TV REVIEW: Hercules: the Legendary Journeys (1995–1999)
My youth as a Black boy was comfortable, but not one of acceptance. I grew up on Edith Hamilton’s Mythology and comic books, and I didn’t succumb to peer pressure as often. I disagreed with friends on many things, especially what was good TV. I liked most of the same shows, but did we have to be the way Hollywood paints us —as uneducated urbanites, crass comedians or the perennially penalized perp in a procedural? Nineties’ sci-fi and fantasy pickings with Black people in it were few and far between, as untested genre programs weren’t too mainstream. Sometimes a single morsel like FOX’s “M.A.N.T.I.S” or CBS’ “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” would slip through and I’d enjoy it — I would be particularly enamored and inspired with those shows if a Black person was played against racist stereotypes, even if it was just being somewhere another person decided they wouldn’t or shouldn’t normally be.
Around the same time UHF broadcast channels like UPN and the WB popped up and experimented with sci-fi and fantasy, giving us 1994's “Star Trek: Voyager” and 1997's “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. One show stood out to me above them all: an action-fantasy show called Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, which I credit to sparking my creativity.
The Premise: The opening monologue sums it up nicely:
“This is the story of a time long ago — a time of myth and legend. When the ancient gods were petty and cruel, and they plagued mankind with suffering, only one man dared to challenge their power — HERCULES.
Hercules possessed a strength the world had never seen — a strength surpassed only by the power of his heart. He journeyed the Earth battling the minions of his wicked stepmother Hera — the all-powerful queen of the gods.
But wherever there was evil, wherever an innocent would suffer, there would be…Hercules!”
Our titular hero (played by Kevin Sorbo, Kull the Conqueror, God’s Not Dead, “Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda” [TV]) and his buddy Iolaus (stage actor Michael Hurst, Bitch Slap, Spartacus: Vengeance) are two bros being heroes and doing good deeds. While Herc has super-strength and near-invulnerability because he’s the son of Zeus, Iolaus keeps up thanks to martial arts training from the Far East. They travel about on foot in a fictional version of undetermined ancient Greece, fighting warlords and monsters and gods with the power of teamwork. The show goes to fictional versions of Sumeria, Egypt, Eire (Ireland), the Norselands (Norway), Asgard, Troy, Atlantis, and (via time travel) Arthurian England to display how the son of Zeus can save the world and bring different people together to do the right thing. And in 30-pound leather pants, no less.
The Show: Starting off as five stand-alone TV movies shot on location in New Zealand before Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings made it cool, the whole TV series’ production is very tongue-in-cheek and deeply anachronistic. The very concept of this particular Hercules was to make him a “Joe Montana-like character” — if you know who that is, then you are OLD. References and flash-forwards to modern-day things are made constantly, but not so much as to be disruptive. Speaking of disruptive, this show sold not only on fantasy action but also on sex appeal: so much skin was shown during filming in jungle and beach environments standing in for ancient Greece. Everyone was greased up, and artfully lit by warm firelight in nearly every situation possible…and people stayed for that. It was “equal opportunity” exhibitionism as Hercules and Iolaus rarely buttoned their shirts or vests over their tanned muscular bodies…but it wasn’t as wild as the depiction of Aphrodite (played by Alexandra Tydings, Queerbait, “Red Shoe Diaries” [TV-SHO]). Though her character arc was magnificently acted, the character’s very distracting outfit was a combo of kitten heels, sheer silks, a push-up bra, and a stereotypical “Valley Girl” voice; let’s just say a lot of things they did then would NOT be allowed now.
While there weren’t a lot of Black people on the show, the few times they did show up they truly stood out: the big ones were Cleopatra (played by Galyn Görg, Robocop 2, America 3000), King Gilgamesh of Sumeria (played by Tony Todd, Candyman [1992], Final Destination) and his wayward sister, Nebula the Pirate Queen (played by the amazing Gina Torres, “Firefly” [TV-FOX], The Matrix Reloaded). When they couldn’t get Black people, they did their best with native Kiwi actors like Cliff Curtis, Toi Iti, Hori Apihene, Jay Laga’aia, Nathaniel Lees, and Josephine Davison. It was a pleasure to see so many different kinds of people on the show, that I often referred to any multicultural gathering of white, brown and black people as looking like “background characters on the Hercules show”. Everybody was being represented in one way or another — whether by geographical location or by coincidence, and that was beautiful. This was particularly pointed with women, as this show led to the world-renowned spinoff “Xena: Warrior Princess” starring Lucy Lawless.
The Verdict: With highly telegraphed fight choreography, state-of-the-art digital special effects, creative set and costume design, and a banging soundtrack carved into the wrinkles of my brain, I don't know where I would be without this show. It gave me new life and showed me a world I thought I could only find in an Angus Wells paperback novel. Even though the world has changed so much since those far-off Thursday nights, I owe people like director Sam Raimi (who directed several Hercules episodes), writer Christian Williams (the hidden master responsible for this version of the son of Zeus and a fictionalized version of ancient Greece), everybody at Renaissance Pictures, all the show’s “stunties” and the entire geography of New Zealand for giving me the best dreams ever.
