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A Fistful of Dinars Reviewed

Xena and Gabrielle join up with assassin Thersites and Xena`s ex-fiance Petracles to hunt for treasure in this adventure story. Each holds a clue to the location of some Sumerian treasure, and must work together. What Xena isn`t telling the men is that there is also a special key with the treasure that leads to ambrosia - food of the gods and a nibble of which can turn a person into a god. Along the way, Petracles tries charming Gabrielle and the quartet have a few scrapes and fights to get through.

The top writing pair are together again, but once more I was disappointed. This is a better, if unoriginal story, but for me the characters just don`t work. Particularly Xena`s ex, Petracles, who is a charmless individual lacking in charisma. You can`t for the life of you imagine how he and Xena got together. It just doesn`t ring true and similarly his characters interactions with Gabrielle are poor. I don`t know whether the blame lies with the script or the actor, but Petracles is a weak link for me. There are good scenes in the episode however. The attempt to steal a jewel from a temple by Gabrielle and Thersites is quite fun; Xena and Petracles` venture through the hall of silence is another good scene, and I did quite like Gabrielle and Petracles` attempts to outdo each other in boasting how persuasive they were. Petracles` trump card being that he persuaded Xena to marry him, to which Gabrielle has no reply. Peter Daube, who played Petracles was in The Gauntlet with Lucy Lawless as the father of the baby Xena saves. An OK but not shining episode - again.

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