User reviews

"Been There, Done That" is the Xena take on the movie Groundhog Day. Unbeknownst to her companions, Gabrielle and Joxer, Xena is reliving the same day over and over until she manages to get things right. In this case, getting things right includes stopping the local townspeople from killing Gabrielle and/or Joxer who just happen to be caught in the middle of a feud between competing families. To accomplish this, Xena must discover the root cause of the feud and intervene before things get out of hand. As with Groundhog Day, the repeating day concept presents several opportunities for humor and, fortunately, the Xena writers didn't miss any of them. The funniest bit for me was waiting to see how Xena would handle Gabrielle and Joxer each morning to keep them safe and out of trouble. The sight of the pair bound and gagged with looks of outright astonishment on their faces is laugh-out-loud funny.

The entire episode is very nicely done. I may have missed "Been There, Done That" when the series first aired, but it has now become one of my all-time favorite Xena episodes. Good stuff!

Within minutes of this episode's start, I'm not too proud to admit I was fighting back tears at a shocking turn of events. But just as I was in the midst of refusing to believe that what I saw really happened, a huge plot twist teased that it might not have. And THEN the opening credits started.

Yes, this episode takes the motif of "Groundhog Day," but it handles the story so well, it shows that - if done right - you can apply the idea of a repeating day to various situations and make it work. In this case, by the time "Been There, Done That" ends, I had laughed, cried, laughed harder, and wanted to watch it all over again.

If there is any flaw that can be found with this episode, it's that in order to receive the true emotional impact of some of the scenes, you would need to have seen at least one previous episode to get an understanding of the characters and their relationships with one another. But that is minuscule, as most of the episode is played for laughs, and little to no knowledge of the characters are needed for the jokes to hit their mark.

You don't need to be a fantasy fan to appreciate good storytelling and funny jokes. That's why I tell anyone who has an opportunity to check out this great episode.