Xena Warrior Princess: Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards, A Handful of Dinars, Warrior...Princess

Three more Xena Warrior Princess episodes that follow three of the most familiar genre-plots known to mankind: the clip-show, the one with the arrival of an ex-flame, and the one with the identical stranger that the protagonist must impersonate.

Honestly though, it's this complete predictability in the plots that make the early years of the show so charming, and the little ways in which the show adapts them to fit these particular characters.

Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards

Plot: Gabrielle auditions to join the Athens City Academy of Performing Bards by telling stories of her exploits with Xena. Yup, it's a clip-show.

Jumping back into the Xena rewatch, and the very first episode is...a clip-show. This early? Really? Clip-shows are a staple part of any long-running American show, but I really wasn't expecting one to be half-way through the very first season.

I kind of like Gabrielle's calling to become a bard (she's like a Greek version of Smallville's Chloe in many ways), though the way it was handled was a bit strange. Suddenly it's her life's ambition? Suddenly she's willing to leave Xena for about five years to follow this dream? She actually achieves her goal of being accepted into the Academy only to decide it's not for her after all? Okay then. As a note, just how old is Gabrielle supposed to be? Because all this only makes sense if she's a teenager.

Gabrielle's boyfriend of the week is a fairly well known New Zealand actor (he's currently appearing in The Mighty Johnsons, a show about the Norse gods living incognito in NZ, and turns up on Legend of the Seeker as well). He looked pretty young here! I'll admit, his idea to call himself "Draco" got a smile out of me, not because of the show's Draco, but because for a surreal second there I thought Gabrielle was going to say: "Draco Malfoy?"

Now of course you'll recognize him as Fili from The Hobbit movies.
I wrote this review LONG before that was released.

That said, the stage father/reluctant son dynamic was pretty stale, and I saw the Homer reveal coming a mile away (point of interest, many historians believe that The Iliad and The Odyssey weren't written by "Homer" after all, but a group of individuals over several years that used the name Homer as a pseudonym).

The highlight of the episode for me (surprisingly) was the friends that Gabby made at the competition. Maybe I was just in a good mood, but I ended up liking the guy who continually waxed lyrical, and the one who would re-enact the sword-fights. I have to admit, the gag about him saying "I know a story about Xena!" and then jumping straight back into the thrashing, spinning re-enactment until he fell over was quite hilarious (or maybe it was because I was watching it quite late over here).

It was a reasonably fun idea to intercut the stories with the clips from old movies, though I think the Spartacus one went on too long. I was actually getting quite caught up in those clips, and felt a jolt when they ended. Now I'm going to have to add Spartacus to my list of films to track down.

Finally, it was fascinating to see those clips of Xena as she originally appeared on Hercules (I'm probably going to have to watch THAT show as well, aren't I). What amazed me though was that such a great feminist icon could emerge from what appeared to be a typical bros before hos plot. Amazing!

A Handful of Dinars

Plot: Xena teams up with the man she was once going to marry in order to find the Treasure of the Sumerians, only for him to start making moves on Gabrielle. 

So I watched A Handful of Dinars and thought it was actually worse than the clip-show episode. Oops.

See, if you're going to have Xena reveal to Gabrielle that she was once engaged to be married to someone, you'd best be sure that the ex-fiancé in question has (at the very least) a sliver of charisma that could make me believe Xena would have willingly settled down with him. This guy... didn't.

Okay, there were a few little moments when he seemed to have a bit of a spark, but those scenes were all with Gabrielle. I couldn't believe that Xena would ever be interested in a guy like this, unless – I don't know – she was only about thirteen or fourteen at the time? The worst part is that I'm pretty confident that he'll never, ever be mentioned again... though actually I suppose that's a good thing considering how badly this character misfired.

Snore.

But to give someone the distinction of having once wooed the Warrior Princess and convinced her to marry him, and then portray him like this (that is, completely generic and forgettable) did not work at all.

That said, I liked the opening, and the little sequence when Xena snatches the coin, reads the note and swallows it was fun, as was the idea of having an Indiana Jones treasure hunt episode, but nothing really worked. The bridge sequence was badly shot (worst archers ever, the bridge was suspended over a vast chasm or a one-metre drop depending on the camera angle, and what was with the drummer in the bushes?), the temple bit made no sense (distract the priests by acting as devotees and then throw some spears around – was that the actual plan?) and I couldn't figure out the layout of the cave – there was a back entrance? And a hall where you couldn't make any noise? And an erupting volcano somewhere? Or something?

I guess I should have been touched that whatshisname kept Xena's wedding bracelet, but then he'd already admitted to Gabrielle that he'd won Xena over only to realize that he didn't want her once he'd got her, so... who cares whether he kept her bracelet or not? Xena apparently feels bad that she doubted him, but then why on earth shouldn't she have doubted him?

The denouement with the ambrosia was also disappointing. I thought Xena had something specific in mind when she went after it, but instead she just threw it in a volcano. Okay then.

I did like the scene when Gabrielle comes back from kissing whatshisface, looking rather guilty and awkward, and the fact that Xena is more concerned about Gabrielle getting hurt than ex-fiancé-dude being back in her life (was that our first bit of subtext? Because I totally read his comment of "you're not jealous are you?" as Xena being jealous of him getting close to Gabrielle, not the other way around) and I guess the short scene with all the skeletons on the torture wheels was quite creepy.

Warrior... Princess

Plot: Xena arranges to switch places with Princess Diana, her identical double, in order to protect her from whoever is threatening to kill her and discover who the culprit is.

This was a fun one, and definitely an improvement on the last two episodes.

First of all, I'm amazed that there is actually a worse crown out there than the monstrosity that Arthur wears over on Merlin. You'd think being kings and all, they could afford some good taste.

That said, I suppose the best part of this episode (which the whole thing was an excuse for) was seeing Lucy Lawless play two vastly different characters. You could definitely tell who was who most of the time; even toward the end you could see Lucy-pretending-to-be-Xena-pretending-to-be-Diana.

Geez, I'm really sorry about the appalling quality of these pictures.

But one thing that struck me at the start of the episode was that Lucy seems to play Xena as a man. Obviously she has a large stature anyway, but Lucy uses that to her advantage; she doesn't slouch but instead she owns her size and strides around like she owns the place – as happened when she walked into the palace and all the guards saluted her with their spears (although, shouldn't the spearheads have been raised up instead of down when she went by?)

This is in contrast to Diana, who was played more softly and demurely. I loved all the little details, such as her riding side-saddle, the hair-brushing gag, or saying "bless you" when Gabrielle told her what the chakram was.

But regarding Xena and Diana – they just look identical? That's it? There's no explanation for this? If so...okay then. I guess I should be grateful that one wasn't an evil twin. Laughed at the nineties special effects when Xena and Diana appeared in the same shot, and also at the idea that a country in Ancient Greece was willing to abolish slavery and fund charity drives for the poor.

This episode managed to surprise me a couple of times, mainly because I kept trying to out-think it, and it ended up being more simplistic than I gave it credit for. As soon as Diana's fiancé's brother (okay WHY do I never remember the names of any male characters?!) started talking, I thought: "aha, the brother's evil." Then as it went on I thought: "no, he's actually the real deal and he's just impersonating his brother in the attempt to get to know Diana before the wedding." But then there just ended up being a real brother, and this one was secretly in love with Diana himself.  

Ten points for that extra's delivery of: "sir, the assassin has escaped." Somehow he made it sound like the most boring sentence ever uttered in the English language. And how did a man set on fire escape anyway?

"There is a traitor in our midst" seems to be the necessary catch-phrase whenever a traitor is involved in a plot. No one ever just says: "there's a traitor around here somewhere." No, it's always "in our midst."

I liked the King and Xena's little discussion in the banquet hall when Xena said: "everyone's got that evil spot somewhere," but I have to say that using Xena as a decoy has to be the most ill-thought out plan ever. They didn't fill her in on ANYTHING about what Diana was like (ie, that she fainted at the sight of blood, that she was a good harp player). Honestly, it was like they wanted her to fail right from the word go.

Also muddled was Xena's final plan. Having realized that hanged dude was murdered, she sends Fiancé Dude out after "Xena" in order to bring her back and fight the assassins – but doesn't that hinge on her assumption that the castle folk would eventually figure out that Hanged Dude was actually murdered? What would have happened if they hadn't?

For a second there, I thought the bride at the wedding WAS Diana, having picked up certain skills during her time with Gabrielle. Just for a second.

I liked the action sequence when Xena has to help out the fiancé with the assassins without him actually knowing what she's doing. I also liked that the writers actually let him put up a fairly decent fight on his own, but that condescending little pat that Xena gave him at the end: "you were so brave!" was priceless.