I warned you guys a Xena article might be next, and here it is.

LadyKate posted in the forum here recently a link to an article she wrote for Salon.com on why Xena really needs to be recognized as an innovation in the portrayal of women in TV. It’s great reading, and it got me thinking about something I’ve been struggling to put into words for a while. You don’t have to like the show, or even think it’s … READ MORE

Am I missing something?

When I first decided to re-watch Xena recently, I looked around the web a bit for other people’s opinions on the show. One complaint that kept coming up was: too much nudity. Costumes shrinking as time went by. More and more exposed female skin, pandering to the objectification of women. I wondered if I would see what they saw in it as I watched.

I watched. I saw exactly what they were … READ MORE

A strange thing happened in the fifth season of Xena: Warrior Princess: the secondary lead, Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor), was suddenly allowed to develop into an interesting character. For the three seasons, her idealistic notions and occasional egotism caused situations that Xena had to fix, and yet we were constantly told, via Xena’s dialog, that Gabrielle was Good and Innocent and… oh, just basically the radiance of heaven made flesh. Gag.

In “The Debt”, she went so far as to … READ MORE

I just watched an episode of Xena last night called “A Comedy of Eros”. People are being shot by Cupid’s arrows randomly left and right, and falling in love with whoever they next see. Naturally, this leads to some funny love triangles among people who normally can’t stand one another. The main tension point of the episode is that Xena ends up besotted with the man she’s supposed to fight. Will she be able to protect … READ MORE

When Xena: Warrior Princess debuted in 1995, a spin-off from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, I doubt anyone in the industry expected a five-year-run. More importantly, I doubt they expected it to influence TV as much as it did. Both shows tapped into something audiences didn’t know they wanted to see until they saw it: irreverent, exciting, sort of campy fun. And once they’d seen it on syndication on USA, or wherever they managed to catch the fairly … READ MORE