Ladies and gents you've seen my review so many pilots to TV shows in the last but now i'm going back in time to ancient Greece. You might have guessed this by the poster and by the title i'm reviewing the first every episode of Xena: Warrior Princess and i'm doing it because honestly nobody is talking about this show and I want to remind people that it happened and so here is my review of the first every episode of Xena: Warrior Princess called Sins Of The Past.
The plot of the episode is Xena is travelling home to make up for things that she's done in her past and she's followed by a young person who wants to be trained by her called Gabrielle. I will admit there is more going on in this episode then my summery will lead you to believe but I had to find away to summarise the plot and that's what I came up with. The story it self is your basic pilot episode with the two leads meeting each other very early on in the episode and that's really all I have to say about the story.
Starring in the episode is Lucy Lawless as Xena , Renée O'Connor as Gabrielle , Jay Laga'aia as Draco , Darien Takle as Cyrene , Stephen Hall as Hector , Linda Jones as Hecuba , Willa O'Neill as Lila , Geoff Snell as Herodotus , Anton Bentley as Perdicas , David Perrett as Gar , Patrick Wilson as Cyclops , Wally Green as Old Man , Roydon Muir as Kastor , Huntly Eliott as First Citizen and Winston Harris as Boy.
The acting in this episode in all honesty isn't that bad which for a show this campy and at times this goofy is really something to truly to behold. I don't think I need to say who's the best performer in this because anyone who's a fan of the show knows that Lucy Lawless kills it as the character and the same thing is true for this episode altho coming in at a close second is Jay Laga'aia who is just so wonderfully over the top and so fun to watch.
Wow I forgot how bad the effects in this episode truly are I do have to give them some leeway as this show was made in the mid nineties. Even so they still look pretty bad I give them credit for not using any CGI in this episode instead there just sticking one actor against either a green or blue screen and then adding them into the scene later but they could have done a slightly better job of im proving the effects but tho they wouldn't have had much technology available at the time tho which is the key thing here.
Not that many people know this but Xena is actually a spin off of the then popular Hercules: The Legendary Journeys with the character of Xena appearing in some of the shows episodes. As you can no doubt gather she became so popular that she had to receive her own show and like with any good spin off there are plenty of crossover episodes and there's even a crossover movie Hercules and Xena – The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus.
As with the previous show this episode and the show is pretty campy and that's something your either going to love or hate. I personally really love it since it adds to the entertainment value in my opinion but on the flip side of that if your looking for a serious action drama then your not going to find it here because due to how campy it is you will be laughing at it alot and that is something that I can see putting people off watching the show.
Now something which I guess makes sense but you have to have seen Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Since they don't go into detail about Xena's backstory in this episode which yeah I guess that makes sense given she's a character from another show but at the same time it is something that's needed to get newer viewers up to speed but the episode does provide a cliff notes version of her backstory in the show's opening but that doesn't tell us why we should care about her or want to see her succeed in her journey.
I'd say the thing that this show is most famous for is it's action which given that this is an action show does indeed make sense. The action in this episode is honestly really freaking fun and is perhaps the best part of the whole episode. In my opinion the action seen in this episode while not large in scale was rich with story as it serves as the end of the story for the episode and so it's basically any third act battle you'd see in a modern day superhero movie.
Overall this is a great first episode for the show but it doesn't set up Xena nor does it set up any plot lines for future episodes. That being said this is still a fun episode to see the chemistry between the cast really does shine through even in this first episode if only the effects could have been tho. Like I said there are some fun action scenes which for me make this episode worth watching and so this episode gets a 6 out of 10 from me and yes I do give rankings to classic episodes it's only newer ones that don't get it and Doctor Who episodes get rankings as well.