Hercules: The Legendary Journeys was a show that aired from 1995 to 1999.  It was loosely based on the Greek myths of Hercules and the Olympian Gods.  To this day it is still one of our very favorite shows and we loved the friendship between Iolaus and Hercules and the adventures that they went on together.

Hercules was an action-adventure show about the demigod Hercules who had incredible strength.  He traveled around Greece with his best friend Iolaus, fighting the injustices of the world.  Most of his problems revolved around the Gods meddling in human affairs.  There were five movies which then turned into a six season television show, and it also had a spin-off, Xena: Warrior Princess, which actually became the more popular show.  Hercules was really the beginning of the action-adventure shows that became popular throughout the mid-90's, and it was one of the best.

The best part of the show was the relationship between Hercules and Iolaus.  We had not watched the fifth and sixth seasons originally because we knew that Iolaus was killed off, and thus our favorite part of the show was gone.  However, years later we finally watched the rest of the show and really enjoyed them a lot. Hercules was able to grow as a character and show many different sides of himself when he lost Iolaus.  And Michael Hurst was not gone from the show, as he was able to come back as many different characters before Iolaus came back to life.  Iolaus' return was handled really well, and it was nice to get back to the basic premise of the show (Hercules and Iolaus traveling together) for the last season.

Aside from Hercules' arc in the fifth season, the characters did not really grow throughout the show.  Most of the episodes were self contained with little to no reference to past events, and it would have been nice to have some development carry over as it did with Hercules leaving Greece after Iolaus' death.

There were some iffy episodes in the middle of the series when Kevin Sorbo was sick (i.e. Porkules, One Fowl Day), but the show did come back around and finish strong.

In the beginning of season 5 when Hercules was grieving over Iolaus, when Hercules and Iolaus said goodbye to each other, when Iolaus returned in the last episode of season 5, the very last scene of the series, and "Friends forever, right Herc?" (and really all of the scenes in "Yes, Virginia, There is a Hercules" and "For Those of You Just Joining Us").

Hercules and Iolaus are our favorite characters on the show, though we also love the guest characters Autolycus, Salmoneous, and Ares.  The relationship between Hercules and Iolaus provided the basis for the show and they were both great characters.  Autolycus and Salmoneous carried more than one episode without the main characters, and those episodes were still very strong.  Ares was a really funny character, and it was interesting to see how different he was when he was around Xena (where he was a love interest) compared to Hercules (where he was a villain).