Yet "Xena" was exceptional for much more than its feminism. This tongue-in-cheek adventure show not only tackled "big" issues -- redemption and justice, revenge and forgiveness, personal loyalty and the greater good, pacifism and violence -- but usually handled them without pat resolutions and with an understanding that in many situations there are, in Xena's words, "no good choices, only lesser degrees of evil." Was it right for Xena to pay for her crimes with death or life imprisonment when she could do much good as a free woman? Was it just that she should be acclaimed as a hero when countless people were dead or shattered because of her? What did she owe her victims, and what responsibility did she bear for their crimes? How could Gabrielle reconcile her reverence for life with the need to defend the innocent with deadly force? Was even justified violence destructive to the soul?

The characters, too, were surprisingly rich and complex. (And brought to life by a talented cast: Besides Lawless, O'Connor and Raimi, standouts included the sadly unknown Hudson Leick as Callisto, Kathryn Morris of "Cold Case" as Najara, Marton Csokas as Xena's past lover/fellow warlord Borias, and New Zealand TV star Kevin Smith -- tragically killed in a movie set accident several months after the end of "Xena" -- as the god of war Ares.) While Xena struggled with her past and present, Gabrielle grew from a spunky kid into an idealistic fighter who didn't kill, then a total pacifist, and finally a formidable but battle-weary warrior. The women's relationship developed from starry-eyed hero worship on Gabrielle's part and affectionate protectiveness on Xena's into a deep emotional bond. Yet, more often than not, it was rife with tensions and conflicts. Less central to the series, but still fascinating, were Xena's relationships with her nemesis Callisto, with her onetime lover turned mortal enemy Julius Caesar (yes, the Julius Caesar), with Borias and with Ares, the god with a very human weakness for the Warrior Princess.

"Xena" was a show that made bold choices: to make its archvillain, Callisto, a tragic and often sympathetic character with a legitimate gripe against the hero; to allow the sidekick a series-long character growth arc that in some fans' eyes made her the true hero of the show, and suggest that this growth was ultimately tragic; to let a comic-relief character die a noble and poignant death; to reinvent the history of the transition from pagan religions to monotheism with Xena as a protagonist. And it managed to do all that while (almost) never taking itself too seriously or losing its sense of humor and fun. Even some dark moments that could have easily slipped into melodrama were given a cool twist by the snappy dialogue that was one of the series' trademarks. Callisto told Xena, "A part of me was hoping you would win and put out the rage in my heart. Sometimes it scares even me" -- and added with a gleeful grin, "But then I get over it."

The sense of mischievous, quirky, anything-goes fun was heightened by the setting: a pseudo-historical, kind of mythological world in which ancient Greeks wore medieval or Middle Eastern clothes and talked late-20th century American English (where else could you hear an Olympian god talk about someone's "inferiority complex"?); in which Caesar and Pompey coexisted with Amazons, centaurs and gods; and in which the Trojan War, the Battle of Marathon and the death of Cleopatra were separated by just a few years. This time tweaking culminated in the hilariously demented sixth-season episode, "You Are There," in which the Xenaverse was invaded by a Geraldo Rivera-type TV reporter named Nigel, hot on Xena's trail with a microphone and a camera crew.

Unlike "Buffy" with its tight, carefully planned story arcs, "Xena" was the product of spontaneous evolution more than intelligent design. Sometimes, this approach could lead to glaring inconsistencies: The dialogue in Xena's first onscreen encounter with Ares implied that she had never laid eyes on him before, yet later on it was hinted and then confirmed that they had a history in her warlord days. But this spontaneity was ultimately a strength more than a weakness: a loose, freewheeling creativity that included actors ad-libbing or changing their lines. And, somehow, it worked.

Not always, of course. Talk to a few "Xena" fans, and you will hear a lot of theories about when, if ever, the series jumped the proverbial shark. Most agree that it reached its pinnacle in the brilliant third season and had its peaks and valleys after that: There were some wobbly story lines, some recycled plots and other signs of creative fatigue, and in the final season a tendency to amp up the sexual titillation and overly graphic violence (with an overdose of both in an episode that had the heroines infiltrate a harem to rescue Gabrielle's kidnapped niece). But at its most uneven, it was still a terrific show.

One offshoot of the show's evolution was the much-talked-about lesbian subtext. Early on, some viewers -- mostly though not exclusively gay women -- discerned a romantic attraction in Xena and Gabrielle's developing bond. Despite an early crop of male love interests, the idea that there was something going on between the Warrior Princess and her young companion made the rounds of Internet chat rooms and quickly got back to the show's producers. After the initial surprise, they began to play to this perception with deliberate sexual innuendo, from double entendres (when a love-struck villager asked Gabrielle if Xena had considered settling down, Gabrielle replied, "No, she likes what I do," then quickly corrected herself, "She likes what she's doing") to scenes of the duo sharing a hot tub.

The subtext took on a life of its own, and eventually the possibility that Xena and Gabrielle were "more than friends" was treated as a plausible reading of their relationship -- preferred in some episodes, downplayed or contradicted in others. (There was no question that, however defined, it was the most important relationship in the two women's lives.) In the last two seasons, another kind of subtext -- between Xena and Ares, whose dynamic had been rife with sexual tension from the start -- was also brought to the fore and developed into a complex love-hate relationship. Late in the series, both of these ambiguous romantic "texts" were explicitly acknowledged in "You Are There," the off-the-wall comedy with the TV reporter: The nosy Nigel accosted Xena and Gabrielle with questions about their special relationship and demanded to know if Xena was in love with Ares. Both questions, of course, went unanswered.

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