Xena: Warrior Princess

Please enjoy this vintage Xena fanart, which I drew when I was twelve.

Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2000, creators Sam Raimi & Rob Tapert) spun off of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and was one of those rare spin-offs that surpass the quality of the original show. In case you missed it, Hercules was a somewhat goofy, lighthearted attempt to recount (and bastardize) Greek mythology in an hourlong action show format. Xena focused on an original character, a villain whom Hercules had reformed in a surprisingly dramatic three-episode arc on his show (breaking his typical "monster of the week" format). Tormented by her bloodthirsty past, Xena (Lucy Lawless) roamed ancient Greece righting wrongs in penance. With its focus on regret and redemption, Xena was a darker show, but the darkness and the goofiness worked together well--at the show's height, anyway. Xena is also notable for its increasingly obvious lesbian subtext, as Xena instantly developed a deep and tender relationship with her at-first-comedic sidekick Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor).

This was the first show I was ever obsessed with. I was in sixth grade, and we didn't have Internet yet. I would print out behind-the-scenes information about the show at my mom's work and compile it with interviews I pulled out of the physical TV Guide.

Full disclosure: I lost interest in the show in season 4 and didn't watch the last two seasons, but I'm pretty sure that no truly key episodes occurred there anyway (or if they did, they have the feeling of a different show.) Although I'd often praise the increased seriousness for Xena's success over Hercules, it seems like later episodes went too dark, relying too much on angst to drive plotlines and losing the adventuresome fun. Years later, I saw the two-part finale, which is interesting and possibly worth watching if you want to see a real record number of ha-ha-not-really plausibly-deniable kiss-type contact between Xena and Gabrielle, but is extremely dark and disappointingly takes place in Japan. Call me old-fashioned, but I feel like a finale should take place in the setting that has been the centerpiece of the show.

Anyway. Let's get down to business.

Top 3 Key Episodes

1.1 "Sins of the Past": I'm always unsure whether to include the pilot in any key episodes list. On the one hand, it sets up the plot and explains who everyone is and what they are doing. On the other, it's usually clunky and somewhat unlike the rest of the show. Season one altogether is noticeably cheesier and lower-budget than the rest of the series, but I like the pilot. It's a good balance of darkness to comedy, and it sets up the two opposing personalities at their most extreme--gritty, tortured Xena and bubbly, innocent Gabrielle.

2.5 "Return of Callisto": Callisto (Hudson Leick) is the major important villain on Xena, a woman who became a twisted and even eviller version of what Xena once was because of Xena. Back in her warlord days, Xena's army sacked Callisto's town and killed her family. Callisto is first introduced in the season 1 episode "Callisto," but you can get the backstory you need from this episode, a devastating kick-punch of a story in which Callisto sets sweet Gabrielle on a path of vengeance, forcing Xena to be the voice of mercy. Role-reversals are always good ways to explore characters, and this episode demonstrates how action-packed and dramatic Xena can be.

2.15 "A Day in the Life": This is a pure fun episode in which we get to see a "typical day" for Xena and Gabrielle (naturally, it features a number of adventures, and a scene in which they bathe together.) This episode lampshades a lot of episode tropes, giving you a good idea of what the show is typically like, and demonstrates how funny Xena can be.

Bonus Episodes

Hercules 1.12 "The Gauntlet": This is the second and best of the three-episode arc in which Xena was introduced. I guess you could watch all three.

1.10 "Hooves and Harlots": I'm back to Xena now. A key Gabrielle episode in which she gets her first fighting staff and becomes an Amazon princess for some reason. That was quick.

1.17 "Royal Couple of Thieves": This is a strong example of the kind of "adventure of the week" episode that is typical of Xena. It's unfortunately light on Gabrielle, but introduces the always entertaining Autolycus, the King of Thieves (Bruce Campbell in a horrendous mustache). Worth watching if only because it 100% embraces the cliches of "vaguely sexually tense heist adventure" and just does them to the hilt.

1.20 "Callisto": This episode is the one that introduces Callisto; I only think "Return" is VITAL (and you can get the info you need to get from that episode), but this one is also quite good.

1.23 "Is There A Doctor In The House?": The season 1 finale introduces Xena's INSANE medical skills, cements the depth of her reliance on and love for Gabrielle, and a features a bunch of dumb historical doctor how cliches including inventing every major medical practice and delivering a half-centaur baby.

2.2 "Remember Nothing": Xena gets a chance to see what her life would have been like if she had never become a warlord. This kind of "what if?" episode is always a great chance to see other aspects of a character and relationship and explore the central messages of the show.

2.7 "Intimate Stranger" and 2.8 "Ten Little Warlords": A two-part sequence in which Xena and Callisto switch bodies, forcing Gabrielle to confront her feelings about Callisto. Body-switching is always fun, if only from an acting perspective!

2.10 "The Xena Scrolls": A bit of silliness in which the actors get to play 1940s versions of their characters. Flashing forward to different time periods with the actors playing their own descendants or reincarnations is one of the weird episode types that the writing team seemed to really enjoy.

Hercules 3.12 "Surprise": If you want completion of the Callisto storyline, and I know that you do, you could stand to watch this good Hercules episode in which Callisto is freed from the underworld by Hera in order to kill Hercules. On his birthday, no less!

2.13 "The Quest" and 2.14 "A Necessary Evil": Xena, dead from a previous adventure, possesses Autolycus, makes out with Gabrielle, and adventures off to save her own body. Meanwhile, Gabrielle becomes Queen of the Amazons, which prompts an ousted Amazon to seek revenge. In part 2, Xena and Gabrielle must ally with Callisto in order to defeat the evil Amazon, bringing good closure to the Callisto storyline.

2.20 "The Price": A surprisingly quality allegory about war as Xena and Gabrielle help an underprepared band of warriors take on a truly scary villain--"The Horde," a faceless army of reputed cannibals. This episode really gets at the heart of what Xena is about, as Xena reverts easily to her old warlord ways in a crisis, and Gabrielle insists on a more humanitarian path, each believing that the other's methods are only making the situation worse.

3.10 "The Quill is Mightier": A Gabrielle-centered comedy in which everything she writes comes true. Xena is absent for most of this one, but Gabrielle has great comedic chemistry with Ares and Aphrodite. One of the funniest episodes ever.

3.12 "The Bitter Suite": The musical episode. Very dark. I'm not a huge fan of this one, really--it's one of the episodes, common in later seasons, that relies on Xena and Gabrielle just absolutely hating each other for the drama, and that stresses me out. But it's very memorable among fans, and the music is kind of interesting.

Season 4 is where the show becomes really unfamiliar to me. Someone else will have to cherry-pick those for you. Maybe they can do it for both of us!