About This Quiz
In the annals of TV's very slow and frustrating crawl toward better representation of women, and of female heroes in particular, three shows of the 1990s stand head and shoulders above the rest. The first had a mighty franchise on which to stand: "Star Trek: Voyager", which featured the first female captain of a Starfleet vessel. Another was "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," which took all the horrors of high school and turned them into the horrors of, well, horror, elevating the most typical victim - the virginal, beautiful blonde - to the hero who saves the day. Third, and earliest to debut, was "Xena: Warrior Princess." This iconic show was a spin-off from a previous, modestly successful TV show about Hercules, and soon surpassed its predecessor, becoming a cult favorite.
If you were a girl - or simply a boy who isn't threatened by strong women - then Xena will have meant everything to you. She is tough and witty; she's not afraid to face overwhelming odds; she doesn't sit around waiting for a man to save the day. She's loyal to her friends and she fights for right. However, she's not perfect and she makes mistakes for which she has to atone, making her ultimately deeply relatable.
How well do you remember this gloriously campy role model? Let's find out!
The show premiered on Sept. 4 1995. It was a couple of years ahead of the other big "girl power" shows of the decade.
Advertisement
Lucy Lawless is an Australian-born actress who wasn't hugely recognized before she got the role of Xena. Since then, she has became a cult favorite.
Advertisement
Thrace is in ancient Bulgaria. It's just over the mountains from Greece, which in the period the show is set, was a warring collection of city-states.
Advertisement
Xena appeared in three episodes and was supposed to die. However, she was such a big hit that she got her own show instead.
Advertisement
The show is set in Ancient Greece during Roman times. However, it does venture far overseas.
Advertisement
Cleopatra appears as a recurring character on the show. She is eventually killed by Brutus.
Advertisement
Xena encounters the River Styx, the famous barrier to the afterlife. The boatman Charon ferries the dead from one side to the other.
Advertisement
Elysian Fields are where humans go when they die, if they are really heroic. It's considered a lot better than ending up in Hades.
Advertisement
Gods are usually depicted as humans who manifest that god's extreme characteristics. For example the goddess of love, Aphrodite, is a rather whiny, uptalking Valley Girl.
Advertisement
Xena's fantasy setting enabled the show to move between all sorts of genres. This included musical episodes. However, film noir was never used.
Advertisement
The show moves between countries very fluidly. This means it's very easy for it to go between different religious pantheons.
Advertisement
LoDuca won the Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition for the score to Xena. This includes two musical episodes.
Advertisement
Redemption is Xena's motivation. She seeks to balance the scales after having done terrible things in her past, that are initially a mystery in the show.
Advertisement
Callisto is out for revenge for Xena burning her village, Cirra, to the ground. She has now gone insane and seeks revenge on far more than just Xena.
Advertisement
Thre Greek god of war is depicted as suave and witty, but he is utterly amoral. He loves Xena, but they have a complicated relationship due to his ethical lapses.
Advertisement
This was in season two. Caesar is captured by Xena but is not afraid of her. Later on, he ascends to power.
Advertisement
Alti is an Amazon shamaness. She was driven out of her tribe, which hails from Siberia, by her penchant for black magic including using a magical stare to force a person's worst memories to take them over again.
Advertisement
After the death of Solan's father, Borias, Xena gave her son to the centaurs. Solan did not initially know that Xena was his mother.
Advertisement
Hope is the daughter of Gabrielle and the dark god Dahak. She becomes evil and kills Solan, Xena's son.
Advertisement
Ares puts them to sleep, meaning they miss out on the young life of Eve, Xena's daughter. Octavius, a Roman nobleman, adopts Eve and raises her as Livia.
Advertisement
It's a city in northern Greece. Like most of the show's locations, it is fictional but has a basis in real Greek cities, usually amalgamated.
Advertisement
This is a rural fishing village. It's in a number of episodes and is set in the real northern Greek region of Chalkidiki.
Advertisement
"Send in the Clones" is an episode from season 6 that goes down a very different path then earlier seasons. The other three episodes all feature ancient Greece and its capital city of Athens.
Advertisement
This book covers the canon for the first two seasons. The book covering all six seasons is "Xena Warrior Princess: Complete Illustrated Companion".
Advertisement
This game began in 1998 and sadly closed in 2015 as a MMORPG. It still has a fanbase out there, though!
Advertisement
Renaissance Pictures was the producers' company that handled the actual creation of the show. The network was then Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy).
Advertisement
Xena is considered an LGBTQ icon. However, it's never actually clear whether she is herself gay, or whether she isn't.
Advertisement
Robert Tapert is the founder of both Renaissance Pictures and Ghost House Pictures. He is also the husband of Lucy Lawless!
Advertisement
Raimi was noted for the Evil Dead films. They were a super campy and funny set of horror movies starring Bruce "If Chins Could Kill" Campbell.
Advertisement
Vanessa Angel was noted from the TV adaptation of "Weird Science". Since missing out on Xena, she hasn't done a great deal of high-profile work.
Advertisement
Lawless fell off a horse. A body-switchplot device meant that Xena's spirit passed into other characters so that the producers didn't have to stop filming while Lawless recovered.
Advertisement
The episode was so clumsy in its depiction of Indian religion that it resulted in protests. It resulted in a re-editing of the episode and an introduction in which Lawless emphasized the respect intended toward the Hindu faith.
Advertisement
This was a joke in the credits on the episode "Mortal Beloved." The full line was, "No Winged Harpies were harmed or sent to a fiery grave during the production of this motion picture."
Advertisement
Poseidon was never meant to appear outside the credits, as making him actually work was beyond the capacity of 1990s CGI. As a result, he was just made for the credits.
Advertisement
Just five episodes had female directors, with Renee O'Connor directing two episodes. This was obviously hypocritical for a show about female empowerment, and producers blamed a weak pipeline of talent. This excuse would happily no longer fly due to a larger talent pool.
Advertisement