Review: Episode 8.10 - Spooky Seaside Spirits
by: 41 Cyg

Ah, Saturday morning. No school! Time to veg out in front of the TV and watch our favorite cartoons, including Scooby: Warrior Canine - I mean Xena-Doo - I mean... oh, well, let's just say we've got a great comic episode of Xena: Warrior Princess (VS) with a guest star who can only be an ancestor of that animated favorite, Scooby-Doo. The guest appearance works well and easing our heroes into the Scoobyverse generally does (I'll mention an exception later), making for an entertaining read. I'm giving this episode an 8.7 on a 1 to 10 scale.

If you haven't read something about this episode beforehand, you may not realize at first that you are not quite in the usual Xenaverse. Xena and Gabrielle are heading towards the seacoast to find a ship that can take them back home to Greece and they meet an old man with a very friendly dog who tells them about a warlord who, several generations before, killed the local king and his family, but quickly left.

The first clue that this story is a little different is when the old man tells them that the old king's ghost has apparently returned and is haunting the old castle. After some mysterious goings on in the night, our heros and the dog go up to the castle to check it out and from then on we're in the Scoobyverse rather than the Xenaverse.

In the story the dog is described as an Irish wolfhound, but illustrator Kathy Austin's pictures of him don't exactly fit that breed. When I first saw the drawings of the canine, I thought he looked like an average mutt with a good dose of sheepdog in his DNA and said so. Kathy responded by sending me several pictures of wolfhounds and, sure enough, Doo's face definitely looks like theirs (I only know the breed through pictures and I guess I just had the wrong idea of what an Irish wolfhound looks like.). His size, however, is another matter. Irish wolfhounds are quite large, though not bulky, and standing on their hind legs can reach up to seven feet. Doo appears to be only on the large side of medium. Another of the team's artists, Marycat, mentioned that she had seen a TV biography of the rock musician Sting. He owns a couple of the breed and Marycat said they looked big enough to ride. Doo definitely doesn't look that big.

Now to some specific comments.

Act I: Do (pronounced doo?) and Doo are not really good as a short form of the dog's name, Domingo, but the names in this episode are Spanish in form (Domingo, Esteban, etc.) and the long u or double o sound is not generally found at the end of Spanish words.

It would work in French, though, with words like beaucoup and names like Depardieu.

Act III: In scene 17 Doo gives Xena 'a weak smile'. This is where I decided that Doo was Scooby's ancestor.

scenes 23-25: These scenes could be taken straight from the Saturday morning cartoon, substituting Doo for Scooby and Gabrielle for Shaggy. They are full of YAXIs (or more accurately YASIs (Yet Another Scooby Inconsistency), but the YASIs are all integral parts of Scooby's world and can be overlooked in the light-hearted spirit of the episode.

Act IV: scene 30: Although a standard part of the cartoon, I just can't accept Gabrielle being bribed by a 'Gabby snack' (or even two `Gabby snacks'). It stretches my suspension of disbelief too far.

While reading the episode, I realized that Gabrielle was in the Shaggy role, but I got to thinking afterwards `Who is Xena?'. Daphne is more of an Aphrodite type (with a bit less flightiness) and Fred is closer to the Hercules model, so that leaves.... Uh oh, Heather and Guilda you'd better watch out for Xena; I don't think she'll appreciate being the Velma of the story!