If you are a fan of series like Firefly, Red Dwarf, and Farscape, I’ve got something special for you. Lexx is a rowdy adventure, to say the least. It follows the mishaps and misadventures of the crew of the eponymous space vessel, Lexx, in their travels through two multiverses known as the Light Zone and the Dark Zone. We meet Kai, Stanley, Zev, and 790 in the first of four, hour and a half-ish episodes constituting the first season. We get to know them and love them. Or hate them. But we care about them, so it was no surprise that a cult following shortly formed after their first season premiered on television in 1997, leading to a subsequent three seasons.
Wait… 1997?
Yeah, where the fuck were you? I was busy collecting bugs and pretending to be older than I really was on the internet, but that didn’t stop me getting it as a gift 10 years later. I spent a couple of weeks living in a nest of blankets with my bong and munchies – leaving only when absolutely necessary – watching the first two seasons.
I fell in love with Zev. Oh, such perfection. When Eva was replaced by Xenia, I felt angry. I grieved. Then one day, I realized Xenia is perfect, in her own way. All was well in my world.
You’ll find yourself laughing – laughing uncontrollably – at the horror of their reality: from planetary visits gone awry to dangerous, crazy, and irresponsible visitors on the ship, crew of the Lexx just can’t catch a break. With gender-benders, going head-to head against the Divine Shadow, destroying planets, and a particularly odd encounter at a space brothel, nothing is off-limits.
It’s gloriously cheesy at times, but the special effects are awesome, and by awesome I mean, “For 1997, this shit’s legit.” The humor is bleakly dark and sexually charged, usually at the same time. Tim Curry’s cameo as Poet Man in the second episode had me in tears and utterly hooked.
Paul Donovan created a really amazing thing with Lexx, it never fails to make you laugh – sometimes uncomfortably – or feel turned-on, very comfortably. It explores freedom of choice, sexuality, death and life, reincarnation, and the search for a place to belong. Dealing with many aspects of the human experience, it also makes you think – and feel – and is a must watch for pretty much anyone: alive, dead, insect, robot, Cluster lizard, or other.
Now, imagine you are a fugitive on a phallic, biomechanical insect-ship the size of Manhattan, traveling through parallel universes. Are you…?
Stanley Tweedle
(Brian Downey), the bored-of-life and sexually frustrated “Arch-Traitor” of the Light Zone and Dark Zone alike?
Stanley is misunderstood and often jerked about by the sardonic hand of fate, but quite pleased to have fallen into the role of Captain of his shiny, new penis-insect-ship. He’s a coward, often hiding behind Zev or Kai when danger nears, and this almost makes him despicable. His only redeeming quality is his sad, lonely life, which garners pity, if not love.
Poor, pitiful Stan.
Zev Bellringer
(Eva Haberman / Xenia Seeburg), the physically perfect love slave/human/cluster lizard aching with unrequited love for a dead man?
Sent to the Wife Bank as a child, Zev had no problem decking her insulting young husband, leading to her (semi-failed) punishment of transformation into a love slave – and eventual fugitive status. In her punishment-gone-wrong, she is not only transformed physically, her DNA is mixed with a Cluster lizard, making her a dangerous as she is beautiful. And yes, the carpet matches the drapes.
790
(Jeffrey Hirschfield), the robot head who pines with love for Zev, full of dry wit and hatred for Tweedle?
Poor 790 got the brainwashing end of Zev’s transformation, and has no other thought than love for her. Except hate for Stanley Tweedle. Along for the ride and aspiring to live in Zev’s underpants, 790 offers indispensable advice, poems of love, insults, and knowledge. Being a robot head, his parts are prone to damage, usually resulting in murderous rages focused on Stanley.
Kai
(Michael McManus), The undead assassin, forced to serve the Divine Shadow in death, then flee as a fugitive upon recovering his memories?
Being the love interest of Zev is difficult for this guy; it brings up all kinds of philosophical shit he hasn’t had to think about for 2008 years. The fact that he’s apathetic AND dead doesn’t help. But coming from a world of warriors and philosophers, philosophize, he does. And the dead do not do anything because they are dead. But he deals with things in an adequate manner.
The Lexx
(Tom Gallant), the giant penis-insect-ship itself, now cruising around – fueled by human flesh at home on the Cluster – following Stanley Tweedle’s orders?
Although the Lexx is a flying ship, it definitely has a personality, and isn’t exempt from a few misadventures him – and sometimes her – self. Being the sustaining life force for the crew isn’t easy, but the Lexx is usually happy to obey his captain.
Giggerota the Wicked
(Ellen Dubin), A feral cannibal-woman hiding the shadows, just waiting to cause chaos finding a bite to eat?
Considering Tweedle as a “waste of skin,” she dreams of milk-fed boys and lives life by her own rules. Giggerotta is not afraid to do what she wants or eat what she wants. Wearing the skin of what I think might have been her late husband, she takes what she wants, expecting nothing but obeisance of all around her, up to the very end.
