"Xena" is among the top series to 'recover' from a pregnant lead actress. Being completely unable to hide Lawless' pregnancy, they were forced to make the Warrior Princess a second time mommy. The problem with that is there's no place for a baby in an action show. Cleverly, The Powers That Be froze Xena and Gabrielle in an ice cave so they could awaken 25 years later without baby Eve.
It was time for the introduction of a new female villain. "Xena" has always been the best series for having the best reoccurring baddies mostly because the ones we see again and again are always humanized.
Livia (Adrienne Wilkinson) was no exception to the trend established by Ares (Kevin Smith) and Callisto (Hudson Leick) great actor, believable challenge for Xena and oh so very human.
Adrienne Wilkinson made a wonderful edition to the reoccurring cast of "Xena". Her first major role, Wilkinson had to deal with a lot of firsts in her acting career, but her performance didn't suffer. In fact, Wilkinson triumphed in a role where she could have been easily lost, as many scenes in this episode involved Livia listening to conversations between other characters.
Wilkinson never failed to show the constantly active and working mind of Livia. The way she used her eyes and subtle body movements kept Livia active and interesting to watch, even when two more established characters were talking and she wasn't in the foreground.
Written by Chris Manheim, "Livia" was the perfect farewell episode for one of the strongest writers of the series. Her script was powerful, emotional, yet still action packed. Manheim had a talent for writing the episodes that shook things up with the children of Xena and Gabrielle.