Power, Praise, Prestige, and Precious Jewels: They’re All Up For Grabs in Season 2 of CROSSING SWORDS

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede CROSSING SWORDS is even more cutting-edge when nobody has to waste any time sharpening the blades beforehand. In a number of different ways, that’s the situation in Season 2 of the innovative stop-motion-animation comedy CROSSING SWORDS, which makes its Canadian debut Wednesday, Jan. 5 at 10:30 p.m. ET on CTV Comedy Channel. For the uninitiated, CROSSING SWORDS creatively utilizes the beloved little toys known as “peg pals,” which many viewers will remember from their early childhoods. The setting is Medieval, and stocked with a kooky crew of profane and violent characters, from clueless kings and queens, to wily wizards, juvenile jesters, and squirrely squires, all battling for power, praise, prestige, and precious jewels. In a virtual panel interview with co-creators and executive producers John Harvatine IV and Tom Root, as well as Seth Green, who is an executive producer and provides the voice for a wizard named Blinkerquartz, the trio talked about the differences between Season 1 and Season 2. All of them agreed that even though they’re working with “peg pals” whose movements are obviously limited, the main characters were fleshed out enough in Season 1 that it opened up narrative possibilities in Season 2. They offered two specific examples, one from each season: In Season 1, Patrick, voiced by Nicholas Hoult, enters a tournament, which is designed to determine who the next squire is going to be. But as Harvatine, Root, and Green explained, while the tournament encompasses a lot of fun visuals, there’s an ulterior motive in terms of storytelling: to provide the audience with more information about who exactly Patrick is, and what his motivations are. But in Season 2 of CROSSING SWORDS, for instance, King Merriman, voiced by Luke Evans, goes to the circus at one point. The reason? Harvatine, Root, and Green just wanted to see what a circus would look like in this Medieval “peg pal” world. The audience is already fully aware of who King Merriman is, so nothing has to be explained. Multiply that sort of thinking many times, and voila, there’s Season 2. Of course, there are universal truths at play in CROSSING SWORDS as well. Isn’t it interesting how the hierarchy in this “peg pal” kingdom – kings and queens are automatically clueless and heartless, anyone in power is automatically corrupt, working-class characters are automatically ambitious but downtrodden – is just 100% accepted as a basic comic premise? “You know, this is just the evolution of storytelling in general – it’s part of why we don’t need opening theme songs in sitcoms any more, because the audience is so familiar with that concept, as an embedded device, that we’ve sort of evolved out of it,” Green said. “And I think it’s something similar with all of these sophisticated tropes of culture.” But as Green pointed out, that doesn’t necessarily vouch for the historical accuracy of any of these tropes, and there’s no guarantee how long they’ll remain in vogue. “Our best guesses about how ancient Egyptians actually lived, or how Incas actually lived, it’s all based on our own perspective, right?” he added. “And we can’t have an accurate perspective, because it’s thousands of years ago. So I do think it’s funny to know where we are, culturally, that all of these things are so accepted, that we can make a shorthand joke about it. But I wouldn’t worry too much about the permanence of any of those aspects. People seem to evolve over and over again, and in a thousand years, nobody will remember any of this.” So in a strange way, is Green saying that CROSSING SWORDS should give everyone … um … hope? “Absolutely,” Green said enthusiastically. “At a time when things are tough, and you would like to just laugh, we’re giving you something to laugh at.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv