Xena: Warrior Princess-Season 2-Part 1 (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Menu Animation & Audio Gallery-Photo
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	464:45
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (31:00) Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Michael Hurst Gary Jones
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Lucy Lawless Renee O'Connor Ted Raimi Hudson Leick
Case	?
RPI	$69.95	Music	Joseph Lo Duca

    In addition to Xena (Lucy Lawless) and her side-kick Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor), there is the bumbling warrior with delusions of grandeur Joxer (Ted Raimi), and the deliciously evil warrior woman, and Xena's arch nemesis, Callisto (Hudson Leick). In addition there are many, many characters that are common to the world of Hercules and Xena that appear in one or two episodes then disappear for a season before reappearing. It is these appearances that give Xena its main appeal - each time an old guest star returns, it is like meeting an old friend (or enemy), and the sense of continuity that brings is enormous.

    This second season of Xena sees the undercurrent of the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle come a little closer to the surface (so much so that the two actually share an open mouth kiss at one point - albeit by proxy). Their relationship is very much like that of Mulder and Scully from The X-Files - while never spoken of, it is just there. In this series, the two have love interests that are male (there is even a wedding!), but the undercurrent is there, and is quite obvious when looked for.

    The first half of this second season is the weaker half, taking quite a while to recover from its poor start. There are a number of dramatic episodes in this half, however only The Return Of Callisto really succeeds in this department, while the more humorous episodes tend to fall a little flat (although Ten Little Warlords is a good combination episode). It is not until the irreverent Here She Comes...Miss Amphipolis that this series really starts hitting its straps.

    The following are the episode synopses for this half of the season. Just a word of warning, as many events later in the season rely on the earlier episodes, it is impossible to do this without introducing some spoilers. Those picky about that sort of thing are advised to skip the individual episode synopses.

• Orphan of War (42:30) - Xena travels to the land of the Centaurs to help stop an evil war-lord who wants to posses a magical stone that will give him the power to transform into the largest, most evil Centaur to walk the Earth. While there she has a chance to meet the son she gave up to the Centaurs for safe-keeping long ago - a son who is not aware that Xena is his mother.
• Remember Nothing (41:34) - Xena saves a temple to the three fates from a band of marauding warriors, and as a reward is granted a wish. Without realising, Xena asks to change the past such that she never went down the path of her warrior ways, a path that had caused her own brother's death. The wish is granted, but with one provision - if she draws so much as a single drop of blood in anger, the world will revert to the way it is. Seems simple enough? Not when you still have the instincts and memories of Xena the warrior.
• The Giant Killer (42:27) - This is the story of David and Goliath, and the part that no-one knows is that it was Xena who was responsible for the plan that killed Goliath. This is easily the weakest episode in season 2, as it heavy-handedly combines modern religious tales with those of the Greek gods, and it is a very awkward combination indeed, being more embarrassing than interesting.
• Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (42:26) - Xena and Gabrielle are met by Joxer who is carrying the head of Orpheus and a message - Bacchus, the (ah, Roman!) god of wine, has separated Orpheus's head from his body (although the head is still "alive") to stop him from playing his music, and this has allowed his Bacchai followers to roam free and wreak havoc on the world. It is up to Xena to re-unite Orpheus with his body and put a stop to Bacchus forever
• The Return Of Callisto (42:27) - Callisto has escaped from her prison and is on a mission to hurt Xena in the same Xena hurt her. Meanwhile, Gabrielle is reunited with Perdicus who asks her to marry him. Callisto decides to target Gabrielle as a way of getting to Xena, and Xena must ensure that Gabrielle does not loose her innocence and purity in hate.
• Warrior...Princess...Tramp (42:28) - Xena has received a call from Princess Diana (the princess who looks exactly like Xena, first met in the season 1 episode Warrior...Princess) who's father is dying. A spanner is thrown in the works when a third look-alike named Meg turns up posing as Xena.
• Intimate Strangers (42:27) - Xena's dreams are plagued by visions of Callisto taunting her. Eventually, with a little help from Ares, Callisto is able to pull Xena into the underworld - and take her body. Xena, now in Callisto's body, has only a day to send her nemesis back to the underworld, or she will be forever stuck there herself.
• Ten Little Warlords (42:00) - Xena is still stuck in Callisto's body (not necessarily a bad thing from a purely visual perspective), when she receives information that the God of War has invited Callisto to a meeting of the 10 greatest war-lords in the world. There is only one problem - Ares knows full well that it is actually Xena in Callisto's body - so who is sending out the message? The body swapping continuation in this episode (Lucy Lawless appears for only a few seconds) was necessary due to an injury Lawless suffered during filming that put her out of action for a few weeks. It is well covered, and works as well as any normal story.
• A Solstice Carol (42:28) - Xena and Gabrielle are in the lands of King Silvus on Solstice Eve, and happen to be in an orphanage just as word is passed down from the king that the orphanage must pay its enormous tax debt by midnight or all will be evicted. Naturally, Xena and Gabrielle do not take kindly to that kind of behaviour towards innocents, and so set out to teach the king a lesson (very much in the spirit of Scrooge).
• The Xena Scrolls (42:31) - An archaeological dig in 1940 has discovered the presence of some mysterious ancient writings - the Xena scrolls. There is not much more that can be said about this plot without giving anything away - but suffice to say that this is one of the most enjoyable episodes in the first half of the season, and ends with a scene that is a true classic of the series.
• Here She Comes...Miss Amphipolis (41:27) - Sleazy merchant Salmonius is at it again - this time hosting a beauty pageant to celebrate the one year anniversary of the end of a generations-long war. Unfortunately, all three leaders who were involved in the war have entered contestants, and it seems that someone is trying to kill them - if it were to happen, then the countries would be back at war again. To put a stop to the problems, Xena goes undercover as Miss Amphipolis.

    Overall, the first half of this second season of Xena: The Warrior Princess is good, but pales in comparison to the second half. However, for any Xena fan, it is a welcome sight to see on DVD.

Video

    Presented at 1.33:1 this transfer is not 16x9 enhanced. This is the original aspect ratio, as Xena was never produced for widescreen TV.

    For the first few episodes the transfers are quite soft, but as the series progresses, they get gradually better, to the point where some episodes, such as Ten Little Warlords, are remarkably clear and free from distraction. As a general rule of thumb, outdoor shots have more grain and are generally softer than indoor (on-set) shots. There are a few exceptions, but none worthy of note. Shadow detail is passable, although it too gets better as the season progresses. While the darker scenes are a little on the murky side, it is better than much of the other TV fare that is available, and definitely better than season 1. There is no low-level noise present.

    Colours are generally good, although the restrictions of out-door filming in low light conditions (no, I'm not going to make any jokes about New Zealand and rain clouds) are felt more commonly on Xena than on most series. During these times the colours are more subdued and considerably less bold than during the brightly lit outdoor scenes and indoor scenes.

    There are a few instances of MPEG artefacts, such as the strange pixelisation at 4:34 during Orphan of War, and more "normal" pixelisation that occurs when the grain becomes intense. In general, the MPEG artefacts are infrequent, and are cause for little concern. As with the compression artefacts there are a few instances of aliasing, but all are minor and not particularly distracting. Film artefacts are very infrequent and so small as to be almost invisible when they do occur. There are some instances of noticeable "motion-blur", but whether this is the fault of the transfer or the source material is hard to determine.

    There are no subtitles present on these discs.

    Discs one and two are dual layer with two episodes per layer. Disc three is RSDL formatted with the layer change occurring at 31:00 between chapters 5 and 6 during the second episode on the disc (The Xena Scrolls). The layer change is well placed on an advert fade-to-black.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    These disc contain a solitary audio track, being the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (at 224 kbps).

    Dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, which is an especially good effort when you take into account that the vast majority of the series is shot outdoors.

    Audio sync is generally very good, although there is a problem at 8:41 of episode Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, where the Bacchai dialogue has been quite poorly looped (as anyone who has watched an episode of Buffy knows, it is rather difficult to speak with a large set of fake fangs in one's mouth, and these are a very large set indeed - so that justifies the looping, at least).

    The score comes thanks to long-time Sam Raimi collaborator Joseph Lo Duca and is well suited to the genre, being bold and brassy and appropriately rousing. There are a few problems with repetition, but that is only to be expected from a television series - and repeating the music is really the least of the worries for Xena in terms of artistic credibility.

    This is, officially, a stereo soundtrack, but enabling surround decoding gives a good experience, anchoring dialogue and key effects noises centrally, while allowing ambient effects, score, and directional effects to come from the main front speakers. There are also a few instances - not common, mind, but they are there - where directional sound effects make use of the surround speakers as well. In general, they just carry a low-level copy of the score.

    As there is no dedicated channel, the sub-woofer use will rely on your amplifier's bass-redirection settings. In that regard there is a good amount of bass present in the soundtracks, and the subwoofer was used to back up both the score and many effects noises. Unfortunately, some of the sequences that really cried out for deep bass missed out.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Photo Gallery

    The video quality is good without being spectacular. This first half of the season starts in a similar quality to that of season one, but soon improves to be quite good.

    The audio quality is good, although the soundtrack is simply stereo, and is a little less dynamic that the season one soundtracks.

    The single extra is not even worth the name - a very big disappointment, although one Xena fans have come to expect form Universal.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall