Conan the Adventurer: “Red Sonja”
Conan the Adventurer (not to be confused with the animated series of the same name) was a syndicated TV series that ran for 22 episodes in 1997-1998. It was an obvious attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess (which, in my mind, were attempts to make Conan and Red Sonja TV series without paying for the rights, but that’s just a guess). If you don’t remember this show, well, no one does, but you can watch it on Tubi, which is my favorite TV series graveyard.
Conan is played by Ralf Moeller, who comes across like a poor man’s Schwarzenegger, but I think that’s what they were going for. He has a typical band of sidekicks that offer support and comic relief. You’ve basically seen this show before so I don’t really need to catch you up (and to be fair, I only watched this one episode).
It took Conan the Adventurer 14 episodes to bring in Red Sonja, played by Angelica Bridges (I don’t know if the idea was to also give her a spinoff but I think this show was pretty doomed to begin with). The plot revolves around trying to save some young wizard and I’ve watched it twice and it doesn’t matter.
Red Sonja shows up and she’s immediately snarky and “tough,” using insults as characterization. I think some of it is the writing (which is bad), but Bridges can’t pull this off. She looks the part and the costume is decent enough (not the scale armor bikini, but a good update) but she comes across as trying too hard. She’s all snarling anger and stilted dialogue.
The show at least changed Sonja’s backstory to omit her rape — she was rescued instead as a child and was raised as a warrior. There is, of course, much made of that she’s beautiful and a woman who can fight.
The action sequences are clunky and clangy and not really much to speak of. I have to assume that’s mostly just as this show is.
I think what bothers me the most about this is that there’s no real reason for this character to be Red Sonja, other than the vague name recognition. Yes, she has red hair and a sword, but other than that, she doesn’t have too much to do with the Red Sonja of the comics. Still, it’s the only other live-action instance of Red Sonja I found.
Xena: Warrior Princess: “Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts”
Yes, I know what you want to say: Xena is not Red Sonja. But in my mind, Xena is not not Red Sonja. In some ways, Xena: Warrior Princess is probably the closest adaptation of Red Sonja we’re going to get (other than Sonja never had a sidekick). Xena doesn’t have red hair but she has the more-or-less “lone warrior helping out where it’s needed” thing down.
Why this episode in particular? The story was co-written by Roy Thomas, co-creator of Red Sonja. (Thomas, unsurprisingly, wrote several Xena comics).
Xena (Lucy Lawless) and Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor) are summoned to Troy by a message sent by Helen, who want their help in ending the Trojan War.
It’s an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess and a pretty decent one at that. It’s fun and has all the ridiculous bending of history that one would expect from the show. It also does a surprisingly good job of balancing the action with emotions. It’s not deep, no, but it helps the show actually hired good actors who can sell this story.
Does Roy Thomas bring anything particularly special here? It’s hard to tell, honestly, since he only co-wrote the story, but there is a sense that everyone is having a pretty good time.
I would like to see more live-action Red Sonja but until then, this is close enough.
