Aris Katsaris writes...

Lighthouse in the Sea of Time:

As with all eps I saw this one with Greek dubbing - but in this ep there was something both unique and interesting/funny... I got reminded of it when in the memo you described the problem with the language of the scroll...

The thing is that though the entire ep was (as normal) dubbed in Modern Greek, when Macbeth starts reading the scroll he switches into *Ancient* Greek. At that time I had thought the original had Macbeth reading in Middle or atleast Elizabethan English, or some other kind of archaic-sounding language, which the translators simply rendered as ancient Greek. Only later did I realise that it was solely the translator's doing, with no corresponding change of language in the original...

It was a very nice touch, I think, and praiseworthy - it atones (atleast in part) for a couple horrendous mistakes in the dubbing of other eps... :-) But ofcourse that doesn't mean there wasn't any problem with it. Ancient Greek is far closer to Modern Greek, than Celtic is to English; nonetheless it's far enough that the first time I got only a very general sense out of the words, that Merlin was describing his first impression of Arthur... :-)

Ambrosia writes...

THE MIRROR!
Yeah, this one is totally one of my favorites.
On Brooklyn's line about A Midsummer Night's Dream, you said, "I hope we sent a few people to the library with that line." As I've mentioned, I was storming the library the next day.
Elisa's reaction to being changed into a gargoyle kind of didn't work for me. Sure, everyone *else* thinks the guys are monsters, but she's supposed to know better. But when she sees the New Yorkers as humans... as they normally are... she goes, "Everyone's been turned into a... a human!" As if being the "other" is something horrible. You might say that their transformation is what she was disturbed about, but she was happy about Goliath's "transformation". It's as if she thought that if the clan were the same as everyone else, that that would make everything better.
BTW a couple times you've said "suspend belief" or something like that. Are you quoting S.T. Coleridge? Shouldn't it be suspension of DISbelief?
Oh, about Elisa's disappearing jacket... There's a part in Grief where the camera pans back and shows our heroes standing ready to fight and... Elisa's not wearing the jacket. Just her short-sleeved black shirt. In the next shot, the jacket's back. Anasatis (my best friend) and I have a running gag about that. Whenever something mysteriously disappears in any cartoon, movie or whatever, we say that it's made out of Elisa's jacket. Hehe. "Wasn't that guy just holding a briefcase?" "It must be made of Elisa's jacket."
New subject: I was hoping you'd see the bearded gargoyle lady this time. I'm surprised your kids didn't pick up on it. Kids don't miss anything. *shakes head* She's there, I'm telling you!!!! Right after Demona says, "Is it done?" and Puck sighs, "Yes." Okay, I'll drop it.
Romantic stuff: Goliath thought he was being so sweet, promising to always catch Elisa when she falls, only in the next minute to have to be caught by her. But it's sweet in reverse too.
It surprised me at the time for Broadway to be the one talking about finding love. But it seems perfect now.
The very end exchange with G and E always gets me. Goliath trying to talk things out and Elisa dodging the conversation. The wind was a nice effect.
Sigh. I love this ep. Well, thank you for reading!!
Wait, one more thing... your wife's name is Beth. Was *Derek* Maza named after anyone?

Entity writes...

Hi Greg,

A belated personal reaction to THE MIRROR. In the past, you've seemed curious as to how things came off to us. Did we get the implication here, or did we correctly interpret there. Well, here's something that really threw me initially. When Goliath describes the Third Race, he uses a lot of different nouns and adjectives. At first, I thought this new "Third Race" was going to be a contrived method of stuffing all other creatures of myth and fantasy into the series, in addition to the gargoyles, without having to give each one a unique background and history. In this way, you could bring in a unicorn, a minatour, an elf or an ogre, and you wouldn't have to justify them existing as individual species like the gargs, because they're conveniently blanket-labelled as the "Third Race." In short, I thought Goliath was describing a people more akin to the New Olympians, a collective, rather than a coherent species. Elisa's response was most responsible for cementing my conclusion, when she said, "Shapeshifters, elves, fairies, you mean they're real?" It sounds a lot like Elisa's interpretation of Goliath's speech was the same as mine.

As you could imagine, I felt quite betrayed and outraged. To forge such a unique, well-shaped universe and then just lazilly toss in everything else as if you said, "Well, on second thought..."

This wasn't the case, and the Third Race wound up being a wonderful addition to the series. But it took me a while to realize that. :)

Smelley writes...

Let me reiterate, you are a cool dude.
I too enjoyed the X-men movie. I thought most of your observations were pretty accurate, although I liked Summers, and disliked Storm.
I smiled at the inclusion of Gyrich and was glad it was there.
Personally, I really enjoyed seeing the opinions of people who weren't familliar with the franchise.

Smelley writes...

Comments on Lighthouse:

First of all, I thought this episode was irritatingly heavy-handed, but didn't mind because it was such a good message, and slick in it's presentation.

I'm afraid the opening sequence didn't come off nearly as well as you wanted it to.

I was very confused about Macbeth sealing the scrolls.

I liked Robbins, and was irritated that we didn't see more of him in later episodes.

But by far my biggest complaint regarding this episode was how Macbeth dismissed the scrolls as being worthless after realizing what they were. A learned man, especially one as cool as Macbeth, I would expect to value the lost journals of Merlin far more than Broadway.

Despite all my complaints, this was an enjoyable halfhour of television, and merely illustrates how high you and your team set the bar of excellence for yourself.

Oh, and I never made the Gilly--Gilgamesh connection. Neat.

You are cool dude, dude.

Cassandra writes...

Ramble on "The Mirror"

I've always had a thing about fae and I was bouncing up and down in my seat when you introduced them to the series. I also liked the fact that you used not only the "be careful what you wish for" but also "a fae is going to find the loophole if you leave it" and "if you piss a fae off they'll be sure to make you miserable". Demona should have done more research. But then she probably assumed that if the puny human Xanatos could control the Puck, she could too.

Moments I love: All of Puck's lines.

"Three races?"
"You know, Gargoyles, humans, and Oberon's Children."
"I thought everybody knew that."

Goliath's hand on his face moaning "No, no, no."

Broadway drumming his fingers on the floor after the Trio has crashed in the subway.

I also liked your observation in the first memo about guys being fundamentally stupid about romance. And the tender moment between Goliath and Elisa before Puck tears them apart works much better without dialouge.

I didn't realize the first time watching that Demona knew about the Owen/Puck and Xanatos connection. Looking back, the foreshadowing is hidden by Puck replying "Serving humans is fun. They have a sense of humor." It makes the situation they're refering to sound more like something Puck has done in the past, rather than a current situation.

Cassandra writes...

Ramble on "Lighthouse".

This is one of my all-time favorite episodes. The quote from the end is on the front page of my website. It sums up exactly how I feel about books and writing. It also shows the "magic" inherent in reading, a much better way to presuade people to learn how to read than telling them that they should. And Greg, I think you've gained that immortality.

I wish Robbins had come back as a character, he was great. And I loved that his dog was named Gilgamesh--even if she was girl.

The opening of the cave: I thought the harp was magic. Merlin was a magician, he could have owned magical artifacts. But the spell part of the scene worked for me, the energy version of an old man was definately seeing if these two fit the terms. The hestitation seemed more like an "oh wow" moment than a "stop and consider". I mean this is MERLIN's stuff. A way big deal.

I understood that Macbeth was reading what Merlin had written. Who were these people who didn't, the supposed target audience? (That's a dig at the age groups cartoons are "supposed" to be for). <G>

I agree with Erin that you didn't know what to make of Macbeth the first time watching this episode. But that just made him much more cool.

What happened to the lyre? A traveling exhibit of Merlin's stuff, complete with the translation of the Scrolls of Merlin (the ones by Merlin, not Robbins)? There was a lot of stuff in the cave.

Blaise writes...

LIGHTHOUSE IN THE SEA OF TIME

This is a good ep with a message that had the potential to be quite preachy. I'm glad you guys avoided that for the most part (I'll get to that later).
Yeah, Macbeth as the villain was pretty much tipped off at the beginning. It indeed would have been better if we had suspected Xanatos as the villain all through Act I. At least we got some dramatic irony out of the situation.
Anyway, Macbeth is always a good villain--and you just can't beat his first appearance here. The "Macbeth Theme" comes up in the background (and I love it, too), the lightening flashes, and Macbeth walks towards the screen. You'd have to go a long way to beat that. And I did associate that "Electricity Gun" (as I called it) with Macbeth (he and his flunkies were the only one's who used it).
Actually, Banquo and Fleance were pretty good too, as far as henchmen go. They had their own personalities and B.J. Ward and Frank Welker did good work with their voices. And yes, I have to smile when B.J. Ward talks to herself in the ep.

Animation-wise, I don't suppose it was too bad. *I* thought Elisa looked cute with the red cap. Though how she managed to yank it off without pulling out her hair (since she put it through the hole in the back) is beyond me.
I noticed that Goliath visited the Eyrie building and confronted Owen again (only this time with Brooklyn and Lex in tow), but it works for me.

Robbins...a great addition. Paul Winfield (that is his name, right?) did a great job on his voice (you were going to shoot for Ray Charles?), and his lines were very well written. I find his exchange with Hudson about the phonebook and his final monologue to be some of the best lines in the series.

The opening prologue with the archeologists (after looking at the credits for so long, I knew they were named after your writers and staff) serves it's purpose. The lyre's role is fairly easily deduced, and the full import of the spell on the chest becomes apparent in later viewings. But I agree it would have played better as you described it.
The Scrolls themselves presented a wonderful "Left-turn in the last Act" so to speak. I was quite surprised myself that they turned out to be a diary, and I have to agree that Merlin's Journal would indeed be priceless. I was pleased at the revelation.
I did think along with everyone else that Macbeth had sealed the Scrolls himself. Maybe knowing so little about Macbeth would make us latch onto anything that could even be remotely considered a clue. In later viewings I understood it, though.

On the moral itself...like I said, I felt it was very well done. I didn't find Goliath's mentioning the "library downstairs [being] full of books about [Merlin]" to sound like those Public Service announcements at all. Maybe it's because I don't pay any attention to them or because it just sounded like something Goliath would say (I mean, he loves reading). And I love how Hudson's illiteracy is revealed and handled. I felt it was quite moving. And Macbeth's speech about Arthur was good too. However, Broadway's growth is where I enter into a more grey area. I felt it worked quite well for the most part, especially his line "When your life is this exciting, who needs books?". However, his last speech...I suppose it isn't so bad, but it did seem a little thick with his expression "They take you there". It is true, and probably the best thing to say, but I just can't get into it. Maybe I'm just too used to reading to be able to fully empathize with Broadway's sense of wonderment.

Still, an ep I enjoy wathing. I just wonder how Broadway was able to rip open the hull of the harrier without any noise.

Todd Jensen writes...

Just read your ramble on "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time", and here are my thoughts on that episode.

It will come as no surprise to those who know me well that this is one of my favorite episodes in "Gargoyles", and I don't even need to say why this is. :) In fact, one of the things that I really like about it is the way that it handled Merlin and the Arthurian legend. As I've mentioned before, lots of animated series do an Arthurian episode at some point, and particularly do so by including Merlin somewhere in it. But "Gargoyles" handled Merlin as more than just "some stupid magician", to quote Broadway. It focused on him, not as just a medieval wizard, but as King Arthur's mentor figure who guided him in the creation of Camelot. This particularly made itself plain not just in Macbeth's speech, but even in the fact that the precise part of the Scrolls that we hear Macbeth read deals with Merlin first meeting the young Arthur, presumably to take him on as his pupil. (And, given that this episode did include some teaching functions in the process, as in teaching Hudson and Broadway that reading is a worthwhile pursuit, I found that appropriate).

Indeed, that was precisely what I liked about "Gargoyles" handling Arthurian legend (and legends in general); it did so in a very intelligent and literate fashion, getting into "What is the significance of this story for us? Why does it still endure in our hearts after all these years?" This, combined with your comments here on Arthur and Co., make me certainly hope that you can either get to do "Pendragon" some day, or if Disney never agrees to that, create some other Arthurian series (as you've mentioned having hopes of doing).

One amusing side-note about this episode: I'd earlier read an article about what was in store for Season Two of "Gargoyles" in a sci-fi magazine that mentioned that time travel would be a part of the season. So when I saw the title, I got the notion from the "Time" part of it that this would be the episode involving it, and that the Scrolls of Merlin would be the means for it. Turns out that I was wrong and that that element wouldn't show up until "Vows" - but I wasn't disappointed.

(I might add that I was certainly not disappointed by the revelation of the Scrolls' true nature, unlike Macbeth - if anything, that made them more exciting to me. An eyewitness account of Arthur's times, written by Merlin himself! Now that's a real treasure! Hudson and Broadway were right to urge Goliath not to burn the Scrolls! And I certainly can't help but imagine the boon that they'd be to Arthurian scholarship).

Macbeth's speech on Arthur and Merlin was not only a very beautiful one, but also helped illustrate his character a bit more and the fact that he had heroic qualities under his villain role. After all, he stressed with such admiration Arthur's ruling "with justice and compassion", something that only a man with some nobility in him could find a positive interest in. Even though he engaged in theft and planning to use Broadway for a guinea-pig, he still came across as not so bad a chap in some ways.

I agree with you that Goliath's bit about "books on Merlin in the library" does have something of a public service announcement, although I don't mind that. (I was initially puzzled as to what books on a legendary wizard would be doing in a police station, until I later on learned that the library that Goliath was talking about was next door to the station rather than part of it). I liked Mary Stewart's "The Crystal Cave" myself, and thought it a bit of a pity that you couldn't have Goliath cite it, although I can understand why it didn't get in. (Interestingly enough, the book was first published in 1970, so it would be having its 25th anniversary the same year that "Lighthouse" first aired).

And I also appreciate the differing angles of Hudson and Broadway's illiteracy; Broadway illiterate and not seeing why that should be so bad a thing, while Hudson is ashamed of his illiteracy and hides it. That was another lovely touch, IMHO.

Ambrosia writes...

Response to A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time
This is one of the few episodes I managed to record. I envy those who have the entire series, but I watch the ones I do have over breakfast all the time. (Have you ever noticed how there's never anything on in the morning?) It seemed to me that Lighthouse and Deadly Force played most often when Gargoyles was in reruns. Maybe that's my imagination, but it seems I groaned whenever this ep was on. Initially, I think the animation was a turn off for me. But seeing it many, many times during my gargoyles breakfasts made me realize the value and indeed, quality of this ep and now, ironically, it's one of my very favorites.
I liked how you dealt with the different reasons Broadway and Hudson had for not learning to read and how they paralleled the reasons given by teenagers and adults, respectively. Also, I thought it was responsible of you to refrain from mudslinging TV and other visual media. Like you've said before, a lot of good can come from other mediums, but shouldn't take the place of reading. Many people get preoccupied with bashing TV, saying it's the root of the evil in our kids today, etc. There is a lot of junk around, but there's a lot that isn't as well. Saying that TV is evil and glorifying reading doesn't accomplish much. A good balance between the two (and others) is what people should go for.
Jeffrey Robbins: I love this guy! I wish he were real so I could talk with him. Of course, the whole behind-the-scenes revelation that he was originally going to be a famous author and Arthurian expert makes me all the more thankful that he wasn't. Many times, the characters of shows are the BEST at something or the WORLD'S GREATEST this or that. It's important to remember that average people, doing something special like writing, can be interesting too. It gives kids a different place to look for heroes other than athletes and musicians.
Elisa: From Guinevere to a baseball cap? Care to elaborate? Since we've all only seen the episode that made it to the screen (of course) we have no idea why you were going to have Elisa dress like Guinevere. But hey, better that than the hat. It was totally impractical for the windy ship (even now, I keep expecting it to blow off in the wind) and it looked ridiculous on her. It's silly, but I smile when she throws it down in the alley in frustration. The hat's dead.
Broadway: I can't think of anyone who has matured as widely as Broadway. First he learns the terribly hard way to respect guns, and now he's back being ignorant again (about literacy this time), but he LEARNS. I love how he (Bill) whispers "But you describe it like you were there..." He says something similar to this in another episode. I can't remember the name or what happened in the rest of it, but Elisa helps him with a word he's struggling with without her having looked at the magazine and he pipes up, "Were you there?" But anyway, he's beginning to understand the importance of reading. By the time he's chained up in MacBeth's house, he's had time to think about it and desperately stops Goliath from endangering the scrolls (which Goliath had done in an attempt to save *Broadway*). I really thought his line was cheesy, though. "When you read them, they take you there..." Maybe not the line so much, but how he looked off into space and his voice got all mystical and mysterious... ah well, beautiful though.
Thank you so much for this episode and for taking the time to share your thoughts with us!