Review(s): DVD Xena Warrior Princess - Season Four
Big Changes in Season Four
At the end of Season Three, Gabrielle had jumped into an abyss to kill her evil child, Hope. Season Four opens with Xena undertaking a spiritual journey to recover her friend. I don't want to spoil anything major, so I'll just mention that the pair travels to India in search of Gabrielle's Way (path through life) and in the process Xena discovers her own Way. They bump into Pompey, Caesar, and Brutus repeatedly, and are instrumental in setting up the famous Ides of March incident at the Roman Forum. This sets up a big dramatic ending for the season, and there's a modern episode (about past life regression) in the final episode.
Season Four has important consequences for the Amazons, shows how Xena played a pivotal role in Roman history, dabbles in FOUR different spiritual paths (shamanism, crusaders, the Way of Love, and the Way of the Warrior), travels to a new part of the Hercules/Xena world, and kills off some major characters. Plus Joxer turns out to be less lame than expected. There's a LOT going on this season.
The DVD collection of Season Four of "Xena: Warrior Princess" contains even more extras than the oodles included with Season Three. The collection includes nine DVDs and one CD-ROM; that's one more disc than for Season Three. There are the usual "interviews" (episode commentaries) featuring many of the usual suspects (Lucy Lawless, Renee O'Connor, Robert Tapert, Steven L. Sears, Eric Gruendemann, Ted Raimi, Bruce Campbell). The two sets used for the commentaries are the same as for Season Three. There's the expected blooper collection, with heavy use of *BLEEP* to cover the naughty words. There's a fairly long Ted & Bruce bit, where Bruce's first book ("If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor") is pitched repeatedly. There's a modestly scholarly take on Siberian shamanism as relating to the "northeastern Amazons" of X:WP, a commentary by the martial arts teacher about how he trained the actors (particularly Lucy, Kevin Sorbo, and Hudson Leick) to fight, and a visit to the firm that made the "suits" and mechanical rigs for the monsters in the series. The "extra" DVD is filled with alternate, longer cuts of scenes that didn't make it into the finished episodes. The CD-ROM is just as lame as in all the previous seasons, but who cares? The truly lavish quantity of extras on the DVDs make that inconsequential. One downside: the packaging uses an inconvenient overlapping disc arrangement, so you have to remove the preceding odd-numbered disc to get at each even-numbered disc.
Guest appearances for Season Four include:
o Marton Csokas as Borias, warlord and Xena's former lover
o Victoria Pratt as Cyane, Amazon Queen
o Sheeri Rappaport as Otere, Amazon warrior
o Claire Stansfield as Alti, shamaness
o Karl Urban as Julius Caesar, Roman Triumvir
o Jeremy Callaghan as Pompey, Roman Triumvir
o Shiri Appleby as Tara, wannabe sidekick
o Bruce Campbell as Autolycus, King of Thieves
o Timothy Omundson as Eli, prophet and healer
o Kathryn Morris as Najara, crusading zealot
o Alexandra Tydings as Aphrodite, Goddess of Love
o Meighan Desmond as Discord, Goddess of Retribution
o Danielle Cormack as Ephiny, Amazon Queen
o Jennifer Sky as Amarice, Amazon warrior
o Hudson Leick as Callisto, Xena's arch-nemesis
o David Franklin as Brutus, Roman centurion
o Robert Trebor as Marco (no, not Salmoneus)
o Kevin Smith as Ares, God of War
Bottom line: FIVE STARS. Buy this collection; you'll be glad you did.
I love it!!!
This is the best season of xena to me. I think any xena fan should have this in their little collectibles! I advise you to get this today!
Love Xena, but Anchor Bay STINKS
Season 4 is filled with great episodes for any Xena fan. Ides of March is one of my favorite episodes - the weaving of the Xena and Julius Caesar stories is so well done. That's what makes this boxed set so disappointing. The DVD are made cheaply and of poor quality. (I'm writing this review regarding the 3 seasons that I bought: 2, 3, 4) 1st the color landscape of the menus is so horrible that you can't see what you have selected. The basic DVD layout of menus looks thrown together. The dvds are obviously made on the cheap. The disks stick, skip, and revert to the wrong menu and I had to ship bak 5 bad disks so far (at my expense)for replacement by Anchor Bay. Some don't play very well but the skips are minimal and I don't feel like paying the postage, so I've kept them. The extras in seasons 3&4 are more substantial - more interviews, commentaries, extra shorts etc. I tend to be a big fan of audio commentary and listening to Lucy, Renee, and Rob reminisce is nice. The Bruce Campbell/Ted Raimi Cabin Fever in Season 3 is quite funny. I love Xena and wish that another company had taken on the project. So disappointing. Content - B, Quality - F.
Xena is sexy, funny, dramatic, tragic, and fun. Season five gets more intense, with a powerful story line that's interspersed with one-off episodes. If you're a fan, you don't need to read this. Just buy it. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lucy Lawless DVD Release Date: Released the 19 October 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $79.98 Your Price: $71.98YOU SAVE $8!
Buy it
This season of xena things tend to get darker with three characters of the show Xena gabrielle and callisto in the episode maternal instincts their is more drama in the show that I can't tell you about but just me you will be very satisfy of what you see. BUY THIS NOW. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lucy Lawless DVD Release Date: Released the 10 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $69.98 Your Price: $62.98YOU SAVE $7!
Buy it
Xena season 6 is one of the top seasons of all. Effects, colors, action, suspense,..... everything!!!! Very sad to see it go when it did, but it seemed to cover all ground and end appropriately.In other words it ran a beautiful course.
The manner of ending the series was without a doubt, the best avenue of the times they were portraying and it was great to see an illustrated (yet fictional) view of how things may have went on back then. To be honest, this season started my path in Spirituality and the Paranormal.
As far as other negative reviews in regard to Christianty,... I feel it is probably very close to what really happened. Christianity wasnt always the top religion and scenes dipicting that seem to be in line with that. As a very spiritual person I found... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lucy Lawless DVD Release Date: Released the 08 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $79.98 Your Price: $71.98YOU SAVE $8!
Buy it
This season of xena really pushes the greatness of the show to the max.You'll just love the episodes of "well" all of them seeing how this season of xena is fun to watch as well as the the drama goes farther with callisto xena gabrielle and joxer this season of xena is a must as well as a must have for every one. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lucy Lawless DVD Release Date: Released the 02 September 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $69.98 Your Price: $62.98YOU SAVE $7!
Buy it
Just four minutes into "Sins of the Past," the first episode of Xena, you'll gladly follow the warrior princess anywhere. Taking on a gang of marauders, she leaps onto an upright spear embedded in the ground and, with a cry of "Ai-yi-yi-yi-yi," does a circular wall of death on their chests. A syndication phenomenon, this audacious 1995 series was a spin-off from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Lucy Lawless stars as Xena, dressed to kill in leather and breastplate. Her exploits are legend: "She came down out of the sky in a chariot throwing thunderbolts and breathing fire," remarks one awestruck boy in the first episode. Xena wants to bury her violent past, but there is no rest for the formerly wicked as she takes up arms (and feet) against any number of villains and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lucy Lawless DVD Release Date: Released the 29 April 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $69.98 Your Price: $69.98YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
