Xena: Warrior Princess/YMMV

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: The death of Joxer.
• Non Sequitur Scene: "Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire" is more of a Big Lipped Alligator Episode. Not that this show was big on historical accuracy, but the episode opens with Xena, Gabrielle and Joxer breaking into a rendition of Edwin Starr's War and spends the rest of the episode having two warring parties fight it out in a battle of the bands rather than with swords. This episode followed up right after several very serious episodes too.
• Complete Monster: Atyminius, who enjoys cutting brides-to-be into tiny pieces.
• Crowning Music of Awesome
  • The intro. How about the intro on electric lyre?
  • He's Joxer! Joxer the Mighty! Joxer! Joxer the Mighty!
• Cult Classic
• Draco in Leather Pants: This trope's even funnier when you realize there really IS a guy named Draco in Xena, and that he DOES wear leather pants. The show even plays the trope straight after everyone was suddenly made to love each other by Cupid's playful son, who somehow got a hold of daddy's arrows. The effect was later reversed, except for Draco. Xena suggested Cupid not undo this one to make the warlord a better, less dangerous-to-society person. This comes back to haunt them in a later episode.
• Evil Is Sexy: Ares. Well, just about everyone is sexy in this series, but the villains tend to be sexier than the average peasant.
• Fan Yay: Xena and Gabrielle, which later became officially reciprocated.
• Foe Yay: Xena and Callisto, Xena and Ares, Gabrielle and Ares.
• Franchise Original Sin: The show probably would have been better off in the long run if they hadn't had Xena and Gabrielle run into a family of monotheists in an episode clearly inspired by the Abraham and Isaac story. It was an isolated episode and could have been ignored. So was the later "Giant Killer" episode where Xena helps David kill Goliath. But then comes the opener of the fifth season, where Xena and Gabrielle find themselves meeting angels in a war between Heaven and Hell (as opposed to just journeying through the previously established Greek mythology afterlife featuring the Elysian Fields and Tartarus). And then comes the whole "Twilight of the Gods" arc in which Xena is basically manipulated by "the one God" to kill every Greek God who appears on-screen, except for Ares and Aphrodite. The fact that the Gods, previously shown to be very competent and powerful, end up carrying the Idiot Ball and literally can't kill a Badass Normal like Xena if their lives depended on it, didn't help. And neither did the whole "Xena and Gabrielle awake 25 years later" thing. In this case, the original sin would be the Abraham and Isaac episode, done back in the series' otherwise better days.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment
  • In the early season one episode "Cradle of Hope", Gabrielle scorns the idea of someone sending a baby down a river. Then came the season three episode, "Gabrielle's Hope", in which Gabrielle sends her (evil) newborn baby down a river rather than kill her—an act that comes back to haunt Xena and Gabrielle in a big way.
  • The many deaths of Joxer who died in season 5.
  • Ares falling out of the sky after Gabrielle accidentally depowered him. Sadly, Kevin Smith died in kind of the same way.
• Guilty Pleasure
• Harsher in Hindsight: Ares giving up his immortality to save Eve. RIP Kevin Smith.
• Jump the Shark: As detailed above, it's generally agreed that the show did this with the "Twilight of the Gods" arc and dumping Greek mythology for the Judeo-Christian variety. In spite of this, though, the episode "Motherhood" was pretty well-received.
• More Popular Spinoff: Of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
• Narm: Livia/Eve's bad acting causes this. When she's angry she sounds less like Rome's champion and more like a Valley girl.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Joxer.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Julius Caesar became the new Dr. McCoy!
  • While Brutus later loyally served as Scorpius' favorite Mauve Shirt, Braca.
  • The chick from Cold Case is Najara.
• Running the Asylum: Several episodes of the 6th season of were actually written by a (critically acclaimed) Fanfic writer who was approached by the creators of the show and asked to write a bunch of episodes.
• Seasonal Rot
  • Arguably the sixth season.
  • If not that, then certainly Season 5. The above Twilight of the Gods/Christianity arc was widely panned among the fanbase. Fans also complained that Xena and Gabrielle didn't interact as much as close friends. And, of course, this season featured "Married With Fishsticks" - an episode so badly received on all fronts that it's often cited as the reason Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci were dumped as showrunners.
• Special Effects Failure: Some of the CGI and blue-screen effects used in the earlier episodes (such as in "The Titans", "Prometheus" and "Mortal Beloved") have not aged well. Somewhat justifed, as the budget wasn't exactly high.
• The Woobie: Joxer. Usually his Butt Monkey ways are played for laughs, but episodes like "For Him The Bell Tolls" and "A Comedy Of Eros" play his misfortunes in a far more sympathetic light.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
  • Callisto
  • Hope. Several people try to kill her before she's even born and continue even afterward. Even her mother, Gabby, abandons and then attempts to kill her. Despite this, Hope is willing to forgive her mother and wants to be close with her. Gabby's not interested.