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Lexx (also known as LEXX: The Dark Zone Stories and Tales from a Parallel Universe) is a science fiction television series created by Lex Gigeroff and brothers Paul and Michael Donovan. It originally aired on April 18, 1997, on Canada's Citytv as four made-for-TV movies. Beginning with season two, the format changed to a traditional TV series with each episode running 45 minutes long. The series follows a group of mismatched individuals aboard the organic spacecraft Lexx as they travel through two universes and encounter planets, including a parody of Earth. The narrative includes irony, parody, and sex comedy, and explores ideas of fatalism, reincarnation, the afterlife, and the paradigm of good and evil.
The series is a Canadian and German co-production with some additional funding from Channel 5. Sci Fi Channel purchased the series from Salter Street Films and began airing episodes from seasons one and two (the former under the name Tales from a Parallel Universe) for the American audience in January 2000. Lexx was co-produced by Salter Street Films, later absorbed by Alliance Atlantis. In Canada, Lexx aired on the Alliance Atlantis-owned Showcase network. Lexx was primarily filmed in Canada and Germany, with additional filming on location in Iceland, Thailand, Namibia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the British Virgin Islands.
Lexx had very different tones throughout its run. While the original TV movies and the second season were mostly science fiction drama with dark comedy, season three was more serious and explored themes of life, death, and reincarnation. The show's final season – set on Earth in the early 2000s – took many turns into pure farce and introduced magic and other new elements. The series has garnered a cult following.
The plot unfolds across a time span of over six thousand years. Kai's "death" occurs 2008 years before the beginning of the main events of the series. For Seasons One and Two, each episode is focused on space travel and usually one different planet. Seasons 3 and 4 have a single general location for all episodes. At the beginning of Season 3, the crew spends 4000 years in Cryopreservation before arriving at twin planets Fire and Water. In Season 4, the Lexx reaches Earth in the early 2000s.
2008 years later, Stanley H. Tweedle is an assistant deputy backup courier for the Ostral-B heretics, a resistance group fighting against the Divine Order. After unknowingly leading His Divine Shadow to an Ostral-B outpost, resulting in its destruction, he is captured by the mercenaries Feppo and Smoor who extract information from him on the locations of other Ostral-B planets. They sell this information to the Divine Order, resulting in the deaths of billions. Stanley, subsequently captured by the Divine Order and after undergoing interrogation, is made a class-four security guard on the Cluster, the capital planet of the Divine Order and League of 20,000 Planets. After being reprimanded for insubordination and failing to turn himself in, he becomes a fugitive on the Cluster.
Zev Bellringer arrives on the Cluster as a prisoner and is sentenced to be turned into a love-slave, after failing to perform her wifely duties and assaulting her fiancé. Other prisoners, including a group of Ostral-B heretics and their leader, Thodin, are sentenced to be publicly executed. Thodin attempts to use an explosive device to free himself, but the device malfunctions and releases giant Cluster Lizards from containment, wreaking havoc across the Cluster. Thodin escapes and frees the other heretics, and reluctantly rescues the cannibal Giggerota. During Zev's transformation into a love-slave, she is attacked by a Cluster Lizard, turning her into a love-slave/Cluster Lizard hybrid. Before the brainwashing portion of the transformation begins, Zev frees herself and places the 790 droid in charge of her transformation in her place, causing the robot head to be programmed to be a love-slave. Upon seeing Zev, 790 immediately falls in love with her and pursues her as she escapes. His Shadow awakens Kai from cryostasis to protect the secret weapons laboratory.
Stanley and Zev meet up and make their way towards the secret weapons laboratory, where they find several Ostral-B heretics attempting to board a ship. They are pursued by Kai, who kills Thodin and chases the others into the ship. Inside, the heretics are attacked and killed by a Cluster Lizard. Before his death, one of the heretics releases a form of energy into Stanley.
Stanley, Zev, 790, and Giggerota reach the ship's bridge. The ship introduces itself as the Lexx, a machine-insect hybrid and "the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes", capable of destroying an entire planet in a single blast. The energy Stanley absorbed is revealed to be the key to the Lexx, making Stanley its captain. As Stanley instructs the Lexx to fly off the Cluster, they are cornered by Kai who throws Giggerota off the bridge. Before Kai can execute the others, he instead heads to the ship's hold to protect the Divine Predecessors who are being attacked by a Cluster Lizard. After saving them, Kai regains his memories from the brain of the Divine Predecessor who killed him, prompting him to turn against His Shadow. The Lexx is pursued and boarded by His Shadow, who attacks Kai for turning against him. Stanley and Zev distract His Shadow long enough for Kai to destroy him; his essence retreats from the ship as it travels through a Wormhole into the Dark Zone. While traversing the portal, the Lexx's memory of His Shadow and its allegiance to him is wiped. The Lexx destroys the remnants of His Shadow's fleet that followed them through the portal. The three then begin searching the Dark Zone for a new home, away from His Shadow.
During their search, they encounter Kai's homeworld and explore it for insights into his past. Finding the planet abandoned, they are pursued by Giggerota who attempts to destroy the planet by disabling a series of towers that are keeping a dying star from becoming a supernova. The trio become separated from each other and discover the Time Prophet's prophecy of Kai destroying the insect civilization. Giggerota disables the towers, but the crew escapes aboard the Lexx without her. She and the planet are destroyed in the supernova.
After some time, the Lexx runs low on organic fuel and lands on the nearby planet of Klaagia to feed. The group discovers a group of psychotics obsessed with "pattern", a liquid made from organic material that parasites within their bodies feed on. Stan, Zev, and Kai inadvertently awaken the parasite queen, who attaches itself to the Lexx and pursues them off the planet. The Lexx fires on the planet and destroys it, using the meteors to kill the queen.
Meanwhile, Kai is running low on protoblood, which he needs to function in his undead state; protoblood can only be found on the Cluster. The group returns to the Cluster to find it abandoned, learning that the entire population of the League of 20,000 Planets was culled to feed and awaken the immense Giga Shadow, the last remaining insect. With help from a defecting priest of the Divine Order, they stall the Giga Shadow's awakening long enough for Kai to plant a baby Cluster Lizard inside of it. As the Lexx and its crew are almost destroyed, the Cluster Lizard reaches the Giga Shadow's brain and consumes it, killing the Giga Shadow. With a fresh supply of protoblood, the crew returns to the Dark Zone to search for a new home.
The rest of the season involves the crew searching for a new home. During their adventures, they encounter Lyekka, a plant that can transform into a human appearance and feeds on living beings. During their adventures, Zev is killed but later reincarnated by Lyekka as Xev. The crew has various encounters with strange creatures and civilizations, such as a group of astronauts from a potato planet, a planet that creates sitcoms, a vapour that changes sex organs into their opposite, a crashed prisoner transport captained by a gay cyborg, a graveyard planet for priests of the Divine Order, a cult led by the Wozzard who seeks to turn all beautiful women into ugly ones, and an island of secluded, illiterate .
Eventually, the crew learns that Mantrid has been using drones to consume the universe and convert its matter into more drones, quickly bringing the Light Zone to an end. The crew attempt to flee by travelling to the centre of the universe, where the rules of causality are different, offering them a potential hideaway from Mantrid. During their escape, they encounter an interdimensional theatre crew that tells the full story of the Brunnen-G, including how they defeated the insect civilization and eventually became hopelessly depressed at their immortality, waiting for the forces of His Shadow to come and destroy them. Kai, refusing to surrender, led a small group of rebels against His Shadow in a final act of defiance. Reinvigorated by Kai's story, the crew decide to stop running and face Mantrid.
With the help of 790, the crew finds that they can convert some of Mantrid's drones to fight for them. During their attack on his ship, Lyekka boards Mantrid's pod and disables him, but Mantrid kills her before she can finish him off. With the crew about to be overwhelmed by Mantrid drones, Kai employs a last-ditch strategy to destroy Mantrid. Kai taunts Mantrid into pursuing the Lexx towards the centre of the universe with all of his drones. The resulting movement of mass creates a Big Crunch, which Mantrid, the drones, the Lexx, and the rest of the Light Zone are pulled into and destroyed by. However, the Lexx rematerializes in the Dark Zone through a portal as Xev and Kai destroy Mantrid and his final drone. Without any other nearby planets and the Lexx running out of food, the crew place themselves into stasis and the Lexx goes dormant while 790 reactivates annually to search for nearby planets.
The crew meets people they knew from the Light and Dark Zones who cannot remember their past lives, though their personalities are the same. Fire is ruled by the charismatic Prince and his lackey Priest, while Water does not have a ruler. The inhabitants of both planets live in isolated towns. On Water, they live on islands in a huge ocean; on Fire, they live on massive towers separated by long stretches of desert. Water is inhabited by good people, while Fire is inhabited by evil people.
During Prince's first encounter with the crew, 790 is damaged and falls in love with Kai rather than Xev, and gradually behaves much more erratically. Prince seeks to destroy Water and attempts to win the crew over to his side, especially Xev. Believing that the Lexx is "the grain of sand that will tip the scales", he tests their sense of morality through various temptations, including taking the forms of other crew members to deceive them. The crew are frequently separated from each other, forcing them to act individually. After jumping from the Lexx to the surface of Water, Kai has trouble functioning normally without the other crew members. Deep beneath Water's surface, Kai encounters his soul essence awaiting rebirth.
During one of Prince's attacks on Water, Stanley is killed and Prince holds a trial over the destination of his soul, revealing Fire and Water as the afterlife. All his bad decisions are weighed against his good deeds and he is ultimately sentenced to eternal punishment on Fire. Enraged over Stanley's death, Xev orders the Lexx to destroy Fire, releasing all of its tortured souls. Consequently, Prince possesses the Lexx and uses it to destroy Water. Stanley is released and returns to his body aboard the Lexx, while Prince and the other souls reincarnate on a nearby Earth.
On Earth, the reincarnated souls cause chaos across the planet. Priest is elected President of the United States and acts as a puppet ruler for Prince, who is now the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Giggerotta becomes a Florida real estate agent and is elected pope, and the Wozzard becomes Dr. Ernst Longbore, a paraplegic rocket scientist. The crew attempts to settle in and make Earth their home, but keep getting caught up in absurd situations with the locals and in Prince's continuous attempts to take control of the Lexx. Although the crew keeps swearing not to return to the planet, they constantly find themselves back on Earth for one reason or another.
Kai's soul is trapped in limbo because he is undead, and he decides to regain his mortality. He makes a wager with Prince in a game of chess and wins, but Prince does not immediately fulfill his promise.
In the series finale, Earth is threatened by plants resembling Lyekka. The crew discovers that the fake Lyekka have destroyed other planets on their way through the Dark Zone and flooded the Earth with alien probes to sample the taste of its lifeforms. Furthermore, Dr. Longbore has created a rocket to escape Earth and, out of spite, leaves behind a particle accelerator to determine the mass of the Higgs boson particle, which will shrink the Earth to the size of a pea in the process. As Lyekka's asteroid attacks Earth, the crew flees with the particle accelerator to destroy the asteroid. As they leave Earth, Prince appears to Kai and fulfills his promise to him, restoring Kai's mortality. 790, now completely insane and still madly in love with Kai, takes advantage of the Lexx's Dementia and has it destroy Earth to kill any potential "competitors" for Kai. With Earth destroyed, the Lexx dying, and no other habitable planets nearby, the crew decide to sacrifice themselves to destroy Lyekka's asteroid. They travel inside the asteroid, but Kai becomes separated from the others as he is trapped inside with the particle accelerator. In a final sacrifice, Kai crashes into the centre of the asteroid as the accelerator calculates the particle's mass, destroying the asteroid. The Lexx's senility becomes terminal as it disintegrates. Xev and Stanley discover that the Lexx had created another ship within it before it died, "Little Lexx". Little Lexx gives Stanley its key as they search for a new home.
Donovan described the thought process behind the show as " Dirty Dozen meets Alien or Beavis and Butt-Head". He also found inspiration in Fires on the Plain and Dark Star and considers the show to be a homage to Space Precinct. Many of the crew were also fans of Red Dwarf. Donovan found that many science fiction films and shows at the time were too serious and wanted to create something more "fun" with a higher production value, sexual motifs, and aspects of dark humour, which Hirschfield says comes from the desensitization of violence in Halifax, citing Seal hunting as an example. They rejected making the series scientifically accurate or logical, with writer Hirschfield explaining, "We only wanted enough science to get us through the stories. The Lexx has a particle accelerator, and that's all you need to know. We don't want to bother with dilithium crystals. The Lexx gets its fuel from eating. Simple enough." They openly acknowledged the large amount of sex and violence present within the script, with Gigeroff admitting that he "wants teenage boys to Masturbation to Zev's poster." When asked about Zev's appearance and the amount of sexual content, Gigeroff responded that "I think we have far too puritanical notions about sex. Sex is fun, sex is good, and I hope we can get a lot of it in the show." He also addressed the criticism he received from the Halifax film community about the sexual content, joking "God, you can't even show a woman as a sex object without someone thinking it's bad." The Lexx's name was formed by finding a word that would work well in all languages without translation, and it doubled as a pun on Lex Gigeroff's name.
The scripts for "Super Nova" and "Feeding Pattern" were changed several times during shooting. Ron Oliver, a writer for "Super Nova", says "When I first got the script, it was all over the place because the writers had hit a wall with it. The main characters were these buffoons. That probably works on paper, but the audience needed something to hold on to. So that had to be tidied up a bit by adding some motivation for these characters." Scripts for season two were commissioned before season one premiered.
The character of Thodin (played by Barry Bostwick) was created to subvert the audience into believing he was the hero and main character of the series, only to have him be killed off by Kai in the premiere. Malcolm McDowell agreed to play the part of Yottskry after a previous film he was scheduled to star in fell through, saying that he was drawn to the script because of how "peculiar" and "weird" it was and that he had wanted to visit Nova Scotia. Rutger Hauer was also attracted to the part of Bog because of the script, saying "It takes a lot of liberties – but in a good sense. This goes farther than anything I've ever done." Tim Curry's character as Poet Man was filmed on the final day of shooting entirely in front of a green screen. He compared the series favourably to his time on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, saying "I'm grimly aware that Rocky Horror was done on a non-existent budget over three weeks in a tiny theatre. Yet it was a good idea. Sometimes it's important to show up for guys with really good ideas."
Nigel Bennett had previously worked with Donovan on Paint Cans and was approached to play the role of Prince in seasons three and four. He liked the character "because he didn't say a word for 20 pages". As part of his character, Bennett had at least three different outfits and would have his hair and eyebrows bleached "about every ten to fourteen days".
The Season two episode "The Net" is largely made up of recycled footage from the previous episode "The Web". Director Chis Bould says this was done due to production constraints, as both episodes had to be shot in nine days as opposed to the regular schedule of one episode over eight days.
In the Season Four episode "The Game", Kai plays a game of chess with Prince to win his soul back. Their game is a move-for-move recreation of the first casual match played between Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais and Alexander McDonnell in the World Championship of 1834.
Head art director Mark Laing says that the design of the Cluster was based around medieval cities, explaining how "the whole city is built on top of a ruin built on a ruin. Buildings are built on top of buildings, incorporating still standing structures into their own structures, which are also somewhat run down."
The Lexx itself has sexual undertones as part of its design. Laing points out how the Lexx's showerhead "is this luminous pink tube that's a little too interested in its work... It'll snake all over you if you're not paying attention. It's quite frisky." Sources have also pointed out the Lexx's seemingly phallic appearance. Writer Jeffrey Hirschfield only incorporated the bare minimum of "accurate" science when absolutely necessary.
"Brigadoom" (S02E18) is a musical episode that tells of the destruction of Brunnis-2 and the death of Kai in a theatre format. Many of the themes from this episode are based on German nursery rhymes with new lyrics. The usage of existing musical themes as well as the addition of an outside choir has placed these tracks into a legal grey area; as a result, they have not been officially released.
Season One consists of four 90-minute movies, following the misadventures of Stanley Tweedle, Zev Bellringer, Kai, 790, and the Lexx as they escape from the Cluster and try to find a new home in the Dark Zone, an evil and unforgiving universe. The story arc ends with their return to the Cluster as they destroy the Giga Shadow, the last remaining insect.
Season Two consists of twenty 48-minute episodes, with a story arc concerning the evil scientist Mantrid who attempts to convert the entire mass of the two universes into Mantrid drones; flying, self-replicating robot arms. The crew tricks him into moving all the converted mass into a central point in the universe, creating a Big Crunch and destroying the Light Zone.
Season Three consists of thirteen episodes in which the exhausted Lexx is trapped in orbit around the warring Fire and Water, and the crew encounters Isambard Prince, the enigmatic and cheerful evil ruler of Fire, who identifies himself as Death at the end of season four. Fire is the afterlife for all evil , and the location for much of season three. It shares a tight mutual orbit and an atmosphere with Water, the afterlife for all good souls in the two universes. Both worlds are locked in a perpetual war. The souls on Water and Fire have no memory of how they arrived there; they simply "woke up". They are incapable of sexual reproduction and there are no children on either planet. When anyone dies on Fire or Water, they go to a spiritual holding cell in which time stands still, giving the illusion that no time has passed no matter how long they have been there. When space opens up they "wake up" again, whole and healthy on their respective home planet. Many of the planets' inhabitants are played by characters from Seasons One and Two, and while most of them share the same personality traits as their previous selves, they have no knowledge of their prior lives. Fire is destroyed by the Lexx under the command of Zev Bellringer at the end of Season Three. With Fire gone, Prince possesses the Lexx and destroys Water. When Water and Fire are both destroyed, it is revealed that both planets were Counter-Earth and that all the souls contained on both worlds have Reincarnation on Earth.
Season Four follows the Lexx as it arrives at Earth in the early 2000s, only to find that Prince (now Isambard Prince and head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which runs the United States) and several other old adversaries have also arrived there. The crew's arrival coincides with a large asteroid-like vessel filled with robotic carrots that sample the flavors of the various lifeforms on Earth. Between them, Prince, and the Lexx several large chunks of Earth are destroyed – including Orlando, Ottawa (a Canadian metonymy in-joke), Tokyo, the Amazon rainforest, and Holland, which the Lexx eats – before the series finale, televised on April 26, 2002. Priest, the President of the United States, also destroys Cuba, Newfoundland, and Vietnam with thermonuclear bombs. The Lexx is also responsible for the destruction of Pluto, Mars, Venus, and finally Earth in its entirety.
CFP Video, a distribution division of Columbia-TriStar Home Video, released a promo tape for 'I Worship His Shadow' in 1997.
Paramount, in conjunction with Showtime, released the first season on four VHS in 1997.
Acorn Media released seasons 2 & 3 on VHS between 2001 & 2002.
Kult T.V., a subsidiary of Contender Limited, released season one on VHS as 'Lexx: Stories from the Dark Zone' in 1999. They also released season two on VHS, this time as 'Lexx: The Series' in 2000.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Lexx: The Complete Fourth Season ebhe.com On September 3, 2013, Echo Bridge released Lexx – The Complete Series as a DVD box set in Region 1. The nine-disc set features all 61 episodes of the series. In Canada, Alliance Films has released all four seasons on DVD.
Seasons One through Three were released on VHS and Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom by Contender Limited, although the Season Three DVDs were initially exclusive to the MVC Entertainment chain of stores and all volumes have since been deleted. Contender failed to obtain the rights to Season Four, which instead went to Momentum Pictures (a subsidiary of Alliance Atlantis). Momentum Pictures has not released any DVDs.
MediumRare Entertainment released The Complete Series in a 19-disc boxset in the United Kingdom in early 2011.
All four seasons were also released on DVD in Germany. However, the Season 1 episodes of the German DVD release were cut to receive a 16 and up rating.
Beyond Home Entertainment released all 4 seasons on DVD in Australia: Season 1 on July 11, 2007, Season 2 on September 12, 2007, Season 3 on October 17, 2007, and Season 4 on January 16, 2008. On May 13, 2009, Beyond Home Entertainment released Lexx – The Complete Series, a 19-disc boxset featuring all 61 episodes of the series in a special collectible tin. On December 1, 2010, Beyond Home Entertainment re-released the 19-disc set as a boxset rather than the collector's tin released the year previously.
As of January 2020, all four seasons are available to view in the United States on Hoopla and for free on Vudu. As of April 2020, all four seasons are available to view in the United States and United Kingdom through The Roku Channel.
TV Guide called Lexx "a siren of distinction for its black comedy, skewed take on the human condition and open sexuality..." while calling the visual effects "stunning". Annalee Newitz of Wired calls Lexx "one of the most underrated science fiction TV shows of the late twentieth century", explaining that "some of the episodes are silly and bad, but the best ones are like Barbarella crossed with Kids in the Hall and multiplied by Blake's 7."
Gavin Edwards of Spin gave praise to the visual effects, writing that "there was a time when a German-Canadian production like this would have had sets with wobbly walls and laughable special effects, but now computer costs are low enough that even when the story line flags – often – you will still be dazzled by state-of-the-art galactic vistas, exploding planets, and gargantuan phallic symbols streaking through the stars."
In a retrospective, Chris Allcock of Den of Geek writes that Lexx
Lexx has garnered a cult following, primarily through word-of-mouth over the early Internet. A large number of fan sites have been created including forums, chat rooms, and sharing arts and crafts with other fans. The series is frequently referred to by the creators and fans as "Star Trek evil twin". Salter Street would host an annual "UnCon" convention where fans were invited to tour the studio and sets and meet the cast and crew. Each of the three conventions had over thirty, sixty, and a hundred guests each year, respectively.
SciFiNow magazine included Lexx on their list of "Ten Overlooked Nineties Sci-Fi Shows". Xenia Seeberg as Xev appeared on a July 2000 cover of TV Guide and was ranked No. 14 on UGO's list of "Our Favorite Ladies from Other Planets".
Ellen Dubin says she was offered her role as Aunt Ilene on Napoleon Dynamite as the director Jared Hess was a fan of her part on Lexx as Giggerota.
Some of the sets used in the show, such as the Lexx's cryochamber, appear as sets on Made in Canada, which is also produced by Salter Street.
Lexx was shown originally on Citytv in Canada and Showtime in the United States, then later picked up by Space in Canada, Channel 5 in the United Kingdom and then the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States. On Sci-Fi, it aired in the same Friday night lineup as Farscape, and the somewhat similar premise for both shows (a misfit crew living on a huge, living starship) was often noted by critics, despite Lexx having premiered two years prior to Farscape.
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