Needless to say, the biggest event of season five was the arrival of Xena's baby, mirroring the real-life pregnancy of Lucy Lawless (who's married to the show's head honcho, Rob Tapert). "This has been the odd season because of Lucy's pregnancy and having to work around that," agrees executive producer RJ Stewart. "I think we were able to do some terrific things in resolving how to deal with Xena's daughter, and that drama became a major three-parter to end the season."
Baby Boomers
Although Lawless' pregnancy was eventually worked into the fifth-season storyline, not all of the writers knew about it right away. "Well, one of us did!" jokes former writer/producer Steven Sears. "I didn't, and Rob had often kidded us about it. I remember RJ and I were talking about it at one point, and I said, 'I wonder if he's kidding or telegraphing,' and then he let us know. So we said, 'Either we should decide what to do with that, or just hope the audience is not that observant!'"
Death Untangled
But first, there was a small matter of Xena and Gabrielle's death to untangle. At the end of Season Five [ed - it was actually at the end of Season Four], both characters had been crucified by Caesar, leaving viewers hanging for the next several months about how the story would be resolved. The answer would be found in Fallen Angel, an FX-filled epic adventure in which Gabrielle and the forces of Heaven struggle to save Xena's soul from being trapped in Hell for an eternity. The episode was a gamble, spending a hefty amount of the season's budget on cutting-edge visual FX, and Stewart admits there was some worry that it would all come together.
"I recently went back to my alma mater, which is Arizona State University, they're trying to get a film school going, so they had some film people from ASU who had gone on to other things. I brought Fallen Angel, and they projected it on a big screen to a couple hundred students, and wow, did that look good up there! I've got to say, the reason that I and the other writers and Rob were able to conceive of episodes that were so ambitious is because our people could deliver. We certainly pushed them very hard with that one, but I think they really delivered."
Xena to Cleopatra
Meanwhile, there were other big changes taking place behind the scenes that would have a major impact on the season. After the first eight episodes, Stewart was stepping down to launch the new Renaissance series Cleopatra 2525, while Sears was going off to work on Sheena. In their place, Tapert brought in Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, who had just finished work on the final season of Hercules.
"There's very little I can say," notes Sears, "because I knew what the launching pad was. I was there for the first eight, so I knew what the trajectory was supposed to be when I left, and I was told vaguely what the landing pad was going to be, but a lot of that changed. I remember commenting about one thing to RJ and said, 'The fans are really going to like this aspect -' He said, 'Oh that's been changed,' which was a bummer because it would have been a cool thing. I agree that there was going to be a style shift, and maybe the fans were going to say, 'Oh, it's not the show we fell in love with!' but we were getting that from day one."
All Singing, All Dancing
Like them or not, the next batch of episodes were a very mixed bag, including the rock musical Lyre, Lyre Hearts on Fire, the wildly comedic Overboard spoof, Married With Fishsticks, and the equally broad Little Problems. Where the season might have gone after that will never be known; Stewart was brought back in as executive producer, and Orci and Kurtzman were moved over to the new Bruce Campbell series, Jack of All Trades. "Maybe they weren't ideal for Xena," concedes Tapert. "They have a different strength, but I don't think they ever really got a chance to show what they could do."
One of Stewart's first orders of business was to do a re-write on Orci and Kurtzman's script for God Fearing Child, featuring the long-awaited return of Hercules. "I did absolutely nothing to the Hercules stuff because Kevin and Alex and Bob had a history there, although I may have trimmed some of it, and then I worked on some of the Xena stuff, trying to beef up her point of view." Still, some critics maintain that God Fearing Child plays more like a Hercules episode guest starring Xena, a point that Stewart doesn't contradict. "I guarantee it was more that way before I re-wrote it!" he laughs. "When I read it, it was clearly a Hercules episode, and my main goal was to make it more of a Xena episode, so no, I don't disagree with that at all."
By the time Xena reached the end of Season Five however, the series was very much back on track. In the final trilogy, the warrior princess is reunited with her estranged (and now adult) daughter, who's still a target for the Olympian gods. The story reached its stunning climax in Motherhood, although its original title Twilight of the Gods gave an even stronger clue about its content. "That was changed for other reasons, but it does accurately portray what that episode is about. It doesn't mean that all the gods die in that episode, but it is somewhat about the twilight of the gods."
Keeping Mum
Motherhood also sets up most of the events for Season Six, which is now underway, and the producers promise an even more exciting series of episodes to come. "I got a nice note from Lucy, talking about the sixth season and how excited she was that I was back," says Stewart.
"We're not going to be doing a huge great arc this season," adds Tapert, "but those scripts are being worked on right now, and I think people are going to be surprised by some of the things we have planned."
LIFEBLOOD: A RETURN TO AMAZON HIGH
One of the most bizarre episodes of Xena's fifth season was Lifeblood, which chronicled another chapter in the history of the Amazons. If the story seemed a bit uneven, it's because the so-called "flashback sequences" were taken from an unaired pilot called Amazon High. Conceived by Rob Tapert and RJ Stewart and directed by Michael Hurst, Amazon High was originally one of the two series meant to replace Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, which was about to end."It was a two-hour pilot made with the actress Selma Blair," explains Stewart of the project's origin. "Unfortunately, we didn't have a hold on her, which was a big mistake, and she went on to something else. I don't think the pilot worked well enough to justify re-shooting it with another lead, so we moved on, so it's one of those pilots that ultimately did not see the light of day. I guess you can call it a failed pilot."
Blair plays a 20th-Century young woman who finds herself transported back in time, where she becomes involved with a tribe of warrior women. Losing the actress would have made a potential series difficult, but added to that was the defection of Claudia Black who moved on to a role on Farscape, and Danielle Cormack, who was reluctant to make a series deal. "They were very talented actresses," notes Tapert, "so instead of doing Amazon High without them, it was easier to just start a brand new show."
The 20th-Century girl displaced in time eventually became one of the core concepts behind Cleopatra 2525, and footage from Amazon High was incorporated into Lifeblood. "We had already spent too much money," notes Tapert, "so I had to find a way to do some smaller shows. We were able to use Amazon High in order to get back on budget, but I don't think it really works as an episode of Xena."
FALLEN ANGEL: A BATTLE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL
How do you top Xena's stunning fourth season cliff-hanger which ended with the crucifixion deaths of Xena and Gabrielle? Answer: Fallen Angel, the FX-packed fifth season opener featuring a pitched battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell. The episode was a massive undertaking for incoming visual FX supervisor Harrison Ellenshaw, whose first order of business was to hop on a plane for Auckland where the series is shot. "It's still staggering to me, the number of shots that were accomplished within about that two-an-a-half-week period," declares Ellenshaw.Fallen Angel was also a huge job for the staff of Flat Earth Productions, who had to create no less than 270 visual FX shots for the episode. Using matte paintings and quadrant shots combined with various CG elements, Flat Earth had to use virtually every piece of software in the company arsenal to create the legions of angels and demons. "The most difficult part was creating some of the elements in post-production that we didn't have during production," notes Ellenshaw. "There were a lot of backgrounds, such as rock formations that go miles into the air, and they were build at CG elements in the computer. The actors, who were shot against blue screen, were then put into these environments. There were also long shots that have CG angels in them that were created by computer, and all those elements had to match."
For RJ Stewaqrt, who wrote Fallen Angel, there were more than a few worrying moments during production. "I was actually in New Zealand when it was being shot, and I remember seeing a look of horror on a lot of people's faces. I've been down there many times when my episodes were being shot, but I think it came together really well."
LYRE, LYRE, HEARTS ON FIRE: XENA'S ROCK OPERA
After the success of The Bitter Suite in Season Three, it was just a matter of time before Xena finally tackled another musical episode. The most recent foray into song and story was the off-beat rock musical Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire, in which Xena organizes a battle of the bands over the possession of a coveted musical instrument.Whereas each of the musical numbers in The Bitter Suite was created specifically for that episode, most of the songs chosen for Lyre Lyre... were already well known. "Our basic premise," explains composer Joe LoDuca, "was to use songs from the late 60's and early 70's in a way they really haven't been heard before. In some cases, we tried to contemporize them, so that if they were dont in 1999, here's what they would sound like. For example, 'Always Something There to Remind Me' comes out sounding like Limp Biskit, and the lyrics sound like the Ultimate Stalker Anthem."
"In some ways, Bitter Suite was easier, because they were my sings, and there wasn't a whole lot of vocal production. That wasn't the case with Lyre, Lyre... which was a pop production on every tune, and a lot of changes had to be made over the course of it. We had a variety of ensembles, from a rock guitar band to a big band on 'Getting Ready', to a gospel chorus on 'Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves' to full-out disco electronic productions with horns, so the production time on my end was exponentially greater."
"There was also an entire rap song done between Xena and Draco at the end, but not much of it remained in. It was edited down quite a bit, but it was funny to hear Lucy say lines like 'This bitch got game!'"
Back to the Lucy Lawless Library
Back to the Xena Picture Library