15: 2x03-04 "The Giant Killer" & "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"

Join us for a Bacchanalia on this week’s XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST! First Vera, Katie, and Livy debate whether 2x03 “The Giant Killer” is a gigantic waste of time or maybe only a tiny bit bad? Sure the pace is slow and the plot predictable, but there's also a significant close-up of Xena and Gabrielle holding hands, plus the novelty of seeing Gabs friend-zoned by her own BOTW! Then we sink our fangs into the trippy frightfest that is 2x04 “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” the show's unique take on the Lesbian Vampire trope. We discuss the horror film history of transgressive female sexuality, the self-defeating short-sightedness of the patriarchy, and how Renée O’Connor would kill it as a Deadite.

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14: 2x01-02 "Orphan of War" & "Remember Nothing"

On this week’s XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST, Season 2 here we come! Vera, Katie, and Livy discuss 2x01, “Orphan of War” and 2x02, “Remember Nothing,” both very juicy episodes about the people Xena loves. And foremost among them...wait for it...wait for it...is the Great Borias! We investigate how one man can be so great (spoiler alert: he can’t). Plus lots of juicy interpersonal drama as Xena’s son Solan is introduced, bringing to the fore Xena and Gabrielle’s differing feelings about motherhood. Then to cap it off, in the second ep we finally meet Xena’s brother Lyceus, who is a peach, and her fiance Maphias, who is ok...ish. He’s no Borias, let’s just say that. But who cares about all these men anyway when you’ve got Gabrielle and Chekhov’s blood innocence about to go off! 😱

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Minisode 01: New Zealand!

Welcome to our very first XWPodcast MINISODE! For each one of these we'll be exploring bigger/broader topics as related to Xena: Warrior Princess in even more glorious detail than in our regular Monday show (which means we'll be talking freely about the series as a whole, so beware of spoilers!). Today, we're traveling through the gateway to Antarctica Middle Earth Ancient Greece: New Zealand! XWP and Hercules: TLJ were on the ground floor for US-backed fantasy productions in NZ, and we can't even imagine what Xena would look like filmed anywhere else. Join Vera, Katie, and Livy as we discuss New Zealand's stunning landscape and its significance to the Xenaverse, as well as to other Hollywood-produced fantasy genre aesthetics (for example, that little trilogy based on a series of books that dropped on the scene a few years later...).

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13: 1x23-24 "Death Mask" & "Is There a Doctor in the House?"

Charge those defibrillators, it’s time for another episode of XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST..."STAT!" This is a milestone week as Vera, Katie, and Livy reach the end of the first season! But before we can celebrate, we find ourselves DISAAAAPPOINTED by 1x23 “Death Mask,” an episode that looks juicy on paper with its focus on Xena’s origin story and family ties, but poor choices in writing, directing, and casting combine to make this story a real snooze (boob flex notwithstanding). Then it’s on to 1x24, “Is There a Doctor in the House?” We discuss this unconventional finale as a bottle episode, as a medical procedural in the mold of ER, and as an anti-war, anti-violence mission statement -- before it abruptly becomes a first-rate operatic melodrama and gets us all misty-eyed. Ah, the miracle of TV CPR!!!

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12: 1x22 "Callisto"

This week on XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST--AAAIIIEEEEEEEEE!!! We’re screaming because it’s time to talk about 1x22, “Callisto!” Vera, Katie, and Livy take on the titular character in all her glory, discussing the ways in which her physicality, costuming, dialogue, and camera framing all add to her complexity as a villain/monster/victim/foil/you name it she is it. When we can pull ourselves away from talking about Callisto, we also explore the experimentalism of director TJ Scott, Joxer’s controversial role in the Xenaverse, and the significance of who gets to, uh, finger Xena’s chakram.

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