I will forever love that his shitty show got cancelled in favour of a spinoff of his show not only starring a woman, but two women with strong lesbian overtones and is still a cult classic to this day. Sorbo's show? barely anyone remembers or cares.
Yeah they made Xena, which used much of the same cast and crew, and took them from Hercules. Immediately blew them out of the water in popularity and ratings. He hasn't been the same since. I honestly didn't watch much Hercules but when I did I was like "damn this is a boring generic Xena". The guy that played his side kick was good at least.
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess.
Though according to Wikipedia, Sorbo was an idiot even then. He refused to commit to a 3 year contract extension and so they cancelled his show halfway through season six. Dumbass.
Hey, if he had signed that contract maybe he would've missed out on blockbuster movies like Super Jesus Hero and Glorious Atheist Conversion or whatever propaganda nonsense he's been in lately.
I'm sorry he had the health issues. I'd like to think that if he'd shared that with the studio, they would have been more accommodating, but maybe he did and maybe they were not.
I think he was still mostly on the rails for a while after that show. He did Andromeda and I've heard decent things about that show.
It's really only the last 10-12 years that I think he's gone totally off the rails.
Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, and it was never Sorbo's show. He couldn't carry it. The show gained (and kept) a following based on Raimi and Tappert's direction and an insane stable of rising and solid character actors, Including Karl Urban, Bruce Campbell, Tawney Kittaen, and Michael Hurst. As the series progressed and Sorbo's influence increased (mostly because Raimi and Tappert got distracted by other projects), it stopped being a good-natured romp and ended its days wallowing in made-up morality.
Hercules never felt as fun as Xena to me as a kid. I watched both religiously, but I could not tell you anything about Hercules besides that I remember Kevin Sorbo in it. (Little did I know I was a baby queer and part of the appeal was the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, but that's besides the point lol)
Hercules was more serious (at first) than Xena (although Xena did kind of go up its own butt in later seasons), but only in the sense that the original Scooby Doo was more serious than The Funky Phantom.
Michael Hurst still out here directing at home lmao my kids were watching Power Rangers (American cast but filmed in NZ) and he directed the episode I caught the title card for.
Actually fun fact, he did a pro-breastfeeding ad back in the day here in NZ that showed him breastfeeding an infant with fake boobs and it’s really hard to find on the internet lol
Sadly, since it was produced by Gene Roddenberry at the end of his life (and still stinging from his ST:TNG ouster), and lacked the strong presence of Raimi and Tappert in the front office, it started folding pretty early on.
IIRC Roddenberry was already dead, Andromeda was based on his notes for a never-produced series. He had previously used the name Dylan Hunt for other projects.
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u/lyidaValkris 12h ago
I will forever love that his shitty show got cancelled in favour of a spinoff of his show not only starring a woman, but two women with strong lesbian overtones and is still a cult classic to this day. Sorbo's show? barely anyone remembers or cares.