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Starlog 18 (UK edition). October 2001. Branwell Johnson.
Starlog 18-1

Lexx Rated

The actors from Lexx bunker down with Branwell Johnson to talk about dysfunctional characters, location shoots and toilets.

(OCR, proofreeding nedeed)

It's with trepidation this reporter clambered on board sentient spaceship The Lexx to meet the strangest crew in the cosmos. Would the living yet dead assassin Kai see me as a threat and lop off my head? Would the voluptuous love slave Xev take a fancy to me and torture me with tantric sex positions beyond my feeble physique? Or would cowardly commander Stanley Tweedle Security Guard Grade 4 steal my wallet and shoes? Luckily, the three actors concerned were courtesy itself, even if the risk of passive smoking increased a zillionfold by being in the presence of Brian Downey (Stanley) and Michael McManus (Kai) who must've killed one pack of cigarettes each during their morning of interviews. The charming Xenia Seeberg (Xev) displayed no such vices.

Lexx appeal[]

The show Lexx has now established itself as one of the most off the wall and fascinating sci-fi television series ever. Created by three Canadians and originally set up as a Canadian-German co-production, the programme is now nearing the end of shooting for the fourth series. Its mix of satire, dark comedy, imaginative and often bizarre plot lines with a sexy edge (yes, bare breasts in a sci-fi series, maybe that's why Channel 5 are screening it at the midnight hour) have won it a loyal and intelligent fan base.

The series tells of a giant, organic spaceship, the Lexx and its crew and their flight from the evil His Divine Shadow. On board the freaky ship are the self-serving Stanley, linked to Lexx in a rather complicated biological fashion and the only one who can command it; Kai, last of the Brunnen G, killed then resurrected by the Divine Shadow as a master assassin but now his own (dead) man and Xev, a woman transformed into the perfect female form and love slave as punishment for 'not performing her wifely duties' but who somehow also became part Cluster Lizard, giving her an aggressive and daring character. Then there's a robot head, originally in love with Xev but now with Kai. Space Family Robinson it isn't.

The Lexx has landed in London for some location shooting in the UK and McManus explains that as the show is now a British-Canadian co-production there will be a stronger input from the UK. 'Now there is a British connection there are many fantastic London actors coming to join us,' he says, 'and we have three more writers on board from London.'

Lexx already has a sensibility far removed from the US science fiction shows and akin to the blackly comic playfulness of something like Red Dwarf. Will it be even more informed with British dark sarcasm now there are closer links? Downey says this will come through 'more in terms of performance from guest stars such as Craig Charles and Hattie Hayridge' than the writing, while McManus adds that the 'satirical element will get much sharper and the guests will bring elements of that London pantomime acting to the show.'

Midsummer madness[]

The team have just been shooting an episode at Battersea Power Station entitled Midsummer's Nightmare, very loosely based on Shakespeare's riotous comedy of romantic confusion. McManus calls it 'the WWF version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.' It seems the series currently being put together has more location work than ever before. McManus has been in Iceland for a very gruelling two-and-a-half day schedule where not a minute was wasted and much was done on the run but he found it 'remarkable and a lot of fun... a very manly way to shoot' while Xenia was recently dispatched to Arizona — unfortunately, the crew could not join her due to a snarl up with red tape so they just shot plates and most of the episode was done against the green screen.

McManus seems to enjoy the location work and says: 'There is a sense of adventure in shooting in a completely different environment where the control is not absolute. You go with what you've got.' Downey, on the other hand, does not see the global dashing around as glamorous: 'It's work. It would be nice to be able to remain in the place but essentially, it's work. I shot in the British Virgin Islands on what should have been a five-day but became a seven-day shoot and we'd get up in the dark and drive back in the dark. It was like being in one big set. There was no glamour. He goes on to say that on the shoot, the director ended up in hospital, the beach they were shooting on completely changed its look overnight and the weather started out fine but turned to rain: 'but you accept that sort of thing on a location shoot, these things just happen.'

Glamorous or not, the trio like to stay close to the fans who have championed Lexx through its darkest hours when no Canadian critic had a good word for the show. McManus says the 'sentiments towards Lexx were very negative in Canada' in the newspapers when it started. The Toronto Globe and Mail called it a show 'made for and about the culturally lobotomised' which McManus argues should be a slogan on T-shirts as 'are we all not culturally lobotomised?'.

America seemed to follow the pattern until the LA Times noticed Lexx on its radar and called it a 'cool show'. The series is now seen in the States as a stylish and intelligent piece of work — which the fans obviously recognised all along.

The Lexx crew and creators put in a lot of work at the fan-organised Unconventions. The last one was held in June in Halifax, Nova Scotia and the crew definitely see their supporters as very important. Downey says that when he was attempting to get some funding out of the producers for the convention, he firmly told them: 'It's not the producers who keep the show on the air but the fans.' Downey says of the Uncon: 'We support what they {the fans} want. The convention is more interactive than with other TV shows' but he's modestly hiding the fact that he does an awful lot of the organising of the Lexx-based events. McManus says: 'Brian is like the chief executive officer of the fan club' and Downey adds laughing: 'It's my social work'.

Downey is genuinely interested in who watches the show to the point that he commissioned his own research. He says that the original demographic was thought to be principally males aged 17-25 of the 'computer nerd' category but while the company targeted that sector, Downey was meeting fans on the ground who were very different. To find out more, he had methodical research carried out during the making of Season Three asking the basic questions of age, sex, occupation and country of origin. He says: 'It turned out the breakdown was 52 per cent male and 48 per cent female and the principle age group was between 25 and 40. The majority of fans were professionals or students.' As McManus points out, the age reflects the age of the people making the show and the information gives the Lexx team ammunition against those critics who took against the series when it first appeared. Downey says the show was initially ridiculed as it was such an anomaly and 'no elements were imitative of what existed on TV in general or any science-fiction in particular.'

Strength of characters[]

Along with the sharp humour and imaginative plots, it's the characters which keep the fans hooked. These are no bright-eyed and strong-jawed defenders of the universe but a collection of misfits out to save their own skins who occasionally demonstrate some wider sense of responsibility — but don't bet on it.

The actors do have strong opinions on the concept of characters changing over the three series and don't necessarily agree, although they all say the show isn't about seeing characters having a meaningful 'life-journey'. Downey comments: 'There has been an evolution and a discovery but the essential elements remain exactly the same. However, the characters have grown and there are new angles to the characters we are able to explore.' McManus chimes in: 'I don't agree. I don't think they change just as Sherlock Holmes does not change. In terms of the power of the show, it's important not to change.' He provides an apt analogy, sayings the characters 'develop like a photograph with elements which have always been there appearing and the character is fleshed out but there is no new development... there is no "meaningful journey—. Seeberg adds: 'The basic characteristics always stay the same — they would not be recognisable otherwise.'

Looking at his own role, the 2000-year-old dead man with no emotions, McManus says after the creators came up with Kai they were at a loss how to write him. He says: 'I told them don't start giving me a half human thing like Data so we resorted to mechanical dysfunction. The more sentimental idea in some series is that the character does better on an IQ test in Series Seven. In my opinion that's just unrealistic.'

Autistic expression[]

If there's no character change to reward audience attention, then an identification with the Lexx characters is a strong (and slightly worrying) attraction for the fans. Asked what elements an audience might identify with in Stan, Downey is succinct, saying: 'Constant want and occasional need.' McManus offers a more cerebral interpretation of Kai, quoting Aldous Huxley in placing the dead assassin in the tradition of the sci-fi character who is the 'mandatory autistic character'. He says 'a lot of autistic people relate to Spock, to his kind of indifference because of his inability to sympathise with the moral question and then the appearance of ethical superiority — I think people relate to that.' He adds that he gets mail from agoraphobic people and people who seem to be in their own world and have no feeling of relation with the other people. They hope to find from me a greater sympathy for that position.'

Xenia is delighted to be able to bring more female fans to the traditional male stronghold of sci-fi with her character. She says that during the recent convention, she was quite surprised to see so many women there and adds, perhaps a touch disingenuously: 'In my mind, they were all there to see these guys and maybe there were a few guys just to talk to me about that aspect Xev was originally invented for — but very surprisingly, there were all these women. The youngest were in their early 20s and others in their late 40s. They said they were happy to see a character like me, a strong leading woman with a sense of humour who is not afraid, on the other hand, of also being an emotional human being.' Seeberg adds that she did not see Xev in the category of a warrior woman like Lucy Lawless' Xenia Warrior Princess, so she was extremely pleased to be perceived as such a tough yet approachable female. 'I got the sense those women thought it was great to see a strong female character who goes for whatever she wants.'

Sex on Lexx[]

Having mentioned Xev's original purpose in life, it's hard to avoid touching on the sexy aspect of Lexx. The sexual desires of the characters are stated fairly openly with no coyness or reticence. Downey sees this as part of the show's general approach to the human state. 'We don't dance around the idea that people have to go to the bathroom,' he states dryly. 'It's basic human nature. Looking at Stanley, he goes to the bathroom and he tries to get laid. I think if you watch Star Trek, there is a lot of admiration for Captain Kirk and Mr Spock, but after three years in space, are they still holding it in? Do they go to the Sick Bay and see Dr McCoy with a catheter or something?' Seeberg comments: 'It's funny how many shows get away with trying to avoid that kind of thing and try to pretend it does not exist. The characters in Lexx are very unheroic but very true to human nature.'

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