Xena: Warrior Princess

Season 5

Xena [Season 5, Episode 1] Fallen Angel
Shown 27 Sep 99

Joxer, Eli and Amarice ( Jennifer Sky ) recover the bodies from the crucifixes.

Callisto and St Michael watch and plot ...

Xena [Season 5, Episode 2] Chakram
Shown 4 Oct 99

Joxer, Eli and Amarice ( Jennifer Sky ) guest-star.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 3] Succession
Shown 11 Oct 99

Ares has a new groupie, who calls herself The Mavican ( Jenya Leno ). She duels Xena to the death. Unfortunately, Xena and Gabrielle are trapped in the same body so they are not at peak fighting condition.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 4] Animal Attraction
Shown 18 Oct 99

Xena and Gabby arrive at a western town, complete with cowboy hats made out of leather. The Sheriff is Alison Bruce .

Xena [Season 5, Episode 5] Them Bones, Them Bones
Shown 1 Nov 99

Xena is pregnant. She, Gabby and Amarice ( Jennifer Sky ) go to the Northern Amazons. Alti makes her presence known.

Gabby assures Xena I love your child like it's my own. Somehow the entire story Arc with Solan and Hope is forgotten!

Xena [Season 5, Episode 6] Purity
Shown 8 Nov 99

Lao Ma had a daughter ... or two.

Xena, Gabby and Joxer go after Lao Ma's book and daughter. Can Joxer work out the formula for gunpowder? Well, he might be a terrible warrior but he is a great chef.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 7] Back in the Bottle
Shown 15 Nov 99

Genghis Khan has been given the gunpowder formula by the ghosts of Lao Ma's two evil children. Each warrior in his army is told the formula, and there are a hundred thousand men in the army! Xena is up against the ghosts of Lao Ma's two evil kids, the Khan himself and a hundred thousand soldiers.

Xena has visions of Gabby and Joxer's deaths.

Did Chin become a desert? And what about Gabby's Chinese BF?

Is it worth killing a hundred thousand soldiers (a virtual act of genocide, as each warrior will have about ten civilians depending on him as breadwinner) just to keep the gunpowder formula a secret? After all, if Joxer can work out what the formula is then pretty much anyone (well, any decent chef or alchemist) can easily do the same.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 8] Little Problems
Shown 22 Nov 99

Xena and Gabby prevent a Warlord’s thugs from looting the temple of Aphrodite ( Alexandra Tydings ). How nice, considering Xena’s later role in destroying the gods of Olympus. To return the favour, Aphrodite gives Xena a body-swop with a pre-teen girl ( Rose McIver ). The result is that the heavily pregnant Lucy Lawless appears only in a couple of scenes, in reflective surfaces that the girl she possesses looks at.

Aphrodite helps Gabby ( Twins ).

The villain wears an iron mask. The fights and acting are crap.

Dialogue includes - Gut a fish?
Think of them as really mean trout.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 9] Seeds of Faith
Shown 10 Jan 00

Ares faces off against Eli. Eli is willing to sacrifice himself - after all, the Angel Callisto ( Hudson Leick ) tells him it is okay. However, like all good suicide cults his followers seem intent on joining him. Ares has an army on the way, ready to destroy the town. Of course, Xena can stop the army herself. She already genocided the Mongol Horde this Season, so a small army of Greek warriors should be no problem.

We are told that Gods don't have Love - what about Aphrodite?

After Eli’s martyrdom, Xena and Gabby do not know how to react. It has already been established in the show that Xena’s path was the Way of the Warrior - pagan, rather than Xian - and that she and Gabby would follow each other as soul-mates through pagan reincarnation rather than get stuck in Xian heaven.

The show’s phony disclaimer at the end of the episode best sums up the hypocrisy: Due to Eli’s non-violent ways, many lives were lost in the making of this motion picture.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 10] Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire
Shown 17 Jan 00

Drago the Warlord (Jay Laogiaia - Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ) discovers a magical lyre in a ruined temple … on Amazon land. Xena intervenes and creates a Battle of the Bands in the nearby town. Musicians come from all over to compete. The lyre, created by Terpsichord the god of Music, is the prize. This illustrates how vital the Olympian gods are to the mythical, legendary world that Xena and her friends are so privileged to live in. A pity that she and Hercules are so keen to end it all.

The storyline is basically an excuse to have a relatively big-budget musical episode. It is a Jukebox Show, with a lot of familiar hits rather than original songs. Drago also has a guitar-cum flamethrower, like the one used in Mad Max: Fury Road .

Jace, Joxer’s twin brother, joins the contest. No mention is made of Jett, Joxer’s OTHER twin brother - an assassin last seen imprisoned for his part in a plot to kill Cleopatra. Jace flounces about and uses a dodgy Spanish accent, evoking lots of negative stereotypes about homosexual people. But given this show’s core audience, the intent is to support the gay community and not to mock it.

Joxer wins the attentions of the leader of the Amazon war-band, while Gabby fends off Drago (who is infactuated with her due to a spell). Xena’s mother is in town, fixing her up with every acceptable man she meets.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 11] Punch Lines
Shown 24 Jan 00

This is a Flashback ep, featuring Xena's bad temper and the rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail . Gabby recounts her previous adventure to Aphrodite ( Alexandra Tydings ). It all started when Gabby washed Xena’s horse, Argo, in a spring that was sacred to the god of misery, Lachrimose. The god shrank the horse, and to persuade him to reverse the spell she agreed to make him laugh.

Xena has doubts about motherhood. Aphrodite holds a slumber party.

This is basically a clip show, with lots of slapstick scenes from the first three Seasons. But since the lead actress ( Lucy Lawless ) was heavily pregnant when this was filmed, this was a good way to give her less screen time.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 12] God Fearing Child
Shown 31 Jan 00

Xena is about to give birth. She remembers Solon's labour pains. Zeus, King of the Gods of Olympus, sends his priests out to assassinate her. When Hercules (Kevin Sorbo - Andromeda ) interferes, Zeus even gives Ares permission to get rid of him.

Xena realises she will have to kill Zeus first. The established ways of killing Greek Gods (a Hinds blood dagger, or the magic dagger that Xena almost killed Ares with) are ignored. Did Xena discard the Ares-killing blade? She at least remembers about the invisibility helmet she used in Season One. Xena and Gabby descend into Tartarus, to steal the helmet from Hades.

Hercules (Kevin Sorbo - Andromeda ) ties up loose ends from his own show.

Hera ( Meg Foster ) is back!

This is a morally bankrupt ep that invents a NEW way to kill a God!

Xena [Season 5, Episode 13] Eternal Bonds
Shown 7 Feb 00

The Priests of the Gods are after Eve.

Ares (Kevin Smith) helps Xena.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 14] Amphipolis Under Siege
Shown 14 Feb 00

Athena ( Paris Jefferson ) and her GF ( Musetta Vander ) lead a mixed army of Romans and Egyptians to besiege Amphipolis.

There's no War is Evil message - Xena refuses to negotiate!

Xena [Season 5, Episode 15] Married with Fishsticks
Shown 21 Feb 00

Gabby is a Mermaid, living with Joxer, Aphrodite, Discord and some Hawaiian MerMen.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 16] Lifeblood
Shown 13 Mar 00

Gabby, writing in the Xena Scrolls, narrates the tale of Xena and Gabby taking baby Eve to the Northern Amazons, safe from the wrath of the Greek gods. They arrive as a funeral is taking place - some recurring characters have been written out and killed during an off-screen battle with nomads, possibly Xena’s friends in The Horde. Amarice ( Jennifer Sky ) gets a mention, though she does not appear on-screen.

Gabby’s rites as Queen of the Amazons are paralleled with the story of the creation of the first Amazon tribe. This is completely different from the story in Hercules and the Amazons , but it is actually quite good so who cares?

Back in prehistory, a tribe of cave-men were wiped out by cannibals. Only the women remained, led by Claudia Black and the most familiar Amazon face of all, Danielle Cormack . Their shaman summoned the ultimate warrior from the future, but instead they got the first Cyane ( Selma Blair ). Like most time-travellers she comes from 1985 or thereabouts. She has no fighting skills, but she has a few tricks from the Twentieth Century that helps the tribe. For example, she can ride a horse while the Amazons just ate them. Then she meets friendly cave-man Karl Urban ( Judge Dredd )!

Will there be a happy ending? Will the Amazon’s traditional pagan baptism of blood be replaced with a more modern, Xian-style water baptism?

This was directed by Michael Hurst.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 17] Kindred Spirits
Shown 20 Mar 00

Xena and Gabby are still in the Amazon village, where Gabby is officially appointed Queen of the Amazons. Xena and the baby have to carry on without her. Unfortunately Joxer has been caught peeping on the Amazons who were bathing naked in the river.

The ultimate crime for Amazons is mating out of season. The fact that Joxer is chained up and defenceless (even more than usual) is not even mentioned. The punishment is execution by combat with the Amazon Queen - or her Champion. Joxer faces trial by combat with the Queen’s Champion (Xena) in American-style comedy wrestling.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 18] Antony & Cleopatra
Shown 17 Apr 00

With Caesar dead, the known world is torn by civil war. Brutus, Mark Anthony and Octavian compete for control of Egypt.

Xena replaces Cleopatra (who used to look like Gina Torres but has been whitewashed into a Caucasian actress). She then seduces Mark Anthony (Manu Bennett - also one of Lucy’s love interests in Spartacus: Blood and Sand ), and moralises hypocritically.

Gabby negotiates with Brutus, and has to take responsibility for her own actions.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 19] Looking Death in the Eye
Shown 24 Apr 00

In the future, Joxer has a son with Meg (the Xena lookalike).

Eve is with Octavius (the Grooslug from Angel ).

Death seeks a Rightful time ...

Xena [Season 5, Episode 20] Livia
[reviewed September 2000] This is the first part of a 3-parter.

Xena and Gabby come back from the dead, 25 years later. Gabby is now butch and sexy, and fights with ju-jitsu Sai forks instead of her trusty old staff. Xena has a new chakram with an "S" design in the centre.

Joxer and Meg (the Xena lookalike) are married and run a tavern. They have a son called Virgil - yes, THAT Virgil. Xena mounts up on Argo's daughter and rides off in search of her own daughter.

Xena looks for her Roman friend, Octavius, in whose care she left her daughter Eve. Eve has Xena's genes and Callisto's spirit - though an entirely new actress has been chosen to play her. The newcomer ( Adrienne Wilkinson ) looks more like Vanessa Angel , the actress originally cast for the role of Xena; she is skinny with lots of cleavage.

Rome is now ruled by Emperor Augustus - and anyone who knows who Octavian was in RL will realise what has happened. Augustus has a female General, Livia, who serves Ares. Hmm, I wonder what happened to Octavius and Eve.

Ares and the other gods want to kill Eve - she is the Bringer of Twilight, and will bring an end to the gods of Olympus. Ares (who now has much shorter hair) still wants Xena to be his woman.

Livia persecutes the followers of Eli, and when Joxer comits sacrilege against Ares (and Virgil and Gabby beat up some guards) they are arrested too. Livia and Xena duel to save the captive Eli-followers. This time, instead of the usual martial arts fighting, there is excessive use of wire-fighting.

Xena [Season 5, Episode 21] Eve
[reviewed ]

Xena [Season 5, Episode 22 - finale] Motherhood
[reviewed September 2000]

This is the climax of a 3-part story that began with Livia

The episode starts with Livia lost in the desert, followed by Xena and Gabby. She is attacked by Tuareg tribesmen. Luckily, Xena's new chakram splits in 2 and re-joins in mid-air.

The 3 babes encounter people of Eli's faith, and try to make Livia cheer up with a baptism.

Meanwhile, up in Olympus, Athena ( Paris Jefferson ) is now leader of the gods. She decides to send the Furies after Gabrielle, to drive her insane and have her kill Livia.

The gods are now mortal - they can bleed and die. Ares' sidekicks, Discord and Diemos (who looks like Stryfe, back from the dead), do their best to take out Xena. However, all they can manage is a few fireballs. They are now the equivalent of low-level Mages in AD&D.

On a good note, we finally get a climax to Ares' relationship with Xena. Sort of. He finally lets her know his feelings for her. Note - this shows how out-of-line the climax of Season 3 was with the rest of the series!

Xena [Season 5, Episode 1 ]
Shown