Xena Warrior Princess - Season Five
by Allison Liddi-Brown, Andrew Merrifield, Doug Lefler, Garth Maxwell, John Fawcett
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adrienne Wilkinson, Lucy Lawless, Renée O'Connor, Ted Raimi, William Gregory LeeDirector: Allison Liddi-Brown, Andrew Merrifield, Doug Lefler, Garth Maxwell, John Fawcett
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1040 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-10-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Movie Reviews of Xena Warrior Princess - Season Five
Movie Review: One of the strongest seasons in the entire run of the show
Summary: 5 Stars
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
Season Four of XENA had been disappointing after a riveting Season Three, primarily because a long string of flat episodes in the middle of the season. Season Five, despite real life complications caused by Lucy Lawless's pregnancy, was not only a great return to form, but a great improvement in its dramatic arcs. Season Three was the series best season for comic episodes, but Seasons Five and Six took the dramatic arcs to the show's highest points.
This is the season where the payoff from the Season Four introduction of Eli bears fruit. The Eli arc structures the series in its final two seasons as much as any other aspect of the show excepting Xena and Gabrielle's deep relationship. His message of self-reliance framed in the context of relationships of love and without the need for the Olympian gods culminates in the death of Eli (at the hand of Ares in the show's 100th episode) and the growing influence of Eli's teachings. Eli's bearing more than a little physical resemblance to traditional representations of Jesus is not accidental, with John the Baptist in Season Six shown as a follower of Eli. And it is his teaching on how humans do not need the Gods combined with the Fates' prophesy that Xena's child will cause the downfall of the Olympians that generates one of the most compelling story arcs in the entire run of the series: the attempted destruction of Eve by the Gods.
XENA was never a show unwilling to take risks, but perhaps the single greatest risk the show ever took was "Looking Death in the Eye" and the two episodes that followed it, "Livia" and "Eve." In these, in an attempt to protect Eve from Athena, Hades, and the other Olympians, Xena and Gabrielle fake their own deaths. But their plans goes awry when Ares, who is unaware that they are feigning their deaths, takes both of them to icy coffins on an isolated mountain peak, and then seals the tomb. When a landslide awakens them from their long sleep, they discover that twenty-five years have passed. Eve had been raised by Octavius, who is now known as Augustus Caesar while she is now known as Livia. The Olympian gods, who have long thought that Eve was dead, have ceased looking for her. The final episodes of the season deal with Xena and Gabrielle convincing Eve that Xena is her mother and that she, who as Livia has been a persecutor of the followers of Eli, was prophesied to be Eli's messenger. The season ends with Xena having been granted the ability to kill gods through the purification of Eve. These arcs will all arise again in Season Six as Xena dispatches the Olympians with the unexpected assistance of some of the gods.
Season Five was a good one despite the presence of two of the stinkiest episodes I've ever seen on TV. "Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire," the second and by far the weakest of the two XENA musical episodes (the first was actually quite good) is the only episode of XENA that I've never been able to finish. But as bad as it was, "Married with Fishsticks" makes it look like a masterpiece. If I were asked to name the worst episode of any series that I have ever seen, I without hesitation would choose "Married with Fishsticks." In it, Gabrielle, who is unconscious after being hit in the head and nearly drowned, imagines she is the mermaid mother in a family consisting of Joxer and three half human/half sea creature children. In the commentaries accompanying the discs the crew and creative staff insist that XENA fans either love or hate the episode, but I simply do not believe them. Everyone I have ever talked to despises the episode. When most watch the episode, they scratch their heads and wonder what drugs were involved in inspiring it.
XENA is one of the more unique series in the history of TV. Its greatest claim to fame was providing TV with the first convincing female action hero in the history of TV, with the possible exception of Mrs. Emma Peel. But it raises multiple challenges to anyone who attempts to enjoy it. Whether you can enjoy or appreciate the show depends on suspending one's disbelief on several levels. For instance, that Xena and Gabrielle could have encountered in their lifetime such famous (and noncontemporary) individuals as King David, Goliath, Julius Caesar, Virgil, Homer, Euripides, Odin, Grendel, Beowulf, Ulysses, Pandora, Brutus, Marc Antony, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, and Augustus, not to mention Hercules and the full range of Olympian gods. Also, to steal a phrase from Firesign Theater, that everything you know [about history] is wrong. You have to be willing to accept that in this alternative universe Xena was the pivotal figure in the Battle of Actium, that it was Xena impersonating Cleopatra who ensnared Marc Antony, and that all the members of both triumvirates were engaged with one another at the same time. Furthermore, you have to believe that a warrior can make 50 foot forward somersaults. I'll confess that I found the history a bit easier to take over time, but I was never able to find anything like a comfort level with the wirework that made the absurd jumps possible. I was much more comfortable with the kind of fighting and stunts found on BUFFY, which resembled more the real world. Or KILL BILL, in which Zoë Bell, Lucy Lawless's stunt double in XENA, doubled Uma Thurman. But some fans never struggle believing anything they see in XENA. And there is nothing wrong with that.
The great thing for all fans, regardless of their capacity for suspension of disbelief, is that unlike the relatively flat Season Four, this season was fully back on track. And the arcs begun in the second half of the season were played out through Season Six until the end of the entire series.
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