TV Series: Hercules the Legendary Journeys

After the five television movies which acted as a prequel to the Hercules television series, the first episode of the official series was "The Wrong Path", broadcast on 29th January 1995, two months after "Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur". It's not just a different format, 45 instead of 90 minutes. It's a new direction for the character, beginning with a tragedy.

Hercules returns home after a night out with his friend Iolaus. When he walks into his bedroom he witnesses his wife Deianeira being burnt to a crisp by a fireball.

He hurries into his children's bedroom, just in time to see them being killed by a second fireball. He hears Hera's laughter echoing from the sky.

Hercules' grief quickly turns to revenge. He tells Iolaus that he no longer wants to help people in need. His sole purpose in life is now to destroy all of Hera's temples, beginning with the largest. He refuses a request to aid the people of Ister whose men are being turned to stone by a seductive She-Demon.

But fate plays a role. In the second temple that he destroys he rescues a slave girl who's about to be sacrificed. She says she's from Ister, so he escorts her home, and he defeats the She-Demon.

Hercules despises Hera, but he realises that living for revenge alone is a wrong path. He decides to dedicate his life to helping others even more than he did before. Without his family, his house is no longer a home, so he sets it on fire and becomes a wanderer. This is where his Legendary Journeys begin.

Hercules visits his mother Alcmene to ask why Zeus didn't protect his family. Alcmene says that Zeus was busy with a woman. This destroys any affection that Hercules had for his father. Zeus appeared in all five television movies, but he doesn't appear at all in the next 111 episodes of the series.

Alcmene appeared once before in the first television movie, "Hercules and the Amazon Women", but she was played by a different actress. She was played by three different actresses in the series, not including younger actresses in flasback scenes.

Jennifer Ludlam plays Alcmene in "Hercules and the Amazon Women".

Elizabeth Hawthorne plays Alcmene in the first season of "Hercules the Legendary Journeys".

Liddy Holloway plays Alcmene in the remaining seasons of "Hercules the Legendary Journeys".