Here's the thing, see, about XENA - the fantasy action show telling the tale of the formerly evil Xena, now a force for good, and Gabrielle the Amazon Queen, her warrior/bard partner.
You have two really beautiful women dressed in impractical leather goods flitting about the Ancient World wielding shiny weapons with great skill and nary a thought to chronology or historical accuracy. You have the relentless modern American speech. You have the over-discussed, over-analysed and highly subjective element of "lesbian subtext". You have campy humour, sly winks at the audience, over-the-top fight sequences, and more dialogue limited to the screaming of each other's names than the second half of Titanic.
You have re-used extras, recycled sets, a bikini-clad Aphrodite spouting Valley-girl speech, a penchant for killing off popular guest stars, TWO man-free pregnancies, high angst levels, a range of episodes that swing madly from dark violence to Andrew Lloyd-Webber style musicals and from intense drama to slapstick comedy.
You have strong female leads who accept responsibility for their choices and their actions, good and bad. You have really beautiful scenery in the form of New Zealand. You have great chemistry between the two stars, and you have enough smarts to know how to combine all of these things into a show that succeeds more than it fails.
Give it a chance. I promise, ten episodes and you'll be hooked. In short, XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS is smart TV pretending that it's dumb. Which is just fine by me, thanks.
