Xena: Season 6 Pre-Thoughts [SPOILERS]

Look, if you haven't seen Season 6, be warned: this entire post is a spoiler for Season 6. I just want you to know that. If you don't want it spoiled, get outta here and watch Season 6. If you've already seen Season 6, go forth, my child.

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Ooooohhhh my god, I am SO. FREAKIN. EXCITED. about Season 6..."Y’ALL." I’m practically squealing like a little bitty pig. You’d have to see it to believe it. I mean, there’s so much good fucking shit coming up. Anymore and I couldn’t stand it!

It’s true, Season 5 was much better than I remembered, but it didn’t leave me warm like Season 4 did. Season 5 was good but detached, like a sandwich with no condiments. A half-flat Coca Cola. A 2-year-old battery in your cell phone. Frank Ocean’s Blonde album. Season 9 of Friends. I could go on, but what I’m basically saying is, Season 5 wasn’t a deal breaker. As is said of David Bowie, even bad Xena is good Xena, and I’ll never say no to watching a troubled season.

Now, Season 6? Well…I think you just have no idea what’s about to happen to you. Season 6 houses the deepest episodes, the most imaginative episodes, the most surprising episodes…the gayest episodes.

If it tells you anything, take a look at the box set details in the post before this. You’ll see that every picture in and of the Season 6 box set is Xena or Gabrielle. This is the first time it’s been just them. The other seasons contain other characters, such as Joxer, Callisto, Ares. That is all you need to know about Season 6.

Season 6 is a different show with different rules. While Season 5 faltered in the most disappointing way, it still played in the same arena as the other seasons. With Season 6, production knew it would be the last, so they let their creative champagne flow. I recall being shocked as fuck by some of the things that happened in Season 6.

Such as:

1. Xena grapples with a Groot-like monster
2. Xena has a past as a Valkyrie
3. There’s a fucking Sleeping Beauty episode, during which Xena is the one to wake Gabrielle
4. Gabrielle leads the remaining Amazons in a horrible battle that they win but practically wipes them out
5. Gabrielle, for the first time, plans to assassinate a ruler, like Xena did to Ming T’ien in Season 3
6. It takes a minute, but the show eventually leaves Eve behind
7. Xena and Gabrielle take-up with Ares on a farm, thus serving us a hillbilly episode
8. Alti makes an appearance
9. Another hilarious episode done in the spirit of “A Day in the Life”
10. There’s yet another chick trying to replace Gabrielle? Am I remembering right?
11. Xena gives Gabrielle a poem from fucking Sappho
12. Aphrodite isn’t doing so great and kisses Gabrielle
13. Gabrielle almost dies from a fight with locals, during which she and Xena say some amazing things
14. The greatest Xena episode of all time, in which Xena and Gabrielle straight up fall in love with each other
15. Xena dies

And this is just the stuff I can remember.

I’m so psyched to watch Season 6, I’m almost paralyzed. I do hope to complete my reviews quickly though, like in the next three months or <. Once I’m done, it will have taken me seven god damn years to review the series. I have nothing else to say about that.

In 2009, Season 5’s dispassionateness hit me like a truck, an injury I marinated in for a few days. Desperate for respite, I took to the world wide web for anything positive about Season 6. Upon reading fan reactions to Season 6, I was saved and explosively, murderously happy to learn that Season 6 not only rebounds from Season 5, but that it *surpasses* all other seasons of Xena. “How is that possible?” I wondered privately and aloud. It’s so, so rare for a last season - especially from the 90’s - to be greater than the others. I can’t think of one, actually, besides Xena: Warrior Princess.

Why is Season 6 so good? I’m gonna go with the fact that it’s filled with new writers and directors who were fans of the show. Some writers were even filched from the ranks of Xena fanfic on the 'net. Sadly, missing from this season’s roster are writers Chris Manheim and Steven L. Sears, both Xena staples throughout every season who wrote some of my favorite episodes.

Just volunteering these statistics for no reason at all: Nine episodes of Season 6 were written solely by women. Only one episode was cowritten by a woman and man. To compare:

• Season 5 has only four episodes written solely by a woman and that woman was Chris Manheim. Three other episodes were cowritten by women and men.
• Season 4 has six episodes written solely by women, with four co-written by women and men.
• Season 3 also has six episodes written solely by women, and five cowritten by women and men.
• Season 2 has three episodes written by Chris Manheim, and six cowritten by women and men.
• Season 1 has five episodes written solely by women, and four cowritten by women and men.

Now, am I saying that this makes a difference? You tell me.

HAPPY WATCHING!!