Todd Jensen writes...

Just read your new posts on the very early documents for the series, and wanted to thank you for them. The one that particularly intrigued me was the one where Goliath (or the Goliath-equivalent character) was an artificial creation of an evil wizard (the original version of the Archmage?), and the rest of the gargoyles were, in a sense, his "artificial creations". That was certainly a bit of a surprise, seeing that the early days of the series were taking the slant on gargoyles that you finally rejected, that in the first draft stage they actually were statues brought to life rather than members of a pre-human race that arose through natural means.

I was also amused to see the "lock, stock, and gargoyle" phrase in there because I recall that it made it into the finished product, when Elisa uses it in "The Thrill of the Hunt".

At any rate, thanks for that post.

Blaise writes...

THE MIRROR

When this ep first aired I made a mistake in programming my VCR so I missed the entire first Act. I was quite happy when I finally did get a chance to see it (I got a more thourough intro to Puck, saw how Demona stole the Mirror, what was so special about the Mirror, and what the heck Hudson had meant by describing Puck as one of Oberon's Children--I've become much better educated since then). Despite this, I wasn't too lost with the other two Acts. In fact, even missing the first Act, I found myself thouroughly enjoying this ep!
Added Note: I always wondered whether Elisa's frozen image in the Mirror was intentional (it seemed too blatently obvious to be a complete mistake). And I never even recognized Elisa when she was disguised.

Elisa definitly looks good as a gargoyle. Maybe it's the skin color, ears, or just the way she's now dressed (I always thought Puck assimilated her jacket into her skin--the colors are slightly similar), but at the time, I thought she looked even better than Demona (and would THAT have been a blow to D's ego). As if it weren't enough for Elisa to be able to kick her can when they're both in the same form (as gargoyle and as human, Elisa always wins).

Puck himself is an absolute riot. I wondered who the wonderfully dry and sarcastic fellow providing that little elf's voice was. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Brent Spiner (I had only ever seen him as Data). He has great lines, as you pointed out, and makes for some hilarious hijinks. One of my favorite moments though is when Bronx comes at him. "Let's improve your looks!" Bronx turns into a wolf-hound. "Should've tried the chihuaua" (sp?).
I (along with Entity) am actually glad that Puck didn't end up breaking the fourth wall. Sure, it might have been fun, but it really does seem as if it would have been distracting to me, and would have damaged that "realistic" edge to the characters. I think Frank and Dennis (or was it Bob?) made a good call on that one (not to put you down or anything).
The inclusion of Puck in the series was a pleasant surprise--such a fun and interesting character from Shakespeare put into my favorite show and balancing out the more solomn and serious Macbeth. The revelation that there was a whole race of creatures just like him whetted my appetite for more magic.
I got the whole "switched perspective" bit--quite easily I might say. And I did enjoy some of the scenes that resulted in. All these gargoyles going about like normal everyday humans. Running from our heroes when they are changed to humans, and trying to attack the Trio. One of my favorite moments in the whole series there:
Brooklyn--"Hey, we're the 'monsters' remember? So..."
The Trio give pathetic human imitation growls and try to look threatening.
Attacking gargoyles--"Oh." Run away, screaming.
All the while I'm ROTFLMHO. I also enjoyed Hudson's line to Goliath when all the garg-peoples run away--"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Just the line, the situation, and Ed Asner's reading off it make it hilarious.

Another reason I like this ep so much is the focus put on Goliath and Elisa. Unfortunately, you and everybody else have already repeated all their great exchanges, and little moments. (sigh) So, there really isn't much more that I can add, other than how frustrating and sad their final moment in the episode felt.

Demona as a human in the daytime (I understood the spell right off). I cannot express to you how excited I was about this development. For quite some time I was hoping one of the gargoyles (or a new one) would have the ability to transform to a human during the day (just for fun, on my part). Demona worked for me, both because it increased her danger, and was full of wonderful irony. Her horrified "NOOOOO" and smashing the Mirror were great character moments. Since I didn't know about the tiers and tentpoles system then, I always wondered why it took you guys until HIGH NOON to bring her "human-problem" back into the picture. I also loved how her first impression of the sun, and Hudson's last, wistful line in the ep, show gargoyles' feelings about the sun. I don't know why, I just do.

This was the first ep I watched twice and more while I had it on my tape (and the first one I all but forced my family to watch). Excellent.

Abigail Thorne writes...

Hey Greg,

While reading the posts, I've noticed how a bunch of people have complained about the World Tour. They thought it was too dull, went on too long, neglected the rest of the clan back in Manhattan, etc. I get their complaints, and I can understand their point of view.

But I for one loved The World Tour and the changes it brought to a show that I already loved. It expanded and enhanced the "Gargoyles" universe while moving along certain plotlines crucial to the story. Here's a few of the things I liked about it:

1) Angela. Love, Love, LOVE Angela!! The World Tour introduced her, and through her adventures I got to know her and love her as much as the rest of the clan. Her addition to the show was great--she brought out a side of Goliath's character I hadn't seen before, introduced the rest of the clan to her unique view of humans (she was raised by them, after all), and made a interesting development to the Goliath/Demona relationship. Plus Angela was smart, kind, and beautiful, a sensitive being and cunning warrior all wrapped together. I also liked her relationship with Elisa, who had a better mother-daughter relationship with Angela than Demona did (just one more reason for Demona to hate her). Great character, great move for the show.

2) The Third Race. I got to see more members of the Third Race!!! Odin, Banshee, Anubus...I loved them all, and the episode with Oberon and Titania was a gigundo bonus! Then there was the New Olympians, Loch Ness Monster, and other legendary beings who popped in. As a rule, I love mythology, magic, and fantasy stories. Greek mythology in particular has always held a place close to my heart. So tuning in each day and learning that the gods, monsters, and mystical beings from various cultures were real and had an influence on the ("Gargoyles") Universe was very, very cool for me.

3) New and Old Faces. We got the Pack, TWO Coyotes, Sevarius, Thailog, Demona, Macbeth, Xanatos, Renard, and others I'm probably forgetting. But we also got the new gargoyle clans and a host of other interesting new characters who would have played a larger role in the series had it continued. I loved how old mixed with new and created fresh stories and new possibilities. It kept me excited from day to day as I waited for the next installment--who would show up next, someone old or someone new? Very cool indeed.

4) Exotic places. The show left Manhattan and got to explore the world. The different locations offered new challenges in their own rights as the group had to cope with various climate and cultural differences. Makes me happy.

There are others, but this post will get too long, so I shall conclude:

Did I miss the Trio and Hudson? Sure. Was I disappointed that I never got to see how Xanatos would take advantage of Goliath's absense to make trouble for the others? You bet. But despite that, I loved the World Tour and the changes it brought to the series. I looked forward to the new adventure each day, and I wouldn't have you take back any of them.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Siren writes...

The Mirror

This is just about one of my favorite episodes, if not THE fav. I loved everything about it. The animation, the style, the music, the story, the characters. As you said, this was the point when Goliath and Elisa's relationship is officially established. For one brief night, it was a perfect world...besides Demona running amok. Elisa was the most beautiful gargoyle I had seen on the show. I loved her colors and her face. The animators kept her features, but brightened them. When she first sees Goliath after her transformation and when she goes to glide, but gets afraid. Both those moments, I loved with the Elisa garg. I have always loved and respected the show for it's seriousness, but I do also like the humor points now and then. Puck was a wonderful addition to the show. He messes with Demona so much. It was great. Because unlike Elisa, Goliath, etc. there is nothing she can really do. I love Puck's one liners. He's a wonderful trickster. And this show got me to go out and read Midsummer's Night Dream and see the movies on it. I never cared much about Shakespeare till I saw this show. When Macbeth first appeared, just weeks later, my English class had to read the play, and I had a leg up on it. I knew the story was different, but I had the general idea. My reaction to Demona being human...laughing hysterically. I love the irony. She was to become the very thing she hated. I feel Demona is too far on her high horse to come down and admit she did have a torch still for Goliath, but I didn't know it till then. I think by the time Hunter's Moon came around, the torch was long dead, but her hatred for Elisa grew even more..."How dare Goliath choose another over me...and how dare it be a HUMAN of all vial creatures upon this Earth!"-kinda thing. All in all, I did enjoy this ep. It was a big turning point

Todd Jensen writes...

Just read your ramble-review on "The Mirror". I enjoyed that, and decided to give my own comments now.

I always liked this one, although the first time that I saw it, seeing Elisa and the other humans turned into gargoyles unnerved me just a bit. I thought myself that the Goliath/Elisa scenes were nicely handled (although, the first time I saw this episode, I don't think that I actually picked up on what was going on between them, which is a bit on the embarrassing side). And I thought that the bits about the characters' memories getting switched when they were transformed were well-done as well. (Good thing for the New Yorkers that Puck thought to handle their memories accordingly; I don't even want to imagine the results of all those humans in New York suddenly realizing that they've been changed into bat-winged creatures).

Brooklyn obviously must have taken his own advice from his conversation with Lexington in "Enter Macbeth" about Shakespeare's plays, judging from his "Midsummer Night's Dream" comment. (And Demona obviously must not have read that one, or she'd have known from the start that employing Puck to get things done isn't the wisest course in the world, considering the mess that he made of the whole Lysander/Hermia/Demetrius/Helena business. I've sometimes wondered if he was indeed telling the truth to Oberon about "All those Athenians look alike to me!" :) Just goes to show that Xanatos made a sound decision in choosing a lifetime of service from Owen over a wish from Puck).

Oddly enough, I missed that bit about "You serve the human" until AFTER I found out from "The Gathering Part Two" that Owen and Puck were the same, but then I started suspecting that "the human" was a reference to Xanatos even before you confirmed it.

And I agree with you about "changeling" being misused; properly speaking, it should refer only to faerie children in the human world like your version of Morgan le Fay. (Then again, Shakespeare misused the word himself when he applied it to that little Indian prince, who was actually the human baby swapped for a changeling, so you're in good company).

And I've sometimes wondered about Elisa's red jacket and shoes disappearing and reappearing myself.

One thing that I sometimes wonder about this one: what was all that medieval weaponry doing in the shop window that Demona smashed?

And I thought that Puck's little gift to Demona was a great touch for the series. It makes her much more dangerous (they can't use the same strategy on her any more that Hudson used in "Long Way Till Morning"), and inflicts upon Demona the ultimate irony: she, who hates humans so much, now has to regularly become a human herself in the daytime.

Oh, and I was delighted with the inclusion of Puck and the revelation of faerie-folk out there in this story. One step of "Gargoyles" that I was pleased by.

Thanks for the ramble.

Todd Jensen writes...

This is more of a ramble/comment than a question, but I thought that I'd print it here.

I've noticed that every so often, you get questions about whether the Illuminati are evil (the last one of which you answered with "Not in their opinion"). I've occasionally thought over the Illuminati of "Gargoyles" myself (an intriguing organization, and I was always a little sorry that it never really got that much development in the series, and hope that if you can get the series relaunched, that could change), and have one or two thoughts on the issue.

It's obvious enough that the Illuminati can't be considered utter saints. They do have decidedly unscrupulous members in their ranks such as Xanatos and Mace Malone, they operate the Hotel Cabal, they receive money from organized crime through blackmail(as revealed by Matt in "Revelations"), they helped Castaway set up the Quarrymen. Duval himself has undergone some sort of physical cost from the Grail for the Society's actions, indicating that what the Illuminati do can't be right from the Holy Grail's perspective.

But at the same time, we don't know, as yet, the full story behind the Illuminati. We don't know how characteristic of them such methods as the Hotel Cabal or the Quarrymen are; for all that we know, such underhand schemes may represent only a small percentage of the Illuminati's activities, and the bulk of them might be of a different nature. We don't know what its present goals are; it's entirely possible that the Society still follows Duval's original goal for it of "making things right".

The picture of the Illuminati that we have from the series (primarily "Revelations", the only episode that deals much with the Illuminati's present-day activities) isn't all that favorable to it. On the other hand, if all that we knew of Goliath and his clan was that they were strange bat-winged creatures that only came out at night, were fierce warriors, and delivered a raid on Cyberbiotics, we could find it all too easy to view them as dangerous monsters. Is it possible that we may be judging the Illuminati the way that the frightened humans in New York in "Hunter's Moon" and "The Journey" judged the gargoyles? Maybe our gut reactions to them are the correct ones, but we don't know for certain as yet.

michael writes...

did you know in your clips did it come from some other episodes like the one where brooklyn is killed how did he get killed?

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. :)