Who would think that in the beginning of the XXI century, we would be stuck in TV programs that talk about adventures of mythological heroes? As weird as it may sound many people prefer sword, monsters and gods above computers, spy techniques, guns and computer viruses.
This is the case of Hercules and Xena, two syndicalizied shows of Renaissance pictures and Universal Studios. First Hercules appeared on 1994; the project was fair simple: to do a couple of movies. (some that included great and famous actors as the recently deceased Anthony Quinn) But the project got a great success and from this "Hercules: the legendary Journeys" began. The story was based on the real Greek mythology but the producers changed it slightly to inject more entertainment. So, Herc began his story when Hera murdered his wife and sons, from this point he began fighting evil gods (as his own half brother Ares) and evil people. Moreover, he wasn't alone his best friend from childhood Iolaus helped him along the way. Unfortunately the show began having bad ratings and the production cancelled it on the seventh season at the episode number eight.
On the other hand Xena began as a guest character on Hercules; she appeared on a trilogy called "The: Warrior Princess" herself being the bad girl with world conquering intentions. Compared with the first she was the baddie of the story, so Herc had two options: kill her or save her, the producers at first planned on kill her but the ratings went so up (almost 10 points world wide) that they decided to make a spin off series. In 1995 "Xena" appeared as the broken ex-warlord that since the first episode she began searching for redemption, yet never being able to reach it nor to forgive herself for her past deeds. As a new creation and not linked to mythology like Herc, she was more free and this caused her a pretty big background. The producers (that were the same for both series) never cared about historical accuracy and this was part of their success, first because one day it was a Oscar- winning drama, next a musical and then a slapstick comedy. One enemy, was that Usa Networks sold the rights to it's subsidiary Studios USA, with this the ratings dropped, causing the cancel of the series this 2001, to be more precise the final episode was shown on July of this year.
Something good for both series was that they used crossovers between them, making the stories more fun, entertaining and creating "hearth wrenching" arcs. They used the same actors, settings, doubles and landscapes and doing this they save a lot of money. In the same way they shared conventions along the word where million of fans still keep on both series alive through web sites, fan fiction, projects, chats, between a lot of stuff. In contrast to other sci-fi shows this series were shown over one hundred and ten countries and were very popular in a lot of social circles.
In short both series were about the same love, peace, friendship and to fight for what you believe in, including the "believe in yourself against all odds". The most notable difference between them was that Herc was always the good guy with godly powers like all the super heroes stereotype; while Xena was human, but her spirit and self confidence made her reach almost Herc powers. Both fought against evil but Xena also fought against her dark side, something Herc never experimented. This was a nice change on TV because while some programs talk about intrigue, jealousy, envy as main point, Xena and Hercules didn't. Furthermore they talked about friendship, society, racism and peace in a very subtle way; giving us the chance to remember the family, the values, the respect for other humans and the long forgotten idea of fighting for what you believe and want with out caring the consequences.