Also, starting in 1997, LEXX was on!
Brought to you by two countries that know a little something about side-splitting humour and atrocity, Germany and my own native land, Canada, created a hot little mess of program I never hear anybody talking about.
And I watched all four seasons just for YOU! Well, you and boobs. Yes, there are a couple of boobs, plus some bums also.
The series fits no single category I know: Grand Guignol? Erotic Satire? Dystopian Musical? Sociopath Date Movie? It features the epic, 4000 year quest of repugnant, self-serving Security Guard Class 4 Stanley H. Tweedle to find meals and sex while trying not to be eaten or screwed over. Through no effort of his own, Stan is thrown together with Xev Bellringer (a truculent women raised in a "Wife Bank" and accidentally given the powers of a voracious giant lizard), Kai (last of a noble race who defied the unspeakable oligarchy of His Divine Shadow and was punished with eternal servitude as an unstoppable zombie assassin), and (last and least) 790, a severed head with an all-enveloping snark and an all-consuming passion. Speaking of "all-consuming", these troubled... people, I suppose, live inside the stolen command ship of His Divine Shadow, a giant, living, not-too-bright space dragonfly that is always very hungry and loves to destroy a lot of planets.
To sum up, Season 1 is 3 great movies and a 4th so-so movie that throws the crew together, defines their messed-up, so-called "Light Universe", and pits evil against... somewhat less evil. Season 2 is too long and repetitive to be endured in the now-popular "binge watching" approach but basically features the inverse of the Star Trek away team "seeking out new lays in new civilizations where the girls and boys are not too picky or hung up on physical attractiveness or strength of character" every single planet of which ends up obliterated by a self-replicating, galaxy-sized swarm of worker drone arms. Season 3 picks up as LEXX explores the flawed workings and horrible secrets of twin planets Fire and Water. Season 4 finds them in the Darkest depths of the Dark Zone, orbiting the barren single moon of a primitive little Type 13 planet months away from self-destruction by the combined efforts of goths, fairies, geeks, a vampire, a mummy, a demon, several corrupt government agencies, reality TV, Newfoundland, and an asteroid crammed full of scuttling cyborg carrots hell-bent on jumping up everyone's butts. For good or for ill, there has never been another show like this.
Maybe LEXX is the weird inbred cousin the sci-fi family never talks about, and maybe I wouldn't revisit it very often, but in my current mood it hit a certain nostalgic "Who-Gives-A-Shit" button for me. And even though I really, REALLY shouldn't... I liked it.
The moral of the story, if LEXX can be said to have anything resembling a moral, is this: you may think your life sucks-- but (just like most people, things and people-things) life could always suck harder.
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