While under the control of His Divine Shadow, Kai leads the crew into a perilous encounter with the BioVizier Mantrid.

Written by Paul Donovan
Directed by Christoph Schrewe

Dieter Laser -- Mantrid
Holger Kunkel -- Igor

An enormous insectoid form -- looking something like a carbonized lobster tail -- drifts through space. In a voiceover, cosmic villain His Divine Shadow explains what has come before.

"Many thousands of years ago, we were defeated by humans in the Great Insect Wars. Our human enemies thought they destroyed all insects, but I escaped to live on."

With "Mantrid," we get our first real sense that there may be something to this Lexx business after all.

After a disjointed series of episodes aired out of sequence -- the product of the Sci Fi Channel's uninspired scheduling -- U.S. viewers are finally privy to some of what's at stake.

Despite a grueling regimen of sex, innuendo and suggestive dialogue -- with time out for periodic spurts of violence -- it appears that there's more to Lexx than our previous exposure might lead us to believe.

The show actually has a backstory, a "mythology arc" of sorts.

Until then, it remains to be seen whether episodes that have already aired make more sense in their proper context. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how the characters change (and learn?) from week to week.

Although Mantrid is the overarching villain of the season, it is difficult to take him seriously or find much menace in the character.

From a design standpoint, Mantrid is impressive in both his head on a jar and sentient spacecraft incarnations. Unfortunately, Dieter Laser's voice work dulls this impression.

Mantrid sounds like a cross between Inspector Kemp, the character Kenneth Mars played in Young Frankenstein, and Andre the Giant's turn as the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride.

With these vocal reverberations, a character who is no doubt intended to be threatening is rendered unintentionally comical.

With this first look at the show's roots, U.S. viewers get their first look at Zev (Eva Habermann), the original incarnation of Lexx's resident love slave.

So how does the original Zev, um, stack up? Quite favorably.

While Zev has the overactive libido we've come to know, love and occasionally blush at in Xev, it's kinder and gentler when embodied by Habermann.

Zev uses her charms as a lure rather than a bludgeon, and her attempted seduction of Stan here is more alluring than Xev's more aggressive innuendo.

This may be a function of the episodes the Sci Fi Channel have chosen to air. Lexx's original, disjointed run on the channel focused almost exclusively on sex over substance, and we may not have seen any of the characters in their best light.

Based solely on "Mantrid", Zev is a subtler character than Xev. Xev views most situations with a combination of amusement and impulse, while Zev's actions appear more measured, almost as though there is an element of thought behind them.

Where will Mantrid turn up next?

Will Lexx remain in the Light Zone, or will they use another collapsing star to travel back to the Dark Zone?

Although "Mantrid" features Eva Habermann, the actress who originally portrayed Zev/Xev, the Sci Fi Channel's opening credits still list Xenia "Xev" Seeberg.

With Lexx apparently set to air in sequential order, we're resetting the show's Blowed Up score.

At the top of the season, the count is back at one planet destroyed and one collapsing star imploded. What carnage will the crew wreak next week?

Mantrid's lab is located in an apparently functional space ship, begging the question of how effective his imprisonment really was.

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK