TV REVIEW: Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001)
Times were changing in 1995, as Internet usage became more widespread. I personally didn’t have it at home then, but we did have it at school — and we didn’t use it for flame wars with strangers on the other side of the world. Anonymity provided by the electronic bulletin boards of the day allowed people to be far more vocal and active about their desires. They got to connect and organize and prove that they were not alone — that there were other people like them that loved sci-fi shows (among other things) and wanted more. Often as today, Internet fans picked a character they liked and ran with it, making fan-fiction and slash-fiction for their own community’s consumption. But Hollywood was watching and got lazy and started optioning projects from fans — a rare occurrence back then — which gave us the Tiny Toon Adventures episode “Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian”, where both cartoon rabbits act WAY out of character to satisfy the whims of 8th grade girls.
That same idea is related to the show reviewed today, dating back to the 1994 TV movie “Hercules and the Amazon Women”, where we are first introduced to Kevin Sorbo as Hercules. One of the Amazon actresses truly embodied the role, and stood out above all others — Lucy Lawless — leading to guest-star roles on the Hercules show in its first season. In that same season, we got to see Lawless as the character that would define her career for the next decade: the warlord Xena. Viewers loved the character’s heel/turn and her out-of-character fighting abilities (she’s a stunningly beautiful woman with an imposing physique that fights better than any man — all standing against established gender norms in Western action movies). Soon she got her own show and it became more popular than its status-quo male-led parent program. The elements expressed in this fictional re-telling of the ancient world ultimately led to the weirdest “will they-won’t they” between a Batman-type and their teenage sidekick, but there’s got more to this show than its suspected LGBTQ content…right?
The Premise: Just like with the Hercules show, the intro narration does the trick in telling you only the basics of what you need to know:
“”In a time of ancient gods, warlords and kings, a land in turmoil cried out for a hero.
She was Xena, a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle.
The power…
the passion…
the danger...
Her courage will change the world!”
In the wake of her first meeting with Hercules and changing from her warlord ways, Xena of Amphipolis (Lucy Lawless, EuroTrip, “Battlestar Galactica” [TV-Syfy], “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” [TV-Starz]) decides to give up the life of the sword. That changes in less than a moment as she is near the farming village of Potidiea, currently under attack by raiders. Out of the cowed villagers, one woman stands up to defend herself, despite being unable to fight. Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor, “Hercules and the Lost Kingdom”, Bitch Slap), a talkative young woman at a crossroads in her life: she’s about to be married but hates the restrictions being a farmer’s wife would cause to her real dream of being a traveling bard. Dying at the hands of raiders would also put quite a dent in her plans, but Xena swoops in to save the day with her pressure-point skills and throwing chakram! Gabrielle wants to travel with this mysterious warrior, and so they do make their way around a fictionalized version of the known ancient world.
From Greece to Ireland, Jerusalem, Central Asia, China, India, Egypt, Rome, feudal Japan, into the future MANY TIMES and metaphysical realms (the Elysian Fields, Tartarus, Heaven, Hell, the River Styx, and Valhalla) these two ladies never sit still for a moment. They have to keep moving thanks to the ceaseless pursuit of Ares, the man-scaped Greek god of war (New Zealand actor Kevin Smith, Warriors of Virtue, Desperate Remedies), who wants to have sex with her despite the fact he’s her father and she’s a demigod like Hercules (#spoilers for a nearly 30-year-old show). That, and the world’s endless obsession with the ambiguous sexuality of both Xena and Gabrielle, as well as their relationship to each other — since two women can’t live together without being in a homosexual relationship.
The Show: In their travels, the unflappable Xena usually ululates before solving problems and making more enemies to encounter in later episodes along the way, as well as deal with a few modern references (not unlike Hercules, which kept them very light-hearted) and musical numbers. It was the most fun and socially-progressive fantasy show since the WB’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, tackling concepts of interest for their show’s demographic (religion, LGBTQIA+ issues, betrayal, revenge, motherhood, sisterhood, friendship, witchcraft, fandom, PTSD, time travel). Of particular note is Gabrielle’s growth over the series, from a pale girl-child to a formidable Amazon warrior-princess that leads armies and fights gods at Xena’s side. Some critics looked past such amazing fare and saw this subject matter as shock value for “Sweeps Week”, but it was the beginning of TV writers responding to a new democratizing of storytelling through the Internet.
Don’t be surprised if some of the writers of the series (Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who wrote 2009’s Star Trek movie) cribbed their scripts from unregulated fan-fiction, altfic, and fan-shipping sites online. Many of these ranged in quality and moral restraint, from helping a drag queen win a beauty contest to giving birth to the Xenaverse’s version of the Antichrist. Religious beliefs were not off the table either: while the show filmed scripts featuring a Jesus Christ expy called Eli (played by Timothy Omundson, “Galavant” [TV-ABC], Starship Troopers) who is martyred but not crucified, one episode was banned due to Hindus protesting the liberties taken with the depiction of Hindu religion on a whole (a disclaimer at the end with Hindu religious representation was later added and allowed to be shown, but it’s still banned in the UK to this day with the disclaimer intact).
Since “girl-power” was all the rage in the late 90's, the writers needed a comparative whipping boy for female viewers to project their disdain onto, and ultimately use as a step-stool to reach whatever girl-power level should be met. Enter Joxer the Mighty (Ted Raimi, Army of Darkness, the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy), the bumbling black sheep of a mercenary family deeply infatuated with Gabrielle. To watch this man falter, fall, and fail nearly every time he’s on screen is a waste of energy for everyone involved...but he sure fits the bill for a whipping boy. On the flip side, we saw the downside of girl-power in the form of Callisto (yoga master Hudson Leick, “A.I. Assault” [TV Movie], “Knight Rider 2010” [TV Movie]) — an insane and lean-bodied female warlord with abilities driven by vengeance to rival Xena. She had a battle cry that would always make people crawl into a hole, it was so good! Though her entire existence she owes to Xena destroying her village during her warlord days, Callisto’s the one who drove herself insane by traveling back in time and killing her own parents. There’s a balance between the two characters easily missed throughout the show’s run, but it’s a slow burn worthy of watching for Callisto’s entire story arc.
The Verdict: As the show that single-handedly bolstered the lesbian community around the world, no one can deny the cultural impact of Lucy Lawless’ portrayal of Xena. With flaring blue eyes and midnight hair, she front-flipped and fought through the imaginations of countless men and curious women as her ululation was mimicked at nearly every fan convention and female-oriented sporting event. We even named our ill-trained dog “Zena” in honor of this monumental figure. To know this role is the one thing Lucy Lawless is proud of in her life is an amazing thing. And it’s an amazing show; go watch it!
