Lexx, season 1

-I Worship His Shadow ****
This series began as four made-for-TV movies, later to be called season 1. Despite using the most groan-inducing word in the sci fi universe ("prophecy") in the first two minutes, it bursts out of the gate with a fresh, original feel. In a dystopian universe wherein the dehumanizing practices might make you feel genuine revulsion, three fugitives find themselves in control of the greatest spaceship ever created. Spineless, mealy fourth-level guard Stanley Tweedle (Brian Downey) is sentenced to death for missing a dentist appointment (or some such). Kai (Michael McManus), a warrior killed 2000 years before, then reanimated as an assassin corpose by the Shadow Overlord, regains his memory and free will in an accident. Obese housewife Zev Bellringer is sentenced to be transformed into an ultimate love slave, for failing to perform her marital duties...but the process is interrupted, leaving her with her own personality in the body of an uberspacebabe (with a little killer lizard DNA). Are we a little uncomfortable with the fact that we want to madly hump her now, even though she's the same unappealing person inside? Yup. The fugitives escape together. Barry Bostwick gives a roaring performance as an ill-fated freedom fighter. Creator Paul Donovan oversees a howling ride.
-Super Nova **
Director Ron Oliver can't maintain Paul's pace. The Lexx takes the crew to a far galaxy, where they find Kai's ancestral home. He is the last of his race. Guest star Tim Curry is game, but doesn't quite pop as a holo-guide with ambitions of its own. The Zev (Eva Habermann) shower scene might make your eyes fall out.
-Eating Pattern *
Director Rainer Matsutani can't keep up Oliver's modest pace. The cinematography achingly screams "second-rate TV". Poor Rutger Hauer.
-Giga Shadow **
Guest star Malcolm MacDowell fares a bit better than his two predecessors, as the crew returns home to get protoblood for Kai, who will die (really, this time) without it. McManus is given great lines, and delivers them well, as an unfeeling (but handsome) corpse. Habermann shines, and Downey carries his weight, but the show feels a little empty with so few characters.

(Note: season 2 shifts to a regular series format, and for a moment you're hopeful that the downward spiral might reverse, but no. Indeed, when Eva Habermann is replaced by Xeenia Seeberg, all remaining hope is gone. Xeenia's lips scream collagen, she doesn't have a "perfect" love slave body, and the cast chemistry drops off. The episodes aren't sexy enough to justify the emphasis on sex, and aren't visionary enough to rate as great sci fi.)