What a neat (and financially sensible) idea! Film two episodes at the same time: two for the price of one!!
Well, at least it answered a few of last week's question. Something really had got into Stan (did this remind anyone else of The Thing - the John Carpenter version with Kurt Russell? Or was it more Men in Black?) And there was more happening than we were permitted to see in The Web. And Xev - the little prick-tease - was only offering Stan his hat back.... I nearly cheered when he tried to throttle her.
While not one of my favourites, I did enjoy this episode. The slightly skewed point of view was interesting. There were enough differences that I didn't - quite - feel cheated by the repetition (although I still can't work out quite why it was done this way, given the almost infinite resources of the imaginative human mind..... ) I liked the suspense-building, and the confrontation between Stan/Spider and Kai and Xev, although the final resolution of this scene was an anti-climax (as my partner said, in disappointment, just before he stomped bed-wards, "That was a very long-drawn-out, repetitive episode just to have an unconvincing chase and a squashed bug as its culmination." And he does have a point.....)
Oh dear, the strain is telling - my cogitations and meanderings are becoming longer than my general thoughts on the episodes. My apologies to all and sundry........ Hopefully I'll be able to redress the balance a little next week. I've been looking forward to Brigadoom for well over a year - whether I love it or hate it, after that much stored anticipation it deserves a thorough consideration, and I shall certainly do my best to provide it!
Semantic differences between 'web' and 'net'..... although the two words can be used interchangeably, a web is usually a natural object (as in the cobweb - the mesh of scleroprotein threads that spiders produce from their own bodies - or the webbing between the toes of aquatic birds), while a net is man-made. Make of that what you will!
I confess myself very impressed with Brian Downey's acting in this episode. (I made a particular point of watching him in Millenium, since I've always thought him capable of much more than we see in Lexx, and The Net (and to a slightly lesser extent The Web) certainly helped to confirm it.) He has the most extraordinarily expressive face: the subtlest difference in expression can change him from gormless doormat to ghastly lecher to chilling embodiment of evil. (I do accept that lighting and other effects help. But if the material isn't there to start with, they sure can't provide it...Convincingly, anyway.) And he reverted to Stan-nice at the end.... It would have been so easy to go completely over the top: avoiding such excess made the whole episode so much more frightening and believable. Excellently well done.
Exactly what is the "spider"? A discarded Divine Order creation? The guardian of the centre of the universe? A space-born(e) sapient? The last of its species? I really really want to know...
I felt so sorry for the beastie. As it said, it was just trying to survive - (presumably) trying to take over the Lexx in order to escape the Light Universe's destruction in exactly the same way as the Lexx crew themselves. (And given how many worlds, cultures and peoples they've destroyed, I don't think anyone could realistically condemn the creature for its less than friendly modus operandi...)
And this is an object lesson to 790 of the "cry wolf" consequences. Not that it'll have any lasting effect. Hasn't he noticed that even Xev is becoming tired of his continual 'Stan abuse' (took her long enough....)?
I may have missed something in the very final scene, but why are things now becoming more dangerous for them? I couldn't see anything through the viewscreen to alarm me. Or was Kai simply referring to the fact that they're now very close to the centre of the universe and simply don't know what will happen next? (The GUP could have all sorts of unpleasant consequences.... Imagine a creature half Stan, half Xev. Or 790's head on Lexx' body. Or the Lexx becoming a planetoid in its own right, and the crew its satellites.... OK, your turn!)
