Todd Jensen writes...

I watched "Turf" on DVD yesterday as well, but don't have anything new to say about it, so my new thoughts on "The Reckoning", which I watched with "Possession" on DVD today.

In Act I, Hudson warns Angela that her mother "is capable of anything". Angela later uses those exact words when confronting Demona in Act III.

Elisa gets bitten by a mosquito while in the Labyrinth; I wonder if that was the moment when Sevarius and Thailog acquired her DNA for Delilah; it'd certainly be a "playing fair with the audience" moment.

While Demona professes outrage over Angela's claim to be her daughter, her eyes aren't glowing red - and later we learn that she'd known Angela to be her daughter all along. The "eyes not glowing red" part makes a good hint to the audience that she was feigning anger and disbelief.

Todd Jensen writes...

Rewatched "The Gathering" (both episodes) on DVD today. A few new things I noticed about it.

A minor detail, but which I find touching: when Renard learns about Anastasia's remarriage,, he sadly clasps her hand.

The letter X is prominent among the Xanatoses: Xanatos, FoX, and AleXander. And then I thought of LeXington, who isn't one of the family, but who's close to Alex, and who became Xanatos's secret successor in "Future Tense". (And there's that bit, also, in your "Gargoyles 2198" piece, about the Lexington-Xanatos Corporation.)

Goliath's homecoming makes a lovely contrast with "Future Tense", as he warmly embraces the overjoyed Brooklyn and Lexington (the two members of the clan who'd been bitter towards his late return in "Future Tense") and Hudson says "I knew you hadn't abandoned us." (While Broadway hugs Elisa, tying in with his being the closest to her among the trio, ever since "Deadly Force".)

One feature of Goliath's pondering the possibility that Avalon sent him to Manhattan to stop Oberon from taking Alex away; if his speculation was correct, that means that Avalon was, in a way, going against its lord and master. Though that made sense when I thought about it; without going too deeply into hypotheticals, I suspect that things would have not gone well for Avalon if Oberon *had* spirited Alex away (no way would his parents have accepted that), and Avalon would be sparing itself and its lord and master a lot of potential trouble in thwarting him.

You mentioned once that you wanted to have Puck break the fourth wall, but the rest of the production team objected to it. I noticed that he does come close, though, when he turns towards the camera while saying "I'm on a roll". (And when somebody *did* break the fourth wall, it was Brooklyn instead.)

At the very end, Broadway turns to stone shortly before the rest of the clan does.

Todd Jensen writes...

Rewatched "Mark of the Panther" on DVD today.

I've mentioned before how I've noticed a strong "hunting" motif running through "Gargoyles" during my reviewing it; this episode included more of that theme, though, for a change, it didn't involve humans going after gargoyles. Instead, it was the Panther Queen and, later, Fara Maku, hunting for Anansi, and then Tea and the poachers hunting panthers.

Elisa lists the body parts of panthers that poachers are after as skin, teeth, and claws. When Diane Maza tells the story of the Panther Queen shortly afterwards, her description of the Panther Queen stresses those same three attributes (well, fur rather than skin, but it's close enough), but now focusing on their beauty, rather than the monetary worth that motivated the poachers. (And when Anansi turns the Panther Queen into a human, the story stresses the Queen's loss of those same attributes.)

Goliath's explanation to Diane, when they're trapped in the pit, that he can only glide, not fly, echoed (for me) his explanation to Elisa on the ledge back in "Awakening Part Three". Like mother, like daughter....

Todd Jensen writes...

Rewatched "Sanctuary" on DVD today. New observations.

Elisa writes Macbeth's name as "MacBeth". Not quite as serious as the infamous "Servarius" error in "The Cage", but still a bit unfortunate.

I was amused to note that Demona barely even registers Elisa's presence in the middle of her fight with Macbeth, even though Elisa's calling out to both of them - until just before Elisa shoots her. She does finally spot the detective and aim at her, but Elisa takes her down before she can do more than that. Apparently her feud with Macbeth tops even her hatred for Elisa.

I felt a sense of near-horror, though, as I noticed how Demona and Macbeth's fight was damaging the library, with several books apparently getting damaged or destroyed.

And the silhouette of a gargoyle against the moon in the newspaper photograph bears an uncanny similarity (obviously coincidental) to the Bat-Signal.

Todd Jensen writes...

Rewatched "Monsters" on DVD today. (Appropriate timing, I thought, since November 30 is St. Andrew's Day, dedicated to the patron saint of Scotland - and on that day, I was watching Scottish gargoyles encountering Scotland's most famous monster.) A few fresh thoughts on it.

When Elisa describes herself to the man at the souvenir stall as "not really the adventuring type", I found myself thinking of her statement in "High Noon", "I'm no hero; I just do my job". Certainly, whatever her incliations, she's had plenty of adventures.

I wondered whether Elisa's remark about theme parks doing "robot Nessie-type" stunts five times a day was Disney poking a bit of fun at itself - we'd see something similar in "Bushido".

And when Elisa says at the end how some legends need to stay that way, she looks in Goliath's direction as she speaks, making me wonder if it was just the Loch Ness Monster she was talking about. Certainly Elisa's been zealous about preserving the gargoyles' secrecy - maybe too zealous, in light of "Revelations" and "Mark of the Panther".

Todd Jensen writes...

Rewatched the "Avalon" triptych on DVD today. A few new observations.

The Magus's lyre in the "flashback on Avalon" scene looks a lot like Merlin's lyre in "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time". Obviously not the same one, but evidently both wizards share a common taste in musical instruments.

Princess Katharine and the Magus's telling Elisa "Little is known of the Sleeping King" struck me as all the more appropriate since in 995, nearly all the major works on King Arthur had yet to be written (Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain", the oldest extant start-to-finish account of Arthur's life, wouldn't be written for over a hundred years). There were one or two, like Nennius's "Historia Brittonum", but that was about it.

A detail that I hadn't spotted before: a couple of gargoyle-like sculptures were "guarding" the bridge leading to Arthur's resting-place within the Hollow Hill.

King Arthur and Goliath have both used a mace while fighting Macbeth (Goliath did so in "Enter Macbeth") - one of a few points in common they share (others are awakening in the modern world from a long enchanted sleep, and having scheming illegitimate sons).

The Archmage's boast that he could destroy Goliath with "just a word" struck me as apt, since all the "enhanced Archmage"'s spells were one-word ones ("Vessel", "Revert", "Ice", etc.).

It's difficult not to smile at Elisa's "Souvenirs" question after Season One of "Young Justice". Fortunately, she was asking it in a lighthearted tone.

Anonymous writes...

This is less a question than a comment, since I know you won't give out spoilers. :)

I've noticed that a lot of writers, especially in TV shows, either can't or don't want to write established relationships - either the courtship is dragged out until the final episode, or the couple gets together mid-series only to fall into an endless cycle of break ups and make ups. And while Gargoyles is one of the few TV series that I think had legitimately good reasons both for the long courtship and for the breakup in the comics, which both made sense with the characters and were compatible with them having a long-term healthy relationship... I also really hope that this won't become a recurring phenomenon, and that their relationship will continue to progress, however slowly. While I know that no relationship lasts forever, if nothing else because no one lives forever, I really really hope that Elisa and Goliath will have many long years ahead of them to function as a healthy couple, and that we the audience will get to see at least some of it. *crosses fingers for Gargoyles coming back in some form*

Anonymous writes...

1) What sort of hobbies does Elisa have outside of work?

2) Did she have any human friends prior to meeting the gargoyles?

Todd Jensen writes...

Rewatched "The Cage" on DVD today (and "Protection" yesterday, but I had no new thoughts or observations on it).

I noted, this time around, Elisa's joke about webbed feet during the family dinner scene at the start, followed by Peter Maza's "and a great duck impersonation" line followed by a quacking sound, and wondered if that might have been intended as a tribute to the Disney Afternoon's "duck shows" - both "Duck Tales" and "Darkwing Duck".

Todd Jensen writes...

I rewatched "Double Jeopardy" today - a few new thoughts.

Elisa's again driving along a lonely road by the coast, far from Manhattan, just as she'd done in the immediately preceding episode ("Revelations") - but this time, we know why she's out there (a warning about a power plant emergency - actually a hoax, courtesy of Thailog).

Broadway tells Elisa, as he and Lexington head off to Gen-U-Tech, "We're on the case". His way of phrasing it invokes again his interest in detective work (cf. "The Silver Falcon").

All the dates on Sevarius' video documentary about Thailog are written in the "British format" - i.e., "15 NOV", with the day first, then the month. Something you don't often see on American television.