YHFFS2 What Might Have Been
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1. Why didn't the Virtual Third season get under way?
It DID get under way. Only two episodes were produced before what was going to be a brief hiatus due to a number of real life circumstances. Things never picked up. Such is real life. Sadly. Due to the shortage of episodes, we tacked them onto the end of Season 2. It technically makes sense, since we wrapped up that arc in those episodes anyway.
The year and 1/2 of work we did do on the Virtual Second Season was, however, a blast. Hard work, but it turned out great. It is sometimes missed. Memories live on though. It just sucks many people lost contact with one another. On my lost contacts, real life with a serious depression made me lost plenty I am sure.
2. How many more Virtual Seasons were planned?
The third season (our second) would most likely have been it. If we had continued beyond that, there might of been a "Virtual Movie of the Month" type deal for a few months perhaps. Otherwise, Virtual Season 3 was end game.
3. What would have been the main theme of the Virtual Third Season?
Maturity and moving on to the next "journey" of ones life. Hercules and Iolaus are the equivalent of seniors in high school or college (Cheiron's Academy, we believe, would be enough to suffice for both) and are now going to discover a life-long brothership that sets them off on the same heroic path following graduation. Season 3 would have been about Herc and Iolaus preparing for their adult adventures. The earlier episodes would have had Jason tagging along, but eventually the plan was to do Herc and Iolaus stories with occasional Jason tagalong or involvement. Jason would have obviously remained a lead character, but we'd of likely done more B-stories revolving around Jason's duties as King of Corinth in the later part of the season. In later life, Jason wasn't part of the team except on occasion. We wanted to set that up. Not as a rift, but as a natural progression of two different worlds (traveling heros vs. royalty) and how they remain close, yet not with change.
4. Would Hercules have ever met Zeus? Referring to a face to face meeting in which they had a conversation or interaction in which Hercules found out he's Zeus.
The third episode of Season 3 would have dealt with this. Since on "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" (HTLJ), there was a Young Hercules flashback episode where Herc meets Zeus, we didn't have a lot of creative freedom here. We wanted to be cannon with HTLJ as much as possible (even though we weren't always), so we had planned a "Top God" adaptation for an episode called "Fathers and Sons" in which Herc and Zeus have their first actual meeting with Herc knowing it's Zeus. Future meetings would have been scarce since we wanted the abandonment role to play into the growth of Herc, and also Iolaus's character. Iolaus would become Herc's main source to bring his problems to. It would make Iolaus grow, and bring their friendship closer together at the same time.
5. What would have happened to recurring characters? Namely Lilith, Theseus, Cheiron.
We wanted the focus to be on Herc/Iolaus and Jason. So while Cheiron, Kora, Alcmene, and Fiducius would pop in where needed, we had plans to write Lilith and Theseus out unless we had a good story to bring them back in. Theseus would have a B-story in "Fathers and Sons" in which he meets his father - a connection to Ares and Athena ends up sending Theseus out on his own epic adventure. Lilith returned to the Telequire Amazons in the episodes we had already produced and released. We'd of seen her again at least once. Not sure about Theseus. Though chances are he'd of returned, as well as Lilith, for graduation.
6. Would Herc and Cyane ever hooked up?
Nope. Not in the works, at least not when we discussed plans for Season 3. Not even sure they'd of seen one another again. There was an episode in the works called "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" in which Herc and Lilith team up with a stranded ship's captain to battle a horde of cannibals that have taken over the Telequire Amazons land. Cyane was to be killed off in the opening part of the episode. Unless she showed up in a prior episode, it was over. The episode would have been used to have Herc explore his unrequited feelings for Cyane and to bring some closure to their relationship-that-never-was. Lilith would have become the new leader of the tribe. The ships captain MIGHT have ended being the Golden Phoenix. Who might have become a recurring character for a 3-4 episode story arc. That was only a possibility though, the Phoenix arc.
7. What was in store for Jason and Lilith? The HTLJ fifth season episode "The Academy" confirmed they were an item during their youth. Would we have seen their relationship develop?
It's funny that we never really discussed this. Of all things we discussed and laid out to write, we never really conversed about how to work this in. You can say it was going to most likely be off-screen stuff. Minus some flirting, which did pop up a few times I believe.
8. A graduation episode. If so, would it close out the season and/or series?
Yes, a grad episode was planned. Not the season ender though. Even if we did Fan Fiction Movies we still weren't going to wrap-up Season 3 with graduation. Graduation would have been a few episodes before the ender. The last few episodes would deal with Herc and Iolaus off on the road for a whole episode. Not close to Corinth. In Greece, yes, but far from Corinth and such. No Academy. On the road adventure and drama. We'd of also possibly seen, in the series finale, a scene similar to a particular scene in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". Like where teenage Indy meets the guy who gives him his hat after that guy is forced to give a crooked treasure hunter what he promised him. We wanted to do a similar type scene where teenage Herc and Iolaus confront someone as teens, then it segues into a scene from their adulthood similar. To bring the growth full circle. Ending with teenage Herc and Iolaus walking off was possible though. It was never actually decided how exactly to end it.
9. What ever happened to the "Mirror, Mirror" episode?
It was on the slate for Season 2 but got bumped off due to creative differences. Actually, it was just bumped. No specific reason. Not sure if it was going to resurface. The episode was to be about Strife getting amnesia and somehow ending up in the Alternate Universe where we'd of met a teenage Sovereign (Hercules) and Jason. As well as Cheiron's School of the Black Arts and Cupid: God of War. Flower girl Discord was a hoot. By the end, Strife would return and return back to normal evil Strife. Under amnesia, he was, in fact, a super-hero to the denizens of the alternate world. We played with making him a split-personality also. No amnesia, just good one moment...evil the next till the end, when he was just plain old cruel silly Strife again.
10. Would we have seen any more "Xena-crossover"? Like with Alti in "Showdown".
No. Though Alti (or Altina as we called her) was worked in to show Herc and Iolaus that there exist super-natural powers in the world besides the gods. Alti and spiritual powers (a.k.a. magic). Stuff like that. We wanted to do it more seriously, as comical witches with one eye and the ability to make Iolaus fight trees and drop the F bomb didn't seem a great threat.
11. Any other stories that were in the works?
We had one where Hercules teams with a man claiming to be Amphitrion. I think the idea was perhaps he never died, but was rather lost after war. Or else it was someone Amphitrion knew well. We wanted to explore the relationship with the step father Hercules never had. A golden hind story revolved around Iolaus. A story about an adventure to Hades. An episode where we learn Kora has a connection to Hades. That might have been the Hades adventure, however, after doing "Secret of Artemis' Temple" during Season 2, I think we abandoned the original idea with had for connecting Hades, Persephone, and Kora together. It would have not been cannon with HTLJ either. But we had another Hades story, I think. Centered around Jason and Iolaus. A parallel story to the Herc/false stepfather story. There was also a faux Halloween story that was "leaked" but obviously, it was just a silly game someone played. Or did we ever post the faux story? I can't remember. That was about all we really had planned at the time we cease production. Along with the rest of the summary above this question, obviously.
