Last year, as fans anxiously awaited the premiere of Xena: Warrior Princess' fifth season, the burning question on everyone's mind was how star Lucy Lawless' pregnancy would affect the series. Now that the season has come and gone, its high ratings attesting to the popularity of leather maternity wear, the concern no longer surrounds Lawless' baby, but rather Xena's.
"We wanted to have Xena's child have an important significance in the universe," explains executive producer R.J. Stewart. "Our Xena doesn't have just a baby, she has an important baby. And, of course, [her baby] Eve heralded the twilight of the gods. The adventure of the end of the Olympian gods was just something we thought was fun and exciting and made mythological sense given the birth of a new child that heralded a new era. And so we went with it."
Actually, they ran with it. When all was said and done, Eve's birth did a lot more than just spell the end of the Greek pantheon. By the end of the season, Xena and her sidekick Gabrielle had slept for 25 years while Eve grew up to be a merciless Roman conqueror, Ares had given up his immortality and Joxer was dead. Where does the show go from there?
Well, one thing's for sure - Joxer fans need not despair. "I'm not dead," actor Ted Raimi promises. "Technically, my contract had run out, and [executive producer] Rob Tapert had a great idea that they'd kill me off, but I would come back as a ghost. But I'll be working a lot less on the show because I wanted to do other projects. In the meantime, I'm gonna get a Sam's Club and a Costco card and buy all my bananas in bulk."
Joxer may no longer tag along for comic relief, but Xena and Gabrielle still have Eve and Joxer's son Virgil to fill the role of third (or fourth) wheel on their adventures. Plus, a new Amazon warrior character will be introduced.
Yet despite those changes, the series' backbone will remain the same "We're certainly committed to sticking to the core of the series, which is Xena and Gabrielle and what they mean to each other and their adventures," Stewart explains. "Ultimately, the most important theme of the series is Xena's constant quest for redemption that she could never allow herself because of all the terrible things she did in the past. That is still the driving theme of the show." - Chandra Palermo
