Lexx: Complete Series 1-4 [DVD]

When this series was first televised, I was quickly charmed by its quirkiness & originality. As it was normally transmitted late on Friday nights, it was normally accompanied by a dreamlike quality, no doubt fuelled by a need for sleep. Created prior to  Farscape  & the revamped  Doctor Who , this visually stunning (for its time) & daring show marked the end of a glut of decent sci-fi shows which had lasted for almost 3 decades. Sadly, though, its incredibly strong start was followed by a gradual drop in quality, which increased in momentum the longer it staggered on. As such, it went from a brilliant but patchy first & second series to a disappointing third & a truly awful fourth.In addition to the bizarre CGI landscapes, quirky costumes & great music score, the subject-matter is also original (particularly for its time). The crew of the Lexx are no square-jawed heroes - just a bunch of weirdos & a coward, who find themselves in possession of "the most powerful destructive force in the two known universes". They have no grand cause & indeed spend most of the second series roaming the universe in an attempt to get laid - only to find that most of its occupants are utterly psychotic. Nevertheless, they have an important part in the grand scheme of things, finding themselves almost inadvertently overthrowing the  Brazil -like League of 20,000 Planets & its terrifying alien despot.SERIES 1Over four 90 minute movies, we are introduced to a hellish universe where the human race is in the hands of His Divine Shadow. The last of a race of alien insects, His Shadow has created a terrifying regime designed to make humanity destroy itself without even realising. Due to a series on unfortunate events foretold by an ancient prophecy, an unlikely group ends up in control of his flagship - a massive dragonfly-shaped living vessel, capable of destroying uncooperative planets.Watching it back, the CGI landscapes are originally bizarre but somewhat rough around the edges by todays' standards. A couple of the movies suffer from the excess of close-ups typical of series with overstretched budgets (think  Blake's 7 Series 4  where people kept nicking the guns & they couldn't afford to replace them, so only a couple of people could be filmed using them at any one time). But it's still genuinely creepy & brutally magnificent with some dark, original story ideas shining through.SERIES 2This was the highlight for me. Here, the crew inadvertently create a bizarre being - an amalgamation of His Shadows' essence, a psychotic human genius & machine - which goes about systematically dismantling the universe & converted all matter into drone arms under its control. Unstoppable, it plays mischievous, super-villain-type games with the Lexx. Knowing they are helpless against such a powerful foe, Lexx's crew spend most of the series running away from their inevitable doom & trying to get laid one last time.It's consistently dark, daring & imaginative. By constantly striving to innovate, it doesn't always quite hit the mark but the strong ideas outnumber & outshine the weak. One of my personal favourites is an episode set in the ruins of a television studio planet, destroyed in a literal ratings war. Here the crew must appear in various TV shows & get good ratings or be killed in the 'specialty show'. And the series' unpredictable conclusion had me thoroughly hooked.SERIES 3Somewhat less imaginative than the first two - inevitable, really, because it's restricted to a single location. Stranded, the crew of the Lexx explore 2 planets which co-exist next to each other, sharing a joint atmosphere. Planet Water is an earthly paradise, while its jealous neighbour Fire is a harsh desert world which is constantly at war with the former.At 13 episodes it's much shorter than series 2 & 4, yet seems to drag somewhat. This is mainly because the mystery at the heart of the story is actually pretty obvious & they drag out the whole 'what's going on' aspect for way too long. But it still makes for darkly humourous viewing.SERIES 4Absolutely dire. Awful, awful, awful. If compared to Doctor Who, this camp mess would represent the Sylvester McCoy era. Not even bizarre guest appearances by  Craig Charles  or  Father Jack  can rescue it. Sadly the writers had a punt at that old sci-fi chestnut of 'our heroes find Earth, with un-hilarious consequences'. This is NEVER done well (okay, apart from Farscape who handled it brilliantly but restricted it to a few episodes, not an entire 24-episode series). Think the final season of the original  Battlestar Galactica  with its parking tickets on spaceships & 'what is this 'gasoline' of which you speak' forced 'humour', if you've been unfortunate enough to see it. Sadly it tries too hard to be funny & for me, doesn't work on any level. Stripping the series of its greatest strengths - its imaginative 'alienness' - meant that its OTT parodies no longer worked. The characters just weren't strong enough to pull it off.As much as I loved Lexx when it first came out, I put off buying this boxset for quite some time. That's because it's rather a lot of money to pay when really only series 1 & 2 are worth keeping - series 3 I re-watched once & can't imagine sitting through again. And I'm sorry but there's no denying it - series 4 really is just terrible, as much as I wish it wasn't. But it's still worth getting for the first 3 series alone - original, quirky & dark, it's entertaining sci-fi & not particularly demanding.5 stars for series 1 & 2, with a star knocked off for the increasingly weak subsequent series.

Well i have fond memories of watching some episodes of this back in the day and being blown away by its quirkyness, rudeness, special effects and interesing charecters...oh and the plots come thick and fast to aswell. I found this on amazon a couple of weeks back and inbetween doing my nursing im watching this. Ive just gone through farscape before this and that was awesome but this is just plain funny as hell. The story is interesting and here are no spoilers. Stanly tweedle is a security guard level 4 (low rank) on the cluster which is planet that rules other planets. His devine shadow runs it (all powerful). Stan is late for work and is sentanced to death (a bit o.tt.)He goes on the run with zevv a cross between a lizard creature and a love slave (dont ask), a robot head called 790 who got zevs love slave brain download (told you not to ask) and kai who is a dead assasin who was controlled by his shadow (long history there).They escape in his shadows new living ship the lexx which can blow up planets. Crazy eh? Im nearing the end of season 2 which was a cracker...point being i would recommend this just for season 2 lol. If you want something alittle naughty, a little quirky, dare i say sci fi sexy then this is ideal. Howmany sci fi shows have got two foreign models in it? this does.buy buy buyAlso if you adore sci fi get farscape, babylon 5.....these 2 series with lexx show the very best of sci fi and how out of this world it can be.update - finished all 4 seasons and i miss the lexx crew already. Season 3 and 4 were great...not as good as 2 but still so good. My best episode was 791 and there was a musical episode where kai and crew sang the fate of the brunengie...so good. In truth this series is more sci fi'y then most others...season 3 melted my brain with prince...i mean what was that all about.All becomes revealed and then season 4 just takes the series home...litterally.I really miss the lexx and its crew and when the credits ran i remembered that they had been a big part of my life over the past few months while i watched their escape from his shadow and planet hopping adventures.