Xena, la guerrière

I love this show. Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor are fabulous as Xena and Gabrielle. Xena is a former warlord trying to atone for her past by traveling the world doing good. Gabrielle is her sidekick, a bard writing the stories of Xena's adventures. The show is packed (usually) with action, realistically, and breath-takingly, performed by Lawless and O'Connor. And when the show ventures into comedy, it is capable of being the funniest show on television. Did I mention that I LOVE THIS SHOW!

This was an amazing show that switched from comedy to high drama to tragedy to sword-fighting action and mayhem. All of this usually happened in the same episode. A great show for students of mythology, although the writers did incorporate their own ideas (into the mythological settings and characters) to give the show more texture and layers. The best part of the show was Xena and Gabrielle's intense affection, friendship and respect for one another. They are truly partners in everything they do and always willing to sacrifice for one another. However, there's plenty of comedy as well to keep the show from getting too serious. The more episodes you watch, the more you'll like and understand the concept of the show, and how it works on different levels simultaneously. Very highly recommended.

Xena was a campy classic masterpiece full of action, suspense and great storytelling about friendship. During the 90s when women power ran amock, Xena bulldozed in wearing her glamorous outfit and kicking butt. Along her side was her loyal friend Gabrielle who kept her on the barrow path and provided companionship on the road.

Sure the formula was repetitive with good winning over evil, but the relationships, creatures or warlords played by various guest stars always kept you on your toes and kept you tuning in every weak. The costumes, music and humor were always true to the heart of the episode. Speaking of humor sometimes it worked well intelligently worked up to and other times it could be low brow for the common folk.

Still Xena paved the way for other copy cat shows trying to cash on the fame yet it will always be remembered as the first to break new ground. It even enjoys quite a huge cult following in the fandom and celebrated for it brilliant ambiguity. Xena will still be remembered as one of the best shows ever produced and never go out of style. Get caught up in the fantasy world.

One of the best TV shows ever.

Xena: Warrior Princess is the thinking person's fantasy/action show. A perfect mix of often dark drama, wacky/campy comedy, action, angst and romance, it was poignant, thrilling, funny, suspenseful, sexy and much more. Set in the fantasy world of a creatively reinvented antiquity, X:WP offers us the ultimate female hero: strong and vulnerable, tough and soft, brave and caring, heroic and deeply flawed, she's all warrior and all woman. We follow Xena's journey on her quest for redemption as well as Gabrielle's growth from a naive peasant girl to a reluctant warrior. And there are other fascinating characters: Ares, the God of War who is determined to lure Xena back to the dark side but is eventually changed by his love for her; Callisto, Xena's victim and nemesis who manages to be sympathetic even at her most evil; Joxer, the bumbling warrior wannabe with the heart of a lion.

Of course the show had its weak moments, especially in the last three seasons. At its best, however, it featured smart writing and creative directing, enhanced by the wonderful acting of Lucy Lawless as Xena, Renee O'Connor as Gabrielle, Kevin Smith as Ares, Ted Raimi as Joxer and Hudson Leick as Callisto. (Alexandra Tydings' Aphrodite, Paris Jefferson's Athena are worthy of mention as well; so are Karl Urban as Julius Caesar and Marton Csokas as Borias, Xena's lover in her days as a warlord.)

I have to comment on one of the reviews which mentioned Xena and Gabrielle being out for revenge against men and complained that the heroines beat up men all the time but never get hit themselves. Hello? Did this person even watch the show? I suspect not. Some of the most prominent villains on the show were women (Callisto, Najara, Alti), and many of Xena and Gabrielle's allies were men. In fact, the episode "The Dirty Half Dozen" explicitly repudiates hostility to men. X:WP's feminism was never anti-male or heavy-handed.

Bottom line? If you haven't seen this show, get the DVDs (or VHS) and give it a try. Start with the premiere, "Sins of the Past." The first half of S1 wasn't all that great (the show had yet to find its footing) but watch "Hooves and Harlots" and "The Reckoning." If you're not hooked yet, try "Ties That Bind," "The Greater Good" and "Callisto." You'll probably want to stay on for S2.

The six years that Xena appeared on American television and then in international distribution was the most marvelous ride on the entertainment merry-go-round since "Wonder Woman" premiered in 1975, twenty years earlier. This show had camp, pathos, mystery, intrigue, intricate character development and the invention of a magnificent new world through which the viewer was able to judge and measure his or her own living situation. If you ever get a chance, at least take the time to watch either the entire first or the entire fourth seasons of Xena (which had the most developed plots). It is a show that actually changed the world into a better place and that can be said of only a few shows in history.

If you like "Xena" you might also like "Queen of Swords", "Wonder Woman", "Supergirl" (maybe....), "Chameleon 1,2, &3", "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" or "Andromeda". You may also want to watch the direct to video cartoon release "Hercules and Xena: the Animated Movie: the Battle for Mount Olympus".