First of all, finally got around to upgrading to wordpress 2.5; this is pretty f-ing sweet if you ask me. Love the new look and feel, haven’t explored all of the functionality yet.
Anyways
A long time ago, there was this show on the Sci-fi Channel called Lexx, and every time it would come on, my father would change the channel. He apparently thought it was stupid or something, But from the 5 to 10 minute snippets that I could catch while he was somewhere else, I found the show to be very interesting. In the end though, I never got a full view of how amazing the show really was.
Lexx, revolves around four very different people as the crew of the Lexx, the most destructive ship in the universe as it can destroy whole planets in a single shot. The consists of Stanely Tweedle (nothing more than a hapless failure), Xev/Zev Bellringer (A Love slave/Cluster lizard without the mind control of a love slave) Kai (Undead assassin formerly employed and enslaved by His Divine Shadow, he the last of his people) and 790 (a robot head with Xev’s love slave programming for which makes him madly in love with her despite being only a robot head). I regard the show itself as a kind of post modern fantasy space opera dark comedy more than simply sci fi. I was more of a parody of space opera sci-fi. But, even though it acted like a parody, it wasn’t always funny. Though it never really told any jokes, but it was funny. It was never very serious but there was real heartbreaks. It was cynical like a lot of things in the 90’s but you could still connect with the crew. There turns out to be so much subtlety to this show.
I remember when it was on Sci-fi. it was on the hour after farscape; I also remember how people would constantly compare the two even though, aside from featuring a rag tag crew on a living ship, neither of them were alike at all. I don’t think a lot of people knew how to take it. It could be whatever it wanted to be when it wanted to be, and viewers tend to expect things being a particular kind of way.
Though, the episode we watched today stunned me. I’m not quite sure how to explain it. Most of the time when I watch TV these days, I don’t feel anything for anybody. A guy dies and all I’m thinking about is the plot, I don’t even realize the shock of injury or even death. This episode introduced two characters only enough to for us to realize that they are human and that we are allowed to relate to them in the way we might the main characters, and precisely when that occured, both of them are instantly removed from the plot. The feeling was equivalent to just feeling comfortable in a strangers house and having the seat pulled out from under you as you go to sit down.
I really wish there were more shows like this on today.
It’s really good to be an adult to be able to look back on the things that one’s parents disdained for one to enjoy (or disdain) with mature critisism for one’s own self as opposed to having it being made for them. It helps me realize how I’ve developed away from my parents views. I see them as rather open minded people, but I can see how the sensibilities of their generation and enviornment of limited them from being able to enjoy the subtleties they themselves taught me to seek out. I guess this is just another symptom of a slice of social evolution.
