Lexx

Lexx is a science fiction television series that follows the adventures of a group of mismatched individuals aboard the organic spacecraft Lexx. They travel through two universes and encounter planets, including a parody of the Earth. The narrative includes irony, parody, sexual topics, and fatalism.

For other uses, see LEXX (text editor) and Mr. Lexx.
Lexx
Created byPaul Donovan
Lex Gigeroff
Jeffrey Hirschfield
StarringBrian Downey
Eva Habermann
Michael McManus
Ellen Dubin
Tim Curry
Doreen Jacobi
Rutger Hauer
Michael Habeck
Andy Jones
Malcolm McDowell
Xenia Seeberg
Voices ofTom Gallant
ComposerMarty Simon
Country of originCanada
United Kingdom
Germany
No. of seasons4
No. of episodes61 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producersPaul Donovan
Wolfram Tichy
ProducersWolfram Tichy
Norman Denver
CinematographyLes Krizsan
Ian Bibby
David Albiston
Running timeSeason 1: about 95 minutes
Season 2–4: about 45 minutes
Production companiesSalter Street Films
CHUM Television
Silverlight Ltd.
Release
Original networkGlobal Television Network
Sci Fi Channel
Channel 5
CHUM Television's Space
Original releaseApril 18, 1997 (1997-04-18) –
April 26, 2002 (2002-04-26)
External links
Website

The series is a Canadian and German co-production, with some additional funding from Britain's Channel 5. The Sci Fi Channel purchased the series from Salter Street Films and began airing versions of Season 2 episodes for United States' audience in January 2000.[1] Lexx was co-produced by Salter Street Films, later absorbed by Alliance Atlantis. In Canada, Lexx aired on the Alliance Atlantis-owned Showcase network. The series was primarily filmed in Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada) and Berlin (Germany), with additional filming on location in Iceland, Bangkok (Thailand), Namibia and London.

Plot
See also: List of Lexx episodes

The main characters of the series are the Lexx and its crew. The crew consists of the captain of the Lexx, Stanley H. Tweedle; the love slave Zev/Xev Bellringer; the undead former assassin Kai, last of the Brunnen-G; and the love-crazed robot head 790. Together they are looking for a new home. The background conflict of the series is the war between Mankind and the Insect Civilization, in which each side seeks the annihilation of the other. It was foretold to Kai that one day he will destroy the last remnant of the Insect Civilization.

The plot unfolds across a time span of over 6,000 years. Kai's death (or undeath) occurs 2,008 years before the beginning of the events of the series. For the first two seasons, each episode is focused on space travel and usually one different planet. Each of the last two seasons has a single location for all episodes. At the beginning of Season 3 the crew spends about 4,000 years in cryostasis before arriving at the twin planets of Fire and Water. In Season 4, the Lexx reaches our Earth in the present.

First season

Stan, Zev and Kai accidentally steal the Lexx, the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes. After successfully fleeing from the Cluster, the main planet of the League of the 20,000 Planets, they are looking for a new home.

Kai needs protoblood to live outside of his cryochamber. Looking for protoblood, the Lexx returns to the Cluster to learn that a huge insect survived. This insect had controlled The Divine Order and His Divine Shadow in order to eat all human inhabitants of the 20,000 planets. The insect then begins a metamorphosis into the Gigashadow, a creature that produces protoblood. With the help of Zev, Kai manages to fill up his store of protoblood. Kai places the cluster lizard Squish in the brain of the insect and thus is able to destroy it.

Second season

The main conflict of the second season is the fight against Mantrid, the former Bio-Vizier of His Divine Shadow. The crew had inadvertently helped him transfer his mind into a machine in the first episode of the season while accidentally fusing it with a remnant of His Shadow. Mantrid's goal is to transform all matter in the Light Universe into Mantrid Drones.

In the meantime the crew keeps getting into difficult situations and is usually rescued by Kai. At the end of the season they destroy Mantrid. Unfortunately, the Light Universe is also destroyed. The crew flees into the Dark Zone.

Third season

The Lexx is running out of food and must fly slowly to conserve energy. 790 computes that it might take thousands of years to reach an inhabited planet. The crew enters cryostasis to survive the voyage. After 4,000 years in cryostasis, they reach the twin planets Fire and Water. The entire third season takes place on these two planets.

The crew meets people they knew from the Light Universe. These survivors cannot remember their past in the parallel universe, though their personalities are still the same. Fire is ruled by the charismatic Prince. Water doesn't seem to have a ruler. The inhabitants of both planets live in isolated towns. On Water they live on islands in a huge ocean and on Fire, there are massive towers separated by long stretches of desert.

Prince wants to win the crew over to his side, especially Xev. He tests their sense of morality through various temptations. The crew members are frequently separated, 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. On Water, deep beneath its surface, Kai encounters his soul essence, which awaits rebirth. Stanley dies and a trial is held over the destination of his soul. All his bad decisions are weighted against his good deeds and he is sentenced to eternal punishment on Fire.

At the end of the season both planets, Fire and Water, are destroyed. Stan's soul is set free, and is able to return into his body, though he cannot remember what happened to him on Fire. The souls of all inhabitants of Fire and Water are also released, then travel to a planet that looks like Earth.

Fourth season

The Lexx travels to Earth looking for food. It is located in the very center of the Dark Universe and the crew assumes that it must be a very dangerous place. The crew again meet people they knew from the Light Universe, and from Fire and Water. Only Prince and Priest are able to remember their lives on Fire (though presumably Priest can do this only because Prince allows him to).

Kai's soul is stuck because he is undead, and he decides to die to release his soul. To do this, he must regain his mortality. He plays chess with Prince to regain mortality and wins, but remains undead.

The Earth is threatened by a being who resembles Lyekka. The crew finds out that the fake "Lyekka" destroyed all human life on her way through the Dark Zone. Kai decides to destroy the asteroid that is the source of the entity. Prince keeps his promise and restores Kai's mortality. Minutes later, Kai finally dies destroying the asteroid, saving all inhabitants of the Dark Zone. 790 destroys the Earth using the senile and dying Lexx. Prince, Priest, and Bunny escape on a rocket filled with Catholic schoolgirls, and Xev and Stan fly off together on the Lexx's offspring, "Little Lexx", to find a new home.

Cast
Mantrid (Dieter Laser) before his transference into a computer, accompanied by two drone arms

Main

Recurring
Thodin (Barry Bostwick) and his fellow Heretics on the Cluster

Guest

Music

The music of the series was written by Marty Simon. The episode "Brigadoom" (2.18) is a musical episode. It describes the destruction of Brunnis-2 and the death of Kai.

Soundtracks

There are two Lexx Series soundtracks, as well as the music from the "Brigadoom" episode.

  • Lexx The Series Original Soundtrack
    [GNP Crescendo (2001), Colosseum (1997)]
  1. Opening Theme-Season 3
  2. 790 Quote (from "Brizon")
  3. Prince to Lexx (from "Fire and Water")
  4. All He Wants Is Sex (from "Stan's Trial")
  5. Angel Song (from "Nook")
  6. A Walk in the Desert (from "Battle")
  7. Seduction (from "Love Grows")
  8. Wild, Wild Lexx
  9. Galley (from "Love Grows")
  10. Opening Theme: Season 2-Version 1
  11. Holograms
  12. The Search (from "Girltown")
  13. Xey's Dream (from "The Web/The Net")
  14. Garden (from "Garden")
  15. Lexx Hungry
  16. Into the Garden (from "Garden")
  17. Lyekka/Potato Hoe
  18. Gondola Ride (from "May")
  19. Mantrid Medley
  20. Prince Theme (Season Three Mantrid)
  21. Medieval Dance (from "Nook")
  22. Girl Awakes/Norb Launch (form "Lafftrack")
  23. The Xev Show (from "Lafftrack")
  24. Demented Chase (from "Lafftrack")
  25. Yo-A-O/I'm Leaving (from "Terminal")
  26. Zev Dies (from "Terminal")
  27. Final Scene
  28. Opening Theme Season 2-Version 2
  • Tales From A Parallel Universe
    [Varèse Sarabande (1998)]
  1. Cluster Anthem
  2. Prisoner Transport
  3. Snake Chase
  4. Welcome to the Dark Zone
  5. Battle of the Universe
  6. Planet Cruise
  7. Poet Man
  8. Cryochamber
  9. Love Muscle
  10. Gigashadow March
  11. Yo-A-O (Fight Song of the Brunnen-G)
  12. The Lexx Escape
  13. Zev's Shower
  14. Cleric Theme
  15. Kai Collapse
  16. Shadows and Prophets
  17. Feppo's Party
  18. Milk Fed Boys
  19. Brunnis
  20. Fantasy Dance
  21. Moth Ride

Episodes
Main article: List of Lexx episodes

There are four seasons of Lexx, totaling 61 episodes. The first season, debuted in Canada on 18 April 1997, and consisted of four two-hour TV movies (sometimes screened as eight one-hour episodes), alternatively titled Tales from a Parallel Universe. However, some episode guides don't list the two-hour movies as a series but list the subsequent seasons as the first through third.

The second season consisted of twenty 48-minute episodes, with an overall story arc concerning an evil scientist called Mantrid, who attempts to kill everyone by converting the entire mass of the universe into Mantrid drones; flying, self-replicating right robot arms.

The third season consists of 13 episodes in which the Lexx is trapped in orbit around the warring planets Fire and Water, and the crew encounters Prince, the enigmatic and cheerful evil ruler of Fire, who is much like the Devil, though he actually identifies himself as death incarnate at the end of season four. The fictional planet "Fire" is the afterlife for all evil souls, and the location for much of Season three. It shares a tight mutual orbit and an atmosphere with the Planet Water, which is the afterlife for all good souls in the Lexx universe. Both worlds are locked in a perpetual war.[2]

The souls on Water and Fire have no memory of how they arrived there; they simply "woke up" there one day. They are incapable of sexual reproduction and there are no children on either planet. When anyone dies on Planet Fire or Planet 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.

Fire is destroyed by the Lexx under the command of Xev at the end of Season three. With Fire gone, Prince cannot reincarnate so he instead chooses to possess the Lexx and destroy Water. When Water and Fire are both destroyed, it is revealed that both planets were actually on the other side of the Sun in our solar system and that all the souls contained on both worlds will be reincarnated on Earth.[3]

In the fourth and final season of 24 episodes, the Lexx arrives at Earth in the year 2000, only to find that Prince (now named Isambard Prince and head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which more or less 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 bent on sampling the flavors of the various lifeforms on Earth. Between them, Prince, and the Lexx several large chunks of the Earth are demolished — including Orlando, Florida; Ottawa (a Canadian metonymical in-joke);Tokyo, the Amazon Rainforest, and Holland, which the Lexx eats — before the climactic final episode, televised on 26 April 2002. The Lexx is responsible for the destruction of Fire, Water, Pluto, Mars, Venus, and lastly Earth. Also, Priest, the President of the United States, manages to destroy Cuba, Newfoundland, and Vietnam via thermonuclear bombs.

Releases

DVD
Region 1

Acorn Media released seasons 2–4 on DVD in single volume collections as well as complete season sets in 2002–2004. These releases have now been discontinued and are now out of print.

Echo Bridge Home Entertainment has released all 4 seasons on DVD in the US only.[4][5][6][7]

On September 3, 2013, Echo Bridge released Lexx - The Complete Series as a DVD box set in Region 1.[8] The 9-disc set features all 61 episodes of the series.

In Canada, Alliance Home Entertainment has released all four seasons on DVD.

Region 2

Seasons one to three of Lexx were released on VHS and Region 2 DVD in the UK by Contender Limited, although the Season 3 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 4, which instead went to Momentum Pictures (a subsidiary of Alliance Atlantis). Momentum Pictures has not yet released any DVDs.

MediumRare Entertainment released the complete run of Lexx in a 19-disc boxset in the UK in early 2011.

All four seasons were also released on Region 2 DVD in Germany. Unlike the rest of the world (bar Australia), the German DVDs of season 1 do still appear to be in print as of February 2007. However, the episodes of the first season of the German DVD release were cut to receive a 16 and up rating.

Region 4

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.

Online

Netflix no longer offers streaming of Lexx in the USA (as of December, 2013). The versions available in the past were the editions edited for U.S. broadcast. Hulu no longer offers streaming of Lexx episodes due to rights lapsing.[9] In 2017, Lexx was available on Amazon Prime in the US, and in the UK, and in Australia by mid-2018. Although still included with Prime in the UK and Australia, the series vanished from Prime in the USA during 2019, though episodes are available for individual download/purchase.

As of and prior to this writing (January 2020), all four seasons are available to view (in the USA) on Hoopla, and for free on Vudu. As of April 2020, all four seasons are available to view in the US and UK through The Roku Channel on Roku streaming devices, therokuchannel.com, the Roku mobile app for iOS and Android, majority of Samsung Smart TVs, NowTV and SkyQ devices.

Broadcast history and legacy

The show's seasons had very different tones. While the original TV movies and the second season were mostly science fiction drama with plenty of dark comedy, the "Fire and Water" season took a more serious tone, while the show's final season — set on Earth in the year 2000 — took many turns into pure farce and introduced magic (as in the episode A Midsummer's Nightmare) and other new elements.

Lexx was shown originally on Citytv in Canada, then later picked up by Space, 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 set-up for both shows (with a misfit crew flying through space on a huge, living starship) was often noted by critics, despite Lexx having premiered two years prior to Farscape. Lexx did achieve some mainstream notice (with Xenia Seeberg as "Xev" appearing on the cover of TV Guide, for instance).

Lexx was voted 23rd in a poll by SciFiNow magazine in June 2009 in the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi TV Shows".

On May 20, 2017 (or before) all seasons began to stream from Amazon.

Different versions

There are two versions of Lexx, the European and the American one. One difference is in the beginning of the first film: The American version doesn't include a scene in which Stanley is fooled and captured by Feppo. The European version places this scene between the death of Kai and the time when Stanley wakes up on the cluster (2008 years later).

Unlike the DVD edition, the German TV release was re-cut to include some flashback scenes at points where they mattered within the story, and not in the chronological order in which they happened. For example, Stanley's capture by the pirates was shown as a flashback in the fourth episode ("Giga Shadow") of the miniseries, whereas the DVD version includes it prior to the Cluster scenes early on in the first episode of the show, somewhat out of context.

See also

References
  1. "Salter Street Films' announcement (1999)". Findarticles.com. 1999-09-30. Archived from the original on 2010-07-01. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  2. "LEXX: Season Three: Review of Episode 01 - Fire and Water". Sci Fi Sad Geezers. 6 June 2008. Archived from the original on 21 December 2017.
  3. "LEXX: Season Three: Review of Episode 13 - Heaven & Hell". Sci Fi Sad Geezers. 6 June 2008. Archived from the original on 25 September 2018.
  4. "Lexx Season 1". Echo Bridge Home Entertainment. Archived from the original on 10 July 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
  5. "Lexx: Complete Season 2". Echo Bridge Home Entertainment. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
  6. "Lexx: The Complete Third Season". Echo Bridge Home Entertainment. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
  7. Lexx: The Complete Fourth Season ebhe.com
  8. David Lambert (14 August 2013). "Lexx - All 4 Seasons are Coming Together for 'The Complete Series'". TV Shows on DVD. Archived from the original on 18 August 2013. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  9. Hulu Support [@hulu_support] (12 November 2013). "@RincewindTVD Sadly we no longer have the rights to stream Lexx, but we'll certainly be looking to get back those episodes" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
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