As more beloved TV shows from the '90s are remade and rebooted, creators have to decide how to make sure the new versions are firmly planted in the current TV landscape. For the upcoming Xena reboot, that means taking the lesbian subtext and making it official canon.
The news (or at least the implication) broke on Tumblr, where Javier Grillo-Marxuach, an executive producer on the reboot, answered a question about a recent upset on The 100, a show Grillo-Marxuach also works on. The 100 has faced criticism over the fate of a lesbian character who made up half of a central (if short-lived) gay couple on the show.
When asked by the fan if the backlash against that character's fate would, "have effect on your writing for future projects like Xena," Grillo-Marxuach wrote, "I am a very different person with a very different world view [sic] than my employer on The 100 — and my work on The 100 was to use my skills to bring that vision to life. Xena will be a very different show made for very different reasons. There is no reason to bring back Xena if it is not there for the purpose of fully exploring a relationship that could only be shown subtextually [sic] in first-run syndication in the 1990s. It will also express my view of the world — which is only further informed by what is happening right now — and is not too difficult to know what that is if you do some digging."
It seems like the work of Xena slash-fiction writers could become a reality.