Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001)
9/10
A Dynamic, Adventurous, Great Childhood Thrill Ride!
21 May 2014
Warning: Spoilers
When you're young, there are many faces that you may look up to on television. As much of a boy as I was, it wasn't Spiderman, Superman, Batman or even Wonderwoman that I looked up to, it was Xena Warrior Princess that inspired me and made me respect strong woman from so young an age. After all, it was the first time a woman got such a strong leading role on television. It paved the way for women on TV, that's for sure.

Xena Warrior Princess was my childhood heroine. She was everything to me when I was a kid. At home and during recess at elementary school, I was so obsessed with her portrayal as an exceptionally skillful warrior woman that I began doing her battle cries, flipped myself to perform cartwheels and threw frisbees pretending they were her signature chakram weapon. I just loved this woman so much.

The show itself, based in an historically ancient time in Greece, taught me values about the importance of strong relationships, respect, will power, forgiveness and perception. What made it even more intriguing were the well composed soundtracks, the implementation of a bit of Indian culture and of course, all of Xena's abilities were fun and spectacular to see depicted and played out.

Here was this extraordinary unearthly warrior woman looking to make amends for a sinful past and as a result, she is betrayed by her own army. From there, she finds and bonds with her best friend and bard girl, Gabrielle, and they evolve as characters and head off for a sometimes wacky, but heavily dramatic, war-filled and emotional roller coaster ride, dealing with some friendly but many threatening forces along the way.

Callisto has to be the single greatest female villain on the show and arguably of all time. The character's back story of surviving a village fire that barbecued her family because of Xena and her army was heartbreaking and it fit greatly with reminding Xena about how heinous her actions of the past were. Put that together with how unstable, psychotic, cold and vengeful Callisto is in the show and you'd agree. Also, Xena's fights with Callisto were some of the most heated and amazing girl fighting sequences.

The show did have some challenges in the special effects department in the early seasons, but I was glad they enhanced it a ton as the seasons carried on. The only season I was barely fond of was the final 6th season. It just didn't live up to my fondness of the past seasons and felt like a departure from the true essence of the show. The ending was realistic in that anyone that lives by the sword, will die by the sword. It was just unfortunate Gabrielle was left lonesome instead of dying along with her soul mate, Xena.

Rating: 9/10
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