Wolf Larson’s TARZAN-73-TARZAN AND THE RING OF ROMANCE

 

Wolf Larson’s TARZAN-73-TARZAN AND THE RING OF ROMANCE

 

Dan’s journal: Tuesday the 21^st. 1993: Sept and Dec.; 1994: June; 1997: Oct; 1998: July. Dan talks about how lonely it would be without his friends Jane, Tarzan and Roger. He also gives away the plot: that Jane’s favorite ring would disappear.

 

Tarzan rides an elephant which is probably Tantor. He washes an elephant in the river but it looks smaller than Tantor? Roger and Jane wash a raccoon, trying to get rid of ticks. Jane gets soap in her eyes. They haven’t seen “the big guy” in quite awhile lately. Jane really misses him when he’s not around. Jane takes her ring off and a yellow bird watches. When it goes missing, she blames Cheetah who runs off. Roger claims he never saw Cheetah take off like that but he has in other episodes. Jane tells Tarzan, who still has wet hair. He believes Cheetah did not take it and tells Jane that Cheetah is NOT a liar, something she called Cheetah here. She shows him other things Cheetah took including her ear rings. Tarzan tells Jane he will make another ring for Jane but she wants that one. He tells her he will find that ring. They leave, with arms around each other.

 

The treehouse, which we haven’t seen in some time, looks different. Dan and Roger reference Sherlock Holmes and Watson.

 

Dan calls the ring a piece of garnet and Tarzan knows where there is a gully full of that but she claims it has sentimental value: Tarzan gave it to her. On doing a small amount of looking, Tarzan finds a yellow or green or yellowish green feather that belongs to a parrot. Roger apologize to Cheetah. Jane apologizes to Cheetah who will help find it. Jane promises to make him a banana pie. She also kisses him on the lips.

 

NOTE: Wolf looks very vascular in this episode, veins showing on his legs and arms. It also looks like he has bruises on his right arm and shoulder.

 

Dan tells a despondent Jane that he had an aunt who lost something (I think he said a ring) and then he and his brother Joseph (THE EVIL TWIN) looked for it everywhere and finally found it in a tree hollow with a bunch of other glittery items. As Cheetah hunts, he encounters a snake.

 

Night falls. Jane broods. Really? She has a flashback to when she brought sandwiches to Tarzan at his treehouse. She is wearing more safari-ish gear so the implication is this flashback is to an early encounter but not their first or second.  She thought he might be getting a little tired of bananas and fish. Jane tells him that they have been friends for a while now and she was trying to be friendly but is lonely. He hardly comes to see her anymore. Tarzan does not know what homesick is. She explains. Tarzan tells her that she has many friends in the jungle: Roger, DAN, Tantor, Cheetah and him.

 

It’s interesting he says Dan because this cements even further that this is an alternate universe as when they met it was SIMON who was around, not Dan.

 

“Tarzan does not want to be a pest like Roger calls Cheetah.”

“Roger doesn’t mean that. He loves Cheetah.”

 

Okay, the treehouse doesn’t even look like it is very high up now. Or in the trees at least from the inside.

 

Jane relates that she and Tarzan have only been friends for a few months now and she feels closer to him than anyone but he hasn’t come to see her and that seems to be because of Roger calling Cheetah a pest and he doesn’t want to be a pest. She says he could never be a pest. When she says the exception of being close to others other than Tarzan, is her family. He asks, “Jane wants Tarzan to be her family?”

 

Jane responds with, “No. No. One family is enough.” She has trouble expressing what she wants and needs so she, stunningly kisses him full on the lips.

 

Then, even more shocking is the next bit. Tarzan asks her, “If Tarzan TAKES Jane, will Jane promise never to leave the jungle?”

 

“Never is a long time, Tarzan.”

 

“When Tarzan takes a mate, it is forever. Like two leopards. Does Jane understand this?”

 

It is then he gives her the ring and tells her, “As long as Jane wears this, Tarzan will always be with her.”

 

Then, back in the present, Jane finds Tarzan in her compound and hugs him, telling him to hold her and as tight as he can. They miss each other when he is not around. She explains she was thinking of what he told her, mating until life stops. Tarzan asks, “Is Jane ready to be Tarzan’s mate?”

 

Dear God. She tells him she doesn’t know. She wants to but isn’t sure she can commit for life. What? This was aired early in season three but should probably have been aired, depending on the turn out of the whole situation, last in the season (it was third from the last one made, presumably) or first in the first season! Is she kidding me?

 

Still, she wants him to keep holding her. I can’t go into what this might make the audience think of Jane but…let’s see how this plays out. Gosh. This is either the bravest episode and dialog or the worst, depending on the outcome.

 

Roger finished Jane’s migration reports. He and Cheetah are still looking for the ring. He was trying to cheer Jane up by doing her reports. Roger suggests a picnic by the river but when he insists, Jane snaps at him but apologizes and says maybe tomorrow.

 

Dan arrives in a jeep and has magazine for her “highness” Jane: the last three editions of French fashion magazine Elle (sounds like he says Vogue, too) from France. They sell that magazine in Bendali. He also says they sell Rolling Stone, Ebony and Go. He was joking: they do not sell those at all. He had an old airline pilot buddy of his send them to him.   

 

Inside, Dan finds her drawing a picture, a wonderful sketch that looks like her meeting Tarzan for the first time (?). He realizes it’s more than just a ring to her and he’s not trying to stick his nose in her personal affairs. Jane holds his hand and tells him it means a lot to know that he is there close by and caring about her. When she first came here, she was consumed by her work, nothing else mattered. From what she tells Dan, he figures she is worried it might not be for real in this fairy tale garden of Eden, two people from opposite ends of the earth, falling in love. Deep down she is not sure she is ready to make the commitment to anyone for life right now and she does not want to hurt Tarzan.

 

Tarzan hears an alarm and blasts. He does the Tarzan yell, probably to warn animals away.

 

Roger stops Cheetah from playing with the bait they are using to catch whoever or whatever stole Jane’s ring.

 

The yellow bird takes the bait, Roger’s favorite pen that his father gave him for his birthday. Roger blames Cheetah for being noisy and distracting him. He rants so much he does not pick up on the fact that Cheetah is trying to tell him that he sees where the bird is hiding stuff.

 

Tarzan tells Jane that a mining operation is blasting where Tarzan found the red stones. He claims he will find another place where there are red stones (the stone on her ring is a red stone). Jane tells him knowing he tried means a lot to her.

 

Cheetah drags Tarzan from Jane to his secret: the hollow in the tree and there is the ring and Roger’s pen and a piece of change like a large quarter. Jane brings Cheetah a cake that says, “For Cheetah, Love Jane.” She does not yet know the ring has been found. Roger made a mess making the icing and the message on it, according to Jane. Dan mentions Roger’s tent but Roger mentions the hanger of Dan’s looks like a hurricane hit it.

 

Tarzan takes her outside to show her the ring. He never tells her Cheetah found it. He asks if she will stay with him forever. She wishes she could. Does anyone want to smack her? She knows he loves her and she loves him.

 

And here is the trouble with TV in the 1990s: Jane isn’t sure why but she isn’t ready for forever yet and would like things to stay as they are. Sigh.

 

He tells her if that makes Jane happy, that makes Tarzan happy to.

 

Gosh.

 

Production 323.

 

Instead of making TV history and being brave and committing to their characters and story, the show hits the reset button AGAIN and makes Jane keep being reluctant to have a love romance with Tarzan by way of mating with him. So, the show becomes just another Tarzan show, almost forgotten today instead of what it could have been.

 

The problem with this episode is that it is TOO mature. There’s relatively little action: read NONE. It’s talky and almost mature. It studies Jane’s feelings for Tarzan and Tarzan’s desire for Jane for the first time really in this series despite some dabblings and skirting about the issues. Here, it’s almost frank but then…it also explores Dan and Jane’s friendship but then…it pulls back and does a reset by making Jane not commit to Tarzan. At this point, anyone who gave up on the show cannot be blamed as this was a cowardly and boring thing to do. It makes Jane seem unreal and stupid. And for Tarzan to be happy about that, that his desired mate has basically rejected him…is also unreal. None of this rings (sorry!) true at all only because of that ending. At worst, it makes Jane a tease as she wants Tarzan to hold her, kisses him, and tells him that she loves him.

 

A terribly frustrating episode that probably shouldn’t have been done if they were going to end it like that but should have been done if they ended it with her agreeing to Tarzan for life. I also wonder what Tarzan in the novels said about mating. It would interest me a lot. As I haven’t read more than one of them and that was a long time ago, I do not know. I do know that while I love this cast, this show is really starting to get to me and I want done with it. I think Wolf is the best Tarzan there was with some argument (Ely and Weissmuller are great, too) but the show’s inability to take chances, go more adult, and to have few if any guest stars in most episodes, makes it an almost mundane TV affair. It could, almost every episode, could have been far better than it/they were.