Xena Warrior Princess - Season Three (1995)

Xena's Riskiest, Best Season

Xena's peak, the third season is where everything came together to stunning effect. The comedy from Ted Raimi (Joxer the Mighty) and the irrepressible Bruce Campell (Autolycus, the King of Thieves), the return of Hudson Leick as Callisto (in what were always the best episodes), and of course the late great Kevin Smith as Ares.

Season three took some serious risks. It can't be overstated how radical it was to have a show centered around the love of two women for each other. In the 90s, it took some real guts to air these stories. Gutsier still was the conclusion to the epic series of episodes that saw our heroines traveling from Brtannia to the Far East (for those who have not seen these episodes, I won't go into too much detail), the musical episode "The Bitter Suite." This was an episode that, if handled badly, would have killed the show. I won't pretend I'm a particular fan of musicals, and "The Bitter Suite" is not, in truth, my favorite episode - but the creativity, innovation, and sheer gumption of this undertaking is really something to behold. It's a landmark episode in a landmark series.

Even an episode like "One Against an Army" managed to elevate itself from what seemed to be a pretty dull and average episode. Coming after "The Bitter Suite," it at first seems to be pretty standard, "odds are against us," fare, then gets into an overlong meditation on Xena and Gabrielle's love (I'll probably take some heat for saying so, but it really gets repetitive and doesn't work for me for much of this episode) - but then it builds to one of the biggest, coolest fight scenes Xena ever does, in which, as the title suggests, she takes on an army. In a very confined space, she puts up a fight the likes of which I would only compare to the first Kill Bill movie. It's a sign of a series at the height of its powers that a show like this can take a story that at first seems less than amazing - and then makes it stellar.

As if that weren't enough, the dvd set is a great leap forward from the previous two seasons. There are 8-minute mini-features for every episode, as well as audio and visual commentaries for some of the more notable episodes. Many of the insights are actually quite interesting, and it's great to hear from the writers and producers as well the actors, all of whom had a genuine love for the show and clearly worked for the greater good of the series, not just another paycheck.

As always, though, Xena begins and ends with Lucy Lawless and Renée O'Connor, both of whom do an amazing job. These were the most challenging episodes of the series, and, as Lucy Lawless says (wonderful to hear her real accent) in one commentary: "If they put it on the page, we'd put it on the screen." No exaggeration: the two actresses were pitch-perfect throughout. And no doubt about it: this is the best season of a fantastic series. February 5, 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

This season should have been so much better.

Season 3 of "Xena" started off so well and should have been the best Season of "Xena" yet. The main plot arc of the first half of the season sees Xena and Gabriel travelling to Brittania (England) where Gabriel falls pregnant to the evil god, Dahak, and later gives birth to Dahak's evil daughter, Hope, who wants to establish her father's kingdom in the world. By episode 11, I was convinced that the second half of the season would centre around the battle between Hope and Xena and Gabriel, and was looking forward to it. However, for reasons that are entirely beyond me, the writers of Xena ignored what would have been a fantastic storyline and instead focussed on the damage that was done to Xena and Gabriel's friendship following a number of major disagreements between the pair (which I wont give details of in order to avoid spoilers). Much to my amazement, Hope barely appears in the second half!

I went into this series expecting action and adventure and what I found was a 10 hour lecture on the value of friendship and honesty. This season of "Xena" is worth seeing because it does contain some very good episodes (for example, "The Furies", in which Ares tries to drive "Xena" insane) and it sets the scene for Season 5 of "Hercules", which does a far better job of continuing the Dahak storyline. However, it is disappointing to see all of the great opportunities that the "Xena" writers missed in this season. January 8, 2008

Fun show

This is a really fun show, some episodes are just hillarious, some are more serious. However, i'm really starting to dislike Gabrielle's character with her "hollier than thou" attitude and superior moral values. She betrayed Xena more than once because of her naive outlook of the world but they still remained very close friends. They show is really politically correct sometimes, the writers use a lot of modern pop culture. August 24, 2007

One of XENA's best seasons and perhaps the funniest

Although Season Two of XENA represented a huge improvement in quality over Season One, Season Three was an even greater improvement over Season Two. It was in my opinion the best of the first four seasons. Although the overall production quality went up again in Season Four as the show enjoyed astonishing international success (though far less in the United States, where it never became more than a cult hit). Great success means a larger budget and higher production values. If you watch any episode of Season One and any episode of Season Three the difference in quality is considerable.

But it wasn't just the look of the show that improved in Season Three. The writing improved dramatically. The brute fact is that the writing in Season One was just terrible. The scripts usually felt half-finished, the guest characters were in almost every instance cardboard impressions of characters, and almost all the plots were inept rip offs of Greek myths. Season Two was an improvement in nearly every way, but it still didn't achieve much in the way of any depth. Season Three instantly established itself as superior both in the dramatic episodes and especially in the comic ones. In fact, for the most part the comic episodes were superior to the dramatic ones. As a drama, XENA didn't really it its stride until the final two seasons, though there were a number of good individual ones before then.

The show managed to do all this despite continuing to make a mockery of history by its impossible to swallow plot lines. Over time Xena manages to emerge as something of a Forrest Gump of history, as she is there to preserve the writings of Lao-Tse (in a bald bit of revisionist fantasy the series has Lao Tse in a coma and the writings the product of the pen of Lao Ma, his wife and ruler during his infirmity)--therefore indirectly making possible the founding of Taoism--and generally become the friend or scourge of most of the known leaders of the ancient world, regardless of which century they actually inhabited. I personally intensely dislike stunts that depend upon wire work. I don't dislike stunts. I love Jackie Chan's films from when he was younger and more able to do amazing leaps and stunts and I absolutely adore Zoe Bell's stunt work in KILL BILL (which involved far less wire work than XENA, though she was the stunt double for Uma Thurman in the one and was Lucy Lawless's stunt double on XENA). I just don't like to see stunts that defy the laws of physics. So there is a part of me that resists XENA even when the show is at its best. But the abuse of history and the abuse of physics aside, everything else about Season Three is a delight.

In particular, the ever-deepening friendship between Xena and Gabrielle was at the center of the show. In the first season Gabrielle was something of a mindless sycophant, breathlessly following after her hero. In Season Two she gradually emerged as a capable sidekick. But in Season Three she emerges as not merely Xena's moral rock and conscience, but often her opponent, as Gabrielle becomes a true companion having her own ideas that she is willing to assert against Xena. There is even a terrible moment at the end of "Maternal Instincts" where Xena and Gabrielle walk off in opposite directions, their friendship apparently at an end. In my opinion they make up far too quickly. I think a 6 or 7 episode arc in which they were separated from one another would have been a wonderful wrinkle in the story.

This is also perhaps the funniest season of the six. There were few funny episodes in the first season, but they made up a substantial part of the show in the final five. But there were not only more comic episodes in Season Three, there were more great ones.

All in all, this was a great season. Unfortunately, Season Four would not continue this excellence. There were some good episodes in Season Four, but few of the comic episodes came up to the level of those of Three, and though the season would start off strong and end strong, it lacked Season Three's consistency. August 3, 2007

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