D.G. Valdron
LEXX Unauthorized, Series 4 - The Little Blue Marble. The final chapter in the saga of LEXX, and its crew: Kai, an undead assassin, Zev, a combination of love slave and cluster lizard, Stanley Tweedle, a hapless security guard and 790, a robot head, careening through space together a stolen, planet destroying, biological warship shaped like a dragonfly. The fourth series once again sees a radical reinvention of the show, and a season of more episodes than ever before, for less money. The LEXX, having destroyed heaven and hell, finds another planet on the opposite side of the sun - Earth, a world which they can’t seem to get away from, as they encounter Divine Executioners, Mummies, Militias, Porn Stars, Prisons, Druids, Cowboys, Mad Scientists, Morticians and the most bizarre elements of American society. LEXX was one of the strangest most surreal series ever conceived, owing as much to Luis Bunuel and Alejandro Jodorowsky as to to Star Trek and Star Wars. It was unique and unforgettable, mixing black comedy and absurdism with epic drama, and an astonishing visual sense. Backstage, the story of the creation of the series was even more extraordinary, a tale of regional Atlantic film makers, renegade artists, cult film makers, wild experimentation, Canadian cultural nationalism, German entrepreneurs, new computer generated imagery technologies and backstage chaos intersecting in wildly unpredictable ways, to create truly exotic images and stories. The fourth series came along at the 11th hour with a last minute purchase by the US Sci Fi Channel, forcing Salter Street to produce more episodes than ever before, in a shorter time frame and with less money. The series changed direction, from deep surrealism to wild anarchy, in front of and behind the camera, even as the final fall of Salter Street Films, LEXX’s creators and producers, was in the offing. The LEXX Unauthorized books were a labour of love, the product of years of research and dozens of interviews, this is a ’must buy’ for any fan of the show itself or of science fiction movies television generally, and an eye opening insight into film and television production, especially Canadian and international productions. The fourth chapter follows the frantic history of a production pushing the outer limits of possibility, and the decline and fall of the production company, Salter Street, that birthed it.
