Writing according to canon for a show like Xena is a toughie, because it seems so chaotic. I’ve spent a lot of time compiling what I think makes up the show’s aesthetic canon, based on my watching the show, reading interviews, and researching the source materials.

A fair amount is guesswork on my part, but it was important to me that I have a grasp of things that couldn’t be figured out just from observing the show. Why did they repeat certain types of motifs throughout the series? 

Why did they avoid using quite obvious stories from Classical Greek lit that would seem to fit the show like a glove? Such as the Trojan War? The depiction of Troy in #Xena & Herc are very non-intuitive, & seem totally unrelated. Why does the show look the way it does?

There’s no Greek architecture, for example. Every other kind, but instead of Greece, they depict a kind of gothic realm. Some say it’s a cost-cutting measure, but that doesn’t make sense. Greek buildings are highly modular. You can save a lot of money reusing those columns.

Ridley Scott did, in Gladiator, when he created the sets for the imperial palace & the Roman Senate with just a few pillars & curtains, moved around. In fact, RenPic did save a lot of money, by shooting a lot of scenes in forests & parks.

But they seem to have spent a lot of time creating an alternate Greece. So it was definitely an aesthetic choice to build things in such a distinctive & unique way. Others say they just didn’t know any better, but clearly, they did.

RenPic went on to make Spartacus, full of period detail. As I present this project, I’ll explain why I made the choices I did, based on what I believe to be the aesthetic logic of the show.