A crazed killer stalks the crew and their teenage guests.
(U.S. premiere January 28, 2000)
| |
| 790: I'm 790, punk, and I don't like you -- any of you. If you come near me I will incinerate you with lasers from my eyes. |
Laleen: You're totally testosterone blammo action man! |
Kai: When you wake the dead, fatso, form dictates you join them. |
Written by Jeffrey Hirschfield
Directed by Chris Bould
Andrew Bigelow -- Enox
Andrew Bush -- Tad
Patricia Zentilli -- Laleen
Nicki Barnett -- Canana
Bruce Fillmore -- Gibble
WHAT HAPPENED
Five teenagers aboard a space-going VW microbus make plans to put themselves into cryogenic suspension.
Gibble, the fat, inept member of the group, expresses reservations -- especially since they stole his dad's transport for this interstellar road trip -- but peer pressure wins the day.
After a brief disagreement about how to operate the equipment, the teens activate what they believe to be an automatic wake-up signal. In fact, they merely start the ship's broadcast apparatus.... (more
spoilers)
ANALYSIS
After a pair of uninspired, libidinally-obsessed outings, it's refreshing to see Lexx living up to its initial promise.
"Wake the Dead" isn't classic science fiction by any stretch of the imagination. On the other hand, it's a fantastic note-for-note pastiche of horror movie tropes.
This episode has everything the true horror fan demands: randy teens, shower scenes and killing machines. It also doesn't hurt that any weaknesses can be attributed to flaws in the mad slasher form rather than poor writing or editing.
For example,
Stan makes a point of telling the kids not to touch anything in the cryo-chamber, a clear and unambiguous invitation to mayhem.
Even allowing for the fact that he hasn't had much experience with teenagers, Stan knows that when he tells
Xev not to do something, she invariably does it anyway. It's easy enough to extrapolate from there.
Even including the chamber in the ship's tour was a mistake. Had Stan been thinking, he would have avoided mentioning
Kai and everyone would have escaped with their skins intact.
Of course, the rules of the horror form dictate a precipitating incident to start the body count. Stan had to set events in motion by delivering a specific and ill-advised warning that someone was sure to ignore.
Once he did that, the die was cast. Everything else was just the well-constructed icing on the homicidal cake.
Freddy, Jason and Kai
Kudos to
Michael McManus for a fantastic performance. "Wake the Dead" was a welcome change from Kai's earlier depictions as nothing more than an implacable, emotionless being.
There's nothing wrong with implacable, emotionless beings, but "
Luvliner" and "Love Grows" didn't really give the character a chance to shine.
When he's not the center of attention, Kai tends to stand around making comments, wasting McManus' athleticism and energy.
This time, the actor, like the story, conformed to the stylistic conventions of the horror genre. As a result, McManus played the psycho killer with humor and intensity.
To boldly go
Starfleet Technical Manuals and Babylon 5 aside, few "reputable" SF stories address the call of nature. While we occasionally see a principal character coming out of the shower, most genre writers are simply too polite to draw attention to the messier biological imperatives.
Not so, Lexx. True to the show's maverick nature, the creators jump in -- literally headfirst -- where other science fiction programs fear to tread.
"Wake the Dead" features several scenes and one murder in the ship's sanitary facilities.
For some shows, that would be more than enough. But Lexx doesn't stop with featuring the bathroom.
And let's just say the look of the
Lexx's toilets reflects the production designers' own tongue-in-cheek sensibilities.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Will anyone tell Kai about his murderous rampage?
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK WHEN . . .
In "White Trash", the Lexx and its crew take a wild ride through the backwoods of the universe, accompanied by an ornery clan of space hillbillies.
For fans who get excited about continuity, "White Trash" was originally broadcast immediately after "
Love Grows" and was followed two episodes later by "Wake the Dead." "Nook", the U.S. premiere, followed immediately thereafter.
What do you think? Send comments to the
author or editor.
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