Lexx 4.1
featuring the episodes Little Blue Planet, Texx Lexx, P4X and Stan Down
Reviewing the fourth season of Lexx on DVD is an interesting challenge, and perhaps a unique one in the history of this site’s DVD review section, and the challenge comes from the fact that, for the most part, I actively dislike the fourth season. As with the third season, there’s quite a bit of it that I hadn’t seen, so perhaps I’ve made a hasty judgement, but the fourth-year segments that I have seen have - with a handful of exceptions - always left a bad taste in my mouth. A very bad taste. So when I popped the first volume of season four into my DVD player, I issued it with a challenge: make me like it. I needed to reacquaint myself with the entire season anyway, for the Lexx LogBook, so I tried to go into with an open mind.
In Little Blue Planet, the throwaway gag at the end of season three - that the Lexx’s next likely meal was a very familiar small blue planet with a solitary moon - is revealed not to be that much of a throwaway after all. Reborn after the destruction of Fire and Water, Prince is on the loose on a primitive planet called Earth, quickly installing himself in a position of shadowy power at the right hand of the President of the United States. He then stands back and does nothing as that President is voted out of office in favor of a reincarnation of Priest, one of Prince’s flunkies from Fire.
Texx Lexx chronicles the crew’s fall to Earth, into a crazed world unlike anything they’ve ever seen. Xev falls in with an amorous Texan, while Kai visits a cultish operation whose members hope to leave the Earth before out-of-control scientific experiments reduce the planet to the size of a pea. In the meantime, Stan is captured by Prince’s men and subjected to any number of coercion techniques by his arch enemy. The Xev strand of this episode is just embarrassing, to say nothing of the eye-rollingly twice-baked redneck stereotypes. Kai’s story comes in tops - the characters he runs into are interesting, and they seem to have stumbled upon evidence that the Divine Shadow’s order has influenced Earth’s history. Stan’s face-off with Prince is almost intense, but usually falls victim to some predictability - we’ve already seen these two interact in season three, and this confrontation brings few surprises.
P4X picks up Stanley’s story and keeps Xev in jeopardy, but probably the most remarkable thing about this episode is the unexpected guest appearance of Craig “Lister” Charles and Hattie “Holly” Hayridge of Red Dwarf fame. In a purely symbolic sense, it’s a beautiful tip of the hat - Lexx owes a lot to Red Dwarf. While Red Dwarf isn’t the first sci-fi comedy to hit TV - you’d have to go back to the bizarre and short-lived Buck Henry-penned series Quark for that - it’s the first one to really “stick,” so the tribute is appropriate. It’s even more joyous that dear old Craig and Hattie have fairly substantial guest roles, and not just cameos.
The disc ends with Stan Down, in which President Priest makes a dodgy deal with Stan to rid himself of Prince. Things don’t really go according to plan, and instead of wiping out a boat off the coast of Miami which is where Prince claims to be, Stan uses the Lexx to wipe out…Orlando, Florida. As in the whole city. Considering that these episodes aired in early 2001 originally, it’s nothing short of prophetic when Prince later advises Priest that the response to “a tragedy like this” can make or break a presidency. The episode could almost end on that tantalizingly questionable note, but then we go that next step too far and dispose of Priest’s wife in a bizarre, more-than-just-borderline-tasteless parody of the JFK assassination. Hearkening back once again to the previous episode’s guest stars, Red Dwarf barely got away with a parody of that deadly drive through Dealey Plaza, but this…wow. And this brings me nicely to my whole problem with season 4’s look at Earth - no, not just at Earth, but at America.
Maybe this just puts me in the category of people-with-sticks-up-their-asses who are the very targets of this season’s parody, but I went from being faintly amused by the antics of the ousted President in the first two episodes to being annoyed and just short of offended by the constant refrain of Americans-as-rednecks stereotypes shown here. Granted, we arrive at that plot point by way of our heroes landing in Texas, but after a while it gets old. Then again, I occasionally get a chuckle out of South Park’s treatment of Canadians, so maybe I’m overdue a shot of my own medicine here. I suppose it’s a little bit of a reflexive reaction - if we want to make fun of our own president, that’s fine, that’s our prerogative, but there’s a bit of a knee-jerk tendency, and maybe I’m joining right in, to close ranks and bare our teeth if someone else pokes fun at our country. But the bizarrely skewered view of America isn’t limited to the season’s first four episodes, and as much as that element annoyed me, I can honestly say it’s the biggest barrier between Lexx’s final year on the air and my enjoyment of the series.
No making-of features this time around, just storyboards, production photos, and some still galleries illustrating the increasingly complex CG compositing process.
It’s hard for me to give this season a fair shake, to be honest. I will, however, give this volume at least three stars, just for featuring an affectionate homage to some old friends.