"LuvLiner"
Airdate: January 14, 2000

When the Lexx picks up a signal from a craft advertising itself as a bordello, the ever adventurous (read: horny) crew decide to try their luck. Of course they get caught with their pants down and are saved at the last minute by the dead guy.

I feel like before I review this episode I should defend myself by assuring people that I don't think that all science fiction should be dead serious. I'm a big fan of Red Dwarf so it's not like I'm unaccustomed to strictly-for-laughs sci fi. Neither am I such a prude that the merest mention of sex and I suffer from the vapors. It's just that Lexx, which styles itself as tongue in cheek and outrageously audacious, seems incredibly stupid. And not in an amusing Beavis and Butthead/South Park kind of way either.

I'm sure this episode was meant to be wickedly amusing what with its nod to the over-the-top late-night sex chat commercials and freaks on display, but it just came off as pathetic. I get that the characters are mere parodies. I get that their adventures are supposed to be silly. I get that the point of the exercise is to shock the audience and make them laugh. Unfortunately, I still don't think it's funny.

And I have to say that I'm still confused about a couple of things. The most relevant being the decision to air the episodes out of order, which continues in this second week of Lexx's run on The Sci Fi Channel. Last week it was the eleventh episode and this week they aired the fourth. It kind of plays fast and loose with the continuity. Well, perhaps continuity is too strong a word. About the only reference that clues you in to the shuffle is the fact that last week the bee stung lipped Xev lost her virginity, while this week it suddenly reappeared.

Of course my biggest complaint with the series continues to be the stereotypical sex kitten character of Xev. It's not that I object to a female character who has a strong libido and is comfortable with her sexuality, it's just that from The Sci Fi Channel's Cliff Notes version of the first season, Rated Lexx, the audience is led to believe that as well as being highly sexed, Xev is a chick who kicks ass. Perhaps in a later episode we might be treated to a fight scene that doesn't involve Xev being saved by the dead guy, but as yet she seems to be just another scantily clad girl in distress. How utterly boring.

I'd like to add one final complaint that has more to do with The Sci Fi Channel than the show Lexx itself. Whereas most of Hollywood tends to exhibit its hypocrisy in the opposite manner -- namely censoring sexual references and not violence -- The Sci Fi Channel stands alone in its censorship of words on shows like Brimstone, Space: Above and Beyond, and others which most grammar school kids hear during recess and yet they schedule -- in primetime no less -- Lexx which contains flagrant references and depictions of sexual acts. Hey, I'm all for raising children without hangups, but when it's not even funny, what's the point?

I mean Space's Sgt. Major Bougus can't say the word "ass", but I can see fully half of Xev's rear end? Who made that decision?

-- Linda M. Najera

Lexx airs at 10pm EST, Fridays on The Sci Fi Channel.

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