French DVD box art
"Travel Trees Can't Dance" is the third episode of Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders. There is some confusion about the order of episodes, as it was originally aired as fourth, following "Song of the Rainbow". Its international titles include Catalan "Els arbres transportadors no ballen", French "La Chevauchée magique en péril" ("A Magic Chevauchée in Danger"), German "Der Zauberbaum" ("The Magic Tree"), Italian "Ma gli alberi da viaggio non sanno ballare?" ("But Travel Trees Can't Dance?"), Polish "Drzewa Merlina nie tańczą" ("Merlin's Trees Don't Dance"), Portuguese "As árvores andantes não sabem dançar", Russian "Деревья-проводники не могут танцевать", and Serbo-Croat "Stabla putovanja ne umeju da plešu".
After the events of previous episode, the wild magic in Avalon is no longer stable and Travel Trees are being affected as well. Princess Gwenevere and her flying unicorn Sunstar get separated from the Jewel Riders by a wild magic outbreak in the Northwoods part of the Great Forests. To make things worse, Lady Kale follows them to source of the outbreak as to steal the Jewel of the Northwoods and use its magic for evil. Now, Gwen and Fallon will have to stop Kale before it is too late.
Synopsis[]
Travel Trees Can't Dance - "Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders" Intro - Season One - Theme Song
Featured elements[]
- Regular characters: Princess Gwenevere, Tamara, Fallon, Lady Kale, Merlin, Sunstar, Archie, Rufus and Twig, Queen Anya, Drake, Grimm, Moondance, Travel Trees, Queen Anya, Wintermane, Babies
- Locations: Northwoods, Dragon Beach, Crystal Palace, Great Deserts, Jungle, Misty Lake, Great Woods, Thornwoods
- Items and concepts: Jewel of the Northwoods, Wild Magic, Horn of Merlin, Jewel Quest
Plot summary[]
Princess Gwenevere and Sunstar are practising their riding and flying skills through a dangerous natural obstacle course at Dragon Beach. They complete the course at maximum speed before crashing into a surf at the very end, Soaked but satisfied, Gwen decides to use Travel Trees for the first time alone in order to get home quickly, before Fallon could teach them how to do it.
However, as soon as she gets home, the unstable trees bring her off to the remote Northwoods that they find in the middle of a wild magic outbreak so she boldly decides to investigate a huge crystal maze that used to be the Crystal Peaks mountains, now covered by a misty fog of magic clouds. Unknown to the Princess, her evil aunt Lady Kale is also there after the magic outbreak brought her there to look for a Crown Jewel. From a top of crystalline crystal stalagmite, Kale spots Gwen and Sunstar flying by and decides to wait for her niece to find the jewel, so she orders her dragon Grimm to follow them unseen.
Gwen and Sunstar fly along for a while until they find a bizarre old-time style dance hall populated with anthropomorphic animals — the wild magic is to blame for this — and dance with the literal party animals, including a humanoid fox. As she cannot see what is going there through the fog, Kale sends down the dweasels Rufus and Twig who they too end up getting wrapped up in the magic dance party. After the party, Gwen and Sunstar ride off and find a Crown Jewel stuck in a local Travel Tree circle, discovering that is the source of the Travel Trees troubles, But the dweasels have followed them in an air balloon and grab the jewel. Suddenly, Kale appears, shooting down the Princess and her unicorn with a magic blast from her Dark Stone and catching the jewel before flying away laughing. Gwen and Sunstar tumble down right into a portal leading to an out-of-control tunnel within the Wild Magic, which closes behind them, They barely manage to ride out it safely with the help of the Sun Stone.
While all this is going on, the other two Jewel Riders with Moondance and Archie are trying to reach Gwen through Travel Trees, sent out to search for them by the worried Queen Anya. But the trees keep sending them to the wrong locations, such as the Great Deserts and the Jungle. Eventually, everyone meets up in the Northwoods, where Gwen recaps everything that has happened. They decide to call for reinforcements and use the Horn of Merlin to summon The Pack for help in dealing with Kale. Now that the party is all together, they all go to find Kale and get the Crown Jewel back.
Meanwhile, Kale immediately tries to control all of the wild magic but has a trouble to figure out how to use the stolen Crown Jewel. When she calls the jewel to obey her and give her magic, a flare burst stuns Grimm, sending all and the Dragon Wagon crushing down. Kale luckily (for her) survives the long fall but gets separated from her minions – including Grimm, who he falls into a lake while still unconscious but is rescued by the dweasels. Wandering in the mist and still trying to release the jewel's power, Kale enters the magic dance hall, where she too dances with the fox and finds out that the Crown Jewel influences how the trees grow. Now that magic of the Crown Jewel is finally hers to abuse, Kale makes a thorn wood spurt out and calls for the dweasels to bring Grimm and take her out of there.
The Jewel Riders and the Pack close on the stranded Kale but she uses the Crown Jewel make thorn woods to stop them. They enter the newly grown thorn wood and use the Forest Stones to turn the trees back to normal. Kale creates a giant thorn tree claw that attacks the party, but Gwen defeats it with her Sun Stone. As Kale smugly waits for Grimm to arrive, Fallon uses her Moon Stone to cast invisibility on herself to sneak on Kale and snatch the Crown Jewel away. The angry Kale orders Grimm to fry Fallon but he cannot use his fiery breath there. After a brief dance fight against the arrived dweasels on the reappearing dance floor, Fallon tosses the Crown Jewel to Gwen.
The Princess flies off on Sunstar, but Kale makes a chase after them by Grimm, trying to hit them with deadly blasts from the Dark Stone. During the pursuit, they fly a high-speed slalom through a dangerous maze of rock arches. Gwen and Sunstar succeed navigating through it, as they have practised earlier, while Kale and her dragon do not make it and crash, sending them all flying in different directions,
With Kale and her minions out of the way, the Jewel Riders gather in the center of the maze. They return the Jewel of the Northwoods to the Jewel Box, securing the first Crown Jewel in their Jewel Quest, and hear advice from Merlin: Keep things in balance.
Behind the scenes[]
Original script[]
- Main article: Travel Trees Can't Dance (script)
It is an early draft of a script for "Travel Trees Can’t Dance" from when the show still has been under the working title Princess Guinevere and Her Jewel Adventures. Much like the Show Bible and Enchanted Camelot script, there are differences in characters such as Sunstar being named Amber and Tamara being named Harmony. Inspirations cited in the script include the 1930's Fred Astaire movies and the Death Star trench attack scene from the first Star Wars movie. Additional scenes include a "hard driving rock and roll beat" dance after Kale would take control of the scene, and a short chase of Kale after Fallon in the labyrinth near the end.
Avalon: Web of Magic connections[]
- After Kara first obtained her Unicorn Jewel, the rest of the party told her to not use magic alone. Gwenevere goes through the same thing except it is about riding the Wild Magic.
- Colfax (Cotax in the original edition) is a talking fox who works for the Fairy Underground. Gwen dances with a talking fox in the episode.
- Gwen with her hair down looks exactly like Kara from the original edition — specifically, the cover to the Be*Tween single.
- Kale’s whip attack with her Dark Stone is similar to Adriane’s lasso spell.
- Gwen’s ride through Dragon Beach and the crystal pillars mirrors a similar scene in Avalon where Zach, Adriane, and Wind Dancer fly through the Serpent’s Teeth.
- The craft fair is like all those benefit fundraisers Kara is always hosting. Gwen even kicks off the craft fair in this episode.
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