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The old official Queen of Swords Web site is gone, but we should never forget the great show it represented. Tessie Santiago starred as Tessa Alvarado in The Queen of Swords in the 2001 - 2002 television season. Fireworks Entertainment, the same people who brought us Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, launched a show about a Zorro-like heroine who returns to her home in the New World after learning about her father's untimely death. Tessa Alvarado has grown up at the Spanish court and she has secretly trained under one of the greatest Spanish swordmasters for five years. Her father's spirit visits her in a dream and foretells that she will become his avenging angel. When Tessa learns that Colonel Montoya, the regional governor, is a ruthless man, she realizes that her father's killer must have many allies to hide among.
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The show was not well-received by the critics, who compared it unfavorably to Zorro. Sony Pictures filed a lawsuit against Fireworks Entertainment, claiming trademark infringement. However, fans enjoyed the show because it had uncharacteristically well-written scripts, great acting, and an interesting storyline. Tessa's quest for her father's killers was bound up with her mission to bring justice to the suffering people of St. Helena (the fictional New World colony where the series was set). What hurt the show the most, in my opinion, was the fact that it was syndicated. Plenty of markets carried the series, but they did not give it good air-times and often it was pre-empted or rescheduled. No show can survive that kind of bad management. In the end, Fireworks claimed it wanted to maintain at least a 1.0 Nielsen rating to keep the show in production, but they missed that by 1/10th of a point. They pulled the plug and moved on with such WONDERFUL drivel as "Mutant X".
This Web site celebrates the fallen Queen. Fireworks Entertainment sold a limited-run set of QOS videos to loyal fans. You probably cannot buy them now, except perhaps on eBay. Beware of counterfeits, though. Since the wallpapers and images we'll be offering here were made available for free on the original QueenofSwords Web site (and the original domain name has now been picked up by a speculator -- don't pay them any money for it), we hope that no one will object to our continuing to make them available to anyone who wants them. We charge no money. We are not removing watermarks. The images remain the property of Fireworks Entertainment.
We may, if time and scheduling permit, create a fan archive of some sort. Our resources are limited.
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