ROBTAPERT has had a rough television run of luck, AMERICAN GOTHIC, MANTIS and his most recent creation, SPYGAME, were mishandled to extinction by the networks. But the HERCULES and XENA riding high on a world wide level, Tapert's scales have more than balanced, as he tells Marc Shapiro ...

DREAMWATCH: Has the success of HERCULES and XENA been there sulr of good timing, luck or both?
Rob Tapert: You've left a third element out that I think is equally important. The thing is that a lot of people have worked really hard to try and make both shows stand out amoung the onslaught of first run, syndicated action shows that are out there. Timing was real important and so was luck but ultimately, it's been hard work that has put both shows on top.

Was HERCULES a risky idea for a television series?
When HERCULES came out as part of that Action Pack series of movies, it was the show the syndicators had the least about of faith in. HERCULES was simply a matter of triumphing in the face of fantasy at the time. Everything else was pretty much STAR TREK and BABYLON 5 so we were looking different from everything else people were seeing. With HERCULES the star was very inviting and the stories, while not a new interpretation of Shakespeare, held together pretty well.

By association, how risky a project was XENA?
XENA made it to the air because one person said yes instead of no, and it could have easily died with that one person. It was incredibly risky to have a female super hero show. The last show even remotely like XENA was WONDER WOMAN and that wasn't really that successful. To that point there had not been a history of female super hero shows, especially one as geared toward young kids. The studios were convinced that young boys would not watch a female super hero who beat up guys.

How has HERCULES progressed from season to season?
Season one, the first thirteen episodes, was a real mix of dark and light stories. Season two was kind of a continuation of that mix but skewed, if anything, toward the lighter side. Season two was, to be perfectly honest, a blatant attempt to have merchandisable monsters. The season two stories were much more kid friendly.
I think the third season has been a slight switch into slightly more mythological based stories with a more deft mix of humour and darkness. The fourth season coming up is going to be much darker.

And XENA's progress?
Season one was relatively dark with some comedy thrown in. Season two, because of Lucy [Lawless]'s injury, we ended up repeating some situations that I would not have liked to have done. But, given the circumstances, I think season two ended up being better than we had any hopes of it being. Season three will be a slight continuation of last season with a coupleof fewer comedies and the darker shows being really dark.

You must have been ready to jump off a cliff when Lucy fell off that horse?
Our concern was really only for Lucy but finally, when all was said and done, we said 'Good God! We've got all these scripts sitting here and none of them are going to work.' What it turned into was an interesting opportunity to make some changes in existing material, have chatacters do some different things, spin a different story arc and just do some different, interesting things. All the credit has to go to the writing staff who responded instantly and made lemonade out of lemons. Lucy's injury forced us to do things that we wouldn't have done otherwise.

What have been the standout episodes of HERCULES and XENA?
There's been a bunch of them with HERCULES. The three Xena episodes were really good. I think the first season episode As Darkness Falls, when Hercules was blind, was very good. I also liked these cond season episode where Hercules goes into the underworld to see his family.
With XENA, some of the Callisto episodes have been great. Some of the XENA comedies have been really crackerjack.

What is the daily care and feeding of HERCULES and XENA like?
This is a really boring story but we've really been blessed with both shows. Kevin [Sorbo], Lucy [Lawless], Michael [Hurst: Iolaus] and Renee [O'Conner: Gabrielle] are four of the greatest professionals working today. If there are problems, we go back and forth but there's never been a single production delay or stance that anybody's taken that I think is unreasonable.
The pical day begins in the morning with a HERCULES story and script conference. In the afternoon, I do the same thing with XENA. Basically I just ping pong back and forth all day between the two shows.

What did you see in Lucy that made you think she was right for the first HERCULES appearance?
Nothing really. I am, we knew she had sone some bits and pieces of local things, but there was nothing in particular that jumped out and said we've got to have her. When we did the local casing fore HERCULES AND THE AMAZON WOMEN, Lucy initially tested for the lead role of the head Amazon. But, in the end, eveybody got cold feet about casting the lead role out of New Zealand. Lucy, however, was sultimately case as the bad-ass Amazon lieutenant. After that we tried to cast her in other episode but she was off doing other things. When she became available, we used her in a couple of other HERCULES things. When XENA came about, the person who was going to do it didn't do it and so Lucy stepped in and took over.

The story going around is that, indirectly, who have Richard Gere to thank for Lucy getting the part. There is that theory [laughs]. Although I think for insurance pruposes, Vanessa Angel had a really bad flu.

You have both a personal and professional relation with Lucy Lawless. Has that been a tough line to walk?
Yeah. It's a little but tough. It's definitely tough for me to balance the attention that I give both shows. If anything, I try to over-compensate by being overly pretective of HERCULES in deciding what stories go where. I had one incident where I too a XENA story and tried to make it work as a HERCULES and, ultimately, I made a mistake. I've also had the same thing happen once or twice on XENA.

But having a personal relationship with the star of your show: it has to be difficult.
Not at this point. But ask me in five years and Imight have a better answer. At least at this point, the relationship seems to be working out pretty well. The one thing we both make a big point of going is to leave the work behind when we get home.

What was your reaction when Kevin decided to do KULL THE CONQUEROR during his hiatus from HERCULES?
I was concerned that he was over extending himself. I was concerned that he was going to come back from shooting 12 weeks of KULL and would be physically depleted. My advice to Kevin had been: ‘Kevin, you work incredibly hard, and there will always be an opportunity to do a loin cloth movie and that, maybe, you would be better off doing nothing for your break.' When he come back from Kull he was quite tired. And it did take him a while to get back on his feet.

As hectic as Kevin and Lucy's schedules are, how did they manage to sandwich in the voiceover work in HERCULES AND XENA: THE ANIMATED MOVIE: THE BATTLE FOR MOUNT OLYMPUS?
They did the voiceover work in June and July of the last year. They did it on weekends and it took about eight days. I haven't seen the entire video yet but what I've seen is great. I've seen the designs and storyboards but, right now, it's all in 10,000 animation houses scattered across the globe. When the composer gets his hands on it, that's probably when I get to see it.

You've also expanded the HERCULES empire with a direct to video movie called YOUNG HERCULES.
Yeah. I was real pleased with it and there is a real possiblity that it could become another weekly series for us. The concept in YOUNG HERCULES opens up a whole milieu of stories that I can't do on HERCULES. YOUNG HERCULES focuses on somebody learning to be a hero rather than being a hero.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of working in New Zealand?
It's been very hard on Kevin shooting in New Zealand for what will ultimately for seven years. He just misses American awhole lot. The advantages are many. It's cheaper to work in New Zealand, the crews are real enthusiastic and the scenery is absolutely perfect. Although it does rain quite a bit.

Between the two shows there must be large amounts of merchandising...
There really isn't. There's nothing out there. I've never seen a promotion with a fast food company. I haven't seen one tenth the publicity that Disney has been able to generate on their HERCULES movie. Somethings are starting to happen but, to be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely satisfied Universal is starting to wake up but I don't want to give them too much credit. With HERCULES and XENA they have a real brand name and I don't think they've been able to exploit it the way they should have. There's something in my relationship with Universal that's still not firing to my satisfaction.

What's going on with your latest series, SPY GAME?
I was hoping it would get a better shot than it's getting. I think SPY GAME is a classic case of selling a project to a network that, at the end of the day, didn't have a spot to promote it preperly. To a large extent the show has been thrown to the wolves. It's on Saturday night at 10pm [in the states] and it's been doing dismally because they didn't spend a nickel to tel anybody it was there. It has nine more episodes to run so we'll see what happens in those nine episodes. But, for all practical purposes, its gone and that's a shame because, between SPY GAME and AMERICAN GOTHIC, I'm convinced that, on different networks, they would have worked. I think we made a big mistake going to CBS with AMERICAN GOTHIC. If we had gone to Fox it would have been a perfect companion piece to THE X-FILES.

You have a history of being tied to interest in Tv projects that have failed. Is that a constant cource of frustration?
Sure it is. I left MANTIS after the pilot over creative differences. And yeah, AMERICAN GOTHIC and SPY GAME haven't been too successful. But television is like that. But HERCULES and XENA have done well for us so things do balance out.

Is the EVIL DEAD series pretty much over?
The chances of anything happening at this point is slim to none. The bottom line is none of those films made any money. We got screwed in a big fight on the last one. The movies did real well in the foreign market and they did just fine on video. There are about 100,000 people who are screaming for EVIL DEAD 4. But that's not enough to open a movie.

Any possibilities of doing another science fiction series in the immediate future?
We're looking at a bunch of different things at this point bit there's nothing definite. I would do the right project in a minute because I love the science fiction - fantasy genre.

How long do you see HERCULES and XENA running?
Ideally I'd like to get six seasons out of each.

Finally, has there been a central theme that runs through the two shows?
HERCULES is the story about the hero we hope is out there. XENA is the story about a hero we hope is within us. That's the two shows pure and simple.