I Worship His Shadow
The forces of His Divine Shadow and the warrior race of the Brunnen G clash near one of the Brunnen G’s worlds. The fight ends badly for the Brunnen G and their planet is destroyed. Kai, leader of the Brunnen G attack group, orders a last-ditch kamikaze dive into the control deck of the Shadow starships, but he is the only one who even gets that far. He slams into the ship’s bridge and survives the impact, only to be personally killed by His Divine Shadow itself. The last of the Brunnen G is dead. Two thousand years pass.
In the Cluster, the seat of His Divine Shadow’s government ruling over the league of 20,000 worlds, the clerics of the divine order are trying to figure out how to extend the life of His Divine Shadow. It passes from host brain to host brain, but its sheer power overwhelms each successive host. The spent host’s brain is preserved and kept alive to join His Divine Predecessors. The clerics also worry about a vague prophecy that His Divine Shadow’s forces will cut down the Brunnen G to the last man, but that His Shadow will be slain by a Brunnen G in the end – clearly impossible, since that race is now extinct. The Shadow’s order maintains control over thousands of planets through merciless rule, military might, and forcing the populations of those worlds to worship His Shadow.
The arrival of a prison ship signals the end of the Divine Shadow’s order, though in the unlikeliest way. A heretic hero, Thodin, is among the ship’s prisoners, though he has allowed himself to be captured and brought to the Cluster so he can engineer the Shadow’s downfall. Also among the prisoners are a notorious female cannibal named Giggerota, and an overweight woman named Zev who faces a severe punishment for not fulfilling her “wifely duties.” Zev is sentenced to be reprogrammed into a senator’s love slave, her body altered accordingly to fit her future master’s desires.
Thodin’s plan misfires literally – a bomb goes off in the wrong place, releasing a pack of omnivorous Cluster Lizards into the general populace instead of the public arena where he faces a gladiatorial death sentence. One of the Cluster Lizards reaches the lab where Zev is being “reshaped,” and it falls into the body-shaping apparatus with her. When Zev emerges, she’s part human, part Cluster Lizard, with a fiercely independent spirit and now the strength and fighting instinct to match – as well as quite a healthy sexual appetite. She is spared the mental reprogramming part of the operation by grabbing the head of a robot destroyed by the Cluster Lizard and putting it into the apparatus. The robot, 790, instantly falls head over heels – well, perhaps just head over head – in love with her, and Zev only reluctantly brings it with her to open doors along the path of her escape.
Zev encounters low-ranking security guard Stanley Tweedle, who is on the run for questioning a high-ranking officer’s orders. Using 790, they manage to evade capture, and run into Thodin and his rebels as they try to board a new, insect-based organic warship developed by the Divine Order: the Lexx. Capable of obliterating a planet with a single shot, the Lexx is the most top-secret and heavily-guarded project in the entire Cluster, but His Shadow’s elite guards are conspicuous by their absence in the launch area.
The Lexx bonds to and takes orders from only one person, and when that person dies, the biometric key transfers itself to Stanley Tweedle – the only other human in the previous keyholder’s vicinity. Stanley, Zev, Giggerota and 790 board and launch the Lexx, but find it incapable of defending itself – it’s programmed not to fire on ships loyal to His Divine Shadow. Worse yet, they have company aboard – Kai, last of the Brunnen G, reanimated by His Divine Shadow and reprogrammed to serve as the Shadow’s personal assassin, boards the Lexx and disposes of Giggerota, holding the others at the mercy of his Brunnen G brace weapon. But when His Divine Shadow arrives to personally quash the rebellion and bring the Lexx home, Kai begins to regain the memory of his proud heritage – and his death – and becomes an instrument of prophecy.
written by Paul Donovan with Jeffrey Hirschfield and Lex Gigeroff
directed by Paul Donovan
music by Marty SimonCast: Brian Downey (Stanley Tweedle), Eva Habermann (Zev), Michael McManus (Kai), Barry Bostwick (Thodin), Ellen Dubin (Giggerota), Jeffrey Hirschfield (790), Lisa Hines (Zev of B3K), Gil Brenton (Tem), David Renton (Senior Cleric), Anna Cameron (Prophet), Bill Carr (Correction Centre Guard), Lionel Doucette (Holo Judge), Liz Richardson (Holo Prosecutor), Chris Rowntree (Holo Official), John Dartt (Holo Defense Lawyer), David McClelland (Holo Cleric), Jocelyn Cunningham (Cluster Major), Richard Donat (Megashadow Admiral), Chas Lawther (Video Customs Officer), Andrei Mahankov (Robot 2), Clive Sweeney (Megashadow Adjutant), Jeremy Akerman (Transport Major), Joseph Rutten (Slab Prisoner), Alan MacGillivray (Argon Protopi), Josh McDonald (Sergeant), Lex Gigeroff (Bound Man), Walter Borden (His Dying Shadow), John Dunsworth (Video Asteroid Commander), Jack Carr (Video Boy Cleric), Horst Ulan (Cluster General), Glen Wadman (Officer), Stephen Turnbull (Fore Shadow Officer), Jamie Bradley (Cleric 2), Andrew Smith (Cleric), Michael Petersen (Robot & Lizard), Janice Evens (Computer Voice), Tom Gallant (Lexx), Walter Borden (His Shadow), Marty Simon (Brain No. 14)
LogBook entry by Earl Green
Habeck (Feppo), Walter Borden (Divine Shadow), Jeffrey Hirschfield (790), Anna Cameron (Time Prophet), David Renton (Soshua), Robert Sigl (Petrif / Giant), Jamie Bradley (Jood), Michael Petersen (790 Robot / Squish), Jim Petrie (Gorrett), Cherie Devanney (Kyyra), Joel Sapp (Bleeding Cleric), John Dunsworth (Running Man), Jennifer Overton (Customer Officer), Mariana Sim (Dancing Twin), Lenuta Sim (Dancing Twin), Sanjay Talwar (Honar), Shaun Clark (Reteep), David Woods (Yoyal), David McClelland (Benediction Cleric), Lionel Doucette (Judge)