Triumphs of the Past
Jim Smith takes a nostalgic trip back in time to complete a truly Herculean task for the benefit of the final ever issue of Xena Magazine - to bring us a warts-and-all retrospective of the entire series of Xena: Warrior Princess. Get your hankies at the ready…
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 24
When Xena: Warrior Princess debuted in 1995 on US television, it wasn't the easiest of shows to pigeonhole. A spin-off from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (a programme itself only then entering its second year as a regular weekly series), Xena had an unknown lead actress and a tiny regular cast. Fans of Hercules could look to Xena's three appearances (The Warrior Princess, The Gauntlet and Unchained Heart) in the parent show for clues as to what the ongoing series might be like, but nothing about Xena was easy to predict. It was a story set long ago and far away, and unlike Hercules himself, Xena didn’t have the recognition factor of having had her name be a part of popular culture for literally thousands of years.
Flash forward six years, and Xena: Warrior Princess is a phenomenon. Its final episode is an event. Not for Xena the unexpected cancellation following a slightly lacklustre, not-planned-as-final year, the fate of so many fine television series. No, Xena’s exit comes as a two-hour finale, packed with incident and with the Warrior Princess herself suffering, or perhaps celebrating, a hero's death. The series has grown to rival the great god of cult shows, Star Trek, in terms of the size of its fan base and their devotion to it. It's had a genuine impact on US popular culture. Xena, my friends, is big news.
If the Xena trilogy of Hercules episodes was the seed from which the Warrior Princess’ own series grew, then the first season (still Xena’s longest) showed the first flowering of its vast potential. That first season is, like all of Xena, a mixture of quite serious, dramatic episodes and off-the-wall comic instalments, all backed up with some nifty swordplay and fine performances from Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor as Xena and Gabrielle. The dramatic episodes may not be quite as epic as those we would later enjoy and the comedy episodes may not be quite as madcap as such later comedies as Married With Fishsticks, but Lawless and O’Connor are unquestionably perfect from the word go.
The creation of Gabrielle as Xena’s sidekick/apprentice/inspiration, and the casting of the diminutive, blonde O'Connor to play her is the series’ first real masterstroke - it gives the audience someone they can identify with a little more than Xena (after all, we all have aspirations, but very few of us are bona fide war criminals!), and perhaps more importantly provides Xena with a reason to stay good. She has someone to be good for.
Highlights of this period include the ‘heist movie'-style The Royal Couple of Thieves, which introduces the magnificent Autolycus (Bruce Campbell) to our heroine and her blonde pal; the Hercules guest-starring Prometheus (in which the fight scenes are nothing short of brilliant); the farcical Warrior... Princess...; and the bloody and epic finale, Is There a Doctor in the House? The pick of the bunch, though, is Callisto, which features a whirling dervish, Tasmanian Devil of a performance from the stunning Hudson Leick as the eponymous villainess. Callisto is interesting and popular because she’s a living, breathing, kicking and screaming embodiment of Xena’s past sins - in effect, Xena’s mistakes made flesh.
The second season builds on the success of the first. It’s both sillier and more serious than its predecessor, with the show hitting new heights in all departments. Particularly strong episodes include the bodyswap two-parter Intimate Stranger/Ten Little Warlords, in which, thanks to Ares, Xena becomes Callisto and Callisto becomes Xena. The neat tale is more than a simple mistaken identity plot - it’s a further acknowledgement of the similarities between Xena and Callisto. They could so very easily become each other.
Also superb are the dark, moody and inappropriately titled Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and the decidedly light, unmoody and wonderfully titled Here She Comes, Miss Amphipolis. The Price is a strong episode about how means corrupt, with Xena gradually shifting closer and closer back towards her old self when she’s forced to use some morally dubious tactics to try and lift a siege. Also memorable is the utterly farcical A Comedy of Eros, in which the cherubic God of Love fires arrows of passion into random people, resulting in some bizarre couplings, and some lovely Joxer/Gabby scenes.
The beautiful and brilliant clip show The Xena Scrolls is also one of the strongest episodes of the second season. Blessed with a gung ho pseudo Indiana Jones performance from Renee O'Connor and a delightfully girlish one from Lucy Lawless, it’s also also massively influential on later episodes, establishing the idea of episodes of Xena and Hercules set in the 20th Century, an idea followed up so frequently that the ‘Contemporary Episodes’ have often seemed like a series in their own right, with recurring characters, actors and an ongoing plot arc.
Arguably the best episode of the second series is The Quest. Xena is dead, killed by Caesar, but while her body lies dormant, her spirit finds a home in the reluctant hide of the King of Thieves, Autolycus. Campbell is brilliant, blending Lawless’ mannerisms and his own in a deeply funny impersonation of our heroine. It’s also The Quest that contains that kiss between Xena-in-Autolycus’- body and Gabrielle, one of the series’ first real moves towards establishing what has become known as ‘the subtext’.
By the third season, it isn’t really by any traditional definition a ‘subtext’ at all, but rather just part of the text. Xena and Gabrielle are a couple. It may go unstated, but the whole ‘estrangement’ plotline, and especially The Bitter Suite, doesn’t really make sense if you’re kidding yourself that they’re ‘just friends’.
So what of that third season? Well, it takes a different approach to the two preceding years: instead of being a series of episodes, it’s a vast Byzantine jigsaw, where each episode almost always flows into the next, and every event has half a dozen consequences. The season hangs together as one vast, thematically consistent, epically plotted whole.
The aforementioned Bitter Suite is an absolute triumph, a startlingly well produced slab of musical theatre put together on a television budget and then shown in primetime. The score is astonishing, the singing sublime and the very serious subject matter treated with absolute respect.
Ted Raimi gets to show that there’s more to him than just Joxer in the witty King of Assassins, in which he gets to play Joxer’s brother, Jett, the self-proclaimed king of the episode's title, and a whiz with any weapon you care to name. Raimi also features heavily in the very, very funny Fish, Femmes & Gems. Very obviously a cheap filler episode, Fish, Femmes & Gems is, thanks to Raimi’s performance as a Joxer-who-believes-that-he’s-the-King-of-the-Jungle, a highlight of the season. The moment when he strokes a piece of Gabrielle’s clothing and announces, “Soft! Like Baby Monkey!” may actually be the funniest in the entire series. Also in this season we get to see Xena’s take on the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day, Been There, Done That, an episode which gives Joxer the opportunity to join the ranks of Xena and Hercules characters who have temporarily died.
Season three's climax, Sacrifice, is an impressively nasty double episode. As an unearthly conspiracy threatens Olympus itself, Xena fights to end a cult with some very nasty habits. Callisto turns up and, along with Ares, appears to change sides half a dozen times during the course of the episode. The final scene is frightening, bloody and shocking. Gabrielle pitches into a pit during a fight with her evil offspring Hope, seemingly falling forever into hell, while Callisto stands by laughing. Emotionally devastated and unable to express herself in any way other than violence, Xena turns and runs Callisto through with her sword.
As Callisto lies dead at her feet, and with Gabrielle perhaps gone forever, Xena’s stunned expression mirrors those of the audience. So what happens now?
Season four shows the series demonstrate a confidence in production terms that is quite staggering. From Adventures in the Sin Trade (the wallbouncing fight scenes which predate The Matrix by a year) to the enormous The Ides of March, this season is genuinely epic. A Family Affair is an early success of the season, bolstered by a fine double performance from O’Connor, and a subtle, touching and funny one from Raimi. It also has a really scary monster and some impressively tense ‘siege’ scenes.
In Adventures, Xena has a vision, the consequences of which come to dominate the entire season; the audience’s knowledge that Xena and Gabrielle will end up nailed to crosses in the snow hangs over every action they take, no matter how frivolous, and as a result comedy is a low priority this season.
One successful comic episode is If The Shoe Fits..., in which Xena, Aphrodite, Gabrielle and Joxer take turns telling a little girl a tall story. Naturally each character’s telling of the story reveals a great deal about them and how they see themselves and the world. Other fairly light episodes include Key to the Kingdom, featuring Joxer, Meg and Autolycus in a complex heist-based tale of lost treasures and important infants, and the disease based comedy In Sickness and in Hell, which, although amusing, is not for the squeamish.
However, apart from these exceptions, this year’s episodes are a pretty grim bunch. Locked Up and Tied Down features Xena being... er... locked up and tied down, imprisoned on the vicious Shark Island where she has to deal with a prison riot, whilst Past Imperfect shows her facing up to her own past in a very literal manner - a ’copycat’ warlord is imitating Xena’s tactics and replicating her past atrocities. The episode is partially made up of flashbacks to Xena’s past, filling in gaps in her life, and showing both the death of her lover Borias and the birth and abandoning of Xena’s son, Soran.
The India episodes (Paradise Found/Devi/Between the Lines/The Way) are lavish, camp and exciting, with Gabrielle’s adoption of ‘The Way’ of non-violence and the introduction (to Xena’s story, not to the series) of Alti, played with relish and vigour by Claire Stansfield, providing plot elements that will be followed up in later seasons. Gabrielle acquiring her shorter, cuter haircut as a result of an encounter with Xena’s chakram in Between the Lines is an impressive shock moment; a twist that comes right out of left-field and hits the audience squarely between the eyes.
The season’s last two episodes are its best: The Ides of March, an episode so cataclysmic it defies description, and the neat, funny, deliberately anti- climactic Déjà vu All Over Again, in which the spirits of Joxer, Xena and Gabby squabble with a future Ares in a fin de siècle 20th Century tale of therapy and headbands. In so many ways, these two episodes, produced back to back and yet having nothing in common except production personnel and sheer quality, exemplify the spirit of the series.
The fifth series is effectively ‘Xena's Greatest Hits’, featuring nearly every major character, location or plotline from the previous four years crammed into 22 episodes. From the mind-blowing Fallen Angel to the ridiculously epic final trilogy of Livia/Eve/ Motherhood, it's a constant succession of quality episodes. This reviewer even has a substantial soft spot for the oft-criticised Married With Fishsticks. Really strong dramatic episodes include Seeds of Faith, in which Eli pays a terrible price for his creed of non-violence, and God Fearing Child, in which Hercules returns to assist in the birth of Xena's daughter and the now inevitable downfall of the Olympian Gods.
Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire is a follow-up to the musical antics of The Bitter Suite, and whilst it isn’t as successful, or as original, as the previous musical, it’s a funny and dramatic combination of old songs and new plot. Ted Raimi’s rendition of Latin standard ’Dancing In The Moonlight’ is the episode’s musical highlight, closely followed by Draco's hysterical death-metal rendition of Burt Bacharach’s ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’. It's just a shame that the Xena/Gabrielle rendition of The Beatles' ‘We Can Work It Out’ didn't make it to the final episode, although thankfully it is on the soundtrack album. The year’s top comedy episode is the clip show Punchlines, featuring, amongst other things, the God Lachrymose and endless ‘girl talk' scenes between Gabby and Aphrodite.
After the birth of Xena’s daughter Eve, things start to get big and complex. Eternal Bonds and Amphipolis Under Siege convincingly portray a world on the verge of utter chaos. Anything can happen, any outcome is a real possibility, and we clearly see the people’s desire to live without fearing the Olympians contrast sharply with their terror at what a world without them may be like. Amphipolis Under Siege contains one of Kevin Smith’s very best ever performances as Ares, as the God of War tries desperately to convince his family that their plan to murder Xena’s child may not be in their best interests after all. He believes it’s possible that by trying to stop their own destruction, which it has been prophesied Eve will cause, they may be setting into motion a chain of events that lead to their downfall.
Looking Death in the Eye may be the single best episode of Xena: Warrior Princess ever, featuring Ted Rami as an aged Joxer in one of the finest performances of his career, and including more genuinely great moments than you can comfortably name. From the opening scene of Joxer finding the scroll to Ares laying Xena and Gabrielle to rest in tombs of ice, the whole tale sings with brilliance. The final trilogy of episodes, Livia/Eve/Motherhood, all achieve 100 per cent of what they set out to do. Whether it's Joxer’s death or Eve’s redemption, Athena’s tormenting of Gabrielle or Ares’ final act of treachery/love, all you can do is watch in open-mouthed appreciation. A titanic conclusion to what is, for my money, Xena’s finest year’s worth of episodes.
I’ve covered season six extensively in these pages in very recent months, and I want to avoid repeating myself, but suffice it to say it’s pretty wonderful all round. The God You Know and Heart of Darkness are dramatic highlights; You Are There is a staggeringly clever piece of television innovation which gets better literally every time you see it; and Soul Possession (in many ways the real, chronological end of Xena, Gabrielle, Ares and Joxer’s story) is yet another instalment that can make a really solid claim to being the best ever episode of Xena.
This brings us neatly round to A Friend in Need, the series finale and the only episode I didn't get to rhapsodise about in my aforementioned season six review, so I’m very pleased to be able to sing its praises here. A Friend in Need avoids all the pitfalls that often go with the territory of making a final episode. Not for director/scriptwriter Rob Taper! and screenwriter R.J. Stewart the self-indulgence of endless cameos or pointless returns for every single recurring or significant character; nor do they set out, like the producers of Star Trek: Voyager, to produce a story so huge in scope that it simply becomes confused. No, A Friend in Need is a serious, emotionally literate double-episode written and produced in a style not unlike that of earlier Stewart successes like The Debt.
As one story unfolds in the past in which we get to see just how bad Xena could be and just how far she could go, another progresses in the present which shows us just how good she has become, and just how far she will go in order to repair the damage caused by past mistakes. Yodoshi proudly joins the roll call of the series’ best villains, and the fight scenes, especially the Samurai duel between Yodoshi and Xena, are some of the very best ever.
The second episode’s central concept (killing Xena in the pre-credits sequence and then showing us the activities of her ghost) manages to achieve something that should be impossible: the shock of a sudden, unexpected death scene coupled with the drawn-out sentimentality of an ending where the characters say all that they need to because they know that this is their last chance. Favourite moments? Gabrielle catching the chakram, and the final scene on the deck of the ship. Beautiful.
Xena: Warrior Princess is a television series unlike any other, the very embodiment of nineties cut-and-paste culture. It’d try anything once, and far more often than not it succeeded magnificently. Influenced by more varied genres than you can shake a chakram at, it brought strong, action heroine leads to television for the first time in decades, and has had a direct influence on every science fiction or fantasy television show being produced today.
It’s probably the only series to make you cry with laughter and in pain. It may well be over, but it’s been a hell of a ride. Thanks ladies, we’ll see you in VHS, DVD and re-run heaven.
The author’s CD player, VHS player and keyboard were severely punished during the writing of this feature.