Countdown to LEXX

COMING SOON: March 31, 2020
LEXX Unauthorized, Volume Two,
The Light at the End of a Universe

WHAT IS LEXX: A ground breaking Canadian sci fi television series, created by Paul Donovan, Lex Gigeroff and Jeff Hirschfield, shot and produced in Halifax, Nova Scotia, by Salter Street Films, that ran four seasons between 1996 and 2002.

WHAT IS LEXX: The stories of a giant dragonfly, ten miles long, created to destroy planets for the Divine Order, now stolen by renegades. And of its crew – Stanley Tweedle, former security guard fourth class, former traitor, full time coward and Captain; Kai, a two thousand year old, unstoppable, indestructible, divine assassin; Zev, a runaway love slave with cluster lizard in her DNA; and 790, a lovestruck, increasingly psychotic, decapitated robot head.

WHAT IS LEXX: The most surreal, subversive, and imaginative space opera every created, an anarchic blend of Bunuel, Jodorowsky, Monty Python, Hard Science, Low Comedy, Catholic guilt, Lovecraftian horror, teen lust, deep cynicism and high ideals. It’s Charlie Chaplin in space, if Chaplin blew up planets and was directed by Kurosawa. It’s Star Trek, if Star Trek was evil, amoral and funny. And that description, as bizarre as it sounds, doesn’t come close to doing the show justice.

WHAT IS LEXX UNAUTHORIZED?  They are the unauthorized, behind the scenes, books about the evolution and creation of the most wildly surreal show ever made, based on unique access and hundreds of hours of interviews with the stars, creators, writers, directors and production crew.  Volume One is out. Volume Two will be out. Volume Three and Four are written and in editing.

Back around 1998, Paul Donovan, the creator of LEXX, invited me to do a book about his show. Over the next few years, I visited Halifax several times, attended the sets and production offices, watched episodes being shot, and interviewed almost everyone connected with the show and its history, some of them several times. The proposed book went through several publishers, but was eventually dropped.

But for me, the project was a labour of love. Eventually, I wrote the book I wanted to write, exactly the way I wanted to write it. I printed off a single unedited copy, had it bound, and gave it to the star, Brian Downey.  And that, I thought, was the end of it.

Years later, after a flood, a marital failure, three major moves, and two hard drive collapses, I found the manuscript, and it was good. Needed editing. But it was good. Real good.

I figured there had to be a reason it survived all this time, against all these odds. So I want to get it out there and share it with our fans.

LEXX Unauthorized, Volume One – Backstage in the Dark Zone, covered the first series…

* Explores the origins of Salter Street Films and Paul Donovan and Brian Downey’s career in early regional films.

* Covers the freakish left turns that resulted in LEXX’s development and approval, from an abandoned Great War spectacle, to a couple of University professors scheming to get a supercomputer, to giant corporations devouring each other.

* Discovers unproduced or lost versions that fell by the wayside, in the form of Love Grows (the very extended edition), Sigl’s original Gigashadow, and Back to The Cluster.

* Reveals the production secrets of LEXX, and each of the movies.

* Explains the long hiatus between the movies and the subsequent series.

LEXX Unauthorized, Volume Two – The Light at the end of a Universe, will cover the second series of twenty episodes, including:

* Revealing lost episodes and stories, abandoned in process, or mutating into current forms, showing the evolution of the ideas, characters and concepts.

* Hidden details of the production of the most memorable stories, including Brigadoom, Mantrid, Twilight, Lafftrack and others.

* The stories of how and why Zev became Xev, Wist became Lyekka, His Divine Shadow became Mantrid, Web became Net, the return of Giggerotta, the lost story arc of Pa Golene, the pursuit of a musical episode, and the quest for an ending.

* How ideas and production challenges through the second series would create the look and concepts of the third series.

* The rise and fall of the German Co-Production Partnership.

* The creation of Electropolis studios.

* The key impact of CGI on the show’s development and imagery.

* The challenges and achievements, the forays into exotic surrealism and explanation of the hard science concepts.

Volume One is out and available as an ebook at Amazon, Smashwords and other ebook retailers. Check it out.

Volume Two will be released as an ebook, March 31, 2020.

In anticipation, of volume two, we’ll be covering LEXX on our blog, including our personal history with the show, discussions of surrealism, the hilarious saga of the Bobs, and even uploading spec scripts for your entertainment.

If you’re a LEXX fan, then you can’t miss this. And if you’ve never heard of LEXX, allow me to introduce you to one of the strangest, greatest, sweetest hidden gems in the Sci Fi world, a series unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

Watch this space.