Legend of the Seeker Panel
2009 Xena Convention
Los Angeles - 1 February 2009

View Photos from the Panel

Con 09 L.A. Legend of the Seeker Panel

by KTL
fsktl@uaf.edu

Usually, if there are any new stars at the con, I like to write up their appearance right after I finish with all of Lucy’s. Tony Todd was here as a con virgin and he was lovely and hilarious. And of course, we also had the FABULOUS Widow Twanky.

However, I know there is a lot of Xena fan interest in Legend of the Seeker. So I’m going to write that up next.

We had a three person panel made up of Nicki Paluga, staff writer, Stephen Tolkin, Co-Executive Producer and Rob Tapert, Excutive Producer and (according to a possibly reliable source), Sick Bastard.

First thing right off-how cool is it to have a writer named Tolkin working on your fantasy show? Especially one being filmed in New Zealand? (Only missed the brass ring by one little “e”. Tch.)

They showed us a bit of a future show (MIGHT have been the one that was going to be on next in the show’s lineup.) The guy who played Flanigus in the Xena ep, “A Good Day” was in it. Seeker shows on regular TV and I have caught it quite a bit. And one of the joys of it is to notice old XWP faces and of course locations in it. “Hey! I’ve seen Xena run by that tree! And she was chasing that same guy!”

While watching the beginning of the ep on that large screen, I was suddenly struck all over again by the sheer mastery Rob has over creating compelling visual beauty onscreen. His shows are always outstanding in composition, lighting, props that work to “sell” the setting, the use of camera angles and the mix of close-ups, wide shots and medium shots. R.J. always praises Rob for his great visuals. And Rob not only dreams them up, he hires the right people to make sure they get onscreen. Go Rob.

Just before this panel came out, Creation ran a fan produced film called “Wicked Xena”. I didn’t see it, but I heard rave reviews about it from my friends who did. They said it was based upon the musical “Wicked”. One of my best buddies found the ending absolutely hysterical. It was a remake of the ending of “A Friend In Need”. Let’s just say, Gabrielle butts in and inadvertently enables Xena to still be alive at the end, without neutralizing her sacrifice for those 40,000 souls and without negating her achieving her series-long goal.

I’m telling you this because the first thing Rob said once the panel settled itself on stage was how much he enjoyed watching the film. He said very excitedly, “That was the coolest thing that ever happened to me!” And then he added with a grin and a happy congratulatory look, “And they found a better ending!” Huge laughs and applause from the audience. I love how mature Rob is. I love that he accepts and respects that some fans didn’t like his ending-and doesn’t hold it against them. And I also love how he’s stuck by his guns and never dissed his own choice to end Xena the way he did. Cool guy.

I believe the first question was how he got involved with Seeker. “Sam found the book. He approached the author.” Now this is interesting to me since Rob has said that Sam has never been interested in working in T.V. Which is why Rob mostly ran Xena, Herc, Jack and Cleo. I wonder if Sam originally thought of it as a movie. I peeked around the web and found an interview with Sam where he discussed thinking of a movie but was torn between a movie and TV series. The author of the books, Terry Goodman, felt that a series would be better to capture the book more fully-TV gives them just so much more time to tell the whole story. So they went with that.

I have written in my notebook, “The two writers are SO somber. Normal human beings.”

Which cracks me up now as I read it. What I was trying to get at is that they are new to this/us and that we don’t have a history with them. “Our” folks know us, we know them, we’ve already got a connection, so it’s not “meeting” each other for the first time. Even when we are meeting for the first time, we know the actors in a way from having watched them be a character onscreen, and of course, some of us tend to confuse the actors and the characters and so REALLY think they know them. I remember so many times, people asking an actor why a character did what they did. Inevitably, the actor would reply with a version of “Ask the writer”. And while this “friendship” applies mostly to the actors, even if a director or writer was on the stage, we had a common ground to talk about-the work they’d done that we’d seen.

Anyway, these folks were much more reserved than is the norm at these cons. But eventually they warmed up. Grin.

Stephen is a tall, rangy guy. Very short hair. Black glasses. Short, neat beard. Seemed like he just watched us and Rob interacting at first. But he got really fired up when he began to ask us questions about the show.

Nicki is a thin, blond woman, also with glasses. But no beard. She was very quiet in general, but she warmed up also. She tended to just answer questions, I don’t think she asked us any (unlike Stephen). But after a bit she began to smile as she listened to our questions and as she heard Rob and Stephen talking.

I think we tend to forget just how odd this situation of being at a fan convention is. Normally, writers don’t get to talk directly to the people who watch their show or get to see their reaction to an episode. (Or the first few minutes of one.) Sure, there is now a lot of internet traffic/chatter that writers and producers can read and sometimes even answer or comment on. But having that exchange in real life with masses of dedicated fans-that’s really not very typical.

So who would know how to act at these things and their first time, know how it was going to go? Even the actors, their first time they’re often a little unsure of exactly what to do. Many of them rely heavily on the questions during their first few appearances. The old timers like Lucy, Renee, Adrienne, Rob and Steve Sears know we’ll happily listen to them chat for a while to catch us up with what they’ve been doing.

Anyway, I found it interesting to watch non-actors, people who don’t often appear onstage, reacting to us and our interests.

Rob has such an expressive face. As does Lucy. And it just struck me-between the two of them, I bet their kids sometimes feel like they’re living with two mimes as parents.

Rob said something about it being early times for the show. “Seeker is now like early Xena. It’s watching to see how the show transforms over time. It’s a creative process.”

I think in answer to a question, he said, “Nicki worked with me on a horror movie I couldn’t sell.” (Didn’t say what it was.)

Stephen was interested in our reaction to the piece of the episode we had watched. There was a murder and even though we didn’t see a lot of the ep, it was clear that though it might be obvious who the murderer was, in reality there were hints that the obvious may not have been the truth. So Stephen asked us “Who was the killer?” People yelled out two other choices besides the one that seemed to be. I don’t think they actually said which one it was, but it was one of them. I’m pretty sure it was Rob who said that he (them?) spoiled the audience. Then I think Stephen appeared a little surprised that we had caught on to the ambiguity so quickly. Rob said, “The audience is always smarter than you give them credit for.”

A fan asked Rob if he had read all 11 volumes of “The Sword Of Truth”, the series Seeker is based upon.

Rob shook his head and pointed to Nicki and said, “But she did.” Stephen said something about they decided not to serialize it. And there was another question that I didn’t write down (D’OH!) but the answer was, “None. Can’t do them out of order.”

Fan: “What’s harder to do-an adaptation of an existing work or creating an original work?”

Someone said that Stephen has done this before. And Rob said that he himself thought that an adaptation was harder. Stephen said, “I would actually disagree with Rob.” (Which made Rob yell, “ARGH!” And snort.) Stephen continued, “The more boundaries you have, the easier it is.” (Interesting.)

Rob said, “Hercules was an adaptation. So there were things to corrupt.”

I’m remembering now that at some point Nicki said that she loved the books. This MIGHT have come up in terms of would/are fans of the book happy with the TV show.

There was a question about Kahlan (I think it was about Kahlan) being so powerful. Essentially, so how could she not win? Nicki agreed and said that the more powers the characters have, the harder the storytelling is.

I believe the next question was how did the show get green lighted. Rob said, “Mark Petrowitz (? that’s what the name sounded like to me) is a huge fan of Hercules and Xena. And he heard we were shopping this project. Fantasy-but he took that leap. He’s no longer with ABC. We’ve proved that there is an international appetite for fantasy.”

A fan asked if Hudson would appear on the show. Rob replied, “We agreed to an incredibly tight economic model. We can’t bring actors down from America.” He added, “I love Hudson. I’m glad she came to the con this year.”

Another fan asked if Lucy would do a guest shot. I think it was Stephen who said, “We’ve campaigned many times.” One of them said, “The writers petition” (for her). And one of them added something about thinking they “Had an in” in getting her. Rob was actually red, blushing like. His only comment was, “Ask Lucy”. (Chicken. And we did. And her answer was, “No-they got their cast. You know about me-I suck out the life of a show.” (When she’s a guest star.)

Fan: “Do Kahlan and Richard get together?” Nicky: “I was pitching that Monday in the writer’s room!” I have a bunch of sentences next but I didn’t note who said what, or else all of the below was said by Nicky. (I’m a) “Huge fan of the books.” “You get writers together – everybody has their own vision. To get your vision (onscreen), you get it with a good story. Writers (use) words-not big explosions. Emotionally powerful.”

A fan asked how they picked the cast. Rob: “Craig Horner. At first we couldn’t get the deal.” (But then obviously, they did.) “Bridget. She won it. The casting director fought for her. And I remembered the wizard from watching the 12 hour ‘Lord of the Ring’”

Fan: “How comfortable are all the women in those wonder bras?” Rob: “We had to do something with those costumes.”

The next question was something about working with Disney because some of the stuff in the series might be too harsh/explicit/adult (things along those lines) for them.

Rob: “When we did Xena, the advertisers were the Standards and Practices (enforcers). Proctor and Gamble pulled out of ‘Is There A Doctor In The House’ because of Ephiny’s caesarian – too much blood. ‘Fins, Fems and Gems’-we got a note that we would lose the series if we did the original script. (Which we’ve been told in the past, had Gabrielle totally obsessed and helplessly in love with Xena, rather than with herself.) “Disney-they see genitalia.” Rob put on a stunned look showing us his facial reply to that as he repeated in an amazed tone, “Genitalia?!” He talked about a dungeon torture scene (I think in Seeker). “Did they ever see ‘Who’s Gurkhan’? We went round and round.”

A fan mentioned that Ted Raimi had done a guest shot. Rob said, “Ted is having acid flashbacks to the Xena days.” (I believe Rob mentioned the same locations and using many of the same crew.) “Ted said to the guy on the dolly, ‘Isn’t it odd to be back here?’” Then Rob put on a New Zealand accent and became the dolly guy answering Ted, “Every day mate, every day.”

It says in my notebook, “Lots of audience interest”. And there was. The hall was crowded (which it wasn’t always – it wasn’t very full for the Bitch Slap Panel and for some of the stuff for the fans, like the Trivia contest and the auctions.) And also, there were lots of questions. I wonder if all the folks asking questions were Xena fans or if they had come just for that day for this panel. At any rate, many of the people who asked questions definitely knew the show.

A fan asked what was the time frame that Seeker took place in. Rob or maybe it was Stephen answered, “No time. No place. It’s medieval in general.” They also talked about how their world was a mix of magic and reality. I think they said there would be an episode about the Plague. And what is their reaction to this-“Do they know you can catch it from rats? Or do they think it’s magic?”

A fan asked if there would be a DVD. Rob: “I like watching shows on DVD”. I think he talked about that a bit, about how he enjoys that experience.

Now the paragraphs below this are not exact quotes. It’s a “filling in” of nouns/verbs that I managed to scribble down. But it does follow what was said.

A fan had a question (most likely for Rob, at any rate, he’s the one who answered it) “Did you fall in love with Lucy the moment you saw her?” Rob: “Soooooo. We were working on ‘Hercules and the Amazon Women’. I was talking to the costume designer. She dragged me into the other room to watch the possibles (on tape). Lucy was on it. She was really great. Really pretty-‘She can be second in command!’ So yes, it was love at first video sight.”

Fan: “Was it reciprocal?” Rob: “No, I can’t answer that. This is a Legend of the Seeker convention (time).” Laugh!

I think during this whole exchange you could have heard Lao Ma’s hairpin drop. People were INTENT. You could hear breathing going on. (Now watch-when the DVD comes out we’ll find out that MOST of the audience was giggling or answering the question on their own or making plans for dinner or just creating the typical aggregate con fan noise.)

Fan: “Will there be Legend of the Seeker conventions?” Rob: “That depends upon the fans. I don’t know how they know who’s watching.” He added, “They can’t monetize ‘Gossip Girls’.

They got the few minutes left high sign from a Creation staff member. Rob looked over at her and yelled, “Barbara-come on! Take our mikes away. Come ON!”, challenging her to try to stop them.

A fan asked why they had changed the name of the book. Rob said the author changed the name. I THINK he said (or I read it in an interview) that the author was aware that a book is very different from a film. And he said “The story is about someone who seeks”. So they named the show, “The Legend Of The Seeker”. And then Barbara DID throw them all off the stage.

Lots of applause, lots of chatter when it was over. I think this was good for both the show and for the fans who are following it. I thought it was great to include it because many Xena fans are also fans of Rob and Sam’s productions. I always enjoy seeing Rob-I like his honesty and his sense of humor. Even though I haven’t been following every episode, I thought it was an entertaining panel and was very appropriate and enjoyable for this audience.

KT

Read more of KT's reports from the Xena Convention