How I Got Here
Hello again, folks! Welcome to my continuing coverage of all things Xena and Hercules. But, since Hercules has gone off the air, there just isn't as much news regarding the big guy as there used to be.
I have a confession to make. I nearly missed this week's deadline for my column. The last two installments were written well in advance, because I've been in Seattle the past month for business meetings. I didn't want deadlines hovering over me while I worked on other projects, so I wrote the columns in advance. As a result, I haven't really given any serious thought to this topic for about a month, and this deadline very nearly got away from me.
All this is more or less an apology for the poor quality of this offering. I have a column series in mind, but all my notes and references materials are currently packed away, so you won't see it just yet. I will tell you what the subject is, though.
I have felt for some time that Xena: Warrior Princess is a modern take on the classic hero's journey set down by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I have always wanted to examine this idea more in depth. So, since the current season will be wrapping up in a few short weeks, I thought I would make it my "summer series." Join me here in a couple of weeks for the first part.
With that out of the way, I figured I would take this opportunity to relate how I came to be hooked on these shows. I promised several months ago that I would tell the tale, and finding myself short a topic, I've decided to take the opportunity.
I remember when the first Hercules TV movie aired. It was part of the Action Pack of shows put together by Universal Studios. I had just recently moved to Maine, and was up late one night. I caught one of the TekWar films, and having read the first book or two of the series, hung around to see if it was any good.
It wasn't. I recall seeing an ad for the Hercules movie, and it didn't (at the time) register on my radar. Having been somewhat disappointed by the TekWar film, I dumped the whole Action Pack into my mental garbage bin.
A couple of years later, when the second season of Xena was drawing all sorts of media attention, the shows came back into my sights. I didn't make the connection between the old Action Pack films and the new show. I also didn't go out of my way to track the series down, because I'm not really that much of a TV viewer. I personally prefer film.
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