Xena and Gabrielle ’shippers – your dreams may just come true. Well, the non-pornographic ones anyway. Ever since Xena: Warrior Princess first aired in the ’90s, fans have wondered just how deep the relationship went between the two companions, and the show’s writers pushed it as far as they could for TV at the time with hints, innuendos and insinuation. But now full-on same sex relationships are now longer taboo for the mainstream networks, and the showrunner NBC’s Xena reboot is promising that the new show won’t shy away from addressing the nature of the bond between Xena and her sidekick.

This promise comes from Javier Grillo-Marxuach, a beleaguerd writer at the centre of a LGBTQ  controversy at the moment for penning an episode of The 100 that angered viewers (and not just the LGBTQ ones) and caused an online storm (we won’t go into details in case you’re watching the show and not seen the episode yet but this feature explains if you have  a decade to spare to read it). It’s a shame Grillo-Marxuach was mixed up in all this, as he’s been a fine champion for LGBTQ issues on TV in the past so maybe his assurances about the Xena reboot – made on his blog in response to The 100 controversy – are a form of damage limitation.

“Xena will be a very different show made for very different reasons,” he writes. “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 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.”

Doesn’t sound like much digging is required…

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