Xena: Warrior Princess Only Exists Because Of This Forgotten TV Flop

In 1994, Universal launched a block of TV programming that was designed to debut a long series of brand-new TV movies, all of them in the action, fantasy, or sci-fi genres. It was presented as the "Action Pack," and each "episode" was a new TV movie from a different franchise. In TV parlance, it's called a "wheel series." The block debuted with "TekWar," a sci-fi pilot based on the novels of William Shatner. The original plan for the Action Pack was to premiere TV movies based on "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Midnight Run," as well as originals like "Fastlane," "Vanshing Son," and "Hercules and the Amazon Women." Each of these six franchises was to be given, at the very least, four films. 

The Action Pack blurred the line a little bit between what counted as a series, and what counted as movies. The four "TekWar" movies were eventually recut and repurposed as the first season of the "TekWar" TV series, and they were followed by a second season consisting of 18 hour-long episodes. The four "Bandit" movies never led to a series, so they are still classified as movies. "Hercules" was the biggest success story from the Action Pack, spawning four stand-alone movies, and spinning off into "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" in 1995. That series, starring Kevin Sorbo, ran for 111 episodes and became a minor cultural phenomenon. Even more successful was the show's spin-off, "Xena: Warrior Princess," an action series based on a "Hercules" guest warrior played by Lucy Lawless. "Xena" lasted 135 episodes over six seasons. 

"Xena," however, would not have had room to thrive if another one of the Action Pack movies hadn't faltered a little. The four "Vanishing Son" movies fetched okay numbers, and Universal did spin those movies into a 13-episode season of TV in 1995, but they quickly, well, vanished from the public's consciousness, and the series was taken off the air. "Xena" moved into its timeslot and thrived. 

"Xena" creator Robert Tapert recently spoke with EW, and he remembered "Vanishing Son" and how its failure gave "Xena" the space it needed.

The first "Vanishing Son" movie traced the adventures of Jiang-Wa Chang (Russell Wong) and his brother Wago (Chi Muoi Lo) being raised in an upper-class family in China in the late 1980s. Jiang-Wa's violin teacher is played by Rob Cohen, the creator of the series. Jiang-Wa and Wago regularly attend protests and demonstrations against the government with their friend Lili (Vivian Wu), and when they run afoul of the Chinese police, the two brothers are forced to flee the country and come to America to start their lives over. Jiang-Wa begins playing violin professionally and falls in love with a cellist played by Rebecca Gayheart. Wago, however, falls in with the local Vietnamese mob (run by Haing S. Ngor), and slowly slips into iniquity.

The story of the sequels gets a little complicated — "Vanishing Son II" takes place in Louisiana, and follows a battle between Vietnamese immigrants and the Ku Klux Klan (!) — but suffice to say Wago's crimes continue to multiply, and the resentment between the brothers continues to grow. At the end of "Vanishing Son III," two FBI agents are killed, and Jiang-Wa is framed for the murder. Those murders become instrumental to the "Vanishing Son" TV series, which sees Jiang-Wa on the lam, trying to clear his name. 

Tapert has nothing to say about the quality of "Vanishing Son," but he did note that it wasn't quite in the same spirit as "Hercules." The two Action Packers made for a bad double feature. Because "Hercules" was more popular, though, a new pairing would have to come at the expense of "Vanishing Son." Tapert said:

"'Hercules' was five two-hour movies, then they ordered 13 episodes of 'Hercules,' and there was a show it was paired with called 'Vanishing Son.' And while 'Hercules' did really well, 'Vanishing Son' didn't do as well. So the executives at the studio at that time said, 'We control those two hour blocks on all these stations across America. We need a better pairing than that.'"

And just like that, "Vanishing Son" vanished.

One cannot say why "Vanishing Son" did as poorly as it did. Perhaps it simply wasn't action-packed enough for the Action Pack. There were multiple fight scenes and shoot-outs, but the premise and tone were so much more dour when compared to all the other Action Pack shows/movies. It was more about drama, crime, and reconciliation than kicking ass. Only Wong, Lo, and Ngor appeared in all four movies and in the TV series. Dustin Nguyen and Tamlyn Tomita were in some of the movies, and they, too, appeared on the TV show. 

Meanwhile, "Hercules" was a hit, and it was sucking all the air out of the room. When Tapert introduced the Xena character in the first season of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys," he knew right away that she deserved her own spin-off series. With "Vanishing Son" flagging anyway, Tapert stepped in to develop "Xena: Warrior Princess." He knew he had to move fast because someone else would probably try to rip off the character soon enough if they didn't take the opportunity themselves. In his words: 

"And so when [the studio heads] saw the Xena character in Hercules — literally in a rough cut, the roughest of rough cuts — they said, 'Yes, we should rip ourselves off before somebody else does.' And so that really was the financial need at the studio." 

These days, "Xena" is far better liked than even "Hercules." 

The rest of the Action Pack, meanwhile, continued to thrive for a few more years, turning out shows like "Cleopatra 2525," "Knight Rider 2010," and "Jack of All Trades" as well as one-off stand-alone movies like "Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus" and the comedy "The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space." The Action Pack brand unceremoniously came to a close in 2001, a TV oddity remembered by only a select few. Its legacy lives on only in "Xena," while "Vanishing Son" remains hard to find.