Xena: Warrior Princess Series Review

"In a time of ancient gods, warlords and kings. A land in turmoil cried out for a hero."

Like many I first started watching Xena: Warrior Princess because I loved the light-hearted fun of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. And like so many more I ended up being an even bigger fan of the warrior princess than the son of Zeus. Although both shows possessed the same tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, Xena could often be a much darker, more complex and character driven series. It was also cheesier than the entire dairy section at Sainsbury's due to the writers' willingness to indulge even their loopiest ideas.

Xena first appeared in a trilogy of episodes from Hercules' first season ('The Warrior Princess', 'The Gauntlet' and 'Unchained Heart') where she was a cold and ruthless bitch of a warlord who merrily slaughtered her way across ancient New Zealand for shits and giggles. But after being betrayed and beaten to a pulp by her army (a scene lifted wholesale from Ronny Yu's The Bride with White Hair, one of the many Hong Kong action films that influenced the series), Xena turned her back on her dark ways and became a force for good. Originally it would've all ended there with Xena sacrificing herself in one last act of heroic redemption. But the ancient TV gods smiled upon the warrior princess and gifted her with a spin-off series all of her own. Xena: Warrior Princess would go on to become a cultural phenomenon, eclipsing its parent show completely, and turned its stars into icons.

Now forgive me while I descend into some pathetic fanboy worship, but Lucy Lawless is a goddess. I'd crawl through fifty miles of broken glass just to sweat in her shadow and no doubt be bitch slapped with a restraining order for my troubles. On paper Xena is pure male fantasy; a gorgeous woman kicking butt while dressed in impractically revealing leather armour. But Lawless brought so much more to the role than simply looking good in impractical leather armour (although she did look pretty damn stunning). It's actually almost sickening how talented she is. Drama, comedy, fighting, singing, dancing, you name and she could do it with gusto.

Redemption was the core theme of Xena's entire character arc. She didn't just want to be forgiven for all the pain and misery she'd caused over the years, she wanted to make up for it. At the same time, she constantly struggled to resist the allure of her old life. A big part of her missed that life. In an opening scene ripe with obviously obvious symbolism Xena, having conveniently just passed through a village she'd previously torched, tries cleansing herself of her dark past by stripping off her armour and burying it. But then some villagers in turmoil cried out for a hero and since Hercules was in a different timeslot, it was up to Xena to save the day. Quick as a flash she's forgotten all about feeling bad about that torched village she conveniently passed and was instead kicking the crap out of those guys with a gleeful relish. No matter the cause, Xena loved to fight. Many times her enemies (many of them ex-boyfriends) would try to use that to lure her back to the dark side, but Xena would always reject them the only way she knew how: a ludicrously over the top fight sequence. Why simply have a boring fight with staffs when you can have an awesome fight with staffs while standing on a crumbling scaffold before moving onto the heads of helpless villagers. Brilliant!

And then there's Gabby. Lawless might've been the star and the rock holding everything together, but it all would've been nothing without Renee O'Connor as Gabrielle, unquestionably the heart and soul of the entire series. If anything the show was more about her journey of self discovery than it was about Xena's quest for redemption. Gabby is a feisty farm girl with strawberry blonde hair who doesn't want to stay at home, marry the village idiot and raise his children (sorry, Perncus). She wants to travel the world, have adventures, explore her sexuality and, above all else, be with Xena. Over the next six seasons we got to watch as Gabby went from innocent farm girl to someone Xena would not only consider her equal, but her one true love.

I'll admit it's difficult to watch Xena these days without cringing from time to time, and not because of the ropey FX and production values (the whole "made on the cheap in New Zealand" aesthetic is one of its enduring charms). While it did usher in a new age of female fronted action series (we wouldn't have Buffy or Alias without it), there's no doubt that the show was made almost exclusively for the male gaze. Many of the show's feminist moments are offset by the fact all the warrior women were wearing little more than glorified bikinis. Lawless is practically wearing full body armour compared to some of the things her co-stars were squeezed into. Gabby's progress as a warrior can be accurately measured in how much her wardrobe shrinks. The suits were so determined to make this a show for horny men they even insisted there be no shots of Xena and Gabrielle in the open credits. They were afraid it would make people think this was a lesbian show.

Oh, the irony.

The first season isn't one of the show's best. The writers hadn't yet figured out exactly what type of show this would be, so just played it safe with episodes that feel like Hercules hand me downs. It also inherited much of that show's supporting cast until it could establish its own. 'The Reckoning' finally put a face to Ares, the god of war, in the not at all unappealing form of Kevin Tod Smith, who had already popped up on Hercules as the hero's other resentful half-brother. He may have been the bad guy, but Smith's Ares was cool, sexy and, for a bloodthirsty war god, kinda fun. He wanted Xena to forget all this hero nonsense and join him so it can be like the good old days of bloodshed and conquest (and, presumably, loads of post-battle sex). 'Callisto' introduced two of the series' most important characters. First up there's Callisto herself, Xena's self proclaimed nemesis, a twisted monster of her own creation, brilliantly brought to life with so much deranged energy by Hudson Leick. And then there's Joxer the Mighty, a useless wannabe warrior who spends more time fine tuning his theme song than he does learning to fight.

To be fair, though, it is a surprisingly catchy ditty.

Season two is where the show really starts to hit its stride. It gets off to something of a weak start with a trio of meh episodes, but then really kicks into high gear with 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,' the infamous disco lesbian vampire episode that was banned in some countries. Xena had finally found its voice and used it to record a wild and demented album full of catch gay anthems, heart-breaking power ballads, and remixes of established classics. Many viewers would suffer from whiplash because of all the insane tonal shifts. One week you'd get gut wrenching drama as Xena wrestled with the ghost of her blood thirsty past, and the next you'd get some of the silliest shit you've ever seen like the cast acting out an Indian Jones AU for a clip show.

There are a lot of great episodes in this season, but the two that standout out for me are 'Destiny' and 'A Day in the Life'. 'Destiny' is the first in a series of flashback episodes that run throughout the series that chronicle Xena's early days and show how she became the ruthless conqueror we first met on Hercules. She started out as a pirate until she met and fell for a charming Roman nobleman named Julius Caesar (Karl Urban) who eventually betrayed her and had her and her entire crew crucified. Her final speech about becoming death is chilling.

'A Day in the Life' is a brilliant slice of life episode, shot in documentary style, about what a typical day for Xena and Gabrielle is like. What's great about this episode, besides how funny it is, is that it shows just how intimate Xena and Gabrielle have become. They share baths, have no personal space, and sleep side by side, but they also argue over trivial things and intentionally try to wind each other up. They've become so close they know exactly what to do to get under each other's skin, but always in a way they both find fun. In other words, they feel like a couple, one that has been together so long and feels completely safe and comfortable around each other. They might not be able to just come out and say they were together in that way, but you felt it in every interaction they had.

Season three maintained the momentum of season two, producing many amazing episodes like 'The Debt' two-parter, 'One Against An Army', 'The Quill is Mightier', and 'Been There, Done That', one of the all time great time loop episodes. Although previous seasons had had recurring characters and elements, this was the first one with a proper story arc that played out across the entire season. Too bad it was the Dahak plot, which wasn't very good and was eventually got dumped on Hercules to resolve. That was the official arc of this season, but the real one, the one every fan cares about, was the Rift, the absolute low point of Xena and Gabrielle's relationship. Various betrayals, resentments, and deaths throughout this season finally brought them both to the point where they had their hands around each other's throat. They'd become the bitterest of enemies and it really looked like they'd be no turning back for them. So how did the writers decide to resolve this seemingly unresolvable conflict?

With a full blown technicolour musical!

I don't know if I can really describe what it was like watching 'The Bitter Suite' for the first time. Doing a musical at all was an absolutely insane idea, TV shows just didn't do that sort of thing back then*, and to make it the climax of such an intense and emotional arc was even more daffy. And yet, amazingly, it worked. So well in fact that musical episodes have now become a TV staple.

Although there is the persistent vision haunting the narrative, season four is something of an aimless season. There are good episodes, but few really standout like those in seasons two and three. Some even comes across like a poor attempt to recapture the success of earlier episodes, like 'In Sickness and in Hell', which is so desperate to be 'A Day in the Life: Part II'. The writers do shake things up a bit in the second half by sending the Xena and Gabby to India (which still looks like New Zealand) for a trio of episodes that introduce the character of Eli, the show's obvious Jesus substitute, and see Gabrielle adopt a more pacifist outlook (as well as shorter hair).

Ares and Callisto are MIA for the most part and their absences are seriously felt, especially Callisto. The writers try to give Xena some new female rivals like Alti and Najara, but none of them could really hold a candle to Callisto, which becomes even more obvious when she finally returns to cause all kind of havoc in 'The Ides of March'. This is one of the show's absolute best episodes, chock full of gobsmacking moments (Gabby's slaughter of the Roman soldiers to protect Xena still leaves me speechless), culminating in the final scene where Xena and Gabrielle are crucified together and die. It was one hell of a downbeat ending, which is why it isn't much of a surprise that the actual final episode of the season is a comedy clip show about a dorky modern woman named Annie Day (played by Lawless) who thinks she is the reincarnation of Xena (turns out she's really Joxer).

Season four is the last of what I think of as the Classic Xena seasons. The show remained fundamentally the same, it was still about Xena and Gabrielle roaming around Greece having adventures, but it underwent so many sweeping changes over the next two seasons, saw so many supporting characters phased out or cut completely, that it just wasn't what it used to be. Season five is... ugh. I'm not going to sugar coat it, it's really bad. Just a complete mess from start to almost finish. I'll admit that the last stretch of episodes does end things on a strong note and would've made for a decent series finale had this been the show's last season, but everything leading up to them is... oh boy.

If this season didn't have so many pivotal moments I'd suggest skipping it entirely so you don't have to suffer through the pain of 'Married with Fishsticks', 'Kindred Spirits', or that terrible sequel to 'The Debt', and 'Lifeblood', which saved money by reusing footage from a spin-off pilot called Amazon High that should've been left in the reject bin. Hercules shows up for one last appearance in 'God Fearing Child', which honestly feels more like it was trying to double as a Hercules series finale than a pivotal episode of Xena that sees her give birth to her daughter, Eve. This kicks off the Twilight of the Gods arc, something that was originally planned for Hercules, but got scrapped when Sorbo quit and the show suddenly ended. It would've made more sense as an arc for that show since the gods were a much bigger presence there than on this one, save for Ares and Aphrodite. But on the other hand, I can't see Hercules being as ruthless in cutting down his family members as Xena is.

Lucy Lawless was pregnant for the first half of the season so her workload was seriously reduced. To pick up the slack, Gabrielle fully embraced the way of the warrior, gaining up a nifty pair of sais and an even skimpier outfit which really showed off Renee O'Connor's insane back muscles (by the gods, she got in shape that season). As bad as this season is, it does have a lot of Gabrielle moments I love, particularly her growing friendship with Aphrodite. Really wish we'd got more of that. One thing I was most surprised by when watching it was how openly the show frames Xena and Gabrielle as Eve's parents (Gabby is literally called the father at one point) and even has them talk about settling down together and raising her.

Eve herself is something of a problem character, as are all such mystical aged up babies. Being the reincarnation of Callisto meant we had to say goodbye to Hudson Leick (why couldn't she have played grown up Eve?), but sadly Adrienne Wilkinson wasn't up to the task of replacing her. She isn't that compelling when she's evil, a complete dullard when she's good, and the writers obviously had no clue what to do with her after the whole Twilight of the Gods arc was done. She just sort of hangs around before leaving in the middle of season six and never being spoken of again.

While never reaching the highs of seasons two and three, the final season was still a massive step up from the previous one. The mantra for this season was obviously "f*ck it" as the writers just did whatever the hell they wanted. The show was ending so it didn't matter what the studio execs thought any more. So we got things like Xena seducing Lucifer to be ruler of hell in her place, Ares's settling down on a farm, Caligula stealing Aphrodite's powers so he can become a god, a bunch of Xena fans in the present day creating clones of Xena and Gabrielle, a whole trilogy of episodes remixing Norse myth and Beowulf with Wagner's Ring Cycle, and a modern day TV reporter showing up inexplicably to get the real scoop on Xena and Gabby's relationship and find out if they really are lovers (the camera cuts out before he can get an answer).

It is actually hilarious how standards and practices still wouldn't let them just come out and say they were a couple, but seemed completely oblivious to Xena and Gabrielle constantly confessing their undying love for each other, referring to themselves as soulmates who will find each other in every life, and even getting to kiss a couple of times. Hell, Gabrielle gets the sleeping beauty treatment and it's a true love kiss from Xena that wakes her up. Xena even got Sappho herself to write a love poem for Gabrielle. At this point calling it subtext is like calling Everest a little hill.

Confession time, I don't really hate 'A Friend in Need'. I'm not even really against the idea of ending the series with Xena sacrificing herself to save the souls of her previous victims. What I do take issue with is the show wrapping up with something that is just so meh and forgettable. Apart from Xena's death and that kiss, there's just nothing about this finale that really stands out. Like many fans I prefer the amazing alternative world story 'When Fates Collide', which sees Caesar escape from the underworld and use the Fates' loom to twist reality to his will, making himself supreme ruler with Xena his faithful empress, but it all falls apart as soon as she locks eyes on a certain blonde playwright. It is the last truly great episode of the show, a heartbreaking, brutally beautiful ode to the everlasting bond of Xena and Gabrielle, a love so strong it will rip apart the very fabric of reality itself. It might not have provided the series with a definitive conclusion, but it would've been one glorious ending.

*Okay, there was Cop Rock, but that died such a quick death that knowledge of it never even made it to my shores.

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Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011 More Mark Greig