Xena:Warrior Princess
Season Three 
(Anchor Bay Region 1 DVD Boxed Set)
(1997)
review by Head Cheeze

I've never really sat down and watched Xena: Warrior Princess. I'm not a big sword and sorcery guy, and, to be honest, it looked a little cheezy. So, of course, I'm the guy who gets a boxed set of the show tossed in his lap for review. Worse yet, it's for the bloody third season of a show I hadn't a clue about. However, after a couple of episodes of this goofy series, I found myself pretty much well up-to-speedl!

Xena (Lawless) is a former leader of some sort of barbarian gang that used to raid, pillage, and generally hassle the Greek countryside (which, here, looks remarkably like New Zealand). Now she's out to atone for her actions, and roams the land seeking to do good. Accompanied by her "bard" (so that's what they called it back then, eh?), Gabrielle (O'Connor), Xena encounters all manner of baddies and beasties, as well as many a ghost from her past.

As with any series, Xena does have something of an established mythology behind it that may have neophytes scratching their heads, it's rarely for long seeing that the writers go out of their way to reintroduce older characters and situations through flashbacks or dialogue like "Xena, don't you remember what happened last time we encountered so-and-so?". This all works marvelously in terms of both adding to the camp value, as well as initiating new viewers into the fold. I got a kick out of the series' dialogue as well, with Lawless' Xena seemingly the only character who speaks as though she's from that time period while the rest of her universe uses modern slang and announciation. It's a sly poke at the whole swords and sorcery genre, reminiscent of Army of Darkness but reversed, with everyone else playing Ash to Xena's medieval denizens.

Of course, seeing as how Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert serve as the series Exectutive Producers, those similiarities aren't simply coincidence. Also, the Raimi stable of character actors make regular trips into the Xena-verse, including Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell (who also directs the King of Assassins episode in which he appears).

The Season Three boxed set from Anchor Bay presents all 22 episodes, as well as a host of supplemental materials for all of the Xena-philes out there including loads of deleted footage, interviews with cast and crew, commentary tracks on select episodes, bloopers, stills gallery, and more. It's a reasonably priced set (under $60 bucks), so you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Xena's a show I now regret not giving a chance when it was in it's initial run, but seeing as how it's now available on DVD, I'm going to remedy that pronto. If you like your barbarian action with a heaping serving of cheese, Xena's sure to please.

Check out more at www.xenahercules.com.