athenasword wrote:
Sam was definitely supposed to be Satan in BE DEVILED, because the original script had Demon Callisto in it. This was long before Xena Season 6 when they conceived of Mephistopheles and Satan as a separate character to be "created" by Xena. Satan the Devil himself was always meant to be the chief antagonist on both shows to emphasis the Twilight of the Gods and killing the Greek ones off to allow Satan and God of Love room to attempt control. Until Hercules ended, and they changed it to Mephisto in Xena.
When they opted to redeem Callisto in Fallen Angel, they replaced her with Xerxos, who has exactly the same backstory. He's a kid who turned into a mass murderer when a warlord torched his village and his family died in the house fire. Arciana was supposed to be Callisto's sister who survived the fire at Cirra, instead she just became Xerxos' sister.
Sam was supposed to be the Master who Callisto referenced in Ides of March. Callisto had failed in her mission to get Xena off the Way of the Warrior before she died, so Caesar could kill her but Satan wouldn't get her soul. Callisto was facing eternal damnation for her failure, instead she escaped Hell and tried to find her sister Arciana and convince her not to go down the path she did, or face damnation herself. Satan "Sam" gives Hercules the power to defeat Callisto and send her back to Hell where she rightfully belongs and Arciana chooses a life of mercy to make up for her sister's mistakes.
But Fallen Angel's script was completed before Be Deviled and they liked it, so they rewrote Be Deviled with not much change to the characters, just no familiar names. If you watch Be Deviled and replace every instance of Xerxos with Callisto, it matches nearly perfectly.
Very interesting, thanks for clearing that up, I always wondered about the devil/Satan/Mephistopheles issue.
I dont see why they couldn't do it regardless if Callisto was redeemed, technically Be Deviled would of aired before Xena's season premier Fallen Angel, so it would still be before it anyways, and it would of been a nice little story that tied up loose ends with Callisto and satan from IOM.
It does match up perfectly with the characters and makes so much sense, and I really wished they did do the story, I would of loved it so much, and It would of gave TPTB, an option to bring Callisto's sister back on Xena for future episodes.
