El Cosmico here, enjoying a truly strange day, having spent the afternoon watching old episodes of the 1977 live-action Spider-Man television series over at Tom Joad's place, the evening in a similarly confusing place, the night watching the finale of the Dem convention, and the early morning watching the third season premiere, "Fire and Ice", of a show which I am increasingly a fan of, the Sci-Fi Channel's LEXX. The episode airs on the Sci-Fi Channel tonight.

LEXX is strange. Confusing, unconventional, humorous, interesting, ridiculous, and, yes, it has an extremely attractive female lead.

Promos for Lexx, as viewers of the Sci-Fi Channel know, are...provocative. Such promos are not deceptive. Xenia Seeberg is, well, I suppose I could put up a picture of her, and go on and on, but let me just say that she is one of the most thoroughly and profoundly attractive women I've ever seen and leave it at that. To put it another way, she is well cast...in her role as a sex slave.

Okay, she's an ex-sex-slave. Sort of. Also, she's half lizard or something. So she has a wicked hiss/growl thing going on. Umm...you should just watch a few episodes.

Okay, the show's not just...how can I put this kindly...stimulus for self-pleasure. It's a genuinely fun and inventive show, with an atmosphere like no other, that takes a lot of risks, and frequently leaves me thinking, "Whoa. What?! Dude, this show makes NO damn sense. Sort of. Oh, okay, I guess it kind of does. Holy CRAP that Seeberg woman has the most beautiful, full lips I've ever seen..."

That about sums it up. This show is a German/Canadian collaboration, and the effect is about as strange as one would expect if Mike Myers' "Dieter" hooked up and co-produced a sci-fi show with the MacKenzie brothers from Strange Brew. The ship is a giant insect ship that can destroy planets, the crew is a security guard, a disembodied robot head, an undead assassin, and yes, a half-lizard sex-slave.

Season two ended with the crew leaving behind a universe that was destroyed by flying disembodied arms, roaming around in the new universe they're in (which I think they've been in before) because the Lexx (that's the name of the insect ship) is hungry. At least, I THINK that's what's going on. Like I said, the show is a bit mind-bending. I mean, I've seen most of the relevant episodes, but after watching each one, well, they are frequently so strange as to leave one wondering exactly what happened.

There are somewhat normal-seeming episodes, at least, normal-seeming for those who have managed in some way to grasp the strangeness that is the basis of Lexx. The season three opener, for example, is one of the most normal episodes I've seen. In fact, it was so normal-seeming, that it left me disoriented. Perhaps this was their plan. Here's a bit of a

SPOILER FOR YOU!!!

Whiners. Oh, anyway, season three starts with 790, the robot head that loves Xenia Seeberg's character of Xev more than anything else, presiding over a hibernating crew and ship, which is drifting through space for something like 900 years while it waits to get pulled into the gravitational field of a planet so that it can feed...because it doesn't have the energy to get to a planet to feed so that it can go places. Right. So...they find a planet and get picked up by a bunch of weird balloon-flying people with strange and confusing motives, 790 gets messed up and falls in love with Kai, the dead assassin who has no emotion, instead of Xev, which to me was a STUNNING shock, and...oh, my brain can't handle it...let's see what else...this is all after Stanley tried to get the ship to go to Nimbus 9, which, according to Kai, is a prison planet populated by "naughty naked nymphomaniacs". Right. Are you getting the picture yet? Anyway, the balloon flying weirdos put Stanley on an exercise bike that holds a weight attached to a guillotine that will fall if he stops pedaling, Xev is awakened and wanders around in a sexy daze, and thankfully, the ship is warm, so she removes the portion of her costume that formerly covered her midriff, seemingly a permanent change along with her hair. Kai decides that he needs to help out in some way, so, since they're flying between two planets, he decides to jump out of the ship and fall down onto one of them. No, he doesn't need to breathe in space, he's DEAD. Now do you get the picture? Oh, and remember, this is one of the more normal-seeming episodes. I know, my description is non-linear and sketchy, but that's the kind of state my brain is always in after I watch Lexx. I've squeezed out what memories I still retain with any clarity. The order, ultimately, as all Lexx fans know, is inconsequential.

THAT'S THE END OF THE SPOILERS KIDDIES!

Whiners. Oh, anyway, key to promotional materiel for this third season is the refrain "with ALL-NEW HAIR". Sure enough, Ms. Seeberg has longer, lovely locks in season three, which are sure to delight fans everywhere. Now, again, this show is about more than Xenia's hair, but it's representative of the fact that the makers of Lexx not only realize how ridiculous their show is, they seem to thoroughly REVEL in it. Ultimately, that's what makes the show enjoyable.

It's not the sort of show that you watch and think, "Wow. That's damn good television. Great writing, magnificent acting." No, Lexx will not be winning great awards or respect from critics, Lexx makes its mark because it is genuinely different and fun. You haven't seen a show like it, it has a positively RABID fan base, whom I'm sure will only grow in strength, and will probably fill sci-fi conventions for many, many years to come. Some people find it too weird, confusing, non-linear, just too out there. It offends some people's brains, and need for clear, simple logic and conventional plot and character devices. For those of you just sick of the same old crap, re-hashed material, that television is so full of, however, Lexx is a much needed slap on the ass. If for no other reason, you'll keep watching because you'll wonder: what the hell is going to happen this week? Go check out the website and get some background info, then watch for a few weeks and see if your brain doesn't get all nice and squishy.