Lexx is a Canadian Science-Fiction series written by Lex Gigeroff & Jeffrey Hirschfield, created by Paul Donovan, and produced by Salter Street Films. Lexx originally began as a series of four two-hour long made-for-TV movies. Production began on Season 1 of Lexx, also known as "Tales from a parallel universe", in 1995.
- For the ship with the same name, see The Lexx.
Premise[]
The first of the four Season 1 episodes; Lexx 1.1 "I Worship His Shadow" was released on April 11, 1997 to be followed by Lexx 1.2 "Super Nova", which was released on April 25 that same year. By fall of 1997 the last two episodes of the first season were released; Lexx 1.3 "Eating Pattern" (September 4, 1997), and Lexx 1.4 "Giga Shadow" (September 11, 1997).
After the release of Season 1, Lexx garnered a cult following and was green-lighted for a second season which began production in late 1997 and the first episode of Season 2 debuted in December 1998. Seasons 3 and 4 followed, with the final episode Lexx 4.24 "Yo Way Yo" airing on April 26, 2002.
Seasons and Episodes[]
See Category:Episodes for a complete list of all episodes and their plot summaries.
Season 1[]
The first season, debuting in Canada on 18 April 1997, 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.
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.
Season 2[]
The second season, debuting in Canada at December 11, 1998 on the channel Space The Imagination Station, consisted of twenty forty-five-minute episodes with an overall story arc concerning an evil scientist called Mantrid who proceeds to convert all matter in the "light" universe (the Light Zone) into one-armed "Mantrid drones". Mantrid largely succeeds before he is defeated by the Lexx, but not without causing a Big Crunch that results in sending the Lexx through a singularity to an alternate "dark" universe (the Dark Zone).
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 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.
Season 3[]
The third season, debuting in the UK on February 6, 2000 on the British Sci-Fi Channel, comprises 13 episodes in which the Lexx is trapped in orbit around the warring planets Fire and Water. The crew encounters an enigmatic and cheerful evil being known as Prince, who may be the Devil. The two planets orbit each other at extremely close distance, and share one atmosphere, allowing the inhabitants to pass freely between them. Fire is the afterlife for all evil souls, the inhabitants of which are continually engaged in attacks on Planet Water, which is the afterlife of all good souls. Fire is filmed between the dunes of Namibia and the Gothic architecture of Berlin. The rulers of Fire are Prince and Duke, who both reincarnate whenever it suits them. Water appears to have no ruler, and contains a small population of hedonists on floating islands.
The third season comprises 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.
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.
Season 4[]
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.
In the fourth and final season of 24 episodes, debuting in the USA on July 13, 2001 on the American Sci-Fi Channel, the Lexx arrives at Earth in the early 21st century, only to find that Prince, now named Isambard Prince, and somehow head of the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), which more or less runs the United States and several other old adversaries have also arrived there. Between them, Prince and the Lexx manage to demolish large chunks of the Earth 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. (Salter Street Films. LEXX Season IV - Synopsis)
Cast and Crew[]
- Paul Donovan — executive producer
- Lex Gigeroff — writer, actor
- Jeffrey Hirschfield — writer, 790
- William Fleming — co-producer/creative producer
- Chris Bould — director
- Norman Denver — producer
- Wolfram Tichy — executive producer
- Willie Stevenson — creative producer
- Steven J. Turnbill — line producer
- Chris Roland — line producer: second unit
- Marty Simon — composer
- Brian Downey — Stanley H. Tweedle
- Eva Habermann — Zev Bellringer
- Michael McManus — Kai
- Xenia Seeberg — Xev Bellringer
- Tom Gallant — voice of The Lexx
- Barry Bostwick — Thodin
- Tim Curry — Poet Man
- Ellen Dubin — Giggerota
- Doreen Jacoby — Wist
- Rutger Hauer — Bog
- Malcolm McDowell — Yottskry
- Dieter Laser — Mantrid
- Anna Cameron — Time Prophet
- Louise Wischermann — Lyekka
- Nigel Bennett — Prince
- Patricia Zentilli — Bunny
- Rolf Kanies — Reginald J. Priest
Trivia[]
- There are numerous TV Tropes for the series Lexx some of which are; "Alternate Universe", "Bug War", "Chess with Death", "Crapsack World", "Destructive Saviour", "Dug Too Deep", "Downer Ending", "Eagleland", "Earth Shattering Kaboom", and "Kill all humans"
Lexx online[]
- LEXX on the Salter Street Films website (archive 02/16/2004)
- LEXX in the Internet film database IMDb
- Fan community of the series Lexx