Xena Warrior Princess - Season Two (1995)

WOW!

I believe that the local TV stations where I live owe me an apology. For years I heard about Xena. Who didn't? But every ad I saw for the show portrayed it as a mindless "juggle" show and thus I had no interest in watching it. As much as I might admire the female form, it does induce me to watch a show ONLY about that.

Then one day I found the last episode of the series on DVD and, priced at $1.99, how could I resist finding out what all the fuss was about. Well, what I watched on that DVD was no "jiggle" show. I was blown away and picked up Season Two to see if the rest of the show could live up to the finale.

I was not disappointed.

Xena: Warrior Princess is one of the best TV shows I've ever seen. Period. It's a show all about fun. Pick any episode from this incredible season and let yourself be entertained. It's clear the creators of the show wanted each episode, regardless of plot, to be fun. Oh sure, it's campy, over the top and about as historically accurate as Meet The Spartans. But they just throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into every episode. And when I say fun, I don't mean mindless fun. The shows are well-written, well-acted and they mix comedy, action, history, myth, drama and characterization deftly. The final result cannot be classified as any one of these elements. But the mix makes for great entertainment.

Although a little light on the special features, this season does have some good commentaries both audio and video and there's a nice behind the scenes featurette with interviews from cast and crew.

I thoroughly enjoyed this season and have since picked up ALL the others. Xena is truly a unique viewing experience. I highly recommend it. And, TV station, I'm awaiting my apology for forcing me to wait this long to see it. But that's the beauty of DVD. Xena is a winner! August 1, 2008

One of the Best Seasons

Unbelievable season I just love Season two. The action never seems to stop. I remember watching this season when Xena first aired on Fox. Counting down the days till the next show. This season has so many Great Episodes in it. If you a fan of the Series or just becoming one. You've gotta watch this Season. February 12, 2008

They don't make shows like this anymore

This series had everything in it: Comedy, drama, inspiration, musicals, etc... I also believe this was a series that helped create certain television shows and movies. Watch (Here She Comes... Miss Amphipolis 1997) and tell me that's not similar to (Miss. Congeniality 2000). Remember that Xena was being played in a different time period (Historical Times) and Miss. Congeniality is being played in the present, yet they are still similar. The show not only had a few good laughs with the help of Joxer (Ted Rami)but also allows viewer the feeling of Catharsis. Seeing Xena battle her past demons and realizing she wouldn't be the hero she is without her past is PRICELESS. Also watching the growth of Xena (Lucy Lawless) and Gabrielle's (Renee O Conner) friendship is something very special. They become family and travel to the exotic lands of Asia and to the beautiful landscape of Egypt etc...

The DVDS are worth it I own all 6 seasons and the commentaries are GREAT. I especially love watching Hudson Leick's (Callisto)commentary she's intelligent, funny, and beautiful.

P.S. My one note would be buy the director's cut of The Final Episode (A Friend In Need) because it's much better. Plus you get great extras including commentary by Lucy, Renee, and Rob and you also get behind the scene footage including a little B-Day cake for Lucy. The commentary is great I just finished watching it again for my 100th time because I find Lucy and Renee hysterical.

I will always have faith that a Xena Movie will be made, although Gabrielle lost faith in her Hope; I will always have faith that Xena will eventually become a movie; plus I'm only 19 so I still have plenty of years left to wait lol.

Well Thank you Lucy, Renee, Rob, Hudson, Ted, Bruce, Kevin and all the other people that made Xena possible. You filled many homes with joy, laughter, and inspiration; it truly is one of televisions greatest moments!
January 20, 2008

A dramatic improvement over Season One

Many shows improve dramatically in their second season, but XENA was so different as to be almost a different show. It isn't hard to locate precisely why XENA was so much better in its second season. Season One of XENA saw the show treating each of its action plots with complete seriousness. It completely lacked ironical distance from its plotlines. The stories in both Season One and Season Two were absurd, but while in Season One the show acted as if it imagined they weren't, while Season Two proceeded with a frank acknowledge of how much of the show was ridiculous. In other words, in Season Two XENA in part became a comedy. In large part this was helped by the discovery that Lucy Lawless was a good comic actress.

There were other reasons for the improvement in Season Two. The overall writing improved markedly. Though still not a big budget show, they clearly had a larger operating budget in Season Two. Most striking was the addition, despite the preponderance of comic episodes, of several very dark and surprisingly effect serious episodes. Although the show had trouble "selling" the serious episodes in the debut season, several in Season Two were very compelling.

Another change in Season Two was the increasingly moving relationship between Xena and Gabrielle. XENA started off as a female buddy picture, but as fans identified (or perhaps more accurately, created) a lesbian subtext the show did more and more to feed the fans. XENA was, in fact, one of the first shows to respond in a strong way to the way that fans were responding to the show. Although both Xena and Gabrielle are portrayed throughout the series as heterosexual, the show from Season Two until the end of the series continued to foster the idea that the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle was deeper and more profound than any that either would have with any man.

Nonetheless, the show both in Season Two and until the end of the series, managed to be alienating to many viewers. I've never enjoyed Asian martial arts films because of the extraordinary reliance on wirework. I even find such masters of filmmaking as Yimou Zhang difficult to appreciate because of the physical impossibility of the things the characters do. So for me the outrageous jumps and leaps that Xena routinely makes serve to distance me and alienate me from the overall story. BUFFY would very occasionally use wirework, but only rarely. XENA is addicted to it. To the show's credit, it intentionally made many of these elements sillier and sillier, as if conceding that it is all in fun. Xena's use of her chakram gets increasingly impossible. In one scene she is waiting for the arrival of a giant in a village and, bored, she tries to pass time by bouncing her chakram off several surfaces. It is all done so routinely that it reminded me of Steve McQueen bouncing his baseball off the wall in the prison camp in THE GREAT ESCAPE.

The second source of continuing alienation is the continued abuse and misuse of history. There is a scene in BABE: PIG IN THE CITY in which Babe looks out over the skyline of the city and sees the Eifel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, and several other famous structures adorning the city. It is absurd in the same way that the world of Xena is. Basically every famous person from the ancient period from the Homeric Age to the late Roman Empire is alive. Xena meets and romances both Ulysses and Julius Caesar. Goliath turns out to be a good friend and Gabrielle nurses a crush on David. For perspective, I found it difficult to enjoy the series ROME because of historical liberties. But ROME strives to be historically respectable; XENA uses historical and mythological figures any way that it wishes.

The bad news is that XENA would persist in its defiance of both physics and history. The good news is that the stories would continue to improve. Its third season would represent an improvement over the first two. In fact, it is only in Season Three that the central story of the series actually begins. July 20, 2007

continuing the same great Xenariffic stuff

The first 2 seasons were wonderful. This one has everything you liked from the first season, but more of it. Old favorites are back, such as Joxer, Autolycus, Ares, Hades, Callisto, Ephiny, and some new ones, like Aphrodite, Cupid, and Poseidon. I highly recommend season 2. You get to know the supporting characters a lot more in this season, mainly because Lucy Lawless was injured and unable to do a few episodes. July 11, 2007

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