd say that the Gargoyles Universe intuition was batting a thousand on that one.