Xena: Warrior Princess-"Maternal Instincts"

As Mother's Day is approaching, I decided to look at an episode of Xena which ended up becoming a double-edged sword for the series.

As another Mother’s Day will soon be upon us, I thought it appropriate to look at one of the most dramatic episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess. Before I begin with the episode itself, I’ll briefly cover what occurred prior to this episode, as it’s the continuation of a few previous storylines.

After “Callisto”, the title character re-emerged the following season in “Return of Callisto”, where she made Gabrielle a widow before Xena killed her by leaving her to be engulfed in quicksand. However, thanks to intervention from Ares, Xena and her adversary swapped bodies for the episodes “Intimate Stranger” and “Ten Little Warlords” (this was partly to accommodate Lucy Lawless, who was recovering from an injury at the time) before Callisto was finally vanquished. Alas, she would return to lock horns with Hercules, becoming a god in the process, just before he locked her up. It was a few episodes after that, in “A Necessary Evil”, that Xena would break Callisto out in order to help her fight a power-obsessed Amazon named Velasca who became a god herself. That episode ended with both Callisto and Velasca being trapped in lava.

The following season had Xena and Gabrielle go to Britannia in the episode “The Deliverer” to help people fight Julius Caesar, whom Xena was itching to get revenge on when he nearly killed her years earlier. Gabrielle became smitten with a guy who told her of his own god, only for her to find out that said god was a malevolent force known as Dahak, who proceeded to force Gabrielle onto his altar, and as we learn in the follow-up “Gabrielle’s Hope”, impregnate her. That baby, who Gabrielle named Hope, was soon born and Xena wasted no time expressing her doubts that she wasn’t a baby, but rather an evil force. But Gabrielle tried to convince her otherwise, and the episode ended with her tricking Xena into thinking Hope was dead, when she actually sent her safely down a river.

“Maternal Instincts” begins with our heroines returning to a Centaur village they visited the previous season, in “Orphan of War”. In that episode, Xena informed Gabrielle about her illegitimate son Solan (David Taylor), who doesn’t know Xena is his mom. But Xena asked Centaur Kaleipus (Jeff Boyd) to raise him in order to protect him from her enemies, a task he happily accepted because he was a friend of Solan’s father Borias. Solan was initially hostile toward Xena, blaming her for his father’s death, but he warmed up to her by the episode’s end.

This is why he and Kaleipus happily greet them at the start of this episode. Another reason to celebrate is a recent treaty between the various Centaur factions.

Elsewhere, a young girl (Amy Morrison) is playing near the edge of the pit where Callisto and Velasca were imprisoned. After her ball goes over the edge, the girl looks down and a chasm opens, spitting out a pillar of fire. Callisto emerges, and the child seems to pass out. I guess she didn’t care about Velasca.

After the title sequence, Gabrielle is surprised by the appearance of her Amazon friend Ephiny (Danielle Cormack) and her son Xenan. They catch up with Gabrielle, informing her of what happened while she and Xena were in Britannia, and Gabrielle lies and says that Hope died.

At the same time, Callisto is disgusted with the decorations celebrating the treaty, and subsequently torches them, as well as two Centaur sentries. Kaleipus and Xena assess the damage, with the latter surmising that only Callisto could’ve done this.

Once alone, Gabrielle discovers that little girl hiding. She quietly shows herself and introduces herself as Fayla. She informs Gabrielle that Callisto knows Xena’s secret. Xena realizes that Callisto knows Solan is her son, so she, Gabrielle, and Kaleipus agree to hide him in nearby caves. But Fayla disappears before they can ask her if she wants to hide there as well. She’s next seen with Callisto, who can’t wait to see Xena’s reaction when Solan is killed. Fayla basically tells her to be patient, because destroying Xena is only the first step to ensuring her father Dahak’s rule over the world.

Gabrielle is getting together the plan to fight Callisto when she runs into Fayla. She’s shocked to see Fayla with the toy lamb Gabrielle got from Senticles in “A Solstice Carol”, and subsequently gave to Hope. Fayla explains that she was found with the lamb, and when she says she was in a basket floating in a river, it makes Gabrielle realize that she’s Hope. Gabrielle tells her to wait for her in her hut.

Xena is seen running through a forest when Callisto appears. After knocking Xena down with her powers, Callisto turns her attention to the hooded figure beside her, thinking it’s Solan. But it turns out to be Gabrielle, and Callisto bolts.

Kaleipus is in the caves where he encounters Hope. She quickly uses her powers to throw a sword into him. Xena and Gabrielle find him dying, and his final words are for Xena to raise Solan. As Solan mourns Kaleipus, he asks to remain with Xena, telling her he cares for her. Xena reluctantly agrees, saying they have much to discuss.

Callisto arrives to see a weakened Hope in the caves. She tells Hope that she’ll go after Solan now, but Hope informs her that she’ll join the other gods and mortals when Dahak arrives. Callisto agrees, and Hope says that they should kill not only Solan, but the other children in the village.

Gabrielle finds Hope, and as they both cry, she admits that she’s her mother. Hope tells her that she helped Callisto escape, and that the children are in danger. Gabrielle says they should inform Xena, confident that she can now convince the Warrior Princess that Hope is benevolent. To that end, Gabrielle tells Hope to go to a safe place for now. That place turns out to be Kaleipus’s hut, where Solan is. Hope gives a malevolent grin once she’s alone with Solan.

Ephiny goes off to gather the children after Gabrielle informs her and Xena of Callisto’s plan. Xena says she’s unsure of what they’ve been told, and Gabrielle’s vehement counter-argument convinces a shocked Xena that the girl is Hope. Gabrielle apologizes for lying to Xena, who states that poison may be able to kill Hope. This continues their argument, as Gabrielle says Hope is a victim, which is why she sent her to Kaleipus’s hut. Xena races there to find Solan dead. She forcefully tells a shocked Gabrielle to leave before crying out in anguish. These cries are heard by Callisto, who smiles, but only briefly.

Gabrielle pours poison in a wineskin and hides it as Hope appears. Hope tells her that she ran off after entering the hut and seeing Solan dead. This almost convinces Gabrielle that Callisto killed Solan, until Hope mentions his name, which Gabrielle never gave to her.

Callisto walks through the seemingly deserted village, when suddenly Xena shoots an arrow into her body, which naturally doesn’t hurt her. Callisto turns to Xena, and sensing her anger at losing her son, basically tells her “welcome to my world”. This is followed by Callisto shooting fireballs at everything, while Xena and hidden archers proceed to shoot arrows into her. Not that this does any good, as Callisto forces the arrows out and into the bodies of the archers. But Xena manages to keep her from hurting Ephiny and the children, even though Callisto keeps knocking her down.

Tracking her would-be victims into the caves, Callisto is confronted by Xena. But Callisto basically says that nothing matters anymore. Even though she’s finally gotten the vengeance on Xena she’s dreamed of, there’s nothing satisfying about it. This is no doubt why she basically allows Xena to pummel her until the cave itself collapses on her, with Xena, Ephiny, and the children escaping.

Xena walks off and sees that Gabrielle has poisoned Hope, who’s now covered with a blanket. Gabrielle almost gives herself the poison as well, but pours it onto the ground. And the looks they give each other are definitely not those of affection.

The episode ends with our heroines standing by the burning bodies of their children. Gabrielle tearfully says that Solan and Kaleipus would still be alive if she had killed Hope in Britannia, but Xena coldly cuts her off, saying that her lies have led to Solan’s death. In anguish, they walk off in separate directions.

Like Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Preemptive Strike”, this episode is a downbeat tale involving betrayal that serves as an emotional punch to the gut, with great performances by all. This storyline would continue with the next episode, the acclaimed “The Bitter Suite”.

However, one aspect that would end up being problematic is Callisto. On the one hand, it was a dramatically good choice to take her character in a different direction. One reason Khan is considered Star Trek’s greatest villain is because he has different motivations in both of his appearances. In “Space Seed”, he simply wanted to conquer, and the fact that he had access to technology centuries ahead of him upon his awakening was an added bonus. In Star Trek II, he simply wanted revenge, even ignoring the fact that he was able to obtain a weapon that could destroy worlds. As Callisto made more than two appearances, it would’ve easily become repetitive to have her appear again and again simply seeking revenge on Xena. Hence, actually allowing her to get that revenge was an interesting idea.

But the fact that she now says that she feels empty doesn’t leave much room for her character to grow. Alas, subsequent appearances by the character, while entertaining, don’t have the dramatic punch that her earlier appearances did.

As it turned out, the Hope storyline didn’t exactly end on a satisfying note either, as she would re-appear (played by Renee O’Connor) in the two-part season finale “Sacrifice”, only to be killed off in a lackluster way the following season in “A Family Affair”. Dahak himself would meet his demise thanks to Hercules in a multi-episode arc on that series with, disappointingly, no mention or appearance by either of our heroines.

Hence, “Maternal Instincts” is a wonderfully intense drama that turned out to be a double-edged sword for the series.

Xena: Warrior Princess-"A Solstice Carol"

This is a look at Xena's Christmas episode.

One of the charms of Xena: Warrior Princess, as well as its progenitor Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, is how episodes could alternate from charming romps to dark dramas. This episode certainly falls into the former category, since (as the title obviously states) this is a take on the classic Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol.

The Scrooge of this story is King Silvas (Peter Vere-Jones) who, at the episode’s opening, is sentencing an elderly couple to a decade of hard labor for evading their taxes. He adds another year to that after also condemning them for singing Solstice carols (remember, this was before the birth of Christ, so it wasn’t called “Christmas” yet), as well as engaging in other holiday activities.

After the couple is taken away, the king calls for his aide Senticles—you can guess what that name sounds like—to ask about the eviction notice for the day. Senticles (Joe Berryman) is scared to remind the king that it’s the eve of the winter solstice, so he says it’s getting late, which prompts the king to tell him to get on it.

Elsewhere, Xena and Gabrielle are girl-talking while going through a village. Suddenly, a boy snatches Xena’s chakrum and darts off. She and Gabrielle follow him to a room where they see he and some other children have used the chakrum as the star for their tree. Their caretaker Melana (Sher Booth) expresses disapproval when Xena says the chakrum belongs to her, but more immediate concerns arise when Senticles shows up with a proclamation saying she and the kids will be evicted from their orphanage if they don’t pay 1,000 dinars by midnight. One of the guards with Senticles says everyone should be arrested now, but Xena puts a stop to that when she flings through the air and grabs her chakrum. As Gabrielle pulls Senticles away, Xena uses her weapon to tie the guards up. The children’s caretaker explains that King Silvas has made it a crime to celebrate the winter solstice in their town.

After the title sequence, Senticles explains to Xena and Gabrielle that he was once a toymaker, but Silvas forced him to take his current job after outlawing toys. Gabrielle sympathizes with him as she remembers owning a toy he made when she was younger. Melana states that Silvas took such a hard stance on the solstice when he lost his wife Analia on Solstice Eve thirty years earlier.

This prompts Gabrielle to remember a story she once heard, which the children are all too eager to hear her recite. Said story is about a hardened man who was visited by the Fates. Sadly, this visit did not prompt him to change his ways, so they turned him into a spirit destined to roam for eternity in limbo. But Gabrielle thinks they could give Silvas a happier ending. Xena has her doubts, but as this is the holiday season and all, agrees to try it. But they can’t just walk into Silvas’s castle, which is why they draft Senticles to let Xena in, while Gabrielle goes off to get needed supplies.

In the marketplace, Gabrielle sees a man trying to get his donkey to move. She expresses interest in purchasing the animal, which she learns the owner is attempting to take to have skinned. No wonder the donkey won’t move. She and the owner do some bantering about the price, agreeing to all 35 dinars Gabrielle has with her.

In Silvas’ castle, Xena lets herself into the king’s bedroom as he’s napping. He’s understandably freaked out when he wakes up, but Xena introduces herself before saying that things could be better if Silvas lets his people celebrate the solstice. He summons his guards, prompting Xena to bolt while giving Silvas a warning. She swings to the castle’s lower level and sees solstice decorations covered with years of dust and cobwebs. She also sees a portrait of Silvas with his wife Analia.

Meanwhile, Gabrielle is trying to kindly break the news to the donkey, named Tobias, that he can’t stay inside for the night. But she’s having difficulty getting him to move, until one of the kids, named Lynal (Daniel James) whistles to his friends, which does the trick.

Xena commends Senticles when she sees him making changes to the king’s orders. But he doesn’t view himself as a hero, and tells her he can’t risk going to prison if he goes along with what she has in mind. However, Xena tells him not to discredit himself or the children.

Gabrielle tells the children, Melana, and (yes) Tobias about the magic of the winter solstice. This prompts a couple of kids to make their own solstice wishes, such as a nice dinner and presents. As they go off to hang their stockings, Xena and Senticles come in, with the former hoping things don’t get physical if Gabrielle’s plan doesn’t work. Gabrielle is confident and tells Xena that she spent all their money to buy Tobias. But Xena states that they have everything they need for their plan.

Said plan begins with a return to Silvas’ bedroom as the king is, once again, woken up by Xena. This time, though, she’s disguised as Clotho, the first of the Fates who represents the past. The irritated king asks if she’s really one of the Fates, which Xena answers by pointing to a rotating hourglass that Senticles is manipulating behind a nearby curtain. The king is convinced when Senticles shoots a dart, which shatters it.

Xena takes Silvas to the abandoned lower level, where he sees Gabrielle disguised as his wife Analia, seemingly floating in the air, and telling him to change his ways. That’s when we see that it’s Tobias, with Senticles’s supervision, who’s holding the rope that’s levitating Gabrielle from outside the castle. Alas, nearby guards whistle at a passing village girl, prompting Tobias to move, which in turn causes Gabrielle to fall to the floor. Fortunately, Xena is able to correct things with a whistle of her own, while Silvas downs a drink she gave him a moment earlier.

“Analia” tells Silvas to not let her death haunt him any longer. But our heroines are surprised when the king states that his queen didn’t die, but rather she left him. Gabrielle tries to say she’s speaking metaphorically, but the king becomes confused until the sleeping potion in his drink kicks in. As Xena takes him back to bed, Gabrielle goes outside and finds Tobias, but no Senticles.

Silvas’s sleep is again interrupted by Xena, now disguised as the second Fate Lachesis, representing the present. She also insists the king put on rags she threw on his bed and leave his crown behind in order to walk among his subjects.

Gabrielle finds Senticles, who informs her that he bolted because he was afraid the guards would throw him in prison. He further tells Gabrielle to leave him alone, but her eyes widen when she sees all the toys in his room. He becomes smitten with her idea of putting the toys in a nearby sack and hiding them for the children to find. Gabrielle also suggests that he disguise himself so the guards won’t recognize him. When Senticles once again expresses his fear of prison and small spaces, Gabrielle tells him to grow a pair.

“Lachesis” takes Silvas to the orphanage, where Lynal offers them shelter. This offer is accompanied by Lynal stating how greedy and cruel the king is, which perks up Silvas’s ears.

Gabrielle, Tobias, and Senticles (wearing a big fake white beard) head for the orphanage and come across Silvas’ guards heading in the same direction. At the orphanage, Silvas is moved by the children’s singing, but not enough to change his ways. Rather, he starts blaming the Fates for ending his marriage and storms out, but is stopped by his own guards, who think he’s an average citizen.

Xena takes care of the guards by blocking the entrance to the orphanage. Silvas is shocked that his own guards tried to arrest him and promptly faints. Xena tells Lynal to look after the other orphans, and taking note of Melana’s necklace, instructs her to look after Silvas. Senticles and Gabrielle join them after they (yep!) enter the orphanage by falling down its chimney, with Senticles wearing a red suit. As he compliments himself for conquering his fear of small spaces, Gabrielle admits that their plan didn’t work, and she and Xena must resort to more physical methods.

The guards break in, and sure enough, Xena, Gabrielle, and Senticles fight them with the toys and ornaments, prompting him to go “ho, ho, ho” as they take the guards down.

Silvas wakes up and sees Melana. Her face is partially concealed, which convinces him that she’s the Fate representing the future. The chilliness in the room makes him think that he’s in a tomb, and he thinks that the noises from the fight are the souls of his subjects crying out to him. When Melana offers Silvas a hand, he thinks she means to carry him away. This is when he forcefully states that he’ll make amends, and heads out to where the fight is.

Senticles shoots a guard with a toy crossbow (saying “Go ahead! Make my day!”), while Xena fights off other guards with a Hercules puppet, which she thanks. Gabrielle briefly pauses when the bells she uses to knock out two other guards then play the tune of “Jingle Bells”. Another guard annoys us with his sword-twirling until Xena puts him out of our misery by sending a toy unicorn’s horn up his ass. The orphans ward off more guards as Silvas joins the fight.

The children cheer as the guards run off and Silvas says they won’t be evicted. Melana appears, and as it turns out, she’s actually Analia. Silvas apologizes to her and they make amends.

Shortly afterward, Xena and Gabrielle head off with Tobias and Xena’s horse Argo. They come across a couple with a baby heading west. Gabrielle generously gives them Tobias to make their journey easier. Xena compliments Gabrielle on her generosity and gives her a solstice gift of her own: a small wooden lamb. The episode ends on a sweet note when Gabrielle notes her lack of a gift for Xena, and Xena replies that Gabrielle herself is a gift.

This episode shows how the series was definitely firing on all cylinders by this point, with the bond between our heroines as strong as ever. Despite the curious lack of snow for the winter solstice, and no explanation for why Senticles said Analia was dead, this episode ranks right up there with A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas as must-see TV for the holiday season.

Xena: Warrior Princess-"Callisto"

This is a look at one of the defining episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess.

I’ve noted before that, despite being a spin-off of another show, Xena: Warrior Princess didn’t take long to become the syndicated ratings champion of the 1990s as Star Trek: The Next Generation had been before it. There were many reasons for this great success, of course, and one of the biggest is this episode, which aired in the latter half of the show’s first season.

The story begins with a young boy in a state of shock as he witnesses thugs chopping and burning both the surrounding village and its inhabitants. The boy is soon knocked to the ground, although still alive. Someone who’s not so lucky, however, implores a leather-clad woman (Hudson Leick) to run for it. But she responds to his pleas with a sword through his chest. The woman then orders one of her thugs to spare an older woman, whom she instructs to tell the world that they’re in for the same fate as the village if she’s crossed. When the spared villager asks the woman for her name, the reply is “Xena, Warrior Princess,” accompanied by a maniacal laugh.

After the title sequence, the real Xena is seen in a tavern. A man named Melas (Ian Hughes) seats himself next to her and asks the bartender for a drink. Xena offers her own drink to him, saying he looks like he could use it. He thanks her before introducing himself and asking for her name. When Xena gives it to him, he goes apeshit, but Xena quickly subdues him. She and Gabrielle are surprised when Melas says that a woman from his village told him that an army led by Xena murdered everyone in their town, including his son. Xena quietly tells the vengeance-fueled Melas that she’s not the one responsible and leaves him as she and Gabrielle head off to find the real culprit.

En route, they pass through a small band of villagers. Xena notes the look of fear on their faces and tells Gabrielle that she once actually enjoyed seeing that look from people. One of this group introduces himself as Joxer the Mighty (Ted Raimi). Xena rightfully tells him to piss off (with the super-dorky armor he’s wearing, I don’t blame her). But this guy obviously can’t take a hint, which is why he states that he’s a great warrior who loves to shed blood. Thankfully, this blowhard actually gives Xena some space when she grabs his nose, saying, “You like the sight of blood so much, you keep talking!”

Our heroines’ good luck continues when further up the road, Melas leaps out of nowhere with a dagger trained on Xena. Once again, she pins him down with little effort. She even calls him a slow learner as she ties Melas to a tree. Gabrielle tells him that Xena would’ve killed him already if she was the monster that killed his son.

The ladies soon reach their destination when they see crucified bodies amidst a burning village. They head in and kick some ass, with Xena using her famous boomerang-esque chakrum to take out some of the bad guys. But instead of returning to its owner, the chakrum is caught by the murderous impostor, who taunts Xena with, “You want it? Come and get it!”

On horseback, they charge at each other with their swords. Xena gets a cut on her arm, prompting her opponent to pat herself on the back, telling Xena that she “made” her. Xena disarms her and correctly deduces that she was the one who shot her with a poison dart in the previous episode (“The Greater Good”). Using nearby poles, both combatants knock each other to the ground. Xena asks her opponent what she meant by saying she made her, and her adversary asks her to remember Cirra. That name takes Xena aback before her adversary departs.

Xena then gives Gabrielle a hand with the thug she’s fighting by giving him the famous pinch that cuts off the flow of blood to his brain. He tells her that the woman’s real name is Callisto and that her family was killed at Cirra. He also says that Callisto wants the world to see Xena as a monster before killing her. The thug also states that Callisto’s next target is the Oracle at Delphi, who she plans to murder the next day and then pin the deed on Xena. She undoes the pinch and tells him to tell Callisto that Xena did make her—and she’ll destroy her.

Melas joins up with Xena and Gabrielle, apologizing for his earlier behavior. He asks to help them fight Callisto, and since he’s less annoying than Joxer, Xena reluctantly agrees.

Speaking of Joxer, he’s brought to Callisto’s hideout, where’s she’s testing her skills against some of her troops. Apparently, he was found hiding in a wagon they stole (yeah, he’s warrior material, alright). Joxer offers his services to her. She and her troops laugh, but Callisto agrees to it if Joxer brings Gabrielle to her. He excitedly departs, while Callisto savors the moment, saying that everything, including her thug spilling the beans to Xena, is going according to plan.

That night by a campfire, Gabrielle asks Melas to get some rest. But he says he can’t truly rest until Callisto is dead, and that Gabrielle would have the same feeling if she lost a loved one in a similar manner. She doesn’t disagree with his assessment, but goes over to Xena and asks her about Cirra. The warrior princess says that it was a village she conquered during her mercenary days, but unlike other such conquests, women and children were victims because a fire somehow burned through the town, trapping the villagers in their homes because they didn’t want to face her army. Hence, she doesn’t fault Callisto for her blood lust, although Gabrielle does. She says that Melas, like Callisto, has become blinded by an intense desire for revenge. She also points out that Xena overcame such a desire when her own village was destroyed way back when. Xena admits she did, but she may get that feeling again if something happened to her mom, Hercules, or Gabrielle. This prompts Gabrielle to make her promise not to become mad with vengeance if something happens to her.

The trio arrives at Delphi the next morning and splits up to look for Callisto. Gabrielle runs into Joxer and hands his ass to him numerous times as he tries to kidnap her.

Inside the town’s temple, Xena is keeping watch as the Oracle herself prepares to give her speech. Sure enough, a disguised Callisto tosses the chakrum in Xena’s direction, but Xena intercepts it before she chases Callisto on horseback. Xena subdues her and ties her to her horse. Walking back to the village, Xena outright apologizes for being the catalyst for what Callisto is now, but Callisto literally spits on this apology. Gabrielle informs Xena that Melas has organized a lynch mob. Callisto laughs, asking Xena if she’s ever been handed over to a lynch mob or tried for the atrocities she’s committed. Xena briefly ponders simply letting Callisto go, over Gabrielle’s objections.

This prompts Callisto to give this memorable tidbit: “The sight, just the sight, of Xena, Warrior Princess, arguing on my behalf amuses me so. Let me tell you. Let me answer your question of what I would do if you let me go. You let me go, and I will dedicate my life to killing everything you’ve loved: your friends, your family, your reputation, even your horse. You see, I am being so honest with you because the idea of your pity is worse than death for me. You see, you created a monster with integrity, Xena. Scary, isn’t it? Now, take me to the mob.”

As Callisto’s words torture Xena, the Warrior Princess arrives at the village and makes sure that the mob doesn’t touch Callisto as Xena puts her in jail to await a fair trial. Xena continues to be emotionally tortured by the incarcerated Callisto.

Elsewhere, Joxer again attempts to capture Gabrielle, which ends predictably. He explains that he comes from a long line of warlords (could’ve fooled me), with Gabrielle attempting to lift his spirits by saying he could do other, more legitimate, things with his life. He thanks her before (yep!) she kicks his ass again when he tries to take her.

The lynch mob tosses a torch into Callisto’s cell. As she delights in the irony of dying like her family did, Xena unlocks her cell, but unbeknownst to her, Callisto has already freed herself from her chains, which she promptly uses to knock out Xena before escaping with a captured Gabrielle. Melas and Xena chastise themselves for not listening to people like Gabrielle and then Xena takes off after Callisto.

At Callisto’s hideout, Gabrielle is strung up while Joxer bumbles his way in again. Callisto is as annoyed with Joxer as we are, but she gives him another chance to prove himself by ordering him to kill Gabrielle. But he ends up giving incompetence a good name when he can’t bring himself to do it, prompting Callisto to string him up as well.

When Xena arrives, Callisto announces that she’s ready for that duel to the death. As an added bonus, she has Gabrielle hoisted high in the air over spikes and has one of her thugs set the rope on fire.

As they battle, Xena and Callisto make various uses of the ladders on either side of them. Xena eventually uses three of them to make a teeter-totter plank that she has Gabrielle land on, while sending Callisto onto the rope over the spikes. She orders the rope to continue burning, but Xena prevents her from hitting the spikes.

The episode concludes with Callisto and her thugs being taken away. Gabrielle approves of Xena’s decision not to kill her, but Callisto quietly states that it was a mistake.

This installment sets up a great deal of what many remember about the show. It shows off how wonderfully Xena and Gabrielle were starting to complement each other, and gave fans a villain who would leave a big mark on Xena’s psyche, in effect becoming Khan to Xena’s Kirk (at least until the third season, but that’s a story for another time). One could say Callisto has an even more legitimate grievance against her adversary, as Kirk had no way of knowing Ceti Alpha VI would go boom.

Joxer, on the other hand, would become to many fans this show’s Neelix. The fact that they’re both ostensibly comic relief characters that are full of themselves probably didn’t help. Ironically, I found Joxer a bit more interesting during his final appearances on the show towards the end of the fifth season, when due to a god-influenced time jump, he meets up with Xena and Gabrielle as an older man. But alas, this also turns out to be the moment when the producers decided to kill him off.

TV's best sidekicks

This article looks at the best sidekicks from the small screen.

For my first article of 2018, I’m taking another look at sidekicks. This time, however, the focus will be on ones on the small screen.

1. Tonto

Some have understandably taken issue with the Lone Ranger’s companion, stating that the character gives negative impressions of Native Americans. The fact that the name itself is Spanish for “fool” certainly doesn’t help. Some stories identify Tonto as being from the Potawatomi tribe, while others says he’s Comanche.

However, this character is unique because his dynamic with the famous masked man presented both a Native American and a white man working side by side, righting wrongs in the Old West. Hence, while the manner in which this was achieved may be dubious, some began to view Native Americans in a more positive light thanks to these two characters. This in turn may have influenced the direction taken by later westerns such as The Outlaw Josey Wales and Dances with Wolves. In his autobiography I Am Spock, Leonard Nimoy even states that the Kirk/Spock dynamic was reminiscent of the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Both characters first premiered on radio in 1933. That show proved popular, spawning a series of books and also, most famously, a TV series which ran on ABC from 1949 to 1957.

The TV show remains the most famous version of the duo’s exploits, and the actors in those roles, Clayton Moore as the Ranger and Jay Silverheels (who’s from the Mohawk tribe) as Tonto, remain the most beloved. I’m still hopeful that we’ll see some sort of revival of this show in the future that both does the series justice and undoes the damage caused by the 1981 film The Legend of the Lone Ranger and 2013’s The Lone Ranger.

2. Ed Norton

Not to be confused with the actor of the same name, the goofball counterpart to Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden was one of the major reasons why The Honeymooners is embraced as a classic sitcom today.

Ed himself is a sewer worker who’s neighbors with Ralph and Ralph’s wife Alice (Audrey Meadows). While Ed—or “Norton”, as both Ralph and even Ed’s wife Trixie (played by Joyce Randolph) call him—comes across as dimwitted, more often than not he’s the one who gets tangled up in Ralph’s numerous schemes. This makes us wonder which of the two is crazier.

In lesser hands, this character would have just been annoying and nothing more. But Art Carney would secure his place in TV history by always making sure we would laugh whenever Ed appeared. Carney won several Emmy Awards for his work as Ed, and Gleason would go on to state that Carney was a huge reason The Honeymooners was the success it was.

Hence, we have Ed to thank for later sitcom characters such as Kimmy Gibbler, Steve Urkel, and of course, Barney Rubble.

3. (tie) Gabrielle and Iolaus

I link these two characters together mainly for one reason: the narratives of their respective shows overlapped.

First came Iolaus, played by Michael Hurst, who was the childhood best friend of the title character on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. From his first appearance in the TV movie which launched the series ("Hercules and the Amazon Women"), Hurst and Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules had nice chemistry together. As both Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess became known for taking dramatic license with mythology, I must point out that Iolaus was actually Hercules’s nephew.

Hurst played numerous other roles during the show’s run, which showcased his wonderful range as an actor. This included wearing makeup to play Underworld ferryman Charon as well as wearing a dress and wig to play the dancing Widow Twanky. In addition, Hurst directed numerous episodes of both shows.

While the show would become criticized for the numerous times Iolaus died and was resurrected, Hurst never failed to entertain. Iolaus even experienced moments of jealousy over how the public is enamored with Hercules during the show’s first season, although this aspect would be somewhat minimized in later seasons.

Nonetheless, this aspect was featured in the first season episode “The Warrior Princess”, which introduced Xena. In that story, she seduces Iolaus and prompts his inner jealously for Hercules as part of her plan to kill both of them. Iolaus eventually sees the light, and actually has a hard time believing Hercules’s claims that Xena has become a good guy when he meets up with her again in the first season finale “Unchained Heart”.

This leads us to the first season of Xena: Warrior Princess, which ran concurrently with Hercules‘s second season. In Xena‘s premiere episode, “Sins of the Past”, the Warrior Princess tries to reconnect with her mother. She ends up locking horns with her old acquaintance Drago (Jay Laga’aia). Xena thwarts him with Gabrielle’s help and the episode ends with the two traveling off together after Xena’s initial reluctance to have a companion.

Unlike Iolaus, Gabrielle isn’t exactly warrior material when we first meet her. But Renee O’Connor gave the character a wonderfully spunky attitude that made us like her. Gabrielle is drawn to Xena because of her dreams of adventure, and like Dr. Watson, even jots down Xena’s adventures. Xena, likewise, becomes closer to Gabrielle as the series goes on because she reminds her of the goodness people possess and how Xena can tap into the goodness inside of herself.

The chemistry between O’Connor and Lucy Lawless was definitely a match for that of Hurst and Sorbo (also like Hurst, O’Connor would direct several episodes). This would reach the point where many would speculate on how close Xena and Gabrielle actually were. As the internet was gaining popularity during this period, this gave a big boost to online fan fiction, as well as slash fiction.

To me, this is a reason why I like the first season Xena episode “Prometheus”, in which Xena, Hercules, and their respective sidekicks team up to free the title character, who’s been imprisoned by Hera, and as a result, left people without the ability to heal themselves. Iolaus and Gabrielle become smitten with each other during this episode because of the unique positions they hold. Iolaus sees someone who, like him, loves his companion, but feels the need to be special in their own right. Likewise, Gabrielle sees in Iolaus a kindred spirit in that he’s a nice, likable everyman who just happens to be close to someone who’s not your average person. This commonality results in sweet moments between these two during the episode.

I previously expressed my disappointment with Xena’s final episode “A Friend in Need”. To assuage that disappointment, I like to think that Gabrielle somehow reconnected with Iolaus and they lived happily ever after.

5. Dorothy ‘Dot’ Williams

This character is from the Australian TV series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. This series, which is based on the books by Kerry Greenwood, is set in 1920s Melbourne and focuses on the exploits of private detective Phryne Fisher (Essie Davis). In the show’s first episode “Cocaine Blues”, Phryne returns home after spending several years traveling the world. But she feels obliged to investigate the murder of a friend. The friend’s maid, Dorothy Williams (played by Ashleigh Cummings), helps her in solving the case. This leads to Phryne offering Dot (as everyone calls her) employment as her maid and setting up her own private eye service at the episode’s end.

Like Gabrielle, Dot is cut from a different cloth than Phryne. But Dot is quite shy and awkward in the beginning, even to the point where she feels uncomfortable answering the telephone. But as the series goes on, Phryne helps her gain more confidence. This would lead to a wonderful ending scene in the show’s third season finale “Death Do Us Part”, in which Dot, having married her beau Constable Hugh Collins (Hugo Johnstone-Burt), thanks her for all she’s brought into her life. Likewise, Phryne praises Dot for her work ethic and even comes to view her as a sister of sorts, as Phryne is often haunted by the death of her younger sister Janey. The fact that Phryne herself develops a relationship with Collins’s boss Inspector Jack Robinson (Nathan Page) adds to the similarities the two ladies share.

This friendship may have been a Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson knockoff, but Cummings and Davis bring such charm to their scenes together that their relationship becomes just as memorable.

There have been three seasons of this series so far. We last saw Dot and Hugh go off on their honeymoon while Jack kissed Phryne farewell as she took her father back to England. There’s been no word yet on a fourth season, and one reason for this is because Davis herself is working on other projects, which includes a role on Game of Thrones. The show’s two lead actresses are the main reasons I would love to see a fourth year, but if that doesn’t happen, at least I can say I wasn’t disappointed with how the third ended.

Actors and actresses often say that playing a villain is more fun, as it allows for more ways of expression. It would also seem that playing a sidekick can also hold more appeal than playing the main hero, if things come together right. Indeed, other sidekicks worth mentioning include Don Knotts’s Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show, as well as Nathalie Emmanuel’s Missandei, the right hand of Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen on the aforementioned Game of Thrones. I’d say the appeal, whether the character is intended to make us laugh or not, is that such characters can end up showing people how appealing both they and the ones they are linked to can be.

Voyager vs. Xena

This article looks at two of the worst series finales ever.

In 2001, just a few months prior to the tragedy of 9/11, two series aired their final episodes: Star Trek: Voyager and Xena: Warrior Princess. Although ratings for Voyager had dropped considerably during its run, the series remained UPN’s highest-rated show (which isn’t saying a lot, considering what else that network gave us). It also became the last Trek show to be a continuation of what started with Star Trek: The Next Generation, as the next Trek series, which debuted on UPN shortly after 9/11, was the prequel series Enterprise.

Xena was a different story. The title character (played by Lucy Lawless) first appeared in a trilogy of episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. She initially attempts to kill the demigod, but during the course of said trilogy, dramatic turns emerge involving the army she’s leading. Xena eventually agrees to join Hercules to fight her own army, becoming a hero in the process. The first season of Hercules concludes with Xena and Hercules, who have become romantically involved, bidding farewell to each other as she goes off to embark on a new journey of heroism and redemption.

The first episode of Xena’s own series, “Sins of the Past”, aired in the fall of 1995. Xena returns to her home village to reconnect with her mother, only to find it under siege by the warlord Draco (Jay Laga’aia). But Xena thwarts him with the help of a spirited young girl named Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor), whom Xena had rescued from thugs earlier in the episode. The episode concludes with Xena agreeing to allow Gabrielle to travel with her.

It didn’t take long for Xena to become a hit series in its own right. So much so that by its third season, the show was dominating the ratings over both Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well as Hercules (to the annoyance of Kevin Sorbo).

Both Xena and Star Trek: Voyager premiered in 1995, and both shows aired their series finales in 2001. Unfortunately, both finales were massively disappointing. But which one was a bigger letdown? Let’s find out.

Star Trek: Voyager: “Endgame”

Voyager‘s finale concludes the ship’s seven-year trip back to the Alpha Quadrant. It actually begins 16 years after the previous episode (“Renaissance Man”) with an older Janeway, now an admiral. As her fellow crew members celebrate the tenth anniversary of Voyager getting home, she embarks on a daunting plan to travel back in time in order to help Voyager get home quicker.

We see Janeway’s reasons for doing the time-travel/reset button motif Voyager became infamous for. It turns out Tuvok is in a mental institution, and Chakotay and Seven of Nine are both dead.

With a time travel doohickey that some Klingons pulled out of their asses, Janeway travels to the end of Voyager‘s seventh season in a shuttlecraft that can armor up like the Batmobile. She informs her younger self that a cloud full of wormholes that was guarded by Borg ships has a passage that can take them straight home. Captain Janeway is open to this at first, but then gets pissed off at her older self when the crew discovers the route home is part of what’s called a “transwarp hub”, which contains other wormholes leading to other sectors of the galaxy.

This prompts Captain Janeway to get the hell out of the area and also order her crew to find a way to destroy the hub. The captain’s reasoning is to stop the Borg once and for all (which makes the crew’s previous Borg encounter “Unimatrix Zero” pointless, as the civil war Janeway attempted to start there obviously didn’t happen). But Admiral Janeway is adamant that they should use the hub to go home immediately, and to that end, she informs her younger self that Seven will die three years later on a mission, and Chakotay, who’ll be married to Seven by then, will be depressed forever afterward (not that he ever seemed happy on the show in the first place). And on top of all that, Tuvok will succumb to a mental condition unless he receives a cure that’s only available in the Alpha Quadrant.

Needless to say, the crew finds a way to (as Captain Janeway puts it) have their cake and eat it too. Admiral Janeway boards the Borg ship and gets assimilated by the Borg Queen (Alice Krige). But it all turns out to be a trick, as Voyager manages to (somehow) blow up everything Borg and arrive home, just as the end credits come up (literally).

Xena: Warrior Princess: “A Friend in Need”

Xena‘s finale begins with Xena and Gabrielle enjoying a starry evening. For some reason, Xena decides that a change of scenery is in order and recommends they go to Egypt (I guess she liked the pyramids during her previous visit there in “Antony & Cleopatra”).

They’re interrupted by the appearance of a young man named Kenji (Mac Jeffrey Ong), who informs Xena that a woman from Japan named Akemi (Michelle Ang) sent him to find her. On the boat taking them there, Xena informs Gabrielle that she first met Akemi while in China with her lover Borias (Marton Csokas). Xena and Akemi eventually became friends, with Xena teaching her that famous pinch, to Gabrielle’s chagrin, as she was never taught it.

Our heroines arrive to find the city of Higuchi in flames and surrounded by an army. They and Kenji swim to shore. As they save the city, Xena further reveals that Akemi’s father is Yodoshi, who is an evil ghost who enslaves the souls of the dead. Xena also states that Akemi killed Yodoshi, but then committed ritual suicide for doing so. This led Xena to fulfill Akemi’s wish, which was to take her ashes to her family shrine. En route, however, townspeople attempted to stop Xena, which led to Akemi’s ashes ending up in a gutter. This led to Xena grabbing a torch to fight off the angry mob, which in turn led to the city going up in flames.

In the present, Xena elects to fight the approaching army alone, and allows herself to be killed by Yodoshi’s general Morimoto (Venant Wong) in order to fight Yodoshi. Gabrielle soon realizes that Xena is dead when she finds Xena’s severed head and learns of a method that can restore her to life. But that method must be used before the sun sets.

But even as a ghost, Xena is able to fight armies practically with one hand tied behind her back. However, as this is the final episode, there’s a twist. After Yodoshi is vanquished and Gabrielle attempts to revive Xena, the Warrior Princess stops her. She informs Gabrielle that the souls of those who died when she accidentally set Akemi’s town on fire must be freed, and that’s only possible if Xena stays dead.

Saddened, Gabrielle begs Xena to not let this be, but Xena assures her she’ll always be with her (although it sounds like Xena will be with Akemi more). As the sun sets, Xena fades away. The series concludes with Gabrielle on a boat telling Xena’s ghost that she’ll go to Egypt (hopefully Gabrielle will at least keep in touch with her sister). Xena repeats her spew that she’ll always be by her side, as the boat sails off.

Which finale was the bigger letdown?

By the start of its seventh season, Voyager and disappointment were as common a combination as spaghetti and meatballs. So it’s not really surprising that “Endgame” was simply a rehash of all the things that didn’t exactly endear the series to Trek fans, such as time travel, technobabble, making the Borg less scary, visuals tossed onto the screen just because they look cool, and of course, that infamous reset button.

The only difference is that this time, the ship actually makes it home. But even any impact that may have had is diminished by the fact that we barely see the ship in the Alpha Quadrant. The ending credits of the episode are shown and the episode fades to black when we barely see Voyager coming towards Earth.

Even more damning are the lengths Admiral Janeway is willing to go to in order to make things better. Yes, she’s basically saving three of the regulars from a tragic fate, but she’s also erasing 26 years of history in the process. At the beginning of the episode, we see the daughter of Naomi Wildman at the Voyager reunion. This young girl has now been erased from history thanks to Admiral Janeway’s actions. There’s also the fact that all the crew members who died during the course of the series before “Endgame” don’t get so much as lip service here. At least when Superman turned back time to bring Lois back to life in the original 1978 movie, it was only a matter of moments. That, and the great job Christopher Reeve did at putting the needed angst into the scene, allowed audiences to accept that moment in the film, even though it was ludicrous. “Endgame”, however, is basically an amplification of Janeway’s blatant disregard for others, only this time it’s on her own personal whim and not due to any Starfleet regulations.

Ironically, Xena‘s finale is actually the more disappointing of the two. Because while “Endgame” is basically the same old/same old, “A Friend in Need” basically spits in the face of everything the series established. Xena and Gabrielle’s friendship became the core of the show (and the subtext many took from that relationship only added to the appeal). So it’s quite disheartening when Xena tells Gabrielle that she must leave her, even though previous episodes would’ve gone out of their way to have the two remain united.

There’s also the fact that, with this show taking place in Japan (that moment with the mushroom cloud was in very poor taste, by the way), we have another Xena backstory that Gabrielle knows nothing about, even though one would think she and Xena know all about each other by this point. And why didn’t Xena ever teach her the pinch, anyway? Also, considering that this series had its share of story arcs, this sudden trip to Japan just comes out of nowhere. In contrast, both the finales for TNG (“All Good Things…”) and DS9 (“What You Leave Behind”) felt like the culmination of those respective series.

At the time of Xena‘s run, I frequently visited the show’s official message boards. Within days of airing, “A Friend in Need” generated such discontent from fans on that board that I’m surprised the whole website didn’t implode. An exaggeration, yes, but I honestly doubt there was a single Xena fan who tuned into the finale expecting to see her decapitated.

Xena was definitely the better show, and perhaps this is what makes “A Friend in Need” all the more terrible, and definitely the worse of the two finales.