Oh gods help me, I'm in pain ...
I think A Day In The Life and Been There, Done That now have competition for the honor of Best Comedy Episode. At one point I was laughing so hard my spousal unit came in to make sure I was ok. I'll definitely have to watch it again - I think I missed about half the dialogue because I was chortling too loudly.
Where to begin? Let's start with the credits. I must admit that I've usually greeted an Armus & Foster writing credit with an inward groan, but they've totally redeemed themselves in my eyes with this one. Here, finally, was a comic ep with no stupid bathroom humor (unless you count Gabby getting her clothes stolen while she was in the shower, but I don't :), no disgusting gags, and a lot of good interplay between our heroines. Even Joxer wasn't too annoying. And Aphrodite! What can I say about our favorite Valley Goddess. She was an absolute stitch, as always.
My only complaint about this ep was that once again, Gabrielle was made out to be an idiot sidekick. I thought we were over that??? I mean, didn't the same writing team give us the "from now on, you're more than just the sidekick" scene in Fins, Femmes, and Gems??? But when she up and dumped Xena I just about fell off the couch. The look on Xena's face there was utterly priceless. I totally expected the "She does this all the time ..." line to finish with a muttered, "about once a month". Gabby was definitely PMS-ing in a major way throughout the entire thing. (Is she through doing the bard thing? I've never seen her so reluctant to tell a story before.)
As earlier this season we saw that Xena can look good even wearing a feed sack, so this week we saw that Gabrielle can look good in one, too. And just like the enchanted BGSB, it too kept shrinking. ;> I actually liked the way it looked by the end -- anything would be an improvement over the BGSB at this point. I'm sure it's too much to hope that this signals a permanent costume change, though.
And the various incarnations of the Cinderella story ... every one was furkin' brilliant. Xena's version was by far the funniest, but Joxer's was the most imaginatively done. Even down to the Saturday Night Fever dance number and Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald duet. And Lucy's turn as the frightfully British fairy godsmother had me rolling. How does she do all those accents???
Did anyone else think that Ted Raimi's costume, facial hair and bearing while he was the prince was very Autolycus? I wonder if that was intentional.
They all have way too much fun making this show.
Episode Rating: 9