Monday February 13, 1995
76603
Ares thrived on conflict and bloodshed. Hercules did not share Ares' passion for killing, and when Ares tried to assemble an army of teenage boy-soldiers to do his bidding, Hercules knew he had to stop him. With help from the powerful blacksmith Atalanta and the young widow Janista, Hercules must work to help the village against Ares and his new boy-army.
Write a Recap »A group of warrior kids align themselves with the warrior God. Hercules sets out to free them from the force of evil that is his brother. hide show
Unfortunately, in the fifth episode "Ares", the god gets his first body ... and it sucks. This episode is about a band of warrior boys who worship the war god. But the story doesn't begin there, it begins with Hercules (sidekick-free this week) coming upon a dead warrior on a battlefield. He gives Hercules a message to take to his wife and son. When Herc gets to the village, he finds the woman and boy easily enough, but also finds trouble in the form of the warrior boys. While there he meets a female blacksmith named Atalanta, his first real romantic girl-of-the-week this season.
The Atalanta/Hercules relationship was probably the most amusing part of this episode. The primary kids (who looked like a band of Peter Pan style "Lost Boys") were good actors. Kid actors can easily be annoying and they mostly weren't. And the mother/widow and Atalanta were both good representations of strong women. I respected both characters. I adored when Atalanta dipped Hercules for a kiss and how he (the strongest man in the world) had all his words reduced to blubbering when she threw on her feminine charm. I liked that they allowed her to be a little butch and still have the feminine charm to reduce a man to a blubbering idiot. You very rarely see shows allow Muscular women the luxary of being seen as both strong and femine. I even love how Hercules was still protective of her despite it being clear she could beat the pants off of more than half of the men in the world. Basically, the meat of the story was good and watchable. Even creepy laughing "skull in the sky" Ares and "bubbling blood" voice-of-Ares worked in the course of the episode. But then there was the sad excuse for Ares in the end. I mean when the little punk kid that was running the band of Punk Kids went whining to Ares and begging the God to beat up little-bro-Herc for him, I knew how Ares would feel. You CAN ask Ares for help, but if you do then he loses respect for you. The kid learned that the hard way. But the Beast/Giant form of Ares was the worst excuse of a godly form I've ever seen. I mean I guess they were going for a monster form a kid would dream up, but it just looked like a big old pile of crap with glowing red eyes. I prefer the omniscient laughing skull in the sky, thanks.
Visiting a war widow, Hercules finds that local male children are being lured into forming an army for Ares, and with muscular female blacksmith Atlanta he must put an end to the evil, in this reasonable tale... hide show
After 'The Festival of Dionysus', which I personally found uninteresting, things move back up a notch with this episode.
This story has a definite anti-gang theme, and in places almost plays like an Ancient Greek version of the 1987 movie 'The Lost Boys' (where a gang of youths become vampires).
I've always found the title of this episode to be rather generic, and could have done with something more grabbing, and reflecting the corruption of youths of the story.
This episode introduces Cory Everson as the muscular blacksmith Atlanta. Later on I found that I could not help but compare many (most) of such female guest stars to the mighty Xena, but Atlanta is a strong and likable character, and – especially being introduced before Xena – works very well. The character was popular enough to be brought back several times. Oh, and that costume! After a string of 'try out' companions in previous episodes, here Hercules is travelling solo, although he does spend much of the story with Atlanta. There are almost shades of 'Hercules and the Amazon Women', as Hercules is first shocked to find that the blacksmith is a woman, and later when he insists that going up against Ares is too dangerous for a woman.
As I said on my review of 'The Festival of Dionysus', although I really liked what Kevin Smith did as Ares, at the same time I quite like these early versions of the gods, as giant, imposing, almost alien-like figures. At the same time though, I don't think they'd have got as many stories or as much scope using this more abstract version of Gods.
Other than the inclusion of Ares himself, this is a monster-less episode, illustrating how the series was gradually moving from all out monster fests to wider ranging stories, something that would be used in many future episodes. It also has a darker feel to it that much of what we have seen previously.
All-in-all, this is a very fair episode. It is one of those stories that once you know the plot, it doesn't have as much to offer on multiple viewings than some other episodes, but it is still a very reasonable offering.
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