By Joshua Tyler & Jonathan Klotz | Published
The Sci-Fi Channel in the late 1990s was a realm of strange and unknown shows, which you could only read about in TV Guide. Of all the strangeness on the channel back in those days, nothing was stranger than Lexx.
The show aired late at night on the channel for a very good reason. Lexx was the weirdest, most confusing, freakishly sex-obsessed series in the history of television.
That’s not a hyperbolic statement. Lexx lives up to every word of it, and maybe now is the time to step back and appreciate this very weird series that broke every rule of sci-fi and polite society.
The Origins Of Lexx And Its Total Lunacy
Lexx was a joint German and Canadian production. It’s the brainchild of series creator Paul Donovan, who went on to do basically nothing at all in entertainment after Lexx. Before Lexx, he produced some mostly normal, very small, and unseen indie films. There was nothing to indicate the sort of madness he had bottled up inside his head.
Trying to explain the plot of Lexx is impossible, and doing so might get you committed, as you’d have to explain how the universe is under the control of His Divine Shadow, a seemingly immortal evil being. He wants to subjugate the neighboring universe, the Dark Universe as well.
If there’s a plot, it revolves around some attempt by the show’s main cast to stop His Divine Shadow. Though, they don’t always try very hard. Sometimes they’re just too horny. Seriously, that’s part of the plot.
It Started Out With Four Very Weird Made For TV Movies, And Then Got Weirder
Lexx’s first season is comprised of four made-for-TV movies. In the first one, we’re introduced to a ragtag crew of misfits and the strong, brave, and heroic revolutionary heretic leader, Thorin, played by Barry Bostwick. Then, the typical sci-fi hero, Thodin, is killed off, and we realize that somehow the lazy, traitorous courier named Stanley and an escaped, recently made attractive love slave named Zev are our main characters.
Stanley H Tweedle is played by Brian Downey, and Zev is initially played by Eva Habermann. This will get even stranger when, in the show’s second season, Zev is suddenly played by a totally different actress named Xenia Seeberg, with a vague sci-fi reason attached. They also start calling her “Xev,” which is pronounced the same as Zev.
Who’s your favorite? Zev or Xev? Let us know in the comments.
Lexx Is A Show Without Real Heroes, But It Does Have A Dead Body
Stanley and Zev are not your typical sci-fi heroes. In fact, calling them “heroes” is a bit of a stretch. They aren’t able to accomplish much on their own, so the show gives them help in the form of a corpse.
The dead man’s name is Kai, and he’s played by Michael McManus. Kai is an undead assassin. Correction, no actually, he’s full-on dead,
Kai betrays the show’s villain, His Divine Shadow when his memories are restored. He ends up on Lexx, the superweapon starship the show is named for.
The Ugliest, Dumbest Starship In The History Of Science Fiction And Its Awesome?
If Lexx isn’t the ugliest, dumbest looking starship in the history of science fiction, then I don’t know what is. It’s not ugly in an endearing way like Firefly’s Serenity. Or in a fun way, like the awkwardly shaped Millennium Falcon.
No, it’s just dumb.
Bad.
Not good.
Also, I want one.
Lexx is one of the central focuses of the show since it’s where most episodes take place, and it has the power to destroy anything.
It’s All About The Lusticon
There’s also a sex-obsessed robot head, who’s voiced by Jeffrey Hirschfield. Oh, and let’s not forget the cannibal Gigerota, played by Ellen Dubin. Others pop in and out of the cast over the show’s four seasons, and they’re just as strange, dumb, weird, and sex obsessed as the primary cast.
If this sounds similar to Guardians of the Galaxy or Farscape, it is, but it’s much, much weirder.
Lexx is filled with fan service and innuendo that turns a device called the Lusticon into a plot point. That’s right, I said the Lusticonn. To go back to 90s cable, take the series Dream On and toss it into a blender with Farscape, and Lexx would be the result.
Stanley Tweedle Has No Dance Moves And Xev Has No Standards
The best and one of the longest-running gags worked into this concept, revolves around Stanley trying to get with Zev and then later also Xev. Xev doesn’t seem to have any standards, so she’s normally pretty game for that sort of thing, except Stanley’s the only person in the universe who actively repulses her.
So Stanley deludes himself into thinking he’s playing the long game. In the meantime, he follows Zev around the ship, drooling over her, like in that scene in The Mask where Jim Carrey sees Cameron Diaz in a red dress, his eyes pop out of his head, and he turns into a lady-crazed cartoon wolf. Imagine that scene repeated over and over and over again but without the special effects or the part where he shows off his cool dance moves and wins the girl.
Stanley has no cool dance moves. Actually, as far as we can tell, Stanley has no positive qualities at all. Stanley’s like the player character from some sort of soft core, text-based, 90s video game brought to life and launched into space. And he’s your main character, folks. The guy you’re supposed to root for and identify with.
Lexx Is The David Hasselhoff Of Science Fiction Programs
As Lexx progresses, the entire tone of the show changes, and I have to give the production team a lot of credit here. Seasons 1 and 2 of the show are wild and filled with base-level frat humor, but Season 3 is much darker and becomes a somber experience.
Season 4 takes place on a contemporary Earth, and it’s probably safe to assume this was due to budget issues making the show’s elaborate greenscreen sets unaffordable. That’s right, even green screen became unaffordable. That’s the kind of budget, Lexx was working on.
Budget cuts happened in spite of the fact that Lexx was a huge hit in Germany, Russia, and Eastern Europe. You could say that Lexx is the David Hasselhoff of science fiction programs.
Budget be damned, Lexx runs through every possible storyline you could think of in the span of season four’s about a dozen episodes.
How It Stacks Up Against Respectable Science Fiction Shows
If you’re watching legitimate shows like Farscape, Babylon 5, and The Expanse, Lexx can’t compare. Stacked up against those great pillars of televised science fiction, Lexx is lunatic trash. That’s probably why it’s been forgotten today.
To be fair, it was also forgotten back then.
I can’t make excuses for it. Lexx is just short of being a complete disaster. And sometimes, it is a disaster.
But, there’s usually something. A joke that lands, a wild sci-fi concept, or even a heartfelt character moment. Something that makes the show not the worst thing you’ve ever seen.
It’s insane and it’s either awful or genius. Or maybe it’s both.
But Lexx is unique.
It’s definitely unique.
What’s certain is that the size of His Divine Shadow’s ultimate weapon, the Megashadow, is exactly the type of dumb humor that we need more of in our sci-fi.
The One Thing About Lexx That Everyone Likes: Yo Way Yo
If there’s one thing about Lexx, that’s undeniably good, with absolutely no excuse making, caveats, or hesitation: It’s the show’s theme song. It was added in Season 3 and its one of the show’s best decisions.
The Lexx theme started out as a fight song from Kai’s past, the fight song of the Brunnen G. It was used in the show’s very first episode. For Lexx’s opening credits, the images paired with it still aren’t great but the sound of those voices singing their way into battle is so good it almost doesn’t matter.
If you hear it once, you’ll find yourself humming it in the car. Give the Lexx themesong a listen in the video below.
Experience The Lunatic Lustiness Of Lexx, But Don’t Blame Us If It Breaks Your Head
If you want to experience the sheer lunacy and unbridled lustiness of Lexx, make sure you’re not easily offended. Because breaking every sensible rule of behavior, television, and life in general, is what Lexx does best. Don’t blame us, when it breaks your head too.
You’ve been warned.
There’s never been and never will be, anything like Lexx. Which is probably why it’s basically free to stream, on services like Amazon. I mean, who’d actually pay for it?
Except us, that is. We’re going to watch it again.
