Sister sledgehammer

Xena: Warrior Princess, the one-hour spinoff of Hercules: The Legendary Journey, is everything bad TV should be and more. Both shows are the creations of Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert, the cultmeisters behind The Evil Dead, Darkman, and the TV series American Gothic. The Raimi/Tapert recipe for Xena and Hercules appears to be stars that aren't eyesores, big-screen special effects, one-liners in the midst of battle, fight scenes full of slapstick martial arts, and -- if that ain't enough -- a mythological pantheon full of vengeful gods who seem to have nothing better to do than make our heroes' lives hell, sometimes literally.

Sex, violence, comedy, and divine intervention add up, in these cases, to a righteous twanging of that camp chord deep somewhere at the base of our spine -- good goofy fun. And though both shows offer the same guilty pleasure as a bad teen movie -- ideally viewed in a hungover state on a weekend afternoon -- Xena actually rises to levels of, for lack of a better term, feminism. The main reason is the performance of Lucy Lawless (her real name), who plays the warrior princess with a straight-up strength not devoid of sexuality. The other is that the character created by Raimi and Tapert rules her own world (lives her own life) without compromise.

Lawless, the fifth of seven children (four older brothers ensured her toughness), is a native of New Zealand, where both series are filmed. At the age of 17 she moved to Australia, where she got a job mining gold in Kalgoorlie, a small town in the Outback about 500 miles from Perth -- basically nowhere. She worked there for two years digging, mapping, driving trucks, and pushing huge core samples through a diamond saw (great training for future battles with Cyclops). She married in Australia and returned to Auckland to raise her daughter and pursue acting. Her career took off with guest appearances on Hercules -- first as the Amazon enforcer Lysia and then as Lyla the bride of a centaur. But it was the outrageous viewer response she received when she played Xena, Hercules's nemesis in three episodes of The Legendary Journeys, that prodded Raimi and Tapert to replace Vanishing Son, the original, highly successful partner in this "Action Pack," with Ms. Warrior Princess.

Even without her tomboy ways, Lawless, at just under six feet with crystalline blue eyes, cuts the figure of an intimidating opponent and, for the same reasons, a strikingly beautiful one. Add these ingredients to the role of Xena, reformed killer with a heart, and the result is the hottest of all possible paradoxes: a sexy, tender warrior; a babe with a bite.

Give Raimi and Tapert lots of points for casting the big woman. Sure, she's no chunk queen and she'll never be a poster child for cellulite, and those big breasts didn't hurt her chances at all, but she ain't petite. Xena eats waifs for breakfast (she's not worried about her warrior waistline). Even more thumbs-up praise is due these guys for moral lessons, both present and absent, in their story lines. Xena, the ruthless leader of a band of marauders (all male), comes to realize the error of her ways and begins a quest to help the helpless, but after she and Hercules become lovers, she turns down his offer of traveling together in favor of traveling alone. Sure, this aids the spinoff potential, but you've got to like the way it looks on her résumé. In addition, Xena's trip into the heart of darkness gives credibility to her fight against injustice that makes Hercules's self-righteousness appear, well, self-righteous. She shellacs a legion of savages and sneers a symbolic high-five with the forces of good; for Xena, there will be no embarrassing sentimentality.

But there will be sexuality. Xena's allowed to be sexy and have sex without being punished like, say, Jocasta, or Jezebel, or any of her other contemporaries who get it stuck to them. Her strength and cunning afford her the independence that all women should have: the freedom from fear, the freedom from physical dependence. Xena doesn't need cabs or pepper mace.

Okay, this show ain't high art and there is the matter of that horrible sidekick Gabrielle, who peaks at 8 out of 10 on the Wesley Crusher scale of annoying, but what is better than a guilty pleasure with guts? Nutritious junk food? Besides, the Warrior Princess spells her name with an X.

Search for the Xena within at http://www.mca.com/tv/xena.