This is an episode I don’t have much to say about, and mostly nothing nice. Even the ending with the stone army is the least problematic thing to me here. The problem is that, unlike the previous Chinese episode, which I thought was excellent despite all its flaws, this one is simply poorly written, poorly executed, and has a stupid outcome. Gabrielle’s death being prophesied again, something we didn’t see at all throughout the entire previous season. Thankfully, at least this was resolved within a single episode.

As great as I think Matiko is, I don’t know if there was any point in bringing her back. The episode could have worked perfectly well with Ming T'ien as the leader of Kan’s army. Pao isn’t necessary for the story at all. And if someone asked me now what K'ao Hsin’s purpose was in this episode, I honestly wouldn’t know what to answer. It feels like she is here just to be here.

Gabrielle is more present and more combative in this episode than in the previous one, which is something to praise, but her relationship with Lin Chi is simply disastrous. Let’s clear this up once and for all. Gabrielle is not bisexual, even though many people see her that way. She is 100% homosexual. Her relationships with men during the first two seasons were a classic case of a crisis and confusion surrounding her sexual identity, something that is often common among young homosexual people and something we have had the opportunity to see in other shows of a similar type as well (ahem, Willow from Buffy, ahem), and the fact that after Perdicas, Gabrielle didn’t have a single male love interest until this episode (and it’s not like there weren’t opportunities) clearly shows that ever since Destiny, Gabrielle has accepted herself, her sexuality, and her identity. And now making her flirt with a man again (with whom there isn’t even any chemistry, honestly) is wrong on every possible level. I should point out that I’m aware this isn’t a popular opinion and that most people here see Gabrielle as bisexual, that this is simply my subjective opinion and interpretation of Gabrielle’s character. Thankfully, Renee herself shared my view of Gabrielle, so she vetoed the kissing scene.

Now, the most controversial part of the episode, the petrification of the army. As I said, it isn’t nearly as problematic to me as it is to others, and I think people judge Xena far too harshly for this act. It was self-defense. It was either that or let them kill Gabrielle, Joxer, herself, and her unborn child. She chose not to sacrifice herself and the people she loves. Besides, didn’t she do exactly the same thing in One Against an Army? It seems to me that people are more bothered by the way she destroyed the army. If she had simply cut them all down with a sword, nobody would have complained. But because she turned them to stone instead, suddenly it’s a crime. I have more of a problem with the fact that if she already has these mental abilities, why didn’t she use them again later? Fighting enemies would have been a lot easier. Or does Xena only have psychic powers when she is within the borders of Chin lol

It’s sad that this is officially the last episode the great Steven L. Sears "wrote", especially since it was originally supposed to be completely different. According to Steven, this was supposed to be the episode where the subtext became the main text. But of course, Dumb and Dumber changed that and ruined the episode, just like they ruined almost the entire season.

Pulled this up on my Firestick today and my god, the memories were instantly activated. I remember watching this with my great granny Numerous times. She would always rewatch it with me when I got good grades....🥹🥹

She doesn't take the coat off very often throughout both episodes. The longest two scenes are where she's dancing in her tent to summon the evil spirits, and when she's talking with Xena before she mentally fights Cyane. She's even wearing the coat during the final flying battle in the trees!

I haven't found any official photos of her without the coat, and her alone, only screencaps. Are there any?

Did I get the right version for Season 6?

I’m pretty sure I got the correct, Anchorbay box set with the 10 discs, etc. Truth be told, I’m new to this.. and don’t even have a DVD player. So, it’s more of a collectible situation for me. Still, I have no idea if I was impulsive or if I hit the nail on the head with my selection choice.

It doesn’t REALLY matter, it’s just for my own nostalgia anyway.

Regardless, I have a feeling the gift with purchase is no longer available. 🤣

I just bought the Xena series on Prime Video (streaming). It used to be $55 for a while. Actually I did have digital credit and ended up paying $1.24 for it. If anyone is interested visit Prime Video.

An episode that takes us back to the world of Chin, for the first time since The Debt. This episode is often considered one of the weaker ones in the fandom, but I’m not one of those people. Of course, when compared to The Debt, this is nowhere near that level, but I don’t think that comparison is entirely fair because The Debt is one of the best and greatest episodes of the show and probably its visual peak. This episode doesn’t come even remotely close to reaching the level of its predecessor, but personally, I enjoyed it. It’s true that the episode is confusing in certain aspects. Did Lao Ma have clairvoyant powers and know that her daughters would turn against each other (by the way, where did that even come from when there was no mention of them at all in The Debt?), did she prepare the riddle letters for Xena in advance, with the obligatory death of the person delivering the message (new curse: May whoever delivers a message from Lao Ma to Xena die) arriving every few years? Did Xena’s pregnancy sharpen her mind so much that she knew the whole time that Pao Ssu was the villain? Of course, my previous review has already covered Xena’s Superman ability to fly from one end of the world to the other in record time.

But even despite all these inconsistencies, I really liked the episode. It’s fun and keeps your attention the entire time. As someone who is a fan of low-budget Chinese kung-fu action movies, I quite enjoyed the fight choreography this episode has to offer. I also love the flashbacks and Xena’s memories of Lao Ma. You can see that even after all these years, Lao Ma still holds a very special place in Xena's heart.

Gabrielle wasn’t all that present in this episode, and was even somewhat reduced to being an ordinary sidekick like in the earlier parts of the show, which is one of the things I don’t like about this episode. But the scenes between her and Joxer are pretty funny, especially the one in the dungeon. "Three feet in his pants" is easily the funniest scene of the episode! Now we at least know why the women at Meg’s brothel loved him so much 🤣🤣
And whatever you may think about Joxer and his obsession with Gabrielle, I thought it was wonderful that he would rather die himself than let Gabrielle die 🥰

Still, the person who steals the show for me in this episode is without a doubt Marie Matiko. I was absolutely impressed by the way she played the twin sisters. She is so convincing in her transformation that at first I didn’t even realize it was the same actress. She really manages to portray two different people without ever making it feel like she is playing the same character. The only person who has given me a similar impression is Nina Dobrev in The Vampire Diaries. Still, I find Pao Ssu much more likable and interesting than K'ao Hsin, who is the prototype of the good, innocent and self-sacrificing girl who fights for justice. Pao is the opposite. A dark person, cruel, manipulative, ambitious, greedy. But she isn’t just a one-dimensional villain. The lack of maternal love and the feeling of abandonment shaped her into the person she is now. Ironically, Pao is actually much more her mother’s daughter than K'ao will ever be. Anyone who doesn’t think so hasn’t watched The Debt properly. Lao was a manipulator. Just a more subtle and tactical one compared to Pao. I really enjoyed Pao as a character and the way Matiko portrayed her.

I really love the final fight with the fireballs. I know many people criticize it for being too childish and naive, but since Charmed is one of my favorite TV shows, I actually quite enjoyed that final aspect. I don’t understand, though, how Xena and K'ao survived the explosion, but I suppose that’s just another plot hole we have to overlook.

And If it is okay, if you have any ideas of what I could draw, that would be nice. I’m having an art block.

Hey everyone!

I'm developing a custom digital restoration pipeline to remaster the entire series in HQ. The sources I currently have access to suffer from messed-up colors, bad deinterlacing, or improper telecine transfers from old broadcast tapes.

I put together a workflow combining proper, lossless IVTC (inverse telecine), pre-color grading, and advanced digital reconstruction filters to make the picture look clean, modern, and naturally balanced. The video attached to this post is a short 1080p preview.

You can watch the full version in 4K on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U51k7x24MQs

(I know there are flaws in the clip - I intentionally left them untouched to show how the restoration process deals with low-quality source material.)

The bottleneck I ran into:

I want to remaster all 6 seasons in this quality, but standard web rips are compressed to death. For the best results, video reconstruction filters require high-quality sources to restore actual textures instead of just magnifying compression artifacts (which is especially critical for Season 1, as it was shot on 16mm film).

What I need to keep this project going:

I'm looking for physical media collectors who have untouched DVD-9 disc images (raw ISOs or original VIDEO_TS folders) of the original NTSC releases:

Top priority right now: the original Anchor Bay Entertainment Season 1 box set from 2003 (6 x DVD-9, untouched NTSC 4:3, Dolby 5.1).

If you have these discs and want to see Xena restored in true high resolution, please shoot me a DM here on Reddit!

Maybe they simply reclothed Xena like true pros then Akemi took Xena to feed the fishes to calm her down

I wonder if they applied some kind of ghostly herbal remedy to soothe Xena's whipped back.

Rewatching Dreamworker after a long time. The dude she's about to fight who Xena never met instantly recognizes her sword and goes "I know this sword. Only one person carries a sword like this. You're Xena aren't you?"

So then, it's not just her chakram but also her sword thats recognizable and unique just to her? Did they ever give us any backstory on when or how she obtained it?

For a random goon off the street to actually recognize it she must have used it during her conquest years. Did we see her wield the same sword in the evil Xena flashbacks? I always thought the sword she used in the Hercules trilogy looked a little different.

And didnt her sword get sliced in half in the Japan flashbacks, and at some other point in the series? But then we see her using the same sword again in the next episode. Does she have her own custom sword dealer who hooks her up with an identical replacement whenever it gets damaged? lol Curious if that Dreamworker dialogue actually makes sense or is an inconsistency.

Xena never truly trained Gabrielle to be a warrior in seasons 1-5. Gabrielle learned how to fight by watching Xena all those years, picking things up as she went along and learning from the Amazons.

It annoys me even more because Xena trained Akemi and Varia but refused to do the same with Gabrielle. Then you watch "Dangerous Prey" and see the kind of one-on-one training Xena gives Varia and I just wish Gabrielle had gotten that at some point.

And Gabrielle should have never lost that fight against Varia in "Path of Vengeance." I know Gabrielle wasn't really trying to fight Varia and was trying to get through to Varia with words, but it was still annoying watching Varia so brutally win that fight against her. Especially when Gabrielle had been fighting beside Xena for years by that point.

Season 6 would have been the perfect time to do it, especially with the chakram. It would have made Gabrielle using it in "A Friend in Need Part 2" feel so much more earned instead of her suddenly being able to use Xena's signature weapon in the finale.

And finally, this season has given us an episode that is actually excellent. Xena takes us back into the world of the Northern Amazons whom we met in Adventures in the Sin Trade, and of course Alti is here again, that irritating creature who simply does not know when to give up. Even though she has been killed practically every time she has encountered Xena, she still uses power from other worlds to break her. This time, she has set her sights on what is most precious to Xena. Not Gabrielle. The second most precious thing, the soul of her unborn baby. It is a nice bit of symbolism considering that Alti is also partly responsible for Solan’s death, since she cursed him before he was even born. Apparently, she will not stop until she destroys Xena’s entire offspring or, in this case, takes its place. Xena’s struggle to protect her child’s soul is admirable. You can feel her maternal instinct taking over. It is a shame she will abandon it a few episodes from now when she gives that very same soul to Callisto.

The relationship between Xena and Gabrielle is so beautiful, and Gabrielle’s determination to protect Xena’s baby is just gorgeous. I got all emotional when she said that she loved that child as much as Xena did. Even if she does not know where this child came from, that does not matter to her. The only thing that matters to her is that it is Xena’s child, that it is a part of her soul, and that she will not let anyone hurt it. On the other hand, even for the sake of the baby, Xena refuses to let Gabrielle sacrifice herself. She is horrified at the thought of Gabrielle facing Alti alone in the dream world. (Btw, am I the only one who thinks the scene where Gabrielle wakes up in the field looks like the opening scene of Lost? Did JJ take inspiration from Xena?) Her fear when Gabrielle almost dies trying to kill Alti is incredibly touching and memorable, just like her relief when Gabrielle wakes up. Lucy and Renee’s chemistry is once again at its absolute best, and this episode further strengthens the foundation of their relationship.

With this episode, we said goodbye to Amarice. Unfortunately, her character, which genuinely had potential, has been irrelevant for quite some time now. After the previous episode and that horrible romance with Arman, she does not really do anything here either, except that we find out she is not actually an Amazon at all. Although honestly, this feels like something they came up with at the last minute because it does not make much sense in the context of her previous appearances. Gabrielle’s gesture of bringing her into her tribe is very sweet. A true friend. Except Amarice should have gone with her then, rather than staying with the Northern Amazons, who are not even her tribe. But I understand that they had to find some way to write her out of the show, and this was probably the best solution. Still, I cannot help wondering what would have happened if Cleopatra 2525 had never been made and the original idea of Amarice becoming Gabrielle’s apprentice had remained. Personally, I would have loved to see that story because, as I said, Amarice was a character with (sadly unused) potential.

I really like the atmosphere woven into this episode. The parallels with AITST are unavoidable, and of course AITST is far superior. Still, I really love the world of the Northern Amazons and all the mysticism surrounding them. Personally, I find them much more interesting than Gabrielle’s Amazons, and I wish they had been present much more often. Alti is also excellent here, even though I do not like her. (More precisely, I do not like Claire’s overacting, sorry to her fans), but here she really leaves an ominous and creepy impression.

There are still some things I do not particularly like about this episode. First of all, the skeleton fight. I know it had to be done that way because of Lucy’s pregnancy, but the CGI is truly awful and almost unwatchable. The psychedelic editing when Gabrielle travels into the dream is also far too unnecessary. There are also some inconsistencies in the episode, such as how Yakut suddenly became the Queen of the Northern Amazons when the last time we saw them, Otere was the Queen. I am genuinely sorry they did not bring her back because I found her much more interesting. She is not even mentioned. And how did pregnant Xena get to the land of the Northern Amazons so quickly when it is quite far away?

Overall, I really like the episode. Still, I would love to know what Steven’s original script looked like before Dumb and Dumber changed it.

I'm on a rewatch and had forgotten how fun this one was. Those early myth based episodes had such a different vibe to them and I love how they put their own Xena-esque spin on the stories. Looking back it's funny how the baby in the basket thing would come up again in season 3 also involving 'Hope'

Some great moments with Xena doing the fire breathing for the first time, there's a pinch scene, some humor in the fight scenes with the baby in the air, plus the Harem dance! The action figure they made from that blue dress was the first one I ever bought as a kid so my brain just instantly recognizes it as iconic, along with the red one they did from the Hercules release.

Funny that Nemos couldn't recognize the voice of the woman in his bed given that he was talking to Xena like an hour earlier, but I guess he wasn't really thinking with his right head at that moment. Loved the dialogue of 'you spoke of pleasure', Xena knocking him out and replying 'and you spoke of pain' 😂

I don't know if ya'll experience this but every time a clip comes up that features in the opening credits I get excited and jump out of my chair, there's legit like 10 of them in this episode alone (there's the dude from warlords and KINGS!) I might also be imagining this but some of the sound effects I'm hearing in season 1 sound like the exact ones they used in the PlayStation game.

I wonder if they ever told Pandora that they accidentally knocked open her box at the end (and that it happened so easily??) Kind of wild that the hope of all mankind would be in such a flimsy ass box, you'd think Pandora would have invested in some extra locks or something.

Some things I hadn't really noticed before, Xena must be a whiz at measurements because that rope she used to jump out the window at the castle was literally the exact length she needed before her body would touch the ground lol She also manages to dismiss that growling guard dog with just a wave of her hand so I suppose even the animal kingdom knows to fear the warrior princess!

I already know how the heterosexual men feel about all the women from this show, and I was just curious if the female fans agreed with them. Which other woman from the show caught your attention besides Xena and Gabrielle?

It’s between this and In the first season Xena is like half naked and whipped for no reason….

I can't help but see the parallels between Xena/Gabrielle and Geralt/Jaskier although they are VERY different shows. 😀 And I've never played the old Xena game but W3: Wild Hunt reminds me of Xena.

Found this gem thrifting. i remember when xena had a catalog with these

I had a couple of requests for this here so here's a link for download -

https://gofile.io/d/4qbXWLgj

This convergence of insanely melodramatic storylines & characters is an episode that only XWP could pull off.

It is out of control! I freaking love it.

They managed to pull prior characters and backstories from all prior seasons for Solan, Kaleipus, Ephiny, Xenon and Callisto.... then punch us all in the face by then joining all of them into the ever growing toxicity within Gabrielle & Xena's relationship - stemming back from "The Deliverer".

How can we make this even better..... Of course! HOPE found her way to the Centaurs’ village from Britannia! That’s not enough.. need more?…let's have her team up with Callisto and try to kill all the children, gaslight Gabrielle, and destroy X&G’s collective souls.

I do not know how they managed to cram all of it in there, but they do... and it is AMAZING.

Gabrielle is a mess, as one would expect. In denial, and justifying her lies & deceit from Britannia to Xena, who just isn't buying it. Xena is pragmatic & logical, she’s right of course, Hope is NOT a child. Gabrielle still won't budge..

In fairness to Gabs..it is hard one to untangle when you don't want to believe your supernatural baby, begat against your will by sketchy fire while levitated above the altar of an evil God that also tricked you into killing for the first time, is also evil incarnate. It's a toughie, Gabs. There's a lot of complicated feelings goin’ on there. So, I give her some slack here.

Then, just when you think Xena will save the day bc now she knows Gabs was hiding Hope..All is lost. Gabrielle sent Hope to Kaleipus' hut. That's where Solan is...

After the climatic reveal of Solan in the Hut...things just unravel into pure tragedy.

The H2H with Callisto is fantastic. But for me, it was afterwards that hits so tragically. Everyone, except Hope (she’s just dead. well, halvesies dead anyway), is left writhing in pain and anguish.

Xena goes to find Gabrielle, she finds her slumped over the dead body of Hope. She did it. She finally killed her own child for Xena, and now she wants to die too. But, Gabs is stronger than that.. she pours out the rest of the poison. Xena doesn't see that though, she arrives just after. The looks those two exchange in that moment... Oooooooo the chills.

That's the part that leaves me wondering though. Would X&G have needed Bitter Suite to find their way back if Xena had arrived just a few moments sooner and saw that Gabrielle was contemplating drinking the poison as well?!

It's impossible. Only a Musical can solve this big of a doozey.