Season four ended in May with The Ides of March. Julius Caesar got what history says he got, and Xena and Gabrielle ended up on crosses, side by side, and then the screen went dark and the summer started. I have never been so angry at a television in my life. Tina, our shortstop, watched it at my apartment and had to go sit on the back steps for a while.

Four months later, season five starts the week of Monday, September 27. Since the show is sold station by station, it lands on a different night in different towns; ours runs it on the weekend, so the people back East will know before I do. I am going to stay off the Internet for three days, which for me is the hardest thing on this page.

I've heard the rumors about how they get out of it. I'm not printing any of them. Some of them are probably even true. I'd rather find out the way I found out everything else for four years: on my couch, with a bowl of popcorn, and my dog Bard watching me yell.

Not the seven best, necessarily. The seven I'd hand to somebody who'd never seen the show, in the order they aired. No summaries; you should see them for yourself. Just why.

Nothing from season four made the seven, though The Ides of March came close, for reasons that will be obvious. Ask me again in May.