Lexx Series 4: Volumes 1 & 2 (2001)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Paul Donovan and Les Gigeroff
Directed by Paul Donovan, Chris Bould, and Colin Bucksey
Starring Brian Downey, Xenia Seeberg, Michael McManus, Jeffrey Hirchfield, Tom Gallant and Nigel Bennett

Features:

• CGI Gallery
  
• Storyboards
  
• Production Sketches
  

Released by: Acorn Media.
Rating: NR
Region: 1
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Rent them.

After narrowly escaping certain death between the planets of Fire and Water at the end of Series 3, the crew of the Lexx (voiced by Gallant) has somehow found themselves in the orbit around a tiny blue-green planet that is inhabited by human beings. Somehow, Prince (Bennett) survived the altercations in Series 3 and beat them to the planet Earth. Xev (Seeberg) now has the key to the Lexx and is therefore the captain. The former captain who has been demoted to passenger, Stanley Tweedle (Downey) and his fellow passengers, Kai (McManus) and 790 (voiced by Hirchfield) are simply along for the ride. Since the Lexx is organic and requires food to continue, it decides to snack on little bits of Earth rather than just destroying it all at once. Anyway, they have run-ins with a homicidal Space Shuttle crew, redneck trailer park residents from Texas, and a group of men competing for a night with Xev.

Well, you'd think that the writers for this show might have learned that the idea of a continuous plot line was a bad idea from the last season, but no. Instead, they decided to go increase the cheese factor for the show and bring it to the planet Earth at the beginning of the 21st Century. Honestly, the Velveeta Factor is so high, I was worried about a mouse infestation while watching it. The storyline alone contains enough dairy to make you lactose intolerant, but when you factor in the dialogue and the fact that the actors aren't up to the task of making a bad script seem okay, you've got an absolute disaster. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I believe that McManus is a better actor than this series allows him to be.

The DVDs don't add much in the way of quality bonuses to the primary content. Sadly, it's mostly really boring stuff. There is a so-called CGI Gallery, but it's really just a bunch of still shots showing how they composite three different images together to make the final shot work. It's basically green-screen stuff, but in still shots. For that matter, pretty much all of the bonus material on these two DVDs is made up of still shots and text-on-screen. The closest you get to having some video clips is when you get the answers either right or wrong in the trivia question segment, and then all you get is a one second clip of Xev and Kai where Kai says the word "Yes" if you get it right and Stanley essentially giving a long winded "No" if you get it wrong. Very disappointing.

So, if you are in the mood for science-fiction and soft-core pornography, I suggest you rent a Star Trek movie and any movie with Shannon Tweed in it. You'll be much happier than had you tried to get both of your fixes in this one show.