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Xena! Gabrielle! <3!
Feb. 3rd, 2011 11:01 pmFor reasons possibly related to someone on my rlist looking for recs for Xena episodes, a while ago I rewatched "The Bitter Suite" for the first time in five years.
And then I sniffled a lot.
Guys, I miss that show. I miss the strange and beautiful combination of camp and wtf and tragedy and drama. I miss the women who love each other that intensely. I miss women with emotional scars. I miss (my corner of) the fandom(s) where the most common pairings were Xena/Gabrielle and Xena/Callisto and Xena/Lao Ma. I miss the working-motherhood and the fighting and the joking and the parodies and the hugs. I miss Xena singing and dancing and leaping over people's heads, and Gabrielle hitting everyone with sticks and writing it down later. I miss their despair and their tears and their hope and their joy. I miss the anachronisms, and the giant snakes, and the people in foam monster costumes, and the centaurs filmed only from the waist up, and the styrofoam monuments they borrowed from ST:TOS, and the fight scenes that completely ignore the laws of physics. I miss Xena and Gabrielle's determination and their anger and their laughter.
I miss two ladies riding off into the sunset together after saving the day.
(Though on the other hand I do not miss the noncon-mystical-pregnancy and the sexual assault metaphors and the Orientalism and the weird Christian season and the way Gabrielle and Xena could say they loved each other but could never actually, canonically, be sleeping together.)
So then I watched two vids that made me sniffle some more, and here they are in case you, too, have been missing Xena and/or ladies riding off into the sunset lately. They're both massively, massively spoilery for the main arcs of the show. ( Some vid recs )
And since I'm writing this post now I might as well copy the recs over. So!
You might like Xena if you like: the early seasons of Supernatural (they have similar road-trip-jokey-buddy-cop-heros-with-camp-and-tragedy thing going on, though Xena takes it to a whole nother level), ladies who love each other, pseudo-historical settings filled with anachronisms (kiwis at the siege of Troy?), seriously epic drama, tragedy and humor in the same episodes, camp, cheap special effects, loyalty, emotional arcs (oh Gabrielle!), tragic villains, women kicking ass, women saving the day with science or diplomacy or cons as well as ass-kicking, fight scenes, fight scenes that completely ignore physics, people who seem to use their swords just to add weight to their punches,boomerangs chakrams that always come back, or shows that love their tropes. Also other things I'm sure I can't think of right now, but perhaps people will leave them in the comments.
( some eps I recced the other day )
( some extremely spoilery things that some people might want to know about the show before deciding whether to watch or deciding to skip some eps )
... aaaand between the time I started this post and now I might've started a rewatch and made it all the way to episode 1x20. I clearly need to post this before I'm in season four and this post is even more ridiculous. But it makes me smile and brings me joy! Mostly! Except for the parts that don't!
And then I sniffled a lot.
Guys, I miss that show. I miss the strange and beautiful combination of camp and wtf and tragedy and drama. I miss the women who love each other that intensely. I miss women with emotional scars. I miss (my corner of) the fandom(s) where the most common pairings were Xena/Gabrielle and Xena/Callisto and Xena/Lao Ma. I miss the working-motherhood and the fighting and the joking and the parodies and the hugs. I miss Xena singing and dancing and leaping over people's heads, and Gabrielle hitting everyone with sticks and writing it down later. I miss their despair and their tears and their hope and their joy. I miss the anachronisms, and the giant snakes, and the people in foam monster costumes, and the centaurs filmed only from the waist up, and the styrofoam monuments they borrowed from ST:TOS, and the fight scenes that completely ignore the laws of physics. I miss Xena and Gabrielle's determination and their anger and their laughter.
I miss two ladies riding off into the sunset together after saving the day.
(Though on the other hand I do not miss the noncon-mystical-pregnancy and the sexual assault metaphors and the Orientalism and the weird Christian season and the way Gabrielle and Xena could say they loved each other but could never actually, canonically, be sleeping together.)
So then I watched two vids that made me sniffle some more, and here they are in case you, too, have been missing Xena and/or ladies riding off into the sunset lately. They're both massively, massively spoilery for the main arcs of the show. ( Some vid recs )
And since I'm writing this post now I might as well copy the recs over. So!
You might like Xena if you like: the early seasons of Supernatural (they have similar road-trip-jokey-buddy-cop-heros-with-camp-and-tragedy thing going on, though Xena takes it to a whole nother level), ladies who love each other, pseudo-historical settings filled with anachronisms (kiwis at the siege of Troy?), seriously epic drama, tragedy and humor in the same episodes, camp, cheap special effects, loyalty, emotional arcs (oh Gabrielle!), tragic villains, women kicking ass, women saving the day with science or diplomacy or cons as well as ass-kicking, fight scenes, fight scenes that completely ignore physics, people who seem to use their swords just to add weight to their punches,
( some eps I recced the other day )
( some extremely spoilery things that some people might want to know about the show before deciding whether to watch or deciding to skip some eps )
... aaaand between the time I started this post and now I might've started a rewatch and made it all the way to episode 1x20. I clearly need to post this before I'm in season four and this post is even more ridiculous. But it makes me smile and brings me joy! Mostly! Except for the parts that don't!
