Prior to the debut of "Xena: Warrior Princess," the titular character first appeared in "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys." Unlike Xena's later incarnation as a heroic figure seeking redemption for the misdeeds of her past, the original Xena was a cutthroat warlord out to murder Hercules in a multi-episode arc. The original plan had been to kill off Xena, but fate intervened.
As "Xena" co-creator Rob Tapert told Entertainment Weekly, Xena's arrival into the "Hercules" universe coincided with Universal Television's desire to create a female-centered companion series. According to Tapert, a Universal exec advised him to "rip yourself off before somebody else does and try and make a spinoff out of that character." The plan was clinched, Tapert said, when Universal execs saw footage of Xena in action. "When they saw the dailies of that episode, they thought, 'Yeah, we should do a spinoff,'" recalled Tapert.
Looking back, Lucy Lawless admitted that landing a guest spot on "Hercules" and immediately starring in a spinoff seemed, at the time, like "an entirely natural process ... It's only now that I'm sweating bullets at the extreme, almost cataclysmic good luck that I had. All the stars all lined up."
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